On a recent trip to Rwanda, I found myself fiercely self-reflective. I came to discover the following to be true of me: the only thing scarier than not knowing one’s purpose in life — not knowing the way forward or which path to choose — is to know clearly what it is you want to do and needing to take that first step towards it. I know exactly what I want to do (the broad strokes at least), so now comes the scary part.
My problem has always been a tendency to hold ideas captive. I would fastidiously guard anything I had created or dreamt up, indulging a long-held fear of sharing myself with the world. It is a fear of not meeting my own expectations. A fear of what others would think and how they would react. I would run scared of shipping anything at all, even if I knew it was well worth sharing.
The floodgate, though, has reached breaking point within me. I can no longer keep my ideas to myself. It is time to do more. It is time to start engaging with what I know I was born to do, and simply let things unfold, however they may present themselves. It is time to start shipping regardless of myself.
This website then, is that first step on the path forward. Amongst the many projects and products I hope to publish and create, this website is both one of those things, and a necessary beginning. My hope is to establish a steady baseline beneath everything else I do. It will be where I will share my thoughts, opinions, ideas, ventures and adventure. I will review things I have found meaningful, and publish work I hope you will find meaningful too. This article is a prelude to the site, and the site a prelude to everything else I do.
My approach to websites, particularly one such as this, will naturally be a little bit different to a lot of other sites. I have an inherent need to play by my own rules in the way I approach life and work, and that will be reflected here. There will be failures, bad ideas, and other less-than-stellar moments. Things will go wrong, but that’s okay — I want to do this anyway because these things are the price of admission to creating anything worthwhile.
The following are some of the values and concepts I will build this site upon:
- Content driven structure; simple navigation
- Handcrafted design that responds to the content
- Satellite articles that revolve around anchor topics of things I love
- Articles as long as they need to be; as short as they need to be
- Owning every pixel and every word
- Sparking ideas and imagination
- A constant work in progress, but complete none-the-less
The foundation of this site is to create published pieces shaped around a group of themes representing who I am and the things I think about. The anchors I will build the site on include story-telling, design, travel, imagination, leadership, creating the web, photography, what language looks like, seeing and observing, overcoming fear, creating, and being human.
This is the start of a new and exciting adventure for me. It is as much for myself as for anyone else: helping me to think better, see better, and shifting my understanding and perspective in the process. My sincere hope is that you will find value in these things as well.
To all those brave enough to join me on this journey — thank you. This is day one. Without further ado, I present to you michaelharris.com.
Here’s to seeing things others don’t see.