Take Away
I think that we, generally, know a lot more than we realise. Often little nuggets of wisdom are buried deep, things we know but aren't conscious of.
One example of this in my life comes from teaching. When I taught High School, one of my favourite subjects to teach was Economics to 12-14 year olds because essentially they have absorbed all this understanding of pricing, markets and economics from living in a capitalist society and suddenly I was giving them this key to articulate what and how was going on.
Kids, for example, knew what supply and demand was, and how they worked, just not exactly what those words were, which meant the class functioned sort of like dredging up something ingrained but not spoken.
There's a bit of a philosophical question here: if you can't express something do you really know it? I'd say 'yes', but I'm not going to die on that hill. I, at least, often think about what art I'm making in my head as a pastiche, a slideshow made up of all these things in progress, made or imagined. I know it, but I can't articulate it, yet.
To go one step further, I also think that we usually know a lot more wisdom than we realise, often really good advice isn't something new or groundbreaking, but good advice we'd heard before, and forgotten, ignored or struggled to use. When working with University students, they would often ask me how they could make meeting people and learning about their careers (I worked with final year students) easier and less awkward. Well, there's only one answer: it gets easier as you do it. There are no hacks or shortcuts, you won't get more comfortable unless its earned and experience is the only way to do it. Deep down, I think each student knew this - even if they were hoping there was an easier option.
Anyway, something I say a lot - to peers, to myself, to friends - is 'do less' or 'we can't do it all'. It's something I think about a lot - there's only so much time in the day and, more than that, only so much time each of us feels like being productive, effortful or concentrating. I certainly have to keep this in mind as I have a tendency to say yes to a lot of things, or try a lot of things, or do a lot of things.
Complimentary to this is that it's valuable to do nothing. Sitting by the creek with no phone and no book is very rewarding. Lying on the couch for a half hour after waking up with nothing to do is very relaxing. Taking a long lunch just because is magic. Adding an extra 15 minutes to your walk home because you're enjoying it is one of life's great treats.
The newsletter the past few weeks has been a great space for me to tell myself, as much as anyone else, a version of 'it's fine to do less, maybe it's even something more people should think of' and while I woke up today thinking I was going to write about something more complex and racy (though I can't remember what it was) for some reason this was the idea in my head.
Now if only I could have a 'keep less' approach to all the crap I've accumulated. I swear I have so much junk that I think 'maybe this will be handy for art', but it isn't, it never is.
A few reminders:
Melbourne Photobook Fair is on this weekend. Saturday and Sunday at Collarts Cromwell Street Campus. I'll be there with books and friends. If you want to see the new publication (more details below) come along.
Site Specific is out and available for purchase. Have a gander, send to any friends who may be interested.
If you're in Melbourne and know of any food, sustainability, farming or gardening initiatives that wouldn't mind having me around for a 1/2 day please reach out - I'm trying to build up more of a portfolio to drum up some more paid work, so shooting things for free the next few months :) - more on this next week!