MANIFESTO
From the outside Tomfoolery is a production team but the truth is it’s something more, and hopefully something different. What’s locked up in this clumsy website is an idea, an honest expression of searching and a hunger for a different way to live life. A way for individuals to have the freedom to be themselves, whilst also living for something bigger than themselves.
MANIFESTO
From the outside Tomfoolery is a production team but the truth is it’s something more, and hopefully something different. What’s locked up in this clumsy website is an idea, an honest expression of searching and a hunger for a different way to live life. A way for individuals to have the freedom to be themselves, whilst also living for something bigger than themselves.
On one level Tomfoolery is simply a collective of individuals - artists, writers, travelers, accountants, botanists, wisecracks,
not-so-wisecracks, dreamers, realists, educated, uneducated, successful, dropouts, self taught philosophers, jokers etc -
who’ve chosen to join together under the idea that work should be fun and fulfilling but most of all, it should make the world a better place.
We haven’t nailed it by any means, in fact we’re probably only 1% of the way there, but we’re working towards it. In the three years since we started,
Tomfoolery has gained a reputation for the quality and craft of the work we produce. During this time we’ve also managed to put out creative pieces of
our own work, as we stumble along, often blindly, towards a goal that is in itself still forming.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
- Abraham Lincoln
What we’ve been learning through everyone’s different views of life, is that life is full of contradictions and that we live in those daily.
We want to make change in a system that is ruthlessly greedy and individualistic and yet if we’re brutally honest, we see that in ourselves as well.
In starting Tomfoolery (from a business perspective) was the idea that, firstly, it could begin to change the environment that people work in.
That we could make work a place that values people above everything. And then secondly, that it could also have a wider impact, some form of social
justice (whatever that means- it's a contested term).
Is it too much to say we’re trying to redefine work? You see if you don't ascribe/aspire to [mainstream] values of the working world, what do you get from it?
If you don't want be wealthy, climb the corporate ladder, don't want the houses, the ego trip, the power, the success, the cars, the fancy houses, the security etc.
If you don't support the greed, the isolation, the consumerism, the materialism, the individualism, the driven-ness... where do you stand? (bare in mind some would consider us an advertising company).
An individual has not started living unto he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity
- Martin Luther King Jr.
If you value people, time, relationships, freedom, equality, justice, experience, leisure, simplicity, balance (things most work takes away from) -
then how do you find peace in an environment that ascribes to the exact opposite?
I love my life
https://vimeo.com/85717472
The age old question? Do you change a system by being outside of it, or by working from within it? Then came the idea: 'What Would Robin Hood Do?’
We all know the story, but it’s a very interesting concept for today. The juxtaposition of a ‘heroic outlaw’ and the idea of bringing equality to a
world ravaged by the injustices of the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.
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So that’s where we find ourselves, in a place with some form of consciousness around the idea that the modern working world isn’t quite sustainable,
and that the differences between the ‘haves and have nots’ is simply too vast to idly sit by and watch.
humanize
[hyoo-muh-nahyz]
Verb(used with object)
1.to make humane, kind, or gentle.
2.to make human.
Verb(used without object)
3.to become himan or humane
Therefore, within the means we have at our disposal we dream to give back. Something of a ‘taking from from the rich and giving to the poor,’
whether that be materially or emotionally. And we believe that's what you partake in by partnering with us.
In among it all we’re asking questions. Some about society at large, others about personal journeys, and others about our own work.
What is art, what is creative? What is business, what is corporate? And can you ever marry the two? The name ‘Tomfoolery’ carries the
seed of why we do what we do, believing there has to be a better way to work. A better balance in every facet of what we do.
We don’t have answers for it all, but we’re searching and most of all we’re trying. Often that means failing, but it always means pushing on.
One thing we’re passionate about is that life isn’t limited and compartmentalised. It is made up of spheres that are all interconnected. Who we are should be expressed to a certain degree in all those spheres.
At the end of the day here’s the thing - we’re just trying to get to an endpoint, a life in working community that’s sustainable, a place where we can model something different, a way that gives value and integrity to people both inside Tomfoolery and outside Tomfoolery.
Grapple -
Struggle to deal with or overcome (a difficulty or challenge)
- "An act of grappling"
- To wrestle (with)
Ruminate -
Think deeply about something
- "We sat ruminating on the nature of existence"
A Note On How To Navigate This Page:
Our business is an exploration into how to do life, work, and community better. This manifesto, the thoughts/writings/scribbles/links that you see stemming from it are an interconnected web of ideas we are exploring. They are ideals that remind us of the direction to steer in every time we fail. Share this journey with us by exploring this page, and clicking on all the keyword links and arrows above.