Tag: Art

Knott Do-able? Or Do-able?

Doorstep at-your-feet delivery, touch screen inspired command and control at our fingertips, the increasing absence of humans in any interaction with an organisation( and therefore the superfluousness of our emotions) and many such in our zeitgeist has made us the sacrificial lamb at the altar of ease and convenience.

 

 

In the school industrial complex, we were taught compliance from an early age. Non compliance equalled failure, mind you, we were made to believe that. In order to amplify compliance, people in authority have instilled in us not just a fear of failure, but worse, a fear of fear.

 

 

The diktat going around is that of ease and convenience. And the freedom from the fear of failure. A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness. You are only adding fuel to the fire. Fear of failure is a mental virus that stops us from taking risks and trying things in life. It tells you a scary story. It says you are not good enough, and things will turn out terribly bad.

 

 

Eloise Ristad put it beautifully ” When we give ourselves permission to fail, at the same time, we give ourselves permission to excel “.

 

 

The reason it’s hard to push ourselves, even when there’s no external downside of doing so, is our fear of fear of failure. That feeling, the feeling of insufficiency and doom, pushes us to seek the comfort of compliance instead.

 

 

Easily do-able is the default whereas great work be it for enterprise, art, music, literature, new inventions etc stem from us allocating our time to things that may not work.

 

 

Failure. The perspective would be to see it as a lure( to create or make things better) rather than see that as a speed breaker.

 

 

An interesting throwback on failure can be witnessed in this article from BrandKnew about ” What Designers Can Learn From The Museum Of Failure (Yes, It Exists) “.

 

It’s good to remember that ” fear is a reaction, creativity is a response ‘.

 

 

ENDS

Being An Employee Of Our Own Myth!

We are all frauds.

 

Creating is hard for every last one of us( including those from the allegedly superior Aryan race). Yes!

 

Coal mining is harder. Do you think the miners stand around all day thinking about how hard it is to mine for coal? Certainly not!  They simply dig.

 

Throughout life, you collect data points or dots. And you probably don’t have a clue as to how these dots will connect in the future. As Steve Jobs said, you can connect these dot only by looking backward. But you have to collect them moving forward.

 

Without the mistakes we make, the decisions we regret, and the experiences that didn’t live up to our expectations, we would be woefully short of material and ammunition for our creative work. These things are all ingredients for your soup, material for making meaning and creating art.

 

The creative life, just like the creative process isn’t linear. We don’t know how each of our life experiences will impact us down the road. With each step forward, the landscape differs, the view changes, and the most insignificant experiences of our lives at the moment can serve as the most informative ones in our future.

 

Our creativity is not something that someone can give to us or take away. It’s always something within us. Happily domiciled. Whether it’s the degree we earn or the job we hate,  every experience provides us with seeds to plant for the stories we tell.

 

Life doesn’t pause to make room for our precious creating time.

 

” There is an unknown room in the soul that is constantly turning the stuff of daydreams into myths for us, helping us to get at meaning we can’t get to through the front door “- Phil Cousineau

 

ENDS

Attention Piece!

It is said that attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

 

The poet J.D. McCatchy captured this essential fact beautifully in his observation that “love is the quality of attention we pay to things.”.

 

It’s a no brainer. Before we can create anything worthy of other people’s attention, we have to learn to manage ours.

 

Our world is the outcome of what we pay attention to. Period. Attention is the currency of achievement.

 

Being present is the best present we can give ourselves. And to others. There is a curious power in being present. When we are present, we see the other person more clearly. We communicate better. We make lasting connections.

 

Unfortunately, in our always on, go-go-go world, being  with someone who is fully present and therefore offering attention is rare.

 

Good work and great art comes from deep focus and deep work. Our ability to be prolific, create art that resonates, that strikes a chord , tug at the heartstrings and hit people in the face with a crowbar depends on our ability to focus.

 

Consider for a moment the kind of mental world we can construct when we dedicate significant time and attention to deep endeavors.

 

“Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer,” Simone Weil observed as she considered the relationship between attention and grace at the peak of her short life. “Attention without feeling,” Mary Oliver wrote a generation later in her beautiful elegy for her soul mate, “is only a report.”

 

It’s hard to carve out time and space for work or art that matters if we’re always distracted by things don’t.

 

So, how much art have you made today?

 

” I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents; we’re all teachers – if we’re willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door “. Marla Gibbs

 

ENDS

Being an employee of our own myth!

We are all frauds! Forgive the blatant articulation.

 

To quote Wikipedia ” The master race (German: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative “Aryan race” is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as “Herrenmenschen” (“master humans”).

 

Creating is hard for every last one of us– including for the ones from the allegedly superior Aryan race.

 

If you think creating is hard, try grave digging. Or coal mining. Infinitely harder. Do you think miners stand around all day thinking and talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? Certainly not. They just go ahead and do it ie dig!

 

Throughout life, you collect data points or dots. And you probably don’t have a clue how these dots will connect in the future. As Steve Jobs said, you can only connect these dots looking backward. But, you can only collect them going forward.

 

In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones.

 

Without the mistakes we make, the decisions we regret and the experiences that didn’t live up to our expectations, we would be very short on material for our creative work.  These things are all just ingredients for your soup, material for making meaning and making art.

 

The creative process, just like the creative life, isn’t linear.  We don’t know how each of our life experiences will impact us down the road. With each step forward, the view changes, the landscape shifts and the horizon offers a different dimension. The most insignificant of our experiences and life’s little skirmishes at the moment can serve as the most informative (and even inspiring) ones in our future.

 

Our creativity is not something that someone can give us, gift us or take away. It’s something thats always within us.  Whether it’s the degrees we earn or the jobs we hate, every experience offers us seeds to plant for the stories we tell.

 

Life doesn’t pause or stop to make room for our precious creating time. So, if you are running your own life’s employment exchange, show up and ship out!

 

ENDS

 

The HURRY Cane in our lives!

Caveat Emptor

I am not making a compelling emotional and spiritual case against hurry and in favor of a slower, simpler way of life- but writing as someone all too familiar with ‘ hurry sickness ‘, I desperately needed this salve. Some of you may as well. Hence taking the liberty.

” Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished “- Unknownymous

” Don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens – The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away “— John Steinbeck

Everything which you can conceive and accept is yours! Entertain no doubt.

Most of us seem to miss the wood for the trees in our pursuit of pleasure because of the breathless haste in which we go about, we hurry past it. Irony! As Lily Tomlin beautifully articulated ” The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat”.

Burnout is not a badge of honor. 

 When Marcus Aurelius( Stoic philosopher and Great Roman Emperor from 161 AD to 180 AD) spoke of his own impending and inevitable death, it wasn’t to remind himself to squeeze in as much crap as possible–it wasn’t about picking up the pace. It was to remind himself of what was important, of the standard to which he needed to hold himself. He said, “Do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life.” That is: Do it right. Not do it as quickly as possible so you can say it’s complete.

Yes, it’s true, we will die. It could be tomorrow, or it could be fifty years from now. Which is why this very moment is so important. And why we can’t let anyone rush us through it.

You’re in a hurry. To get to the office. To get through this meeting. To get to the restaurant. To get the kids in bed. To get to go on your vacation. We rush because we have somewhere to go, something we want to do more, stuff we want to get over with.

But it’s worth asking, as the Stoics did, what were we really rushing through? And what we are doing it at the expense of the present moment. We tell ourselves that the future—the thing we are after—will be better. But the truth is, it’s not guaranteed. The only thing for sure is now. What is lived we never get back. We are dying every minute, every second. When we hurry we are speeding that along.

That’s the purpose of memento mori—”remember that you will die.” It’s purpose is to make you slow down. To not rush through this moment but to exist in it. To be present for it. Even if it is mundane. Even if there is something else you’d rather be doing, even if what may come next is likely better.

The practice of memento mori has the profound potential to wake us up and breathe more life into our lives. The whole culture is telling us to hurry while the art tells us take your time. Listen to the art. And the heart.

Patience doesn’t mean making a pact with the devil of denial, ignoring our emotions and aspirations. It means being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that’s unfolding, rather than ripping open a budding flower or demanding a caterpillar hurry up and get that chrysalis stage over with— Sharon Salzberg

Time for us to slow down. Or the other option is to Hurry up and wait 😄 !

Sorry got to go. The next ‘ shiny object ‘ beckons. And I am all taken in by the ‘ thrill of the chase ‘ and the potential ‘ after glow ‘.

It’s worrying..or hurrying???

ENDS

A New Thought for School; a New School of Thought?

A New Thought for School; a New School of Thought?

In a world that demands continuous re imagination for a creative and self reliant age, here could be a clarion call to transform the present day school system. The rant(brilliantly put out by the mercurial Tom Peters) goes thus:-

From Teach-to-Test TO Teach to Quest

From Developing Facts TO Developing Talent

From SAT Prep(Think ‘multiple choice’) TO WOW Project(Think ‘individual choice’)

From Fetishing Generic ‘ standards ‘ TO Honoring Individual Creativity

From Quiet classrooms TO Noisy classrooms

From School as Factory with focus on ‘units ‘ TO School as Studio with focus on Uniqueness

From turning out Docile workers TO Building up Creative ‘ talent ‘

From Obedience as key virtue TO Initiative as key virtue

From Teaching to a Standard ‘norm'(Lowest Common Denominator) TO Teaching to a Standard of ‘excellence'(Highest Possible Achievement)

From a Focus on Similarities TO Focus on Differences

From Testing for ‘Intelligence'(singular) TO Teaching for ‘Intelligences'(multiple)- Mr Howard Gardner, there you have your say!

From Math & English domination TO Art and Music thriving

ENDS

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