by Owen | Sep 29, 2019 | 2019-2020, Weekend Reflections
What I Accomplished: 100 Days of Morning Pages
This week I hit a 100-day streak of Morning Pages. If you haven’t heard of the morning pages they are the daily practice introduced by Julia Cameron in her book The Artists Way. The idea is that first thing every morning you sit down and stream-of-consciousness write 3 pages. It doesn’t matter what they are or what comes from them. It could be absolute nonsense. The goal is to clear your head and start the day off in the right headspace. It’s a practice I highly recommend to everyone. I can point to it as one of the most important parts of my daily routine.
What I’m Reminding Myself: Your Art Can’t be for Everyone
And it shouldn’t be. I think it’s easy to get lost in wanting your art to affect people. But the issue is that we think too globally. “People” is too vague. We need to be clear about who our art and who are change is for. It can’t be everyone. When we talk about “great art” we have to remember the context of that statement: it’s great art to someone. There’s no such thing as bad art, just wrong art for you. So before we go trying to mass market out ideas and stories lets start by considering who we want to change.
What I’m Pondering: The Fundamental concepts
Maybe it’s just me but the more I read the more I’ve started to wonder if there exists a single set of fundamental topics or ideas that every other area of learning or passion can be broken down into in one way or another. I don’t think I have a clear answer yet. Now to be clear I don’t mean topics like science or math. Those to me are a different kind of fundamental. I’m looking for the things that we can point to as a source for the way we talk about business, marketing, art, philosophy, belief, sociology, etc. The conceptual fundamental.
What I’m Reading: Purple Cow – Seth Godin
I’ve been burning through Godin’s books these past few months (he’s written 23!) and with each one, I gain some new insight into how marketing (storytelling) is one of the most influential things we have at our disposal. Purple Cow is Godin’s dive into the product side of marketing. He argues (quite convincingly) that today’s society has no tolerance for the mild. The days of mediocre products backed by stellar marketing have passed. The products themselves (and our ideas) must now be as remarkable as the marketing that drives them. These are our purple cows.
by Owen | Sep 22, 2019 | 2019-2020, Weekend Reflections
What I’m Reading: Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell’s most recent book has been dominating my free time. I mentioned last week how huge a fan I am of his work. I’m willing to say that this is his most intriguing book yet. His exploration of human interaction and the assumptions we make about others is perhaps his most urgent dive yet. True to fashion, Gladwell strings his readers through story after story showing us how our assumptions and our biases about others play against us.
What I’m Pondering: Thresholds
This week I’ve noticed myself crossing a lot of thresholds, or at the very least become aware that they are behind me. It has me thinking a lot about how we look at change. The changes don’t come day by day. They stack up until suddenly we notice how far we’ve come. We cross a threshold. The thing about instituting change is that the results aren’t linear, and they never will be. But the consistency compounds and sooner or later you’ll find yourself in a completely new place. The important thing then is to balance how we treat the small and putting faith in their ability to collect and push us forward.
What I’m finding passion in: Writing
Through this blog and my daily journaling, i’ve discovered how much I love to write. Or maybe re-discovered. To be clear I don’t mean the act of having written. That distinction hangs on the idea of completion or publishing. What I enjoy is the process. Sitting down and putting words on a page. It’s taught me a lot about the traps of perfectionism and the value of focusing on the act of creating rather than the end product.
by Owen | Sep 15, 2019 | 2019-2020, Weekend Reflections
The thing I’m listening to: Revisionist History
This obsession as spawned after attending a discussion with Malcolm Gladwell in his new book Talking to Strangers (next up on the reading list). Now, it ‘s safe to say that I am a huge Gladwell fan. So I was dumbfounded to have never heard of this podcast before. In each episode, Gladwell and his team take the listener on a journey to revisit, reinterpret or simply explore something from the past. It’s the perfect podcast for anyone who loves to learn. Gladwell’s personality shines through. You can check it out here.
The thing I’m reminding myself: Show Up
The more you progress in anything, habits, self-reflection, art or otherwise the more you want to push yourself to the next level. Advancing in quantity and/or difficulty is the seemingly obvious progression towards our goals: “I did 20 minutes of sprinting last week so this week I have to do 25.” Inevitably, however, our ambitions and our expectations outpace our energy or ability, and we crash. Soon we start to dread the activity, feeling trapped in the plateau or fearing we’ve fallen further from the goal. This happens to me constantly. But it’s important to remember that the goal is nothing but a threshold to something new. The thing to focus on is not the goal or the quantity, or even the quality. What’s important is the attempt, the act, and showing up again and again.
The thing I’m developing: Extroversion
Since coming back to school from my summer away I’ve become more and more aware of my need to socialize. I’m not sure where it came from and frankly thats not really what I’m interested in. I’ve always been more or less an introvert. Some occasions would bring about my more social side of course but never to this scale. Maybe its an anomaly or maybe it’s a new development. either way, I’m rolling with it. Sure doesn’t hurt to get to work on my communication in this way.
The thing I accomplished: 4 Weeks of Posts!
I think this weekly roundup is still figuring out what it wants to be but I can say that as a practice it has been one of the most difficult yet rewarding things to produce.
by Owen | Sep 8, 2019 | 2019-2020, Weekend Reflections
The thing I’m reading: Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
An exploration of making decisions when you don’t have all the information. What I appreciate is that this book not only covers all of the information groundwork but it also provides applicable knowledge of how to become a better decision-maker. A former world champion poker player, Duke takes the reader through all of the psychology on decision making and guides the reader on her approach to refining that talent. I especially love the insistence on becoming comfortable with uncertainty. I highly recommend it as a follow up to Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman or Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.
The Thing I’m Reflecting on: Transient Change
This summer was the first time I got a taste of what it was going to be like after college. By the end of it, I was more than ready to jump headfirst into that life. But of course, I am now back in Boston, finishing up my last year of college. I’ve come to realize that every “change” in my life thus far has been highly transient. Sure I spent a lot of summers away as a kid. I even moved across the entire country for college. But there was always some end in sight. Some calendar or time marker that I could use as a baseline. But the coming change of graduation is unlike any other. It’s the first change without any sign of “normalcy” on the other end. I think that’s the real scary thing about graduating. It’s the fact that there’s no longer that promise of a “return.” You can’t see the end of the slope anymore.
The Thing I’m Fearing: A Habit Relapse
I spent a lot, and I mean a lot of my time in New York working on personal growth. This blog is sure a sign of that as any. I built incredibly good habits, destroyed bad ones, and have come out the other side mentally, and physically, healthier than ever before. So, I have to admit being back in the place where those bad habits originated is a little worrisome. I guess acknowledging that is the first step.
by Owen | Sep 1, 2019 | 2019-2020, Weekend Reflections
The thing I’m reading: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
This book was recommended to me by my girlfriend. I’ll admit I was a little hesitant at first but I came to love it. Its somewhere between a self-help book and a love letter to the creative journey. Gilbert explores what it’s like to be in a relationship with creativity and imparts her thoughts on how to embrace and find fulfillment within it. I was especially drawn to Gilbert’s vehement denouncement of the idea that you must suffer for your art. Even more controversial, the idea that your art need not be taken too seriously or deemed important. Her thoughts on living as a “trickster” instead of the martyr will stay with me.
The thing I’m pondering: The Shape of a Story
Let’s say we are trying to convey a lesson. Most lessons on their face are very simple. At its most exposed this lesson is like a square: neat and easily understood. “Smoking is bad,” “Don’t hurt people,” etc. But here’s the catch: squares are boring. No one will remember our square among all the others. So what we do we do? Well as with most good lessons we tell a story, we imbue the lesson in a context that is engaging and memorable. The more unique and detailed the story, the more chances we have to engage our audience. But once again there’s a trade-off. The more complex we make our story the less clear our once tidy square becomes. It becomes a Rorschach Test, shaped by our story and guiding our audience to our lesson through personal interpretation and deconstruction. Perhaps then the more deliberate we are in our storytelling, the more representative our inkblot becomes. (Full post on this coming soon!)
The goal I’m setting: A Book a Week
Though fairly innocuous, it’s a fairly easy goal to fall behind on. Speaking it into the world here holds me accountable.
The Chapter I’m closing: The New York Summer
I’ll post a full follow up on this but it’s crazy to think I’ve been here for a whole third of a year. This chapter has taught many lessons both in and out of the theater.
