I thought I'd tell you a bit about how this design came to be ....
I came across this speech by Martin Luther King that I had heard before, but this time it really hit home.
'Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in psychology. It is the word maladjusted. It is the ring and cry of modern child psychology and certainly we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. .... But I must honestly say there are some things in our nation and the world to which I am proud to be maladjusted and wish all men of goodwill would be maladjusted until the good society is realized.
I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to a religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few, leaving millions of people smothering in an air-tight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.'
I keep noticing how many good people are struggling with the state of things, and thinking how if you're not finding it difficult, you're either not consuming media, or not thinking about what you are seeing, or maybe you're just slightly evil, like those hassling the RNLI (who probably aren't actually evil, just very misled, but you know what I mean.) That old Bertrand Russell quote: 'The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” But added to doubts, empathy for others' suffering.
It can feel almost paralysing – I keep hearing friends and my kids saying, what is the point in any of it.'
If you're trying to do something creative your inner critic can really go to town with this at the moment. And these past couple years I've felt such a huge internal pushback to the whole 'productivity' thing. I am tired of measuring my success by numbers and Shopify dings, and have never felt at home in a spreadsheet. For a while I really tried to shove the way I think into a small biz model for success and that led me to start questioning if I have ADHD. Is there something wrong with me that I cannot stick to my own timetable, even if I want to? I know some of the medication can really help with this, but I also question if it's necessary to work this way. All of my good designs come from spur of the moment bursts of creativity when I'm supposed to be doing something else, and those are the moments that I find the most joy in.
So for me this word encapsulates it all: all the ways some of us aren't fitting in. Why not celebrate this refusal to adjust ourselves to both the state of things that feels utterly wrong, and this capitalist model of being a good an efficient little worker.
Proud to be maladjusted.
Keep persisting,
Sarah xx
P.S. I listen to a lot of books on Audible while I'm working, and I can highly recommend two books on this theme - All Fours by Miranda July and Black Bag by Luke Kennard (on the Booker longlist) soooo Maladjusted and so good.
