…While we’re on the subject of bound dictionaries, largely considered an anachronism these days, we loved finding a dictionary on a stand at Zeitgeist Coffee in Seattle. We found ourselves flipping through randomly to discover a few odd words and ideas we never would have found otherwise: teeny surprises in our day, and a reminder read more…
learn
‘harness the power of being an idiot!’
Half awake this morning, a quote on O’Reilly Radar caught our eye: “Harness the power of being an idiot”. That’s for US, for sure!
So we followed the link to PeteSearch, the blog of Pete Warden. He is a programmer, software engineer (including years at Apple), graphics researcher and serious technology guy (he’s developed an interesting search module for Firefox). He tells the story of running into someone he went to school with at a conference, and remembering his abysmal academic career:
“I learn by trying to build something, there’s no other way I can discover the devils-in-the-details. Unfortunately that’s an incredibly inefficient way to gain knowledge. I basically wander around stepping on every rake in the grass, while the A Students memorize someone else’s route and carefully pick their way across the lawn without incident. My only saving graces are that every now and again I discover a better path, and faced with a completely new lawn I have an instinct for where the rakes are… my successes have all come when I’ve just gone ahead and just did something instead of studying it. It’s the only way to discover something new and unexpected, and even the failures build judgment.”
Boy, do we relate to Warden’s unkempt “try it and see” approach, falling into brambles, getting lost, then found. We love his declaration of POWER inherent in mistakes, which, invariably teach us a lot and often point to an unexpected path.
on things “not looking good while you’re working on them”
In a 2008 New Yorker profile, artist John Currin said something about the process of painting that knocked us out because it is SO much about improvising, about making anything where you’re not entirely sure where you’re going:
“…a big part of painting is getting used to things not looking good while you’re working on them. “
A really big part of improvising/making/creating is getting used to things not looking good while you’re working on them. We suspect that is one of the reasons why improvising is difficult for some people:
when pretty or cool = a bad idea
A couple of years ago, we started a file called “bad ideas”. These are ideas featured in shelter/style magazines that look really good, but practically speaking, are really bad. They’d come back to haunt you in no time. Stacked magazines seem like a perfect, charming solution for a table leg, but have you ever TRIED to stack magazines more than a foot high, which, with their glossy paper, are nearly impossible to keep from sliding around, much less as a 2 1/2 foot support for a slab of glass? (Unless, maybe, you bore a hole through them and put a pipe through the center to secretly hold them together).
We’re got nothing against cool-for-the-sake-of-cool design. But we really mind design that masquerades as a practical idea and has a lot of back-end problems. read more…
on making mistakes (in public, no less)
This morning a reader wrote to alert me, very gently and carefully, to a glaring typo in yesterday’s post on self-publishing. I wrote “elicit” when I meant “illicit”. Yikes! It got me thinking about making mistakes, (in public, no less) like this one made last night, when I was writing the post late, blind after a long day, moving too fast…
Oh well. Having spent years as a perfectionist, these days I’m opting for less perfection, for trying to get to the point, get things out there, improvise, try stuff, make mistakes. (But then, this is not surgery or flying an airplane.) And when I make mistakes: own up, learn from them, correct them… and try to write enough ahead to give the work to a copy editor (a friend)…
The reader who corrected me this morning also wrote that she loved ‘the improvised life’ despite its typos, and told this story about how it has influenced her thinking: read more…
dangerous things an adult should do
Writing the post about Gever Tulley’s Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) made us wonder about dangerous things adults SHOULD do in order to explore and learn about the world, figure out what’s what and live fully, just like Tulley thinks kids should do. And that made us think about the very notion of DANGER because, once you become an adult, dangers and fears become a really quirky personal thing: What seems dangerous and challenging to one adult might seem like a piece-of-cake to another, way beyond the obvious challenges like sky-diving or climbing Everest. It can seem dangerous to travel to a foreign country, write something, paint something, not wear make-up, live alone, go camping, learn to swim, buy a house, improvise a dish, love…
And that brings us to the idea of REAL danger versus perceived danger, and the IDEAS that stop us from doing something we want to do.
So we’ve come to think that a good thing for an adult to learn is to gently put aside a fear here and there – not try to get rid of it, but do what we fear anyway, or even just take a step toward doing something we fear. And gradually step-by-step we find ourself not being so daunted, or even feeling pretty liberated, or doing something amazing. And, just like kids, in the doing, we learn…
(This is one those one idea-leading-to-another posts that asks more questions than it answers…it is what some folks call “an inquiry”, an idea we’re mulling and exploring. We invite you to comment and add your 2-cents..)
photo via Creative Commons License
Related post: 5(0) Dangerous Things Your Kids (and You) Should Do
5(0) dangerous things your kids (and you) should do
Gever Tulley, founder of Tinkering School for Kids, has published Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)
throw a spear…
…make a bomb in a bag…
…spend an hour blindfolded…
…construct my own flying machine…
…melt glass…
Tulley isn’t cavalierly sending your kids (or you) into danger. He gives detailed instruction and explanations about the why’s and how’s things work, as well as possible dangers. He figures, wisely, if your kid really understands how something works, she will be more able to navigate its challenges herself, use it creatively AND stay safer.
About a year ago, Tulley gave a taste of his book-to-be in a TED talk called “Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do”. It’s full of wisdom about learning, creativity and danger safety. Here’s the video, and the transcript, along with a page from the new book:
haiti in mind (kindergarten)
A friend emailed this cell-phone photo of a kindergarten room. HLP HATE is not a strange coded statement about “hate” as it might seem at first glance, but a child’s spelling of “HELP HAITI”: a thoughtful attempt to help, in whatever way possible …pennies, nickles, dimes, quarters…
These little kids are envisioning…
…the world beyond themselves…
…they are imagining…
…how to help…
With thanks to Sally Swift!
oddly brilliant gifts + following your own odd brilliance
In an attempt to figure out what I might like for Christmas, my sister Susy sent me a list of fun, oddly brilliant gift ideas I would never have thought of:
-cable tv subscriptions for premium channels
-night vision binoculars or goggles
-flash paper to make sparks fly from your hands
-devices to measure volume, area, distance in rooms
-an assortment of thrift store oddity books (ventriloquism, etc.)
-a Flip 60-minute mini camera w/usb
-a cheese-stick sized recorder that transfers voice files to your computer
-a telescope to view the stars from your apartment
-a voice synthesizer that makes you sound like a man on the phone
I’d like any one of these gifts (though am curiously compelled by the flash paper).
Susy is an incredibly imaginative person. A few years ago, she re-invented herself. read more…
learning about color (a daily practice)
Do you ever feel like you just can’t figure out what colors go with what? Being great at color is clearly a special gift, but we mortals can learn to find our way with a little help. Consciously looking at wonderful combinations of color is a way of training the eye: a practice. And an easy way to start practicing is to visit Studio Horn, color master Eve Ashcraft’s quirky personal blog about “Design, Art, Absurdity, Obscurity, Good Shopping, Farming, Wild Life, Urban Life, Domesticated Animals, Humans, Color, Architecture, Photography, Ideas and Happiness”.
Ashcraft, who has consulted about color for Martha Stewart, Architectural Digest and Benjamin Moore Paints, to name a few, has a regular post theme called “Today’s Color Palette“. read more…
origami’s cosmic potential
On December 8th, PBS’s Independent Lens will air Between the Folds, a film that chronicles ten fine artists and theoretical scientists who have forged unconventional lives – often abandoning careers – practicing the unlikely medium of origami. They use paper-folding to explore new ideas about science, mathematics and creativity. Judging from the trailer, the film is about a great deal more than this simple description and worth marking on your calendar. Writes Director, Vanessa Gould:
“At its heart, Between the Folds is a film about potential. The potential of an uncut paper square. The potential of a wild scientific idea. The potential to see things differently... read more…
tool for improvising: embrace mistakes
Today, I found a comment at the end of my post about deferring judgment. It read:
“Is it too judgmental to note that in the U.S. “judgment” is the preferred spelling?”
OMG!!! The sign I had spent forever trying to make was spelled wrong (“judgment” is spelled correctly elsewhere in the post). It is NOT too judgmental to alert me to errors, as I rely on several friends to do; I am typ0-prone. But, there is a story behind the mistake, and as with many mistakes, some redemption. read more…
tinkering schools for kids and adults
Gever Tully started a Tinkering School for kids, an exploratory curriculum designed to teach kids how to build the things they think of. By exploratory he means setting kids loose in a shop full of tools and materials (with supervision) and encouragement to “fool around”. In his wonderful TED talk, Tully describes the “deep internal realization” kids have from the experience, which happen to be the same ones you get (at any age) from improvising:
“that you can figure things out as you fool around”…
…nothing turns out as planned – ever…
…all projects go awry…
…success is in the doing (failures are celebrated and analyzed; problems become puzzles)…”
As I watched Tulley’s talk, I thought: I want to go there! I want a tinkering school for grownups! read more…
creating your (urban) homestead
I am a farmer trapped in a city-person’s body, torn between love of urban and yearning to grow vegetables, keep bees, preserve food. I know there are a lot of us around.
Why should it be either/or? Although I’ve been figuring out country ways in my small city apartment for years, a new book has opened my eyes to possibilities I never thought of, and gives the wherewithal to do them. read more…
sewing advice for beginners
I have a lot of sewing projects I’d like to do – making pillow covers our of sari fabric, aprons out of gorgeous linen, for example - but didn’t know where to begin. So I asked my friend Lydia, who is the absolute best and most gifted textile person I know. (She’s masterminding some projects that I’ll be posting, with patterns and pictures for d-i-y. ) Here’s Lydia’s advice for beginners: read more…
