On Finding Your Big Idea.
The following words on vocation are by Frederick Beuchner from his book Wishful Thinking.
[Vocation] comes from the Latin word vocare, to call, and means the work a [person] is called to by God.
There are different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.
By and large a good rule for find out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirements (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chance are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.
Neither the hair shirt not the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking
His words at the end especially strike me, "where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." That means that to discern a vocation, or a Big Idea, one has to be both willing to welcome the contradictory feelings of joy (happiness) and suffering (deep hunger). Most people are not willing to hold these two ideas together. In our polarized society, it’s easy to hold on to one side or the other. It’s hard to accept a new and challenging perspective.
I’m reminded of an interview with Frank Ostaseski by Courtney Martin at the Endwell conference that I recently watched. Frank talks about the idea of vulnerability. He says it's the ability to experience both the wonderful and the tragic. He shares that most people put up a wall to these types of experiences (and elaborates on how he's able to hold both together).
Beuchner’s quote also reminds me of conversations that I've been having recently about mortality for a class project. All of it adds up to the idea that you can't live well unless you acknowledge that someday you will die. And, you can't die well until you recognize that eventually, you must live.
What does this all have to do with my work in brand identity design and Big Ideas? Well, to uncover the Big Idea behind your brand identity, one has to answer Buechner’s two questions. (a) What brings you deep gladness? And (b) where do you feel the world's deepest hunger? It's in between those two questions that your Big Idea emerges. (a) Are you willing to go there? Or, (b) do you want a new logo (or app)? I’m looking for partners who are (a) willing to go there. We may not go there perfectly, but at least we’ll try.