“Ohh, it´s not there yet, or I have to finish this one thinge here…” Have you ever heard something similar? I have, it was me before I launched my site.

I dont know why but I´ve always been like this. Maybe Seth Godin hit the nail on the head with that Quieting your lizard brain thing. It´s taken me years of practice to get over this type of deal (sometimes). Always thinking a lot and not doing. In fact I´m still doing this with my music, shit! But I can give some insight with this website and how it came into being.

Like all great peaces of art (I dont mean that) it was hard work. I sometimes get the impression from people, and I do this too, that great people that have succeeded in their field came to do that by shear luck on raw natural talent. Like Tiger Woods could drive the ball 300 yards when he first got a club in his hands. No it was hard work for him, and then he enjoyed the fruits of his labour, a lot !

But I postponed launching it for weeks and weeks cause I never thought it was ready. Finally I just said fuck it and launched the damn thing. It was supposed to be a soft launch, I wasn’t gonna tell anybody about it while I fixed the rest of the things that bugged me. Needless to say I was quite shocked when it got into Best Web Gallery and the visits sky rocketed. But nothing would have happened if I would have continued thinking about launching it and never launched.

What I´m trying to say is just do it! Dont think too much, dont let the fear of failure stop you from trying new stuff. Dont let the fear of what other people think of you stop you from doing your best. We always do our best and it´s good enough for the world in it´s entirety. If we fail, we just try again.

It´s strange for me staying in the mainland Europe countryside. Waking up each morning to calming birdsong and there must be a lot of birds here, happy birds, cause they are singing everywhere. And the movement of the trees in the wind is really something to see and sense and hear. We dont have all that many trees in Iceland.

I only had to walk 50 meters to see some cows in a medow, the redest cows I´ve ever seen Too bad the photos can capture the smell either, maybe they can soon though.

Be sure to check out the front page with christmas ornaments.

Namaste very much
gummisig

It´s kind of funny because when I take time to relax or meditate I actually get a lot more done, am more focused, and most important am very happy. Life is beautiful, and never hostile. But this is not really what I wanted to write about.

When I take a walk in nature, most often by the seaside here in Keflavík, I cant help but admire and just be in awe of it. For one reason or another it sometimes brings my mind to a letter that the indian chief Seatle wrote to the president of the USA wanted to buy land from them. It´s very profound. I first heard it while watching interviews with Joseph Campel, he did a reading of the letter.

I just love this letter and find it realy brings things into perspective when thinking about earth, landownership and stuff like that. So I really want to share it with you in case you´ve never seen it.

Enjoy
Namaste
Gummisig

Letter of Indian chief Seattle to his people
The president in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people, every shining pine needle, every shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We are a part of this earth and it is a part of us. The perfume flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lake tells of memories of events in the life of my people. The water’s murmurs are the voice of my father’s father. The rivers are our brothers. They carry our canoes and feed our children.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us. That the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind, which gave our father his first breath, also receives his last sigh. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men? And the view of the ripe hills are blotted by talking wires? The end of living and the beginning of survival!

When the last red man has vanished with his wilderness, and his memories are only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves his mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it as god loves us all.

One thing we know: there is only one god. No man, be he red man or white man, can be apart. We are brothers after all.

No designer is an island, or a designer island for that matter

The title of this entry can mean different things to different people. To me it means that no designer is an island. I´ve wanted to write something along these lines for some time, so here goes.

I was driving home from a gig I had one day and a thought occurred to me of how strange it is, as a designer, to say “I designed this”. It´s not really true. When you give it some thought it´s quite impossible to design something by yourself. We are totally dependent on other people and our environment for everything, absolutely everything.

If we take a very narrow view of it and only look me, Gummi, we will see that I cant even get up on time without the help of a cellphone manufacturer. Sony Ericsson made my cellphone. Then only looking at the design part, try to imagine all the people that made Photoshop. And then all the people that affected the people that made Photoshop and so on. None of them would be able to get to work without the help of other people, get food, be inspired, love or just be alive. I think is was the Buddha that said something like: “this is because that is”. It was called the law of co-arising.

Ubuntu, not the operating system, but the philosophy is also all about this. People are fully dependent on each other and would not exist unless the other person excised. There is no up unless there is a down, no black unless there is white & no designer without Photoshop There is no musician unless there is a listener and so on.

Or as the Zulus would say, “Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu”, which means that a person is a person through other persons. We affirm our humanity when we acknowledge that of others.
Quote www.buzzle.com

So the next time I open Photoshop I´m gonna try and remember that things are not as they seem. Try to feel appreciation for the opportunity of being a designer, and be thankful for the incredible “fact” that I am here and now doing what I´m doing because of the help of all the people that ever existed and the fact that a star sometime exploded to make this moment possible.

My mind can never comprehend the complexity of this world, but I sometimes feel like a real part of it. Like this world is part of me and I am part of it.

No one or no thing is here by accident.