READING TIME: 1 MINUTE
19 December 2018
Airports
The Person Who Has Everything
READING TIME: 1 MINUTE
Wants everything plus one
Meanwhile, someone is looking at you
and thinks you have everything
And yet, there is something you are thinking about right now
that you want
To that person
you have everything
And you want everything plus one
Through constraint the mind is free: PART 3
The
life of freelancers and artists is feast or famine. When it rains
it pours. You are either twiddling your thumbs or overwhelmed. And the time between projects is "free time" -- one project ends, a tour, a film, album, painting, etc, and the next will (eventually) begin. Sometimes it's back-to-back, sometimes it's weeks or months. Things tend to move slowly until they don't, then they move really fast.
That free time in between -- to an outsider -- can seem like a vacation. But no artist or freelancer is following a script. When a project ends, you don't know what the next project will be, don't know where it will take you. That makes the "free time" fun for all of about two days. Then the question of "what am I supposed to do now?" ensues. And if you aren't careful that question can be a slow winding staircase down into the basement of existential crisis. It looks something like this. Day 1: Sleep. Day 2: Sleep and Eat. Day 3: Sleep, eat and ask "what should I do now?"
Free time can be hard to handle because you don't know how long it will last. Maybe a day, maybe a month or longer. Money can be an issue, but as you grow in your business you learn to budget accordingly (hopefully.) Don't spend everything when flush, save some for the winter months.
What's as difficult to cope with as budgeting for money is budgeting for time. Days might stretch into weeks or months and once a person gets busy again she might look back and say "that was weeks offs." But in the moment, it is today and that is what beckons the "what am I supposed to do now?" question. The hours, right now. Wake up. Eat breakfast. Read the news. Now what? In your head there is hope or worry for next week, next month, but what about right now? How do you dismantle today?
**********************
Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit defines a habit as a loop:
CUE - ROUTINE - REWARD
Whether it's good or bad, a habit looks the same. See a cigarette (cue), smoke a cigarette (routine), get pleasure from smoking (reward). Time of day to exercise (cue), exercise (routine), feel good after exercising (reward).
To create a habit you have to have a CUE and a REWARD. For something like "going for a run", the REWARD might be obvious -- feel good after running -- but the CUE, the part where you do it the same time of day for multiple weeks in a row might be the elusive part. Or if you actually hate to run, and don't feel good, there may be no REWARD. In both cases no ROUTINE would form. But if a routine does form, then there is no thinking about when to go for a run. It just becomes a habit and there would be no brain activity of "when should I go for a run?". Duhigg uses this quote to paint a picture:
He uses an experiment as an example. Individual rats were put into a maze with chocolate at one end. Scientists using "new micro-technologies" observed activity in the rats' skulls as they encountered the maze for the first time. Initially, the brain was working hard the entire time until it found the chocolate. After a week, once the routine was familiar and the scurrying became a habit, the rats' brains settled down as it ran through the maze.
Once you understand what a habit is, and how it forms you can look at "keystone habits" -- -- habits that have the power to start a chain reaction, changing other habits. These few key priorities act as levers. The habits that matter most are the ones that dislodge and remake other patterns.
**********************
Back to our freelancer. Here's an idea that might seem crazy: set an alarm and wake up the same time every day. Could be 6am or 1pm, but get up and go from there. Create a plan, a schedule the previous day and then do it. And if it doesn't work, iterate the following day. And keep doing that over and over.
Asking "what am I supposed to do now" is incredibly taxing, mentally. It requires you to think hard, requires brain activity. Instead, know what you are going to do. Have a routine.
Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow lays out the difference between System 1 and System 2 thinking.
System 1 thinking operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. Think of it as instincts. Imagine trying to solve 2 + 2 while driving on an open highway.
System 2 thinking allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. Its operations are often associated with the experience of choice and concentration. Think of it as trying to solve (2 x (19 x 37)) while trying to park in Times Square at 4pm. NO, I mean stop and actually think about trying to solve 19 x 37. In order to do it, you have to concentrate on nothing else.
When you wake up in the morning, deciding what to do should be like driving on an open highway. It should be routine, not thinking about what to do. The schedule you create constrains your day. And then you can take comfort in that constraint. You can do anything you want, but not everything.
**********************
In their book Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein expand on their notion of "choice architecture" -- the idea that a person can be indirectly influenced by outside forces, that a system can "nudge" a person to make a decision on something (hopefully a good one.)
For instance, an employer can set up a retirement plan that automatically deducts from an employee's wages each month unless the employee "opts out." Everyone knows they should save for the future, but if they have to "opt in" they may be less likely to save. Choice architecture defaults to the option that is best, but gives the person the ability to choose.
Take this idea of "choice architecture" to set up our days. Create choices the previous day so that you automatically "opt in" to doing constructive or industrious tasks. Make an outline, a schedule to follow. "Do this for an hour, then this for fifteen minutes, then this for two hours, etc." And over days repeat and refine. Wake up the same time and do the same things. Iterate on that routine.
That free time in between -- to an outsider -- can seem like a vacation. But no artist or freelancer is following a script. When a project ends, you don't know what the next project will be, don't know where it will take you. That makes the "free time" fun for all of about two days. Then the question of "what am I supposed to do now?" ensues. And if you aren't careful that question can be a slow winding staircase down into the basement of existential crisis. It looks something like this. Day 1: Sleep. Day 2: Sleep and Eat. Day 3: Sleep, eat and ask "what should I do now?"
Free time can be hard to handle because you don't know how long it will last. Maybe a day, maybe a month or longer. Money can be an issue, but as you grow in your business you learn to budget accordingly (hopefully.) Don't spend everything when flush, save some for the winter months.
What's as difficult to cope with as budgeting for money is budgeting for time. Days might stretch into weeks or months and once a person gets busy again she might look back and say "that was weeks offs." But in the moment, it is today and that is what beckons the "what am I supposed to do now?" question. The hours, right now. Wake up. Eat breakfast. Read the news. Now what? In your head there is hope or worry for next week, next month, but what about right now? How do you dismantle today?
**********************
Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit defines a habit as a loop:
CUE - ROUTINE - REWARD
Whether it's good or bad, a habit looks the same. See a cigarette (cue), smoke a cigarette (routine), get pleasure from smoking (reward). Time of day to exercise (cue), exercise (routine), feel good after exercising (reward).
To create a habit you have to have a CUE and a REWARD. For something like "going for a run", the REWARD might be obvious -- feel good after running -- but the CUE, the part where you do it the same time of day for multiple weeks in a row might be the elusive part. Or if you actually hate to run, and don't feel good, there may be no REWARD. In both cases no ROUTINE would form. But if a routine does form, then there is no thinking about when to go for a run. It just becomes a habit and there would be no brain activity of "when should I go for a run?". Duhigg uses this quote to paint a picture:
"Water hollows out for itself a channel, which grows broader and deeper; and, after having ceased to flow, it resumes, when it flows again, the path traced by itself before."
- William James from The Principles of PsychologyHabits form because they allow the brain to work less. As Duhigg puts it "when a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts focus to other tasks."
He uses an experiment as an example. Individual rats were put into a maze with chocolate at one end. Scientists using "new micro-technologies" observed activity in the rats' skulls as they encountered the maze for the first time. Initially, the brain was working hard the entire time until it found the chocolate. After a week, once the routine was familiar and the scurrying became a habit, the rats' brains settled down as it ran through the maze.
Once you understand what a habit is, and how it forms you can look at "keystone habits" -- -- habits that have the power to start a chain reaction, changing other habits. These few key priorities act as levers. The habits that matter most are the ones that dislodge and remake other patterns.
**********************
Back to our freelancer. Here's an idea that might seem crazy: set an alarm and wake up the same time every day. Could be 6am or 1pm, but get up and go from there. Create a plan, a schedule the previous day and then do it. And if it doesn't work, iterate the following day. And keep doing that over and over.
Asking "what am I supposed to do now" is incredibly taxing, mentally. It requires you to think hard, requires brain activity. Instead, know what you are going to do. Have a routine.
Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow lays out the difference between System 1 and System 2 thinking.
System 1 thinking operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. Think of it as instincts. Imagine trying to solve 2 + 2 while driving on an open highway.
System 2 thinking allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. Its operations are often associated with the experience of choice and concentration. Think of it as trying to solve (2 x (19 x 37)) while trying to park in Times Square at 4pm. NO, I mean stop and actually think about trying to solve 19 x 37. In order to do it, you have to concentrate on nothing else.
When you wake up in the morning, deciding what to do should be like driving on an open highway. It should be routine, not thinking about what to do. The schedule you create constrains your day. And then you can take comfort in that constraint. You can do anything you want, but not everything.
**********************
In their book Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein expand on their notion of "choice architecture" -- the idea that a person can be indirectly influenced by outside forces, that a system can "nudge" a person to make a decision on something (hopefully a good one.)
For instance, an employer can set up a retirement plan that automatically deducts from an employee's wages each month unless the employee "opts out." Everyone knows they should save for the future, but if they have to "opt in" they may be less likely to save. Choice architecture defaults to the option that is best, but gives the person the ability to choose.
Take this idea of "choice architecture" to set up our days. Create choices the previous day so that you automatically "opt in" to doing constructive or industrious tasks. Make an outline, a schedule to follow. "Do this for an hour, then this for fifteen minutes, then this for two hours, etc." And over days repeat and refine. Wake up the same time and do the same things. Iterate on that routine.
09 September 2018
Through constraint the mind is free: PART 2
In his book, Creativity Inc,¹
Ed Catmull discusses how movies are made within Pixar and Disney
Animation. He walks through the mental models and philosophies they use.
One thing that stood out was his idea of "protect the new."
So it's a balance between protecting the new and running an efficient machine. Because organizations strive for efficiency and optimization of production over time (especially publicly-traded ones) "protecting the new" has to be compartmentalized. Creativity can seem inefficient, which is worrisome, but it takes trust that it will develop given time.
And then of course the inverse of "protecting the new" is that "the new" can't have all the space. It can't be too precious where time and resources have no bounds. Creativity is iterative. Sometimes an idea has to be ripped up, and tried again. A person has to keep coming back, keep showing up to work so to speak.
Once the "new" idea is there, it gets turned over and over by many people. This framework of protecting the new, but continuing to show up and iterate is a model of constraint. Constrain the efficiency and the space for new ideas. It takes balance.
********************************
NOTES:
¹ Ed Catmull, with Amy Wallace, Creativity, Inc (New York: Random House, 2014).
Whether it's the kernel of a movie idea or a fledgling internship program, the new needs protection. Business-as-usual does not. Managers do not need to work hard to protect established ideas or ways of doing business. The system is tilted to favor the incumbent. The challenger needs support to find its footing. And protection of the new -- of the future, not the past -- must be a conscious effort.As he explains, it's easy for an organization to constantly strive toward efficiency, but that can destroy creativity.
Making the process better, easier, and cheaper is an important aspiration, something we can continually work on -- but it is not the goal. Making something great is the goal.As he explains, in order to protect the new an organization has to
When efficiency or consistency of workflow are not balanced by other equally strong countervailing forces, the result is that new ideas aren't afforded the attention and protection they need to shine and mature. They are abandoned or never conceived of in the first place.
... foster the optimal conditions in which it -- whatever "it" is -- can emerge and flourish.Creating "optimal conditions" doesn't mean that artists meander around omnipotently until inspiration strikes. As he goes on to explain throughout the book, a big part of "optimal conditions" is creating an overall organization that can foster new and creative ideas and then iterate and fine-tune those ideas into a cohesive story, and ultimately produce films under critical deadlines. It takes many different people working together, each doing specialized jobs.
So it's a balance between protecting the new and running an efficient machine. Because organizations strive for efficiency and optimization of production over time (especially publicly-traded ones) "protecting the new" has to be compartmentalized. Creativity can seem inefficient, which is worrisome, but it takes trust that it will develop given time.
Creativity demands that we travel paths that lead to who-knows-where. That uncertainty can make us uncomfortable. There is a sweet spot between the known and the unknown where originality happens; the key is to be able to linger there without panicking.The point is that it's easy to try and always optimize, to become more efficient. But a framework has to be created that leaves time for new ideas. And while that might seem inefficient, it's important.
And then of course the inverse of "protecting the new" is that "the new" can't have all the space. It can't be too precious where time and resources have no bounds. Creativity is iterative. Sometimes an idea has to be ripped up, and tried again. A person has to keep coming back, keep showing up to work so to speak.
Once the "new" idea is there, it gets turned over and over by many people. This framework of protecting the new, but continuing to show up and iterate is a model of constraint. Constrain the efficiency and the space for new ideas. It takes balance.
********************************
NOTES:
¹ Ed Catmull, with Amy Wallace, Creativity, Inc (New York: Random House, 2014).
10 August 2018
Through constraint the mind is free: PART 1
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), the Russian-born composer, was quoted:
Stravinsky was famous for his ballet and orchestral work The Rite of Spring, which is by many musicians and music historians as one of the most influential pieces of music of the 20th Century. At the time, the piece stretched the rules of Western music both musically (tonality, rhythm, and meter) and through the choreography (dancers), and caused a near riot at its opening in Paris in 1913. It wasn't performed again after it's 1913 run (which was in Paris and London) until the 1920's.
By the time it was performed again Stravinsky had moved on to a different style of composing. His music career is roughly broken into three periods:
Russian period (1907-1919)
Neo-Classical period (1920-1954)
Serial period (1954-1968)
So while his most famous piece, The Rite, is seen as a visceral rule-breaking ode to Russian paganism, he moved on relatively quickly. By the time the piece was performed again he was writing in a "neo-Classical" style.
Neo-Classical is a loose term but roughly refers to music that combines characteristics of the Classical period with contemporary. The Classical period was circa 1750-1830 ... think Mozart, Haydn and early Beethoven. So the idea was to take elements of music from that period and combine it with elements of the early 20th century. To someone in the 1920's with a trained classical ear it sounded jarring. Music that sort of sounded like Mozart but at the same time sounded wrong.
How did Stravinsky accomplish this? Without going off into the woods, we can say that one of the defining characteristics of Western music is the idea of tonality -- that a piece of music is centered around one note. So if a piece, whether it's a Symphony, or a three-minute pop song, is composed in C-Major, the music revolves around, and resolves to, the note of C. When Stravinsky was composing there were hundreds of years of music theory and history that defined the rules of how music was supposed to resolve. He kept the idea of tonality, but disregarded many of the rules of how to get there. ¹
So what is the point? To Stravinsky, history was important. He saw himself as part of the Western Music lineage. But he also wanted to push the envelope, to create new ideas. So he used certain aspects of Classical Western music for restraint. And then he was free to explore new ideas within that framework.
He didn't attempt to reinvent music; if he had sat down and tried to reinvent music, the possibilities would be mind-boggling. You can't totally break all the rules of melody, harmony, rhythm, phrasing, and form and expect any listener to have context. Therefore, he constrained himself within a framework, and it allowed him to create within that framework.
********************************
Stanley Kubrick's film Eyes Wide Shut uses the second movement of György Ligeti's piano piece Musica ricercata as a recurring theme. The piece contains only three pitches: E#, F# and G. It's slow-moving and foreboding and fits the mood of the film. But how does a piece of music stay interesting with only three pitches? In fact, most of the piece only uses two pitches. It's not until the middle that you hear G. Ligeti achieves this by using other musical elements such as rhythm, note duration, and dynamic range (loudness).
Fast forward to 1:10 in the trailer here for a taste.
Ligeti (1923-2006) composed Musica ricercata between 1951 and 1953. It consists of eleven movements. The first movement contains only two pitches, or to be more exact, pitch classes. ("Pitch class" refers to all notes separated by an octave. For example, all A notes on a keyboard are in the same pitch class. It's the same note, just separated by octaves.)
In each subsequent movement, one pitch class is added. So the second movement contains three pitches, the third movement four, etc until the final, eleventh movement, which contains all twelve pitches. It looks like this (thank you Wikipedia):
This structure is the defining global characteristic of the work. Whether or not the music succeeds as interesting or engaging is determined by the listener. Or to put another way, if the listener inherently finds the music interesting without considering the overall structure, then the music succeeds. In particular, in the early movements, finding a way to keep the music interesting using only a few pitches is an exercise in simplicity and constraint.
However, the form of the piece is only that. The average listener probably doesn't notice that in the second movement there are only three pitches. All he hears is a foreboding piece of music that evokes feelings of fear, anxiety, or perhaps something different (it's subjective). What he isn't doing is sitting there saying "Wow, only two pitches. Or three pitches. And now all twelve." He is just listening.
As in Stravinsky's neo-Classical work, the form of the music is just the framework. Ultimately, the music has to stand alone in order to stand the test of time. Not critics, only listeners over time. The framework is the beginning; it allows creativity to flow.
********************************
In Chapter 16 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, author Robert Pirsig, who is professor Phaedrus in the book, has a student who is "stuck" in his writing class. The girl, who he describes as "serious, disciplined and hardworking, but extremely dull ... not a spark of creativity" is trying to write a five-hundred-word essay about the United States. She just can't think of anything to say, so he suggests she narrow it down to Bozeman, Montanta, the town where they live.
The paper came due, but she still didn't have anything, and was quite distressed. So he suggested she narrow it to one street in Bozeman. She came back the next class more despondent than ever crying that if she couldn't think of anything to say about the entirety of Bozeman, how could she think of something to say about one street.
Angrily he said to her, "You're not looking! The more you look the more you see". He told her to narrow it down to "the front of one building on main street of Bozeman. The Opera House. Start with the upper left-hand brick."
She came in the next class with a five-thousand-word essay. She didn't understand what opened the floodgates, but as she described it "I started writing about the first brick, and the second brick, and then by the third brick it all started to come and I couldn't stop".
Pirsig (again, Professor Phaedrus in the story) concluded that she was blocked because she was trying to repeat things she had heard before. She couldn't think of anything to say about Bozeman because she couldn't recall anything she had heard worth repeating. The narrowing to one brick destroyed the blockage because she had to do some original thinking. In other words, there were no essays out there about the upper-left hand brick of the Opera House.
Narrowing the subject creates a framework that frees the mind. By constraining the subject to something dull and simple, you open up the creativity; your mind is forced to create something to say. A five-hundred-word essay about the United States is ludicrous. A writer would have to be a master-historian using elegant or provocative prose to make the paragraph interesting. There is no new story there because it is too broad. But the upper-left-hand brick of the Opera House ... there is an unwritten story. Where did it come from? Who placed it? How has brick manufacturing changed in the recent past, and what are the economic ramifications of that? Etc, etc. You start at the brick, and project outward in any direction.
Through constraint the mind is free...
********************************
NOTES:
¹ Eric Salzman, Twentieth-Century Music -- an Introduction (3rd edition) (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1988).
My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.He realized that if he limited himself, he was actually opening his mind to creativity. The quote came from a series of lectures he gave at Harvard during the 1939-40 academic year. Originally given in French, they were subsequently translated into English.
Stravinsky was famous for his ballet and orchestral work The Rite of Spring, which is by many musicians and music historians as one of the most influential pieces of music of the 20th Century. At the time, the piece stretched the rules of Western music both musically (tonality, rhythm, and meter) and through the choreography (dancers), and caused a near riot at its opening in Paris in 1913. It wasn't performed again after it's 1913 run (which was in Paris and London) until the 1920's.
By the time it was performed again Stravinsky had moved on to a different style of composing. His music career is roughly broken into three periods:
Russian period (1907-1919)
Neo-Classical period (1920-1954)
Serial period (1954-1968)
So while his most famous piece, The Rite, is seen as a visceral rule-breaking ode to Russian paganism, he moved on relatively quickly. By the time the piece was performed again he was writing in a "neo-Classical" style.
Neo-Classical is a loose term but roughly refers to music that combines characteristics of the Classical period with contemporary. The Classical period was circa 1750-1830 ... think Mozart, Haydn and early Beethoven. So the idea was to take elements of music from that period and combine it with elements of the early 20th century. To someone in the 1920's with a trained classical ear it sounded jarring. Music that sort of sounded like Mozart but at the same time sounded wrong.
How did Stravinsky accomplish this? Without going off into the woods, we can say that one of the defining characteristics of Western music is the idea of tonality -- that a piece of music is centered around one note. So if a piece, whether it's a Symphony, or a three-minute pop song, is composed in C-Major, the music revolves around, and resolves to, the note of C. When Stravinsky was composing there were hundreds of years of music theory and history that defined the rules of how music was supposed to resolve. He kept the idea of tonality, but disregarded many of the rules of how to get there. ¹
So what is the point? To Stravinsky, history was important. He saw himself as part of the Western Music lineage. But he also wanted to push the envelope, to create new ideas. So he used certain aspects of Classical Western music for restraint. And then he was free to explore new ideas within that framework.
He didn't attempt to reinvent music; if he had sat down and tried to reinvent music, the possibilities would be mind-boggling. You can't totally break all the rules of melody, harmony, rhythm, phrasing, and form and expect any listener to have context. Therefore, he constrained himself within a framework, and it allowed him to create within that framework.
********************************
Stanley Kubrick's film Eyes Wide Shut uses the second movement of György Ligeti's piano piece Musica ricercata as a recurring theme. The piece contains only three pitches: E#, F# and G. It's slow-moving and foreboding and fits the mood of the film. But how does a piece of music stay interesting with only three pitches? In fact, most of the piece only uses two pitches. It's not until the middle that you hear G. Ligeti achieves this by using other musical elements such as rhythm, note duration, and dynamic range (loudness).
Fast forward to 1:10 in the trailer here for a taste.
Ligeti (1923-2006) composed Musica ricercata between 1951 and 1953. It consists of eleven movements. The first movement contains only two pitches, or to be more exact, pitch classes. ("Pitch class" refers to all notes separated by an octave. For example, all A notes on a keyboard are in the same pitch class. It's the same note, just separated by octaves.)
In each subsequent movement, one pitch class is added. So the second movement contains three pitches, the third movement four, etc until the final, eleventh movement, which contains all twelve pitches. It looks like this (thank you Wikipedia):
This structure is the defining global characteristic of the work. Whether or not the music succeeds as interesting or engaging is determined by the listener. Or to put another way, if the listener inherently finds the music interesting without considering the overall structure, then the music succeeds. In particular, in the early movements, finding a way to keep the music interesting using only a few pitches is an exercise in simplicity and constraint.
However, the form of the piece is only that. The average listener probably doesn't notice that in the second movement there are only three pitches. All he hears is a foreboding piece of music that evokes feelings of fear, anxiety, or perhaps something different (it's subjective). What he isn't doing is sitting there saying "Wow, only two pitches. Or three pitches. And now all twelve." He is just listening.
As in Stravinsky's neo-Classical work, the form of the music is just the framework. Ultimately, the music has to stand alone in order to stand the test of time. Not critics, only listeners over time. The framework is the beginning; it allows creativity to flow.
********************************
In Chapter 16 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, author Robert Pirsig, who is professor Phaedrus in the book, has a student who is "stuck" in his writing class. The girl, who he describes as "serious, disciplined and hardworking, but extremely dull ... not a spark of creativity" is trying to write a five-hundred-word essay about the United States. She just can't think of anything to say, so he suggests she narrow it down to Bozeman, Montanta, the town where they live.
The paper came due, but she still didn't have anything, and was quite distressed. So he suggested she narrow it to one street in Bozeman. She came back the next class more despondent than ever crying that if she couldn't think of anything to say about the entirety of Bozeman, how could she think of something to say about one street.
Angrily he said to her, "You're not looking! The more you look the more you see". He told her to narrow it down to "the front of one building on main street of Bozeman. The Opera House. Start with the upper left-hand brick."
She came in the next class with a five-thousand-word essay. She didn't understand what opened the floodgates, but as she described it "I started writing about the first brick, and the second brick, and then by the third brick it all started to come and I couldn't stop".
Pirsig (again, Professor Phaedrus in the story) concluded that she was blocked because she was trying to repeat things she had heard before. She couldn't think of anything to say about Bozeman because she couldn't recall anything she had heard worth repeating. The narrowing to one brick destroyed the blockage because she had to do some original thinking. In other words, there were no essays out there about the upper-left hand brick of the Opera House.
Narrowing the subject creates a framework that frees the mind. By constraining the subject to something dull and simple, you open up the creativity; your mind is forced to create something to say. A five-hundred-word essay about the United States is ludicrous. A writer would have to be a master-historian using elegant or provocative prose to make the paragraph interesting. There is no new story there because it is too broad. But the upper-left-hand brick of the Opera House ... there is an unwritten story. Where did it come from? Who placed it? How has brick manufacturing changed in the recent past, and what are the economic ramifications of that? Etc, etc. You start at the brick, and project outward in any direction.
Through constraint the mind is free...
********************************
NOTES:
¹ Eric Salzman, Twentieth-Century Music -- an Introduction (3rd edition) (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1988).
07 July 2018
We do the shows for free
We flew Kiev -> Paris -> NYC and I am standing in the Global Entry line at JFK. There are a dozen or so ATM-sized terminals that scan your passport and finger prints and spit out a
piece of paper with your picture on it, which you then hand to the immigration officer. One immigration officer, a dozen terminals. So if one person has bad info, or his paper says the wrong thing, the line gets held up. And right now it's held up.
People are impatiently checking their phones, cocking their heads and standing on their tip-toes to see why the line isn't moving. Funny, because the Global Entry line is already one-tenth the wait of the regular line, but human nature is such that we always want to optimize further.
As I am standing there, a Delta pilot finished at one of the machines with his paper and I let him cut. I am holding a saxophone case and he turns around and says, "is that an instrument?"
"Saxophone"
"I played when I was a kid ... it's tough."
I said, "well if it were easy everyone would do it probably."
He asked if I was in a band and I said I traveled with one.
"ahh that's cool."
I said, "the shows are fun, the travel is hard."
He laughed. He is a pilot, so he knows a thing or two about travel.
I said, "we do the shows for free, we get paid to travel. Probably the same as you ... you'll fly the planes for free, the hard part is the travel."
He laughed again and then the line opened and we went through.
In my mind, the nonsense of being a pilot is the security lines, shuttles, hotel check-ins, continental breakfasts, etc. Getting to the cockpit where he can sit behind the controls and flip the switches is the fun part.
We do the shows for free, we get paid to travel. Pilots fly the planes for free, they get paid to travel. Chefs will cook for free, they get paid to manage the kitchen. River guides will raft for free, they get paid to take out tourists. Photographers will shoot for free, they get paid to deal with clients. Etc.
*************************
Julio Cortázar, the Argentinian-born writer, and 1960's Parisian flâneur, had an excerpt from his novel Hopscotch that went:
Imagine flipping the switches of a Boeing 777 before take off, the industrial click. And that feeling in your stomach when the wheels lift off the ground. Just that one second. It's instant, like the glow of a firefly. That's the privilege that makes all the nonsense of travel worth it.
People are impatiently checking their phones, cocking their heads and standing on their tip-toes to see why the line isn't moving. Funny, because the Global Entry line is already one-tenth the wait of the regular line, but human nature is such that we always want to optimize further.
As I am standing there, a Delta pilot finished at one of the machines with his paper and I let him cut. I am holding a saxophone case and he turns around and says, "is that an instrument?"
"Saxophone"
"I played when I was a kid ... it's tough."
I said, "well if it were easy everyone would do it probably."
He asked if I was in a band and I said I traveled with one.
"ahh that's cool."
I said, "the shows are fun, the travel is hard."
He laughed. He is a pilot, so he knows a thing or two about travel.
I said, "we do the shows for free, we get paid to travel. Probably the same as you ... you'll fly the planes for free, the hard part is the travel."
He laughed again and then the line opened and we went through.
In my mind, the nonsense of being a pilot is the security lines, shuttles, hotel check-ins, continental breakfasts, etc. Getting to the cockpit where he can sit behind the controls and flip the switches is the fun part.
We do the shows for free, we get paid to travel. Pilots fly the planes for free, they get paid to travel. Chefs will cook for free, they get paid to manage the kitchen. River guides will raft for free, they get paid to take out tourists. Photographers will shoot for free, they get paid to deal with clients. Etc.
*************************
Julio Cortázar, the Argentinian-born writer, and 1960's Parisian flâneur, had an excerpt from his novel Hopscotch that went:
I do not believe the firefly gets any great satisfaction from the incontrovertible fact that he is one of the most amazing wonders on this circus, and yet one can imagine a consciousness alert enough to understand that every time he lights his belly this light-bearing bug must feel some inkling of privilege.Privilege is key. There are certain parts of certain jobs that are a privilege, that offer an inherent satisfaction that the person is doing something not everyone gets to do. Finding those moments is key. Therein lies the joy of work. You shouldn't try too hard to find them, they come naturally, and if you look too hard you'll miss them.
Imagine flipping the switches of a Boeing 777 before take off, the industrial click. And that feeling in your stomach when the wheels lift off the ground. Just that one second. It's instant, like the glow of a firefly. That's the privilege that makes all the nonsense of travel worth it.
22 June 2018
Rumi and learning
From Rumi's poem "A Great Wagon"
There will always be instances when you feel you are right and someone else is wrong. And you will be upset. How you deal with emotions will have a bearing on how the situation plays out. Or as Aristotle put it:
As Daniel Goleman puts it in his book Emotional Intelligence, "Emotions are contagious. We transmit and catch moods from each other in what amounts to a subterranean economy of the psyche in which some encounters are toxic, some nourishing. We catch feelings from one another as though they were some kind of social virus."
Even if you "win" the argument, what are the trailing effects? The perturbations you create in the universe don't dissipate into thin air. Everything is connected with sensitivity. Will you think about it tomorrow and feel bad? Will you see this person again? Does that person know someone you work with? Will you need something later in the day or down the line? Will you offer them the opportunity to learn so they don't make mistakes with other people?
Or perhaps turn it around on yourself. Could have done something differently in the first place to avoid the confrontation? If you lived it over again from the beginning, what would you do differently to avoid the confrontation?
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,***********************
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'
doesn’t make any sense.
There will always be instances when you feel you are right and someone else is wrong. And you will be upset. How you deal with emotions will have a bearing on how the situation plays out. Or as Aristotle put it:
Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, as the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not easy.
It isn't about being right or wrong, but about having the opportunity to learn or teach. If you become emotional and angry you will trigger emotions in the other person which block the ability to learn; you deprive him or her. Those instincts block the rational part of the brain. It's okay to use instincts to initiate, but pause and allow the rational side to catch up.
As Daniel Goleman puts it in his book Emotional Intelligence, "Emotions are contagious. We transmit and catch moods from each other in what amounts to a subterranean economy of the psyche in which some encounters are toxic, some nourishing. We catch feelings from one another as though they were some kind of social virus."
Even if you "win" the argument, what are the trailing effects? The perturbations you create in the universe don't dissipate into thin air. Everything is connected with sensitivity. Will you think about it tomorrow and feel bad? Will you see this person again? Does that person know someone you work with? Will you need something later in the day or down the line? Will you offer them the opportunity to learn so they don't make mistakes with other people?
Or perhaps turn it around on yourself. Could have done something differently in the first place to avoid the confrontation? If you lived it over again from the beginning, what would you do differently to avoid the confrontation?
02 June 2018
World Map of 1459
As a reminder that there is always something that you don't see ...
No matter how right you think you are, there is always another point of view that matters as much, and is as dynamic as yours.
There were whole other continents.
******************************
... the Fra Mauro map is a map of the world made around 1450 by the Italian cartographer Fra Mauro ... includes Asia, the Indian Ocean, Africa, Europe and the Atlantic. It is oriented with south at the top.
... took several years to complete and was very expensive to produce ... was the most detailed and accurate representation of the world that had been produced up until that time ...
Wiki link
No matter how right you think you are, there is always another point of view that matters as much, and is as dynamic as yours.
There were whole other continents.
******************************
... the Fra Mauro map is a map of the world made around 1450 by the Italian cartographer Fra Mauro ... includes Asia, the Indian Ocean, Africa, Europe and the Atlantic. It is oriented with south at the top.
... took several years to complete and was very expensive to produce ... was the most detailed and accurate representation of the world that had been produced up until that time ...
Wiki link
03 May 2018
The "creative side"
We had a day off out by LAX so got sushi at this place next to our hotel. It was in a strip mall like many of the best sushi spots in LA and this one did not disappoint. Good sushi in LA is ubiquitous -- at least compared to anywhere else in the US, and some of the best places are in strip malls: pawn shop, laundromat, liquor store, pharmacy, sushi restaurant packed out.
As luck would have it we got a table without a reservation. A few minutes after we sat down a dapper, handsome fellow sat at the the table next to us. He was chatty but pleasant, and started a conversation with us -- total strangers -- which is a skill. It takes a balance of vulnerability and self-confidence to start up and then maintain a conversation with strangers. Talking at someone is one thing, but starting a genuine back-and-forth is another.
He was a software engineer turned exec. We could tell right away he was successful because the stories he touched on were of CEO's, writers and the Dalai Lama. He was waiting for a friend and had brought her a tidy gift-wrapped box. She ended up being twenty minutes late so in that time we chatted.
He learned that we worked with a touring band and that shifted the conversation away from the board room. Trying to relate, he told us of his friend who was a drummer in a regional cover band in New Orleans. That lead to stories of his college days. He studied film and originally wanted to make movies. But after college he was drawn to the "business side."
He lamented, and seemed to have genuinely somber reminiscences about wishing he had stayed on the "creative side" as he called it. As if some part of him were lost, or buried deep down.
***********************
What is the "creative side?"
To him, it seemed to be the department within the business organization that contained people who created content. It wasn't the creative side of him that wanted to come out, but him wanting to be a different person, someone who lived a different life and did different things.
What he referred to as the creative side I would call a professional artist, someone who pays her bills and supports herself with the money she exchanges for her art. And in my experience professional artists don't work on the "creative side", they live and breath projects.
What I didn't say to him (and never would) is that he probably never had what it took to be a professional artist. I mean that not as a knock on his creative abilities but as a matter of fact based on what most professional artists have to endure in their careers.
For instance, he had gone to film school, but did he have the burning, at-all-costs drive to make a movie? Did he ever stay up working 18-20 hours a day for weeks or months at a time on a project? Was he tormented by it? Did he let projects ruin relationships, his health, his bank accounts? Was he obsessive? Because that is what I have seen.
Some artists can look you in the eye and carry a conversation but mentally they are off somewhere else ... working out a melody in their head. Creativity isn't something you gain without giving something else up. It takes a spark, but it also takes lots of dedication and perseverance. A person can't only just sit around and wait for inspiration to strike. As with any other career, to be a successful professional artist, you have to go above and beyond. You have to over-deliver. It's competitive.
So that is what he was up against. Perhaps he is much better suited to staying off the "creative side". He was married, had kids, had a great job, had stories of the Dalai Lama, traveled.
Years ago, I read this Bukowski poem that stuck with me. It was from the last poetry book he wrote called The Last Night of the Earth Poems (p. 1992). The poem gives some insight into what he thought it took to be a writer. It isn't about having the right conditions like light, time or space. To be a writer you have to write. And someone with an innate inherent need to write will do that regardless of her situation.
air and light and time and space by Charles Bukowski
So I guess my point is that the "creative side" doesn't exist. What he called the "creative side" is actually a person with an innate inherent desire to work on projects. And then if you combine that with a combination of talent, perseverance, luck, personal network and any number of other "success" factors, you get someone who has managed to sustain herself as a professional artist.
As luck would have it we got a table without a reservation. A few minutes after we sat down a dapper, handsome fellow sat at the the table next to us. He was chatty but pleasant, and started a conversation with us -- total strangers -- which is a skill. It takes a balance of vulnerability and self-confidence to start up and then maintain a conversation with strangers. Talking at someone is one thing, but starting a genuine back-and-forth is another.
He was a software engineer turned exec. We could tell right away he was successful because the stories he touched on were of CEO's, writers and the Dalai Lama. He was waiting for a friend and had brought her a tidy gift-wrapped box. She ended up being twenty minutes late so in that time we chatted.
He learned that we worked with a touring band and that shifted the conversation away from the board room. Trying to relate, he told us of his friend who was a drummer in a regional cover band in New Orleans. That lead to stories of his college days. He studied film and originally wanted to make movies. But after college he was drawn to the "business side."
He lamented, and seemed to have genuinely somber reminiscences about wishing he had stayed on the "creative side" as he called it. As if some part of him were lost, or buried deep down.
***********************
What is the "creative side?"
To him, it seemed to be the department within the business organization that contained people who created content. It wasn't the creative side of him that wanted to come out, but him wanting to be a different person, someone who lived a different life and did different things.
What he referred to as the creative side I would call a professional artist, someone who pays her bills and supports herself with the money she exchanges for her art. And in my experience professional artists don't work on the "creative side", they live and breath projects.
What I didn't say to him (and never would) is that he probably never had what it took to be a professional artist. I mean that not as a knock on his creative abilities but as a matter of fact based on what most professional artists have to endure in their careers.
For instance, he had gone to film school, but did he have the burning, at-all-costs drive to make a movie? Did he ever stay up working 18-20 hours a day for weeks or months at a time on a project? Was he tormented by it? Did he let projects ruin relationships, his health, his bank accounts? Was he obsessive? Because that is what I have seen.
Some artists can look you in the eye and carry a conversation but mentally they are off somewhere else ... working out a melody in their head. Creativity isn't something you gain without giving something else up. It takes a spark, but it also takes lots of dedication and perseverance. A person can't only just sit around and wait for inspiration to strike. As with any other career, to be a successful professional artist, you have to go above and beyond. You have to over-deliver. It's competitive.
So that is what he was up against. Perhaps he is much better suited to staying off the "creative side". He was married, had kids, had a great job, had stories of the Dalai Lama, traveled.
Years ago, I read this Bukowski poem that stuck with me. It was from the last poetry book he wrote called The Last Night of the Earth Poems (p. 1992). The poem gives some insight into what he thought it took to be a writer. It isn't about having the right conditions like light, time or space. To be a writer you have to write. And someone with an innate inherent need to write will do that regardless of her situation.
air and light and time and space by Charles Bukowski
'- you know, I've either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I've sold my house, I've found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I'm going to have a place and
the time to
create.'
no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you're going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you're on
welfare,
you're going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you're going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don't create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses for.
So I guess my point is that the "creative side" doesn't exist. What he called the "creative side" is actually a person with an innate inherent desire to work on projects. And then if you combine that with a combination of talent, perseverance, luck, personal network and any number of other "success" factors, you get someone who has managed to sustain herself as a professional artist.
07 April 2018
It's cold in Minneapolis in February
It's the start of a tour cycle and the first gig is an outdoor concert, in February, in Minneapolis. It's for the Super Bowl. We're playing the night before the game as part of the festivities. The weather calls for 5 degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill of minus 6 and snow. ... we're playing an outdoor show. A rather portentous way to kick off the year, but we're told "it's a great opportunity."
I know there is plenty I don't see and so I don't pontificate on what is great about it. But I can take solace in the fact that working in zero degree weather today will make thirty or forty down the road easy.
Let me fast-forward now through the gig and say that it went off better than expected but mostly because we had managed to sink our expectations so low. Overall, the show went off but we did have problems.
The set started late because we had problems with the gear. This made the event producers anxious. At one point one of them came to me and asked "What's going on? How close are you? What's the issue?"
I turned and said "The gear is all FUCKED up. It's fucked." Not with exclamation points, but matter-of-factly.
That provoked "Is it because of the cold?"
"Yea and the snow. This gear isn't meant to operate in 5 degree weather."
I find this layman sort of answer works better than going into technicals. If I have said ... "The Stage Rack took a shit because of the cold. So they are now going one-for-one on the back of the SC48. It takes a few minutes. Also, one of the IEM transmitters isn't transmitting, which is an unrelated problem" ... it would have meant nothing.
"It'll take a few minutes. I know we had a twenty minute changeover, but that is standard based on normal conditions. If the conditions are different there's a chance the outcome will also be different."
**********************
I guess it seems so obvious that you wouldn't have an outdoor concert in 5 degree weather. But I know there is much that I don't see. And at some point someone weighing her options just said, "Well, we don't have any other choice. We have to do the concert outside."
The complexities of our world sometimes lead us to situations that we don't understand. I'll say it again for the third time, there is plenty I don't see. So I don't see why it's a great opportunity to play an outdoor concert in Minneapolis in February. But someone else, doing some other job, may see it as the start of a fruitful relationship.
Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky are famous for their work on cognitive biases -- human judgement errors. Basically they've shown how humans make errors in decision-making based on processes like emotions, social influence, "short-cut" thinking, and others.
One such cognitive bias is WYSIATI -- What You See Is All There Is. It's exactly what it sounds like in that we only see the world that we see. We don't see beyond anything outside of our own head.
And yet -- despite the fact that there is so much that we don't see -- we make decisions based on only our worldview. So in this instance my world is the logistics of production. And to me, it's totally fucked. But someone else's world is brand relationship. And to them, it's a success.
Over the long-term, successful teams need balance -- some middle ground where it's good enough for everyone.
If we did the event over again, and production was omnipotent we might do the show inside, in a venue that is too small. And it will be ideal for production, but a disaster for brand relationships because not enough people will be able to attend. Production would need to recognize that.
Ideally every project will have balance. But if a project doesn't have balance, you need some team members to make up for it. Short-term pain can lead to long-term gain. But only if the pain causes reflection, which leads to fixes.
**********************
Either way, we are stuck with the pain on this one. Sometimes situations are just bad, and they beget bad outcomes for some people. And you can't follow up a really bad situation with small fixes. You can't tinker your way out of it.
The 80 / 20 Principle works in reverse too. The 80 / 20 Principle says that 80% of the output comes from 20% of the input. It's usually used to describe things like corporate efficiency where 20% of the customers provide 80% of a company's income; or wealth distribution where 20% of the people hold 80% of the wealth. Sometimes these instances are more like 95 / 5 but the principle of it is that a few small things have a disproportionate effect on the outcome.
In this instance 80% of our day will be dictated by the simple decision of "let's do the concert outdoors." That one simple decision will have such an impact on our day that we won't be able to overcome it.
For instance, there were heaters on the stage but it was equivalent to sticking a heater out in an open field because the stage was open in all directions. There was snow on the stage and gear because it was windy and the snow was blowing in sideways.
The key wasn't to have heaters or canopies, the key was to not have an outdoor concert in February in Minneapolis.
**********************
Overall I think the takeaway is that sometimes ideas and situations are just bad, and you are stuck with them on a project or for a short period of time. But you have to overcome them. And then impart the problem to the team so reflection can lead to future fixes, which balance out the team. Short-term pain can lead to long-term gain.
If the team doesn't have balance over the long-term -- if one part of the team gets stuck with the short end of the stick too often, they won't be able to overcome it and the whole thing will suffer.
In this instance we're just a band showing up to do a gig. We don't see behind the scenes of the decision-making. Hopefully they will aim for balance.
For me though, it was best to recognize that this day was going to be difficult, but that we needed to overcome it and move on. We weren't going to be able to tinker our way to an easy day. I can stare the cold wind and snow in the face and say, "I see you. I feel your sting. I acknowledge your strength. But this is one day, and I will use you as a point of reflection."
I know there is plenty I don't see and so I don't pontificate on what is great about it. But I can take solace in the fact that working in zero degree weather today will make thirty or forty down the road easy.
Let me fast-forward now through the gig and say that it went off better than expected but mostly because we had managed to sink our expectations so low. Overall, the show went off but we did have problems.
The set started late because we had problems with the gear. This made the event producers anxious. At one point one of them came to me and asked "What's going on? How close are you? What's the issue?"
I turned and said "The gear is all FUCKED up. It's fucked." Not with exclamation points, but matter-of-factly.
That provoked "Is it because of the cold?"
"Yea and the snow. This gear isn't meant to operate in 5 degree weather."
I find this layman sort of answer works better than going into technicals. If I have said ... "The Stage Rack took a shit because of the cold. So they are now going one-for-one on the back of the SC48. It takes a few minutes. Also, one of the IEM transmitters isn't transmitting, which is an unrelated problem" ... it would have meant nothing.
"It'll take a few minutes. I know we had a twenty minute changeover, but that is standard based on normal conditions. If the conditions are different there's a chance the outcome will also be different."
**********************
I guess it seems so obvious that you wouldn't have an outdoor concert in 5 degree weather. But I know there is much that I don't see. And at some point someone weighing her options just said, "Well, we don't have any other choice. We have to do the concert outside."
The complexities of our world sometimes lead us to situations that we don't understand. I'll say it again for the third time, there is plenty I don't see. So I don't see why it's a great opportunity to play an outdoor concert in Minneapolis in February. But someone else, doing some other job, may see it as the start of a fruitful relationship.
Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky are famous for their work on cognitive biases -- human judgement errors. Basically they've shown how humans make errors in decision-making based on processes like emotions, social influence, "short-cut" thinking, and others.
One such cognitive bias is WYSIATI -- What You See Is All There Is. It's exactly what it sounds like in that we only see the world that we see. We don't see beyond anything outside of our own head.
And yet -- despite the fact that there is so much that we don't see -- we make decisions based on only our worldview. So in this instance my world is the logistics of production. And to me, it's totally fucked. But someone else's world is brand relationship. And to them, it's a success.
Over the long-term, successful teams need balance -- some middle ground where it's good enough for everyone.
If we did the event over again, and production was omnipotent we might do the show inside, in a venue that is too small. And it will be ideal for production, but a disaster for brand relationships because not enough people will be able to attend. Production would need to recognize that.
Ideally every project will have balance. But if a project doesn't have balance, you need some team members to make up for it. Short-term pain can lead to long-term gain. But only if the pain causes reflection, which leads to fixes.
**********************
Either way, we are stuck with the pain on this one. Sometimes situations are just bad, and they beget bad outcomes for some people. And you can't follow up a really bad situation with small fixes. You can't tinker your way out of it.
The 80 / 20 Principle works in reverse too. The 80 / 20 Principle says that 80% of the output comes from 20% of the input. It's usually used to describe things like corporate efficiency where 20% of the customers provide 80% of a company's income; or wealth distribution where 20% of the people hold 80% of the wealth. Sometimes these instances are more like 95 / 5 but the principle of it is that a few small things have a disproportionate effect on the outcome.
In this instance 80% of our day will be dictated by the simple decision of "let's do the concert outdoors." That one simple decision will have such an impact on our day that we won't be able to overcome it.
For instance, there were heaters on the stage but it was equivalent to sticking a heater out in an open field because the stage was open in all directions. There was snow on the stage and gear because it was windy and the snow was blowing in sideways.
The key wasn't to have heaters or canopies, the key was to not have an outdoor concert in February in Minneapolis.
**********************
Overall I think the takeaway is that sometimes ideas and situations are just bad, and you are stuck with them on a project or for a short period of time. But you have to overcome them. And then impart the problem to the team so reflection can lead to future fixes, which balance out the team. Short-term pain can lead to long-term gain.
If the team doesn't have balance over the long-term -- if one part of the team gets stuck with the short end of the stick too often, they won't be able to overcome it and the whole thing will suffer.
In this instance we're just a band showing up to do a gig. We don't see behind the scenes of the decision-making. Hopefully they will aim for balance.
For me though, it was best to recognize that this day was going to be difficult, but that we needed to overcome it and move on. We weren't going to be able to tinker our way to an easy day. I can stare the cold wind and snow in the face and say, "I see you. I feel your sting. I acknowledge your strength. But this is one day, and I will use you as a point of reflection."
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