Week 2 - Choices
Art for Uncanny Magazine by likhain
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After last week's newsletter, I got into conversations about how difficult it is to start projects. We all have ideas - one big one, or many small ones, or maybe many big ones? But we have trouble starting. Here is an incomplete compilation of techniques to help with starting trouble.
Buridan's Ass - When you have equally good choices, and are paralyzed to choose one, don't be an ass. Randomness is your friend. Just pick one and go with it.
Bird by Bird - When you are paralyzed by where to start, start anywhere, and take it one small piece at a time
Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.” From Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird
Eat the frog - When you find yourself procrastinating on your task, remember to eat the frog first thing in the morning - start with the most unpleasant but important first.
5 minute rule - Ok. You decide to eat that frog, but right away, you want to run away. Well, you can use the 5 minute rule to eat that frog.
Ashamed of your MVP - Let's hijack this business term for our personal-project. You got to start on your project before you have perfected the plan. Sometimes, you find the way when walking. Sitting around and looking at the map won't tell you the presence of the big huge thorn bush in the middle of the path, or that rope swing across that creek which is now flooding.
Fear of Failure - Use the experiment mindset I mentioned last week. Works for scientists, will work for you,
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"Road maps are for me dream machines. I like to read them as if they're adventure stories."
From Need for the Bike - Paul Fournel
I love maps. The big large paper ones, with lots of details. The fold outs in books.
When I look at one, I think of all the places I could go to, the places I will see, the walks I will have, trying to get lost in a city or a mountain. When I see a huge green space in a map, I imagine driving through dark lonely roads into a sunrise at a cliff, only to see clouds, reflected clouds in a lake, fantastic landscapes which make my knees hurt.
Maps are possibility, adventure. They are also art, and flights of imagination. You look at those early maps - those drawn by explorers and cartographers. These hardy souls, who left their warm beds, hot meals for a life of exploring the unknown - and drawing it. And I wonder how many of those, at some point said 'Screw it. I'll put in a waterfall here and a mountain there - because I feel like it, and nobody will know!"
So, yeah. Maps are dream machines, they are adventure, they are art. And also the utlimate lie - for the map can never be the territory.
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Likhain wins Hugo award - feature
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This week, I felt a need to read something, but didn't know what to read. Most non-fictions books I picked up felt too serious, or too important, or too trite. The fiction books I browsed through seemed too banal - and some of them felt so banal that I was afraid of falling into the binge-reading trap. This is the book version of the paralysis of choice - you have so many options before you, that you can't choose.
I ended up reading Paul Fournel's "Need For the Bike". I think I've had this bike for a decade now. I serendipitously came upon this book in a used book library somewhere. And since then, I dip into its pages every now and then. The book is super short, very elegantly written. It's beautiful, poignant, and as this reviewer says, wants to make you put the book down and head out NOW. How is this even possible? What magic is this?
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"Fitness is a climb. That's why riding in the high mountains is such a beautiful metaphor. The bad things about climbs is that they have a summit. One day your fitness stops going up, and it starts to twist and turn. That's when the alternation between "with" and "without" days starts."
From Need for the Bike - Paul Fournel
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I was reading the 'LibraryThing' update - a service I have signed up for, and don't use yet. And there was a link to user-submitted book Haikus.
For your cringing pleasure, I shall end this newsletter with my haiku after rereading "Gideon the Ninth".
Necromancers in space
With science and spells,swords and labs,
Can't escape teenage angst
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This week's artwork is by Likhain. I first found saw her art in the book cover of The Lilies of Dawn. Her style is the opposite of what I always thought was the style I loved. The vibrant colors, the chaotic, busy sketchwork, the almost scribble-like penwork, and so beautiful!