Maria Robledo sent us these words from Mother Theresa. They’ve been reverberating as we think of the people we know that really live them…wondering if we can find —improvise— ways to do that daily.
According to motivation scientist Heidi Grant Halvorson at at 99U“Making if-then plans to tackle your current projects, or reach your goals, is probably – without exaggerating – the most effective single thing you can do to ensure your success.”
Yikes! Sign us up! What do we have to do?
If-Then thinking works like this: You decide in advancewhen and where you will take specific actions to reach your goal and then create the statement: If X happens, then I will do Y.
“IF THIS” becomes the trigger that spurs the “THEN THAT” action.
Dig this brilliance from E.B. White, author of the great Charlotte’s Web. He starts his day plan with a Principle — “…change the world and have one hell of a good time” — instead of a schedule, and knocks all the day-planning strategies and productivity experts on their heads. Yay!
(Video link here.) In the annals of self-helpism, doubt is considered something to overcome, to find ways around, to MASTER. We’ve discovered time and again that that is easier said than done. Doubt seems to come with territory of being creative, and most of the people we know just find ways to soldier through…or be felled by it periodically, only to pick themselves up and keep going.
Just as we were navigating another wave of it ourselves, wondering ARE WE CRAZY?!!, we came across artist Paul Zelevanzky’s curious antidote: a 40-second video offering a very different view of doubt:
Doubt is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
We can’t say exactly how Zelevansky’s somewhat zen-like video works, but it definitely helped to SHIFT our view. It reminded us read more…
When we were first planning ‘the improvised life’, we were inspired by this now-famous set of rules by Sister Corita Kent, artist and renown educator. They speak directly to the process of creating…ANYTHING. Here are our favorite essential rules:
Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.
Consider everything as an experiment.
Nothing is a mistake. There’s no Win and no Fail. There’s only Make.
The only rule is work. If you work, it will lead to something…
Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
Yesterday’s New York Times ran a story about Jeff Bauman, the young man in the iconic photograph from the Boston bombing. Grievously wounded, he survived because of the heroic actions of a stranger in a cowboy hat:
The Baumans [Jeff's parents] knew how lucky Jeff had been. “The man in the cowboy hat — he saved Jeff’s life,” Ms. Bauman said. Mr. Bauman’s eyes widened. He said: “There’s a video where he goes right to Jeff, picks him right up and puts him on the wheelchair and starts putting the tourniquet on him and pushing him out. I got to talk to this guy!”
The man in the cowboy hat, Carlos Arredondo,, 52, had been handing out American flags to runners when the first explosion went off. His son Alexander was a Marine killed in Iraq in 2004, and in the years since he has handed out the flags as a tribute.
With the first blast, Mr. Arredondo jumped over the fence and ran toward the people lying on the ground. What happened next, he later recounted to a reporter: read more…
We really love Flavorwire’s recent The Craziest Advice from Famous People which includes some wild stuff from cultural icons like Courteney Love, William Burroughs and Frank Zappa. We couldn’t help thinking that Jack Kerouac’s Belief & Technique for Modern Prose is a very curiously syncopated Beat poem full of jazzy wisdom about the creative process and living in general.
1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow read more…
March, 2013. A sugar snap pea vine uncurls to grasp a rusted garden fence. So tentative and fragile, it’s hard to imagine that by the end of April the fence
will be all but obliterated in a tenacity of leaves, blossoms and pods.
Kay Ryan, the sixteenth Poet Laureate of the United States, sums up what it takes to tough out life: read more…
If you can’t draw as well as someone, or use the software as well, or if you do not have as much money to buy supplies,or if you do not have access to the tools they have, beat them by being more thoughtful. Thoughtfulness is free and burns on time and empathy.
Change contexts when you’re stuck. Draw wrong-handed and upside down and backwards. Find a good seat outside.
Stop trying to be cool: it is stifling. read more…
(Video link here will take you to exactly the right point.) We love Fred Rogers’ —the famed Mister Rogers’ — perfect, illuminating acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards.
Rogers presents a simple 10-second practice that will shift your view, and provide you with a tool you can carry around throughout the day. (It starts at 1:27 seconds, or click the video link to go right there.) read more…
It seems like the better it gets, the more miserable people become. There’s never a technological advancement where people think, “Wow, we can finally do this!” … And I think a lot of it has to do with advertising. Americans have it constantly drilled into our heads, every fucking day, that we deserve everything to be perfect all the time. read more…
(Video link here.) We don’t remember how we stumbled on this video by Kathleen Hanna, a New York City-based artist best known for her groundbreaking performances in the seminal 90′s punk band, Bikini Kill, and her more recent multimedia group, Le Tigre. She made it to accompany the song Let’s Run.
We find it curiously uplifting: a loop of figure skaters falling and messing up routines, IN PUBLIC, then quickly recovering and continuing on. They seem incredibly valiant, and reminds us of Samuel Beckett’s great exhortation:
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
(Video link here.) We don’t know when we’ve seen any living being taking delight so completely as this young elephant frolicking in the surf. Somehow, watching it makes us feel its uninhibited, wholehearted, in-the-moment refreshing pleasure in a simple thing — the sea. It’s a fine reminder for the first day of the week: go full-tilt with pleasure in whatever you are doing. As Bill Murray said: Grab this day by the neck and kiss it!”
We are smitten with Lawrence E. Pierce‘s The Art of Fixing Things, principles of machines, and how to repair them: 150 tips and tricks to make things last longer, and save you money. The title and its very long blurb are not quite accurate however. The book is also a manual about MAKING things, tinkering, and the realities of the creative process. Beyond really smart, practical, concrete tips about restoring a stripped bolt, the virtues of aluminum, and how to keep paint from dripping down the can, Pierce, who has been a farmer, mechanic, handyman and litigation lawyer, also addresses mindset and process. Take Tip 68, for example:
Tip 68: Practice Breaking Things
When a difficult problem arises, set up a test on a similar part.
Let your destructive instincts run wild with spare parts. Then you will know how far you can go. read more…
. He starts his day plan with a Principle — “…change the world and have one hell of a good time” — instead of a schedule, and knocks all the day-planning strategies and productivity experts on their heads. Yay!
The title and its very long blurb are not quite accurate however. The book is also a manual about MAKING things, tinkering, and the realities of the creative process. Beyond really smart, practical, concrete tips about restoring a stripped bolt, the virtues of aluminum, and how to keep paint from dripping down the can, Pierce, who has been a farmer, mechanic, handyman and litigation lawyer, also addresses mindset and process. Take Tip 68, for example:
