Art of Interview: “An interview is a story looking for bookends.” Interviewer interviewee? There’s no two sides, it’s multi-dimensional. You may think you are one or the other. Your approach and my approach are like arrows, loaded with intentionalities, aimed at heartening opinions, that are invaluable expressions to all those seeking creative insightful ideas.
Art has an opinion. It’s perpetual and everlasting in the mind of its creator, and its viewers. We are all interviewers, in everything we see and do. As we look, we form opinions and all too often we are more than happy to express them, even if they are built on shallow thinking. Good opinions are happily embraced. Bad opinions? Well you know!
Interviews for two or more. Every time we converse, one on one or in a crowd we are interviewing, and being interviewed. The first date or the first liaison between two people, is all about being interviewed. You cannot escape interviewing, it’s most pervasive on social media. You emoji like crazy, sharing an opinion. You comment which invariably solicits a response. Chatting leads to questions and answers which equals an interview.
“An interview is a story looking for bookends.”
Rod Jones Artist
I interview myself every day, as I know we all do. Questions about everything move in and out, and sometimes they emerge from the deepest recesses of the mind. The interview takes place in our daily and nightly thinking. You may not think you are interviewing yourself, but it’s always a two way conversation, seeking information and the validation of the answers that roll out as opinions, which are usually based on experiences both favorable and unfavorable in the lives we all lead.
The interview of judgment, it’s the one that drives the achievers as well as the mischievous. Relight your thinking by interviewing your thoughts, for no two are ever alike. This is a lesson in life that few ever embrace or achieve. It’s pretend… But it’s reality-based, it’s a process that may cause enlightenment. You want to live more creatively? Interview yourself with honest questions and honest answers will be revealed to you.
Every interview, like art, is wealthy with possibilities and profound outcomes and incomes. Words and sentences are coupled together like brushstrokes on a canvas or musical notes on a page. The strength of an interview, especially with one’s self, is at its best when like in an opera, the tenor or soprano hits the High C. The success is gathered by the ear, to be quickly processed in the mind. Judgments always come in after the performance, like carefully planned reviews, filled with personal and educated biases crafted with just the right amount of prejudice. But when you control your own reviews of your thinking, then by all means bask in the proverbial glory of a successful of all the right answers to all the perfect questions.
Self-opinionatedness is the true meaning in the phrase, Art of Interview. A simple conversation between two friends, a parent and a child, a boss and an employee, an astronaut and ground control, and especially with the conversation one has when struggling in the pursuit of creating art in all its various forms. It’s the interview we should show up for, on time and look forward to the give-and-take of well-meaning, and well performing internal dialogue. The self talk which is most definitely the catalyst to all creative outcomes.
“The mirror on the wall lacks subtlety and is an unforgiving interviewer.” Rod Jones Artist
Life is one invasive interview that no one can truly escape. Everything we see and do creates the interviewer’s question, and it provides the interviewees answers. It may have been the intention of the Creator to make us see and hear and especially to understand our potential. Unfortunately we all too often settle for less than we deserve.
Art may be in everything. The path is revealed in our inward and outward interviews, after all, the art of the interview is nothing more than questions and answers, and those questions and answers are in everything we see, feel and do. It’s insightful in a most revealing way.
Interview your life minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. You are the seekers of answers that will inevitably direct your path to the happiness and success you envision for yourself. Be of sound mind and hold tightly to honest thoughts and ideas, you may just find you have discovered your own Art of Interview.
“The question was seeking a favorable yes: the answer: a deliberate no; designed to alter the
seekers question.” Rod Jones Artist