Philosophy

If you can’t paint something good, paint something red. If you can’t paint something red, paint something big.

That’s some advice that is sometimes joking tossed around in the art world. It’s a joke, obviously dripping with sarcasm – but there’s some value in it. First of all, who it’s making fun of it’s immediately apparent. Maybe it’s poking fun at the artists, suggesting that making “good” art is as simple as color choice and scale. Maybe it’s a comment on the viewer, implying what is being painted isn’t as important as it’s size and boldness. Is creating good work that simple? Of course not. Are viewer that shallow? No way. Well, not often anyway.

But as with much in the art world, it’s not necessarily meant to be taken at face value. This is the kind of statement an instructor will still a student who is complaining of not being inspired or the equivalent of “writers block.” It’s meant to be a kick in the ass to get them to get started. The reason for this is before you begin a work the variables are infinite. It’s daunting really, you have millions of colors at your disposal – how can you chose which one to begin with? What if it turns out to be the wrong shade? What if you run out? What if you use too much? This can go on and on and an artist can spend hours, days, hell – years in some cases debating these issues all the while not actually making anything.

So the advice is basically saying forget about painting something good, and forget all the other options and just use red. This isn’t because red is somehow the best color, it simply throws out all those millions of options and replaces them with one. If an artists has only have one color to choose from, their decision of which color to start with is going to take a lot less time. Of course the decision of which color to start with isn’t really the thing stopping them from starting, it’s the doubt and over thinking that is standing in the way. This advice is just a tool to help chip away at that. If an artist starts painting they might paint something crappy, but the next thing they paint will suck a little less.

I’m using art as an example here but of course this really applies to anything creative. Merlin Mann recently gave a talk that mirrors some of these thoughts that is really worth listening to. He’s talking about writing, as that’s his creative medium of choice, but the philosophy applies to just about anything. He talks about the endless things a writer can worry about that will prevent them from actually putting words on a page. What font? What format? What approach? Is this the right chair to sit in while writing? Maybe that program would work better. The questions are endless and a writer will never have the perfect answer to them before actually writing something. Worrying about perfection before you have anything to perfect is the best way to stop you from getting started.

I talked about perfectionism a little while ago when I wrote about talking yourself out of things and much of that echos in these thoughts. You’ll never make something good if you don’t make something and the only way to make something is to get comfortable with the fact that a lot of what you make isn’t going to be good. Getting through that and letting go of the desire to make only good things is one of the hardest things for creative folks. In terms of writing Merlin suggests that a writer commit to writing some amount of text every morning knowing full well it will be utter crap, but until that is done nothing else can be started including the actual thing they wanted to write that day. It’s a wall you have to push through.

This doesn’t only apply to creativity. Forced limitations can be a very powerful tool for focusing on any task you might have at hand. This is one of my favorite thing about long flights in fact. Being stuck in a seat cut off from the rest of the world for 10 or more hours has proven to be an amazing motivator for me to GSD (get shit done). I’ve read endless books, written billions of words and lost count how many movies and TV series’ I’ve caught up on while sitting on planes. This is why I’m less than excited about wifi on planes. I have the internet in the rest of my life and I know how much of a distraction it can be. No matter what I’m setting out to do, I always seem to squeeze in one more look at twitter or facebook, or answer one more IM or send that quick e-mail.

I can spend hours doing things that take just one more second before actually getting to work. It’s comparable to the above examples – instead of worrying about what color paint to start with, or about what font to use, or about what chair to sit in, I’m worried that there is something I should know about sitting in my inbox or that something important might have just happened on twitter or someone might have responded to something I said earlier. It’s all just an excuse that stands in the way of getting started. Wifi on planes means that chamber of solitude is no longer. Sure I can opt not to buy it, but the temptation might be too strong. So it’s a test of will really. But I guess when you think of it, that’s what all of this is.

Had a chance to catch up with my friend Glenda tonight. We’ve known each other for years but erratic work/travel schedules rarely put us in the same city so it’s a nice when it actually happens. We know each other from the usual web world but mostly bond on a shared musical history – having a fondness for the post hard core. Chances are mentioning Seam or Texas is the Reason or Hot Water Music around us will result in endless stories and back-in-the-day-isms.

Tonight while flaunting my Bitch Magnet vinyl, we started talking about figuring out those things about yourself that get lost over time. Those bits and pieces that for one reason get put on a shelf in the back of your head only to be forgotten. The music that at one point in your life you would hunt down and obsess over but at some point life got too hectic and you stopped making time to hunt it. The activities that defined you and motivated you that got put on hold at some point never to be picked up again. The behaviors you felt you should drop or adopt because that’s what everyone around you expected. The thoughts you used to speak freely but then started keeping to yourself because you didn’t want your opinion to reflect on your friends, significant others, bosses, or maybe even yourself. We all do this to some extent, if we’re lucky we realize it before it’s too late.

But what is too late really? Waking up one day and looking around at your life and wondering how you got there because it’s not anything you hoped for, I’d say that definitely too late. When you’ve made so many concessions that trying to undo them would be more trouble than just living with them, that’s probably too late as well. Anything else is fair game and figuring out what those things are is often much harder than changing them.

I know for myself anytime I’ve realized I’m doing it the fix was easy, the hard part was admitting to myself I’d let it happen in the first place. People I swore I’d be close to for the rest of my life but hadn’t talked to in year. Bands that changed my life but I couldn’t remember the last time I listened to them. Remembering all the hardcore anthems about being yourself and standing up while biting my tongue because I didn’t want to come off like an ass. I think to some extent it’s good to see yourself doing that, because then you at least have the option to change it. Many folks never realize it. I don’t really know where this rant is headed, nor a solution for it, it’s just reassuring to know you aren’t the only one fighting these demons sometimes.

I saw Jonathan Mann perform last night at betalevel here in LA. He was talking about a project he’s embarked on wherein he writes, records, and posts online a new song every single day. He’d been doing it since January one and hasn’t missed a day yet. In the speaking part of his presentation he talked about his philosophy regarding this. His approach reminded me a lot of the Cult of Done as well as something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently in regards to my own projects and approach to them.

For the longest time when I’d start something I generally had one two things driving me, either I thought it would be cool to do and no one had told me I couldn’t do it, or someone had told me I couldn’t do it and I was hell bent on proving them wrong. I was more concerned with doing something than with what I was doing. The result of that was that I think I ended up doing some cool things from time to time, things I’m proud of at least. There were of course things that didn’t turn out so well but honestly I don’t remember most of them at this point. At some point in that process I started focusing on those cool things I was proud of and grew embarrassed of the ones that weren’t. I thought it would be better to produce less in hopes of only doing those cool things and just skipping the not so cool ones. Turns out it doesn’t work that way and you don’t get to make that choice. If you decide to only do super bad ass things the list of things you do will be very short, where as if you do a bunch of things all the time, there is a higher chance of more and more of them being bad ass.

Jonathan addressed that issue in his talk with something he calls the 70-20-10 rule that I thought was awesome and something we should all keep in mind.

I think that slide speaks for itself, but the point is you have to get comfortable with the fact that when creating things most are going to be just ok, some are going to suck, and from time to time they will be awesome. It’s being ok with the first 90% that makes the elusive 10% possible.

For me, when I look back, I never really gave a shit about other people saying I couldn’t do something or that something I did wasn’t good. I can pretty much come up with justification why anyone elses opinion doesn’t matter. It’s my own opinion I’m not so good at ignoring. I’ve definitely been my hardest critic, even if only because I’m the only critic I ever listen to. Which is exactly the problem. Once I started listening to the critical thoughts I was having I convinced myself that I couldn’t do things that previously I would have been able to do without question. If I thought the result wouldn’t be as good as what I wanted I’d often end up with no result at all. Which really, I think is worse. Jonathan’s next slide really hit home:

Those are exactly the things I know I need to overcome. For example how many times have I written here that I’m going write about something on a specific schedule only to not pull it off as planned. That’s because all of those things filled my head. I’ve felt the posts wouldn’t be good enough, and that I could do a better job later, and that I just didn’t have the time right now, and that I just wasn’t inspired, and maybe things would be better after this nap. I talked myself out of doing things I’d already said I wanted to do. I thought too much about it. I used to put that off to writers block but it’s not just in writing. If you had any idea of the projects I’ve started or wanted to start and stopped for no reason other than my own overthinking you’d be sick. Or you’d laugh at me, and you’d have every right to. And I’d thank you for doing it and reminding me what a dumb ass I was being.

We are the only ones who can stop ourselves from pulling things off. I don’t know about you, but that’s something I need to remind myself of more often.

My friend Sloane just wrote a blog post directed to her sister about traveling alone that really nails my feelings about it as well. She writes:

“Travel is your chance to take ownership over your life – every decision you make today is yours and yours alone. Where you go, what you eat, how you deal with situations – I’ve found travel to be the one thing that picks me up when I’m down and rebuilds confidence in my ability to trust my instincts, make plans and follow through with them and yet also throw caution to the wind and abandon all plans and just go where the day take you.”

I couldn’t agree more. If you know anything about me you know I travel a lot and I love traveling with friends, as well as traveling and meeting up with friends, but there is some serious gold in traveling by yourself that is like nothing else in the world. Especially to places you’ve never been, though places you’ve been just enough to not feel totally lost are equally amazing. I’ve done it through out my life but often as more of a compulsion and never really thought out why, though Sloane kind of nails it here. When you are out in the world on your own, and only have yourself to rely on, you get to trust yourself completely and nothing builds your own confidence in yourself like that. I’ve been to cities and sat in a hotel room the entire time, and also wandered the streets aimlessly. I’ve seen great sights and also just sat on a bench and watched people. There is something about being the only one you have to think about and doing whatever whim you have that is magic.

If you haven’t been on a trip somewhere by yourself recently I highly recommend it. I always come back with new found faith in myself. I bet you will too.

This week in NYC, Bre reminded me of the Cult of Done which I thought I’d in turn remind others of. It’s good, and I need to take it into consideration more often. I have a lot of back burners that need to be cleared.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.