What do I want to focus on in school, what do I want to do after graduation? Am I good enough? Do I have to do what I choose now for the rest of my life? What if I don’t want to do it at all? Am I studying the right thing? Is it okay not to always enjoy my studies? Is it okay to be bored? Which courses should I choose? I can’t decide! Oh Bachelor is already over, what now? Do I do a master? Am I ready for the world out there? I don’t think so… so Master. What kind? Am I good enough? Oh yeah, how glaring. What courses do I choose now though? Oh, that sounds exciting too, it’s so much at once. Who am I supposed to become? What defines me? Does anything have to define me? Isn’t it okay to be interested in many things and to fail sometimes?
With these thoughts I run through life every day for the last few years, or rather sometimes I run, sometimes I crawl, sometimes I plod along, sometimes I sleepwalk. It always seems to me as if all great designers know exactly who they are, what they can do, what they want, and as if all of this had been laid in their cradle. How frustrating!
Not so Ruben Alvarez, he started his talk with an introduction about himself that finally went beyond the usual “I’m a star designer and have been since I was handed a pen at 4 and since then I’ve known I was predestined to do animated design”. Rrrrube, as he calls himself in the media, showed himself as a person like you and me, who has many likes, dislikes and idiosyncrasies. This made him seem so approachable and human. He told his story, in which he tried for 3 years with all his strength and effort to become a professional musician, only to finally become a designer with what his teacher called ugly handwriting.
His witty and upbeat way of storytelling captured me and motivated me for my own future. It’s not about knowing who you want to be, because that changes all the time anyway. There are so many external circumstances that act on it and end up producing something completely different than you might have planned. Failure is an important part of the journey and often brings out things you never expected, but sometimes it doesn’t and that’s okay. It’s okay to struggle, it’s important to try new things and most importantly to remain human. This talk gave me so much motivation to just try, you don’t have to be perfect everywhere and it can be worthwhile to look right and left. Making mistakes can help or be a funny story at the next party. Being human, making mistakes, bouncing back and forth, looking around a bit and getting lost is what makes a person and in the end it all connects.
These were exactly the closing words of Ruben’s talk. The only thing he wants to do his whole life.
That is to connect with myself, the people that I praise and the things that make me feel alive.
Ruben Alvarez
I think those are very good closing words that I’m happy to take with me on my future journey and live by. Wherever my own journey may lead, I think interaction design is not a bad start for Connection ;).
