Lately I’ve been getting quite astute to mortality and this thing we call life. It’s as if all the things I’ve heard and read in the years prior are all of a sudden becoming clearer to me and make sense. They aren’t just ideals any longer; they are actually impacting how I view life.

“Life is not a dress rehearsal.” That seems to ring more true to me now and I’ve fully embraced it. I’m more aware now that life isn’t something we get to do over. We don’t all reach the age of 50 and upon reflection are allowed to go back to a year and start again. This is it. This is life. We know how it begins and how it ends. It’s the stuff in the middle we’re all trying to figure out.

I’d be lying if I said Steve Jobs didn’t affect me. But not just the visionary genius he was, and his mark on the world with Apple, but the shear fact he died way too young. Here’s a guy with obscene money, much more than the majority of the world could ever imagine. And he died. He could have afforded any medical procedure on the planet, and if given the time I am sure he could have created some medical technology that doesn’t even exist yet that would end up curing him. But unfortunately all of that is a mute point. The passing of Steve Jobs taught me above everything else, health is most important. You can have all the money in the world, but often times that isn’t enough.

Sort of changes your outlook on what's important in life. The one with the most money doesn't win at the end.

When I travel for work, I enjoy sitting at the bar when eating meals as it allows me to interact with the bartender and get the “locals only” insight into the city. Sitting at the bar inevitably means I’ll be answering the “Where are you traveling from?” question. When I tell them New York City, I see a noticeable gleam in their eye. My answer is always followed by one of two statements from them: they tell me about the time they visited New York and how much they loved it, or they tell me how much they want to visit. The latter of the two always gets me thinking. On my last business trip, the bartender told me he and his wife had been saving for a New York City trip. For years. A trip to New York City was something he and his wife really wanted to experience and put on their bucket list. It was something they wanted to do before they died.

And I live in New York City.

Going to New York City has been on this guy’s mind for years. I wake up every day (when not traveling) in New York. Too many people take things for granted.

I saw this on Twitter yesterday and it fit nicely:

Guest Post: Jen Doll // @thisisjendoll

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I confess: I love the bizarre. A kidnapping caused by a slap caused by someone eating the last Hot Pocket. A bear, alone on the street, collapsed in a drunken stupor after being laid off from his job (don't worry, it's the best thing that's ever happened to him!). An air conditioner that falls out of a window and very nearly hits someone but doesn't, and instead lands on a pile of dog poo that a snooty-looking woman had been just about to put her Tory Burch flat directly into (she wrinkles her nose in disgust). A family getting lost in a corn maze 25 feet from the exit and calling 911 to get out. Two guys attempting to carry a couch away from a stoop sale, but dropping it on the wrought iron grates of a fence, where it remains, precariously perched, until a third friend arrives and helps them take it down. A woman who, walking down the street, feels something touch her foot and kicks her leg out Rockette-style in response, jettisoning her shoe from her foot; it soars through the air and hits a guy 20 feet away in the back. He returns it to her, and maybe they fall in love, or maybe he quickly moves away from New York, where shoes have a propensity to fall from the sky. (The thing that touched her foot, for the record, was a leaf.) A cat that steals under cover of darkness. A car shaped like a banana. The time you shaved off a stranger's beard, just because. I am inspired by the things you see or hear or read or listen to or do, on purpose or by chance, that incite cliches like "Truth is stranger than fiction!" or "You can't make that stuff up!", though sometimes you can make up the story. 

This is what I like the most: Finding out what happened, the banal little mystery or human condition or need or want or coincidence that led to the bizarre -- or, sometimes even better, concocting the story for what happened. I have no idea what the story is for this bear. I saw him near my apartment one weekend, and it looked as though others were getting his photo, too. Had they set him there to amuse passersby? Had he plummeted from a window above, or perhaps been tossed out by an angry resident who came home to find him cheating on her with the stuffed, one-eyed monkey? Was he hiding from the paps, in plain sight? Did an aging couple lose him on their way to a Mexican restaurant and, considering him part of the family, are they now plastering signs asking for his return all over Park Slope? Is he a hobo bear, getting a bit of shut-eye until he moves on to the next neighborhood or town? Had he just eaten a slice of pie left by a kindly woman, as well as a turkey sandwich (tryptophan!)? Is he a renegade Occupy Wall Street protester, as some suggested on Twitter when I posted the image? 

Chances are, we'll never know. He's no longer there -- I just happened to "be at the right place at the right time." But that only makes it more fun. He can be anything and everything we want him to be. He'll answer to whatever you choose to call him. That's the beauty of a bear on the sidewalk.

Guest Post: Spike Jones // @spikejones

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In this day and age, in this world of hyper-connectedness, in this moment where it feels like the communications industry is overwhelming us daily with gadgets and apps and new, shiny objects we must post and tweet and talk about, what inspires me most is…

Being unplugged.

It inspires me that offline will always win. Online can never replace sitting on a deck overlooking the lake, hand-in-hand with my wife. It can’t replace shaking someone’s hand and looking them in the eye. And it will never replace being there. Being present. I mean REALLY present. I’m both comforted and inspired by the fact that offline relationships run deep.

There is nothing like logging out of email, Twitter, Facebook and all the others, shutting the laptop, leaving the smartphone at home and engaging in real life. Real. Life. It is far more inspiring than anything online life can provide.

Guest Post: Craig Elimeliah // @CraigElimeliah

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It is absolutely fascinating that the word inspiration is defined in the medical dictionary as “the drawing of air into the lungs”.

The fact that there is an actual physical definition for something that seems so abstract and differs for so many different people is amazing.

This physical definition very much embodies what actually happens when inspiration hits.

I am inspired by so many different things, my family inspires me, the world I live in inspires me and my job inspires me. I read books that inspire me and I watch movies that inspire me, I work with creative professionals that inspire me and I sometimes even inspire myself.

But if I have really focus on one thing that inspires me on a regular basis, one thing that I know I can count on time and time again, a source in which I can access and always find inspiration, it would have to be Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong, a beautiful landscape, a pretty face, a laughing child, a sunset and the like all inspire me immensely however those are all things that are not always easily accessible and take effort to gain exposure to.

Twitter is something that I feel has become part of my being, an ambient awareness similar to whale or bat sonar.

Twitter inspires me the way an ant farm inspires me. It is an actualized manifestation of the human collective consciousness.

Sure I get a kick out of a witty tweet or a wise crack, a deep link or an insight but what really gets my heart racing is the entire breadth of human input streaming like a vast river across the Twitter timeline.

I’ve always been amazed at the organizational skills of insects and animals. The way they just do things in synchronicity, so natural and so pure. They just flow. This is how I see Twitter. It herds our thoughts into a synchronized timeline and adds a whole new dimension to human awareness. Twitter is like a new human sense.

It fascinates me to peruse other timelines where I have no association what so ever and to see people just sharing tidbits of their personalities. This knowledge base we have all tapped into and contribute to, bits of data being poured into the system by the billions every day. The way it empowers anyone to add a point of view, the way it gives anyone the ability to expand a topic in ways it would have never been expanded before.

This absolutely inspires me, it gives me a sense of hope to hear the small voices of humanity that have been silenced since the beginning of time. The fact that so many people talk about so many things at once, carry on conversations that range from the world’s most pressing issues to absolute bull shit.

I haven’t yet grown tired nor do I think I ever will of this powerful source of inspiration. It is both digital and human at the same time. The character limit keeps it concise and the wealth of information keep my mind buzzing throughout the day.

They are re-enacting Home Alone via Twitter right now. Here.

With more than 100 million users worldwide, Twitter has over the recent years not only become a phenomenon, but a widely accepted tool to send short message to each other. Just like when we text each other on the phone, but visible to anyone. Amidst all this, Post-It celebrates 30 years in the business. What initially was considered a failed adhesive turned into maybe the most famous little piece of paper in history. Post-It became the standard for small, short messages and was used both between people and in public spaces, for anyone to see. Vintage Twitter is a loving homage to Twitter, with a reminder that the short message is not a new invention. The box, consisting of 500 Post-It notes (or vintage tweets) and a small pencil, was handed out at Disruptive Code, a conference for web developers in Stockholm, during autumn 2010.

Agency: JMW Kommunikation - Sweden