The list for what has never been done is very short.
If you’re looking for something new before you even begin, you may as well abandon the quest. You will probably fail.
Everyone has a voice now. Everyone has a camera, too. Every picture at every monument has been taken better by someone with better equipment. You’re screwed.
The picture itself is no longer interesting, because it has been taken already. Objectivity is not useful.
I just recently came face to face with the fact that almost everything I’ve ever done has been done better, before me, by someone else. Has this happened to you yet? If you ever do anything interesting, it will.
When it does, you will be faced with a moment of doubt that may crush you and prevent you from continuing– unless you have faced it before and seen that you can win.
But this fight is one that you can subvert and avoid entirely if you realize that the information is not what is interesting to most people— the story is.
The story is something that people can relate to. The subjective and personal is human. Human is relatable. Information is not.
The best storytellers are translators of information. They take an experience and create layers on top of it, like an onion, that get peeled and reveal deeper insight.
But the depths, of course, are dark. They are hard to map. They contain secret tunnels. They don’t reveal themselves to you instantly. They need time.
But time is not what most people have. They want quick and immediate insight. They want the information so they can move on.
Avoid the temptation to talk about information. Information is the realm in which the how-to rests, and the place where machines can easily replace humans.
If you want to stay valuable, you cannot stay where machines can replace you. The experience you provide has to be uniquely human.
But do you even know how to do that? If not, how will you learn?
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