Welcome to The Spark, home to everything Team Mission Drive has found fascinating this month.
The light is returning for us in the Northern Hemisphere, and we couldn’t be happier to see some milky sun peeking through our curtains earlier in the morning. There’s buds on the trees, the promise of warmth in the air, and a spring in our step. Welcome back to The Spark, February edition.
This month we’ve got a super diverse range of musings for you, including the joys of outdoor swimming, the rise of Solarpunk as a way of life, and why capturing life in 35mm film is way more romantic than fishing out your iPhone for an instant snap.
If you’re new to the Spark, we hope you enjoy these little nuggets from the corners of our minds here at Mission Drive!
If you’re after a marketing roundup we've got that too. Simply check out our twice weekly digest Little Missions. But for now, it's time to dig into the deep stuff.
This month’s Big World Stuff
Swim!
Ahhh…swimming. My one true love.
Recently, I was fortunate enough to be able to escape for a rejuvenating long weekend to Birch – a place where you can take a break from everyday stresses, and try new things to do with nature, wellness, art, and more. Apart from taking a class on finding my Ikigai (check out Coeli’s entry in our December edition of the Spark to find out more about that), I had to make a beeline for the lido, which was tucked away in a secret walled garden.
I don’t know what it is about Lidos, swimming baths in great buildings in cities, or wild swimming – but I’m drawn to them all. If there’s a pool, or a place to swim, I must see it and use it.
A firm favourite of mine is The Azkuna Zentroa: Bilbao, right at the top of the Philippe Starck contemporary art building. Just look up!
I’ve also found a handy list of nine ‘spectacular’ public swimming pools in the UK that I plan to work my way through this year. Jubilee Pool, Penzance, once the sun’s out – I’m coming for you. If you like a dip too, maybe I’ll see you there?
The quietest place on Earth
As a father of a beautiful but loud toddler, my appreciation of quiet and stillness has increased tenfold. This is how a post about the quietest place on earth caught my interest.
Built by Microsoft, at their HQ in Washington, this specially constructed chamber has made it into the Guiness Book Of World Records as officially the quietest place on earth. Tests measured background noise in the chamber as -20.6 decibels (for context, the sound of someone breathing normally comes in at +10 decibels).
Sounds perfect right? Well, apparently it’s so quiet you can hear the blood flowing around your body, your bones grinding when you move, and the longest anyone has been able to last in there is 45 minutes!
With no sound from the outside world allowed in, the almost absolute silence will gradually manifest itself as an unbearable ringing in your ears. You’ll also likely lose your balance, because the lack of reverberation in the room ruins your inbuilt spatial awareness.
So what's the point you ask? Well, the space is being used to shape the way sound equipment is made, and even being used in computing to find and decrease vibrations that are produced by capacitors on electronic circuit boards (the kind that cause your fridge to hum for example).
It’s certainly a fascinating concept. But on balance I think I’ll take the loud toddler. To learn more about the quietest place on Earth, check out this BBC feature.
Is it time to burn the career ladder?
The way we pursue careers has changed. Past generations expected to start and end their working lives at the same company. Now, on average, we’ll change jobs around 12 times during our lives, staying around four years in each. The new shape of work has led to new ways to describe careers: Boundaryless and Protean.
Boundaryless careers are where someone considers their profession as their calling. Their career is focused on developing skills they value and finding places to use them. For example a software developer at Apple might say ‘I create software’ rather than, ‘I work for Apple’.
In Protean careers people use work to fulfil personal goals and find purpose. Specific roles are less important than alignment to their values. For example, if your purpose is safeguarding the planet, you may find equal satisfaction as a fundraiser for climate causes as a researcher collecting data about deforestation.
In my masters I explored how modern workers think about careers, and found that everyone still thought of careers using outdated models like the ‘career ladder,’ even when they’d made choices that reflect boundaryless and protean careers.
And it's a problem, because the old fashioned idea of ruthlessly climbing the ladder is at odds with the reality of what we actually need to do. Sideways movement is a common Boundaryless strategy to gain new experience. And accepting a lower salary for a job more aligned with our values is a Protean move.
Climbing the ladder is a solitary job. There’s only room for one on the rung! In contrast, networks, communities, and connections that support us are crucial to both protean and boundaryless career success.
My take? Let’s burn the ladder. The Apprentice style ruthlessness is no longer a viable tactic in modern conceptions of careers. And communities and exploration are. And I think that’s a far more interesting and less lonely way to thrive.
#FilmIsNotDead – capturing life in 35mm
I have always liked taking photos to preserve memories, to look back on all the different things I’ve done and places I’ve travelled to. It’s probably why I have over 40,000 photos on my iCloud! But a few years ago, I took an interest in film photography after discovering a Youtube channel run by film enthusiasts. I bought a 35mm film camera – a Pentax Espio 70 – from a friend and it’s been a cool (and expensive) hobby ever since.
What I love about film is that, unlike digital cameras, there’s no option to review the photos instantly. Which means each roll is a surprise and a trip down memory lane. In a world full of filters and editing apps, there’s something beautiful about point-and-shoot, capturing images just as they are.
I recently got a roll of film developed and scanned from two years ago, and I’m so glad. Looking back on all the various holidays, festivals, and hang-outs was a treat.
In the digital age, everyone has a device with a camera and apps to share photos from, but there’s this notion we should just ‘live in the moment, don’t selfie or snap it’. I disagree. Ever since taking an interest in film photography, I’ve wanted to take more photos, because as time passes by all I really want to do is look back on all of my favourite moments.
Let’s get rid of the idea that taking photos isn’t living in the moment. You can do both. Taking photos just means you can relive the moment whenever you want. Don’t you love going through your mum’s old photo albums and looking back at photos of you when you were younger? Do you think they regret taking lots of photos and preserving those memories? I don’t think so.
Despite the quality of smartphones and digital cameras, there is still beauty in the unique texture and analogue characteristics of 35mm film that digital photography can’t easily replicate. Film is definitely not dead.
Solarpunk: how an online aesthetic is now a cool ideology in real life
I've decided I want to be a Solarpunk. What’s that? Formerly just an aesthetic, Solarpunk has gained a following amongst designers, artists, climate campaigners, and those seeking a more eco way to live and interact with the planet. There’s even a Reddit community with 100k+ members all chatting about policy, stuff that can be done IRL, and new tech to make it possible.
A solarpunk society aims to be ecologically aware, community based, sustainable, agrarian, and technologically advanced. Think walkable cities, sprawling plant life and renewables. It’s all about slow living and being nature based, while harnessing all the good stuff from tech that makes our lives easy.
Whatever the practicalities (namely overcoming the dinosaur attitudes of current governing systems focussed on growth, greed, and inequality) it beats dwelling on the apocalyptic, capitalism-just-ate-itself dystopia of cyberpunk. And gives us something to work towards in the climate crisis. Whilst it helps to be a realist and keep your head out of the sand when it comes to the news, hope is important if the future is to shift. And I genuinely believe that people are much more open, flexible, collaborative, and willing when it comes to change than governments think they are.
Right, I’m off to plan some guerrilla gardening and cost up my solar panels. You coming?
This month's Big Recommendations
Apps to adore
Imprint: the app that helps you learn visually
I recently discovered a brilliant new app that helps me learn in the only way I was ever able to at school, which is visually. I couldn’t be more grateful for this little gem and I think I’m a bit addicted to it. Imprint helps you understand complex topics quickly, with elegant visuals that clarify key ideas and help you stay focused. In less than three days, I’ve learnt about Black Swan events, Ikigai, the proven power of self-compassion, and ADHD 2.0. And I know I can remember it because I’m guided through the content with visuals I can still see in my mind. The clever random knowledge checks reinforce what I’m learning, meaning I can actually remember it. I don’t know why I’m wired to learning this way, but I am – and that’s OK. Many of you will be too, so I hope you try it and enjoy it!
TV to talk about
We’re only in February, but for many, The Last of Us has been one of the most eagerly awaited TV shows of the year. It didn’t have the easiest of starts, needing to buck the trend of failed video game TV adaptations. But it’s more than held its weight, particularly with a spectacular IMDB rating of 9.2 after 5 episodes. The premise is quite terrifying: what if it wasn’t a flu-like virus that threatened the existence of humankind, but a parasitic fungus that used rising temperatures to evolve and switch hosts? The story focuses on Joel, a hardy Texan, and Ellie, a teenage girl, whose importance is revealed as the series progresses. There are surprises around every corner (and not just the zombie kind) which is why it gets a firm nine out of 10 from me too.
K-Dramas
If your Netflix is anything like mine, it is probably filled with a long list of shows and films you’ve told yourself you’re definitely going to start but never do. For the last few months Netflix has been recommending me international shows, and a lot of Korean Dramas (K-Dramas). I started with the ever popular Squid Game, and now find myself juggling between three different K-Dramas at once, with a list of at least ten more my friends have recommended. If you’re looking for a good laugh, a good cry, or simply a feel-good show, then K-Dramas will give you the fix you need. Here’s a list to get you started:
Books to borrow
Bad data: How governments, politicians and the rest of us get misled by numbers - Georgina Sturge
If we didn’t feel it before, the pandemic brought to life how data and statistics have the power to inform decisions that have significant impacts on our lives – from our freedom of movement to the state of the economy. But how can we improve both the impact and our trust in data-informed decisions? In Bad Data House of Commons, statistician Georgina Sturge takes us on an engagingly snappy tour of the potential and pitfalls of using data to shape our lives and our communities. The core message? Whilst data and statistics provide us one set of useful insights into our lives, we should always dig deeper to find the human stories behind the numbers.
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Take care and we’ll see you next time,
The Mission Drive Team
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