I guess what I’m saying is that an employee is a whole person, not a part of one, and what they do in their non-work time feeds who they are and how they perform their job–and vice versa.

John Fisher was employed for all sorts of reasons, no doubt, but his ability to get out there and experience things, his vitality and curiosity, are probably extremely important in making him good at his job.

When people criticise how others spend their time, there’s always a value judgment involved. And, almost invariably, the person being criticised is said to be doing something that’s not “worthwhile” or is a “waste of time”. Believe me, as a writer, I know.

Being interested in fashion, different places, different ways of being, and different people, is crucial to so many forms of creativity. These interests are easy to pigeonhole as shallow, but they actually can indicate a deep curiosity and engagement with the world–not the world as it once was, or the world as it could be, although these are also important, and tend to take up lots of thinking–but with the world as it is right now. I reckon if you don’t have that, you don’t have enough.