Came across a thought-provoking statement (by design academic Kenneth Fitzgerald) today:

“If you want to have a career, you need to create your own buzz.”

I reflected on this, and concluded that for me it is true not only of creating a career (which is what, I think, Fitzgerald was writing about), but of life in general.

There are people who one notices, who stand out, who one is drawn to, to whom one listens. They may not be geniuses, they may not possess a cupboard-full of qualifications, their work may not be earth-shatteringly revolutionary, they may not be physically stunning, but they are interesting and different and successful.

There is a buzz about them

I think it’s almost like the buzz you feel near a highly electrically-charged object, a slight atmospheric crackling, a sense of energy that almost makes your hair stand on end.

Of course this “buzz” is indefinable, despite being obvious when you experience it, because it varies markedly from individual to individual. You can’t do a class in buzz! Yet I also believe that it isn’t just something one is simply born with. I’ve seen people develop (either through hard work or through personal growth) a buzz over time, sometimes gradually, sometimes overnight.

That’s something worth adding to my “to do” list!.

W S Gilbert wrote, in his libretto for Ruddigore:

“If you wish in this world to advance,
Your merits you’re bound to enhance;
You must stir it and stump it,
And blow your own trumpet,
Or trust me, you haven’t a chance.”

Plenty of people blow their own trumpet but nevertheless fail miserably to impress. I think someone with buzz has almost certainly stirred it and stumped it, but they don’t need the trumpet-blowing!