Advice for a Brainy 16 Yr. Old

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I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there. –Richard P. Feynman

When Ben turned 16, his mother (my good friend) asked people to give him life-advice by snail-mail.  I recently found a copy of what I wrote and thought I’d share it will you below:

Dear Ben,

I’ve known you since you were eight years old and I know two things about you. You use big words and you get things others miss. Big words are easier to come by than most people think, you just read a few thick books.

But seeing the invisible, now that could be a full-fledged super-power. So here is my advice to you–  find one big question to answer. Look for questions that intrigue you and explore them until you can pick one to work on until you answer it.  Then share it with others who have been trying to answer that same question. Here’s an example of what I mean.  Gregor Mendel, the man who ended up studying heredity using peas was initially interested in a million things.  But he wanted to see something no one else saw or had ever seen before.  So he checked out the most intriguing questions in the Science of his day. It turned out nobody knew how heredity worked. So this is what he decided to figure out. He did not stop there of course. He shared his findings with other Natural Scientists. The world needs people who see what the rest of us miss– like you, but more than that, we need you to help us figure out the world. I don’t mean to lecture you or leave you with one big chore.  Just know I believe in you this way and I thought you should know.

 Happy Birthday and all the best as you turn 16!

If you’ve ever “just-known” things– Carl Jung called this innate just-knowing “intuition”, my advice to Ben could pertain to you.  Let me know if you try it– I don’t expect to hear from you for a long time.  My advice to Ben takes years to follow through– I know, I try some days.

If you’re not sure what I’m writing about– read on.  My 6 year-old wrote Ben the following:

I can’t give you much advice because… I don’t know what to say.  You have lived more than I.  So give yourself the advice you want to hear and let’s pretend it was from me!

Your (smaller than you) Friend

Careers Start by Peeling Potatoes

Reblogged from Steve Blank:

Click to visit the original post

Listening to my the family talk about dividing up the cooking chores for this Thanksgiving dinner, including who would peel the potatoes, reminded me that most careers start by peeling potatoes.

KP – Kitchen Patrol
One of the iconic punishments in basic training in the military was being threatened by our drill instructors of being assigned to KP – Kitchen Patrol - as a penalty for breaking some rule.

Read more… 859 more words

Still Writing…

I have good news! I’m busy working on a book length project.

So… for the next two months (May and June 2011) I”ll post on Fridays only.  To read new posts at their freshest subscribe by e-mail (see right sidebar).

Visiting Creating Brains for the first time?  There ‘s lots to read! Check out 5 of my favorite posts below– and thanks for visiting.  Please leave me a comment.  I love to hear from readers!

Write– No Matter Your Domain

Childhood Dreams– Super-Important

Setting Your Own Path Sometimes Means Saying “No!”

What “Getting” Insight Looks/Feels Like

Eating a Flashlight and Sucking Up Dust 

Lessons from The Music Room No.5: Creativity Can Be Learned

For one year– from Spring2010 to Spring 2011,  I turned my growing family into a laboratory.  My purpose– to set each of us on a Creative path of our own.  We began in the grand central space we callThe Music Room.  Our old piano is here and our shelves are stuffed with great books.  There are Kapla blocks to build with and a wooden castle with queens and kings to play with. For one week I’m writing about what I’ve learned this year– about Creativity and what it takes to live it. My previous post: Friends or Lovers Can Squash Your Creativity If You Let Them.

Creativity– like human consciousness, is an emergent system.  Look down at your feet for a moment. How long does it take you to register something about them? Probably much less than a second.  But the moment you catch something sticky about your feet–  how lumpy your shoes look or the shell pink of your toenails,  your brain’s on the job to push out the thought.  Check out (a tiny portion of) what your brain does simultaneously and wickedly-fast, below:

When these (among other) multiple representations converge and agree, you have a thought– in this case, about your feet. And you can share that thought at will.

Creativity can’t be taught,  but I’ve realized it can be learned.  How can this be?  Well, since Creativity is an emergent system, it is made up of parts– like my thought example above. Check out (a tiny portion of) what parts/actions converge into Creativity, below:

It may take your entire life to learn to do all these things,  but the moment you’ve got it all down to a life rhythm–  I think you’ll find your Creativity has emerged and you’ll have a lot to show for it.

Now I want to write You can do it!  Come on, get started! (O.K., I already did).  But even if I could walk you onto the perfect creative path,  you have to struggle  for yourself. Creativity is never handed to anyone because to be Creative you must be original. Nobody can make you Creative.  You have to learn it for yourself.

Busy Prefrontal Cortex

I’m sitting alone at a well-worn wooden desk at the front of my classroom.  My students aren’t here yet,  but they’ll start trickling in one-by-one soon.  I’ve read some student book reviews and graded papers.  I know the topics we’ll cover today well– poverty, economic disparity, corrupt governments, street-smart kids,  all topics connected to life in Rio de Janeiro’s desperately poor Favela neighborhoods.

I thought a lot about poverty in Latin America earlier today. I didn’t read about it last minute or make detailed notes to guide what I’ll say in class. Instead I gave myself time to free-think. I have so much more to say,  so many more stories to share and concepts to bring up and connect when I free-think during my drive north to the university where I teach History.

At first Poverty– as a concept, hung suspended in my thoughts.  I worked to make it stay–  as if gathering condensed water dispersed in an open sky to form one visible cloud.  And then, I stopped trying. Poverty stood still, on alert, as if anticipating neuronal manipulation.  I, ready to see (with my mind’s eye) what ideas, stories, facts and memories popped into my conscious thought.  Now my sub-conscious did all the work.

I can play this mental game of sorts only when I know a subject well.  I’ve read a lot about poverty of all kinds, on different continents and set in various historical periods.  But more than that– I’ve seen poverty.  I’ve smelled poverty. I’ve pushed through a crowd of one-hundred skinny boys each begging me to buy his box of Chiclets for a buck.  I’ve watched four-dozen indigenous travelers step off a Sunday morning bus and– while their driver fueled up, each find a close-by spot to squat and pull up a skirt or zipper down pants to relieve herself on the blacktop.  Then, with no toilet paper in sight or underwear to soil, each got back on the bus by the time the driver revved-up the engine.

I’ve got plenty of material stored in my Prefrontal cortex.  It’s all kind of loose– disjunct.  But when I let my mind roam where it wills and light up on its own, mental inhibition and judgement shuts down and original connections are possible.

Interestingly, this “mind’s eye” game falls flat when I’m green to a topic. A thought can’t play if it follows and precedes another in a linear pattern. When I don’t know my stuff, I can’t free-think.  That’s because when you learn something new the Prefrontal cortex works for deliberate concentration–  the opposite of free-thinking.

After thinking about thinking,  I’ve decided to set time aside in class today for students to free-think in small groups. Free-thinking doesn’t always happen alone.  But the concept is the same–  loose parameters (a broad topic or question) and laissez-faire ( unmediated chatting) within the topic.  If nothing else,  Poverty– as a concept, will have seen the light on my classroom like never before.

No Politics? No Religion?

My grandfather had two rules for conversing at the dinner table: No talking about politics.  No talking about religion.  Every Sunday, our large extended family gathered at my grandparents’ to eat, hug, laugh and talk about everything–except, you know. I don’t remember anyone fighting or even arguing a-little-too-intensely, ever.  The two rules insured happy gatherings for decades.

Some of the best children’s literature is about happy families–think the March family of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, the Gilbreths of Cheaper by the Dozen and the Ingalls of The Little House on the Prairie series. But scenes of family warmth and quotidian pleasures– with no discussions on politics or religion would cut to the heart of other families, either real or literary. Grand literature wants believable heroes–tackling big problems. For some, big problems must include politics and religion.

The Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy–for example, believed complex literary characters were unhappy by definition.  He said in Anna Karenina,

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

But Tolstoy was wrong.  Happiness does not negate complexity.  Death, disease, love and war visit everyone.  Happy families have epic struggles, too. The key to great stories lies not in whether the characters end up happy in the end- instead characters, whether happy or not, must connect to your emotions.

Literary editor Betsy Lerner says,

The more popular culture and the media fail to present the real pathos of our human struggle, the more opportunity there is for writers who are unafraid to present stories that speak emotional truth, or make such an intimate connection that briefly we become children again, listening with rapt attention, the satin binding of our blankets pulled up to our chins.

But, what is emotional truth? And, does it require tackling themes that begin wars–like religion and politics?

Emotional truth is relative–it is person specific. Politics or not.  Religion or no.  You know the emotions are right when you forget you are reading and you are no longer in your right mind, but at the mercy of a story.

Happy New Year!

Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat. –Jean-Paul Sarte

This coming year, take a break from so much rowing and rock the boat–not because you need a rest, but because you are ready for Creation to pass through you, like oxygen.

Best wishes!

Lousy Writing–Worse than a Bugger Hanging from Your Nose

Creativity requires writing.

Highly Creative people write to understand and to be understood. And although writing  for Creation need not be flowery or brilliant,  a smooth flow of words and clarity of language cannot be compromised.  Proper grammar and clarity of style pave the path for ideas to travel from Creator to the light of day.

This is why I push my undergraduate History students to write, a lot.  My students write to explain ideas they read in History books or discuss orally in class. By the end of a term, most students have lost any writer’s panic or fear of not writing exactly what they mean to say.

A few nights ago, I brought home a stack of 40 final exam essays to review.  I pulled the stack out from my purple satchel at dinnertime and started reading one of the essays to my children.  I wanted to see if the college-level writing could pique their interest.  Soon after, my husband walked in and caught me half-way through the second paragraph of the first essay. The scene I had imagined before I started reading out-loud, with my children asking questions and me directing a lively– but genteel discussion, soon turned rather challenging for me but more entertaining for the kids. My husband thought the quality the essay so lousy and its ideas so muddled and confused, it could not even be made an example, for my children, of how not to write.  He said,

The writing is so bad, it is like bugger hanging from your best friend’s nose and you not saying anything because you want to say only nice things to your friend.

You have to tell this kid, “Hey, your writing sucks.”  He’ll be grateful you did.

My children turned their heads to see what I would say. I could not let my husband’s comment rest.  I defended my student and how much his writing has improved since the beginning of the school year. I picked out his arguments for everyone to grasp.  I even said,

I teach History. Whatever writing competencies a student comes to class with is what they have to work with.

Besides, what’s the point in belittling a student without helping him?

Somehow we ended the discussion amicably.  But the hanging bugger comment stuck with me for several days.

So today, after turning in final grades for my students, I wrote the director of The Writing Center at the university I teach.

I need to find a way to help my students clean up their writing because foggy writing is worse than a bugger hanging from your nose.  It is more like a virulent flu weakening your most tenacious thoughts.  My students must not only be made aware of their ill-use of language; they must also get better.  They must write well enough to understand and be understood.

Is Barnes & Noble Changing for the Worse?

The floor design of my neighborhood Barnes & Noble bookstore has changed recently.

  • The Science section is closer to the front of the store, next to Self-Help books.
  • Religious/Inspiration shelf space has twice the footage of Fiction.
  • The only CD’s left in the music/movies section are various compilations for old people.
  • A huge display of cute Nook e-reader cases greets you when you walk in.
  • The Philosophy/ Cultural Studies section is lost or gone.
    • Baby paraphernalia sit where the bargain books once got a second chance.
    • Most notable change: the background music. It’s harsh, mostly rap or hip-hop, loud and low-fidelity.

So, this house of books, container of a million ideas for sale at a cheap price, is blowing their marketing and I’m worried.  The music drives out readers,  but maybe brings in buyers.  The problem is the new arrangements, seem hapless and not well-thought out. Frankly, unprofessional.  What is missing is big picture, design-thinking.  Any creativity and beauty has gone out the window to make room for, what exactly, I’m not sure.

Should I be worried?  What do you think?

How To Be Alone

My good friend, Elisa sent me this video, this morning.

Enjoy!

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