Sloth and Manatee

If you have a busy brain, chances are you have a lot of Ideas. These Ideas may be big, or small, and many might have to do with “I should try doing that!” Like, knitting. Or, guitar. Or, you might see something at a store or an art gallery and think, hey, it would be fun to try collage. Or making a new egg dish. Or egg art.

Now, the joy in life is to be had in the doing. This is when you become present, and real. Dan Sinker discusses this in a piece called Doing the Work. I would take his words even further, and say that this is how/where life is lived.

But then what? So you get good at collage, or you learn to do glassblowing, or you take a guitar class. Maybe you pick up some new software. Whatever it is, there is often this little voice that says you need to Make Something of whatever-it-is. You should convert this activity into Something Productive, or prepare for dismissive comments about your “hobby.” I touched on this last week, and I am here to say again, do not do that, please continue to Fart Around.

We do this to kids a lot. They appear to be good at something, sometimes very good, and parents and teachers and other Adults start to envision college scholarships or at the very least a trophy or an award. There is pressure to Become Something.

Now I will say two contradictory things here. One is, don’t assume whatever kids are good at needs to Become Something in order to be worth it. The other is, definitely try to get Very Good at something.

The striving to get better is where the magic is. Not the Achievement or the Medal or whatever, but the trying, trying, messing up, making a mess, getting better. Changing and adjusting and feeling like More of a Person in the World. That’s it. So, it’s not that you should Be Productive, but it is most worth it to Get Good at Something. You will experience things and places and people you would not otherwise.

This has been hard for me, because I do try out a lot of things. Tattooing! Bike maintenance! Various organizational schemes! Recipes! Coaching soccer! None of this has led to anything Productive (although when you learn something you get to take it with you, it turns out, and boy is that great), but this process of constant trying keeps a person In The World. And I believe it makes me also able to expand my view, like what it’s like to get a tattoo (which, um, hurts a bit - especially when one is tattooing oneself).

I can feel, when I do these things, the world around me kind of says, “Ah, there she goes again.” And I am trying not to listen to that so much. Because it’s the striving and being confused and/or daunted and figuring stuff out in very Un-Productive Ways that is where life sometimes happens the most.

Sloth and Manatee Page

Brainwaves

Best of Brainwaves Volume One: The Fountain of Stuff

Best of Brainwaves Volume Two: Mom, Dad, I'm a Cat

License Cartoons from CartoonStock

Art!

Today in animations where I named the file something dumb and had a heck of a time finding it, but then I did, so now I’m happy and shall share it:

Print Shop

BunnyFrogCatSnake

Relevant to the thoughts I wrote about above, I think

Things Of The Week

Wanna just generally trip out with an animation by Masanobu Hiraoka? Okay!

Man, art restoration is really fascinating.

I just love color and Yannis Davy Guibinga’s work is like a feast.

Okay! That's enough nonsense for now.

May you take up a random art form, may you learn something that you’ll never forget and may never use, won't you be my neighbor? - Betsy