The lists that claim to
tell us who we are...
There are always new lists telling us which people we should know, which circles we should be seen in and which level we are expected to reach. Lists of the most influential, the most creative, the most successful and the most promising. Membership tiers, follower counts, titles, rankings, certifications and awards. Everything is presented as though it were a map of human worth.
But few things interest me less than trying to become something for other people.
I do not wake up in the morning wondering which position I ought to occupy in somebody else’s system. I start writing. Sometimes it becomes a post for Me & Bo. Sometimes a thought develops into an article, a project, a concept or something that does not yet have a name. It rarely begins with a commission. It begins with something in my head that wants to come out.
I do not create to live up to an image of who other people think I should be. I create because creating is how I think, understand and move through the world.
When status becomes a borrowed identity
There is nothing inherently wrong with lists. They can help us organise information, discover people and see which projects have gained traction. The problem begins when we start using them as proof that we exist.
A title can describe a function, but it can never contain a human being. A ranking may say something about a result achieved during a particular period, but nothing about the years of experience, failure, detours and persistence that made that result possible. A follower count can show how many people chose to press a button. It does not automatically tell us how deeply an idea has reached or whether it has genuinely changed anything.
I have never fitted particularly well into those kinds of boxes. My experience moves between people and systems, between ideas and execution, and between the digital and physical worlds. Sometimes it is about writing. Sometimes it is about music, events, technology, logistics, scenography or a new business idea. To someone looking for a simple title, that may appear scattered. To me, it is a coherent ability to recognise possibilities, build structures and make things happen.
What matters is not what that ability is called. What matters is what it can accomplish.
I begin before anyone asks
Much of the most interesting work I have done began without anyone asking for it. A thought appears, two seemingly unrelated fields connect and suddenly the beginning of something new is there. Then I want to investigate it. I want to write, sketch, turn the idea around and examine it from different directions until I can see whether it will hold.
That is a different motivation from waiting for an assignment or trying to determine what the market currently wants to hear. It does not mean that the recipient is unimportant. It means that the recipient is not allowed to decide which thoughts may be born in the first place.
I would rather begin with my own curiosity. What can I see that others may not have noticed? What happens if these two worlds meet? Can an experience from a festival tell us something about entrepreneurship? Can making music explain leadership? Can a walk through Sofia open a story about a computer game, memory and recognition?
Those unexpected connections are where I feel at home.
The difference between pleasing an audience and communicating
Not wanting to please others can easily be misunderstood as not caring about other people. That is not the case. If I publish an article, of course I want it to be read. If I develop a project, I want people to understand its value. If Me & Bo shares our experiences, I hope others will recognise something of themselves, become curious or see their own lives from a different angle.
But there is a crucial difference between making a thought understandable to an audience and changing that thought in order to be accepted by the audience.
Communication requires consideration. The words need to be arranged so another person can follow the reasoning. An idea may need a clearer opening, a stronger headline or a concrete example. That is not a betrayal of your own voice. It is the craftsmanship that enables the voice to reach someone else.
Audience pleasing begins when you abandon your convictions in order to fit in. When you say what is expected, follow every trend or choose a subject solely because the algorithm currently rewards it. At that point, the recipient has not merely influenced the form. The recipient has taken control of the source of creation.
I want to own that source myself.
The algorithm only knows what can be measured
In the digital world, there are numbers for almost everything. Views, reach, reactions, clicks, retention and engagement can be analysed in detail. That information can be valuable. It can show which headlines work, where people stop reading and which subjects open a genuine conversation.
But the algorithm can only measure what leaves a recordable trace. It cannot see the person who read an article and carried one sentence with them for the rest of the day without pressing “like.” It cannot see the idea quietly maturing or the conversation that begins several weeks later. It cannot determine whether a text was honest, necessary or brave.
That is why statistics must be kept in their proper place. I can use them as an instrument panel, but not as a compass. The instrument panel tells me what is happening to what I have published. The compass must tell me where I want to go.
Experience does not need to ask for permission
After a long working life, you carry knowledge that cannot always be summarised in an education, title or list of qualifications. Some of it lives in the body. You can sense when a plan is missing something, when a flow will create problems or when a group needs clearer direction. You have seen enough projects to understand that reality rarely follows the organisational chart.
That kind of competence risks becoming invisible in systems that primarily reward the correct labels. But the competence does not disappear simply because a list has no suitable category for it.
I do not need permission from a jury to use what I have learned. I do not need to wait for someone else to define my role before I begin creating the next project. Experience does not make me right about everything, but it gives me a foundation on which to stand and a responsibility to continue thinking for myself.
Thinking for yourself also means being able to change your mind. Independence is not the same as stubbornly refusing to listen. On the contrary, genuine independence requires the ability to receive criticism without falling apart and to examine an objection without automatically submitting to it.
Feedback is information. It can reveal a blind spot, sharpen an argument or improve a project. But feedback does not need to have the final word. That decision remains with the person doing the creating.
Creating is a way of living
For me, writing is not simply the production of content. It is a way of discovering what I think. When a thought exists only in my head, it can feel self-evident. Only when it is given words can I see where it holds together, where it contradicts itself and where it is actually leading.
The same is true of other forms of creation. An idea changes when it becomes a sketch. A vision becomes more honest when it encounters a budget, a physical location or a technical problem. Creation moves the thought from imagination into reality, and new knowledge emerges during that movement.
That is why I begin in the morning. Not to maintain a profile, fill a content calendar or prove that I am still relevant. I begin because that is when movement starts. An article leads to a conversation. That conversation can lead to a contact, a collaboration or an entirely different thought. Everything does not need to become successful. Everything does not even need to be published. Even the things that do not make it all the way have played a part in the process.
I do not want to be placed — I want to keep moving
Lists are built on a desire to organise the world. Who is at the top? Who is moving upwards? Who belongs to which field? But a creative life is rarely that linear. It moves forwards, sideways and sometimes back to an old idea that has only now become possible.
I am less interested in being placed than I am in continuing to move.
If someone wants to give what I do a title, they are welcome to try. If a project ends up on a list, that is naturally pleasant. If the statistics show that an article has travelled far, I may be able to learn something from it. But none of that can become the reason I wake up the next morning and begin again.
The reason has to exist somewhere deeper.
I do not create to become someone in the eyes of others. I create because the ideas already exist inside me and need to encounter reality. Other people’s reactions can help me understand what happens when they do, but those reactions can never replace the original driving force.
Perhaps that is the freest position a creative person can occupy: to be engaged with the world without surrendering your identity to it. To want to reach people without being shaped by their expectations. To listen without obeying. To use lists, levels and statistics when they are useful — and leave them behind when they begin telling you who you ought to be.
When I wake up tomorrow, there will probably be another list somewhere of people I should follow, levels I should reach or circles I am supposed to want to join.
I probably will not read it.
I will write...
By Chris...
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