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A few years ago I came across a quote by some guy named Goethe. The quote, by the way, was:
I had no idea who exactly Goethe was (I’ve already wrote him an imaginary apology-slash-gratitude letter for this), and still I haven’t paid him the respect by at least completely finding out who he really is (I may have to write him another letter, or maybe just a serious historical background check will do --one a lot more than merely Wikipedia-ing).
I had a hunch that Goethe was in more than one way famous. That I found the line from some book of famous people’s quotes sort of helped. About the hunch part, I was right on the money. I just didn’t know by how much. At the time his importance slipped me, but the quote was extremely sound that it stucked in me.
Most quotes are metaphors and I skipped them. Not that they are not true, but that they are too often being overused as the truths. Einstein, among countless others, made numerous complaints about how his metaphors were taken literally, sometimes even to their contradictory meanings.
But this particular one by Goethe was straightforward instructional. And open-ended, too. No metaphors. No cause and effect offered. In fact, it is only only a suggestion (despite the word ‘should’). So I decided to follow it literally for some time.
I pick a song everyday to attend to. Sometimes the occasion is obvious it is as if the days pick their own songs, like the first day of the new year, twelve days of Christmas, a month of Ramadhan, graduation day, high day at the office, low day at the office, broken-hearted day, Friday-being-in-love day. Sometimes the days are so fuzzy I surrender to iPod to shuffle my mood in, a song a day. I read poems, too (read as in, not out loud). I’m no poetry literate, so for some while song lyrics would have to do. That my iPod shuffles helps me not to be too picky (and I have my friends stuffed my iPod with songs I would never stumble into). On reading department, I’m more of a book reader than poetry, so I continue doing that, too.
I ‘take in’ pictures, too, one for each day. I’ve seen pictures good in merely a decorative sense. Though they are good, ones that communicate insights are more captivating. They are visual version of great ideas books. Sometimes even a simple graph will do. Armed with Google I found unlimited stocks of picture websites. It is safe to know that a-picture-a-day will not stop any time soon, or at all.
And the people whose work of arts I follow have not shown any sign of exhaustion. Contrary to the myth of blocks of any kind --writers’ block, painters’ block, musicians’ block, and on-- they don’t seem to run out of ideas. In fact each previous ideas seem to make solid, elaborating bases onto which new ideas will continue building. Creation seems to be an endless looping, autofeedback process. Steven Johnson, in his book Where Good Ideas Come From, used the term adjacent possible: that creation of one thing leads to multiple possibilities for the next creations (Johnson actually borrowed the term from biologist Stuart Kauffman --another person to whom I will Wikipedia later to see his historically significance. I think Kauffman used the term to describe the rich life creation on coral reeves ecosystems).
One of my teacher told me something about the term “sharing”. In corporate world, “sharing” does not necessarily means to give without anticipating returns. In fact, the word implies an estimation of particular amount of returns. Though sharing, in its internet sense of the word, doesn’t even remotely reflect this, it actually does the same thing.
The people I was talking about go sharing-spree everyday, more than once a day, even. They pay forward fellow artists’ works online in however way possible --now, they retweet-- and get reciprocated in return. Their own works plus others’ works combined are more than enough idea banks for them. Maybe there are even more ideas available than the time to actually work on them. I take it that this is what my teacher meant about “sharing”. The only different is, unlike in corporate context, most of the times these people don’t exactly expect any sort of return on investments. But return on investments are exactly what they get. The whole interaction is like a whole army of adjacent possible. Just the thought if it is scary (in a good way). I don’t think ideas exhaustion is even in their realm of possibility.
Since the first day I followed Goethe, I started to blog the stuff I found, making inventories of them in case other people are interested to know. I only realized then that the act of picking plus putting them on a dedicated space enhances experiencing them. On day #100, I stopped blogging them (there’s too many of them I couldn’t keep up and blog them at the same time). Then I go on making countless scribbles, writing small notes, whistle strange new tunes. I posted some of them, and some strangers responded: reposting or commenting. Whatever they do, they feed me new stuffs to think about. There’s a good feeling knowing that even the simplest ideas matter. There’s even a greater feeling that you yourself will not run out of ideas, my very own “adjacent possible”. I owe most of that good feeling from strangers who respond.
Now I’m seriously looking for ways to use these insights (I’m sort of clueless). Maybe turn them into real works. Help needed.
.
A few years ago I came across a quote by some guy named Goethe. The quote, by the way, was:
“One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it is possible, speak a few reasonable words.”
I had no idea who exactly Goethe was (I’ve already wrote him an imaginary apology-slash-gratitude letter for this), and still I haven’t paid him the respect by at least completely finding out who he really is (I may have to write him another letter, or maybe just a serious historical background check will do --one a lot more than merely Wikipedia-ing).
I had a hunch that Goethe was in more than one way famous. That I found the line from some book of famous people’s quotes sort of helped. About the hunch part, I was right on the money. I just didn’t know by how much. At the time his importance slipped me, but the quote was extremely sound that it stucked in me.
Most quotes are metaphors and I skipped them. Not that they are not true, but that they are too often being overused as the truths. Einstein, among countless others, made numerous complaints about how his metaphors were taken literally, sometimes even to their contradictory meanings.
But this particular one by Goethe was straightforward instructional. And open-ended, too. No metaphors. No cause and effect offered. In fact, it is only only a suggestion (despite the word ‘should’). So I decided to follow it literally for some time.
I pick a song everyday to attend to. Sometimes the occasion is obvious it is as if the days pick their own songs, like the first day of the new year, twelve days of Christmas, a month of Ramadhan, graduation day, high day at the office, low day at the office, broken-hearted day, Friday-being-in-love day. Sometimes the days are so fuzzy I surrender to iPod to shuffle my mood in, a song a day. I read poems, too (read as in, not out loud). I’m no poetry literate, so for some while song lyrics would have to do. That my iPod shuffles helps me not to be too picky (and I have my friends stuffed my iPod with songs I would never stumble into). On reading department, I’m more of a book reader than poetry, so I continue doing that, too.
I ‘take in’ pictures, too, one for each day. I’ve seen pictures good in merely a decorative sense. Though they are good, ones that communicate insights are more captivating. They are visual version of great ideas books. Sometimes even a simple graph will do. Armed with Google I found unlimited stocks of picture websites. It is safe to know that a-picture-a-day will not stop any time soon, or at all.
And the people whose work of arts I follow have not shown any sign of exhaustion. Contrary to the myth of blocks of any kind --writers’ block, painters’ block, musicians’ block, and on-- they don’t seem to run out of ideas. In fact each previous ideas seem to make solid, elaborating bases onto which new ideas will continue building. Creation seems to be an endless looping, autofeedback process. Steven Johnson, in his book Where Good Ideas Come From, used the term adjacent possible: that creation of one thing leads to multiple possibilities for the next creations (Johnson actually borrowed the term from biologist Stuart Kauffman --another person to whom I will Wikipedia later to see his historically significance. I think Kauffman used the term to describe the rich life creation on coral reeves ecosystems).
One of my teacher told me something about the term “sharing”. In corporate world, “sharing” does not necessarily means to give without anticipating returns. In fact, the word implies an estimation of particular amount of returns. Though sharing, in its internet sense of the word, doesn’t even remotely reflect this, it actually does the same thing.
The people I was talking about go sharing-spree everyday, more than once a day, even. They pay forward fellow artists’ works online in however way possible --now, they retweet-- and get reciprocated in return. Their own works plus others’ works combined are more than enough idea banks for them. Maybe there are even more ideas available than the time to actually work on them. I take it that this is what my teacher meant about “sharing”. The only different is, unlike in corporate context, most of the times these people don’t exactly expect any sort of return on investments. But return on investments are exactly what they get. The whole interaction is like a whole army of adjacent possible. Just the thought if it is scary (in a good way). I don’t think ideas exhaustion is even in their realm of possibility.
Since the first day I followed Goethe, I started to blog the stuff I found, making inventories of them in case other people are interested to know. I only realized then that the act of picking plus putting them on a dedicated space enhances experiencing them. On day #100, I stopped blogging them (there’s too many of them I couldn’t keep up and blog them at the same time). Then I go on making countless scribbles, writing small notes, whistle strange new tunes. I posted some of them, and some strangers responded: reposting or commenting. Whatever they do, they feed me new stuffs to think about. There’s a good feeling knowing that even the simplest ideas matter. There’s even a greater feeling that you yourself will not run out of ideas, my very own “adjacent possible”. I owe most of that good feeling from strangers who respond.
Now I’m seriously looking for ways to use these insights (I’m sort of clueless). Maybe turn them into real works. Help needed.
.
1 comment:
Man soll alle Tage wenigstens ein kleines Lied hören, ein gutes Gedicht lesen, ein treffliches Gemälde sehen und, wenn es möglich zu machen wäre, einige vernünftige Worte sprechen. --> translation as stated in your post
Sage es mir, und ich werde es vergessen. Zeige es mir, und ich werde es vielleicht behalten. Lass es mich tun, und ich werde es können. --> Tell me about it, and I will forget. Show it to me, and I will perhaps remember. Let me do it, and I shall be able.
Both are from Goethe. As to my opinion, I would like to in short congratulate you: Good Job!
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