The Art of Deciding
“How long will it take to master aikido?” a prospective student asks. “How long do you expect to live?” is the only respectable response. Week 4, last week, was about Apprenticeship. In short: Never stop learning. This book was about useful methods (design patterns) the authors found for learning. While they were primarily talking about software development, the patterns can be applied to any pursuit. Wherever I look, whether it’s software craftsmanship, movement arts, or writing, the Long Road is daunting. I found the problem statement for Retreat into Competence to be very fitting: “Problem: As you are introduced to the vast reaches of your ignorance you are overwhelmed.” I became obsessed with the idea of software development apprenticeships, so I compiled a list of apprenticeships that I found online. I drew my own map by reading all the blogs of all the Code Cadets (Code Academy students) that I could find and scouring them for Ruby and Ruby on Rails resources. You can find them here. I highly recommend reading Mike Ebert’s blog, which chronicles his 12 weeks at Code Academy as he goes from zero development experience to “adhering to Agile standards” in authentic, captivating prose. I worked my way through Chris Pine’s Learn to Program and did some more Ruby Koans and Project Euler problems. Anxious to work through Beginning Ruby by Peter Cooper and finish the Rails Tutorial, this time for Rails 3.2. I applied to Code Academy and my fingers are crossed, but I think I’ve started off with a good foundation – whether I’m accepted this year shouldn’t matter in the long run. This week: Tranquility. Week 1: Korean Week 2: Rails Tutorial Week 3: Hustle I set myself a goal of “hustling” without really knowing what it meant. I knew official definitions ranged from “work hard” to “con people into doing what you want.” I think I’ve somehow landed in the middle – working really hard at people. It’s come down to applying for employment, reaching out to interesting people, and looking into meetups and interests that languished before: Chicago’s indie game dev scene, startups, acting, software craftmanship. Applying to software development apprenticeships. Reading more about apprenticeship here – I really like the concept, and that you can apply its lessons to so much more than software development. It’s been a good week so far. But I’m anxious to get back to Ruby, Rails, and learning how to morph from my caterpillar-like self into something that can fly and shoot laser beams from its antennae. If only I could find two tiny women to sing to me. PS, my work in progress Rails app is here: http://blooming-earth-3439.heroku.com/ That’s my excuse, anyway. I’ve been wanting to write, but unable to drudge up the “artistic” aesthetic in my last two posts. Still, I suppose a short recap is in order. Since my return from St. Louis, I have been experimenting with incremental productivity – building habits that lead to positive outcomes. For instance, a little writing each day. A little bit here, a little bit there, and I’ll have a book. That way, as long as I keep going forward, I’ll be ahead of the game in no time. I’d read so much about habits through productivity blogs. I did, in fact, write some stuff and learn to code some stuff. I was sure it was the way to go. It wasn’t. I’ve accumulated over 12 hours’ worth of Korean lessons over the past three days as a result of a complete abandonment of my other goals and habits. Sure, maybe I’m doing it wrong. I don’t care – whatever I have been doing has not been producing results. This, however, does. I am forgetting about habits for now. Maybe they’ll work for me in the future. But for now I’m going to leap into the next adventure. Complete a 68 lesson Korean course in a week? Sure. Next? Who knows? But it will be fun and exciting. It took me over 6 months to re-learn the fact that I am an adrenaline junkie. The cold wind swirled just outside the shed where I killed her. Her eyes were so blue. Her heartbeat raced in her neck. I could feel it against my palm as I clenched her throat and steadied her thrashing. I placed a hand around her mouth, the blade against her throat. She did not die easily. I danced all night so I could forget, but she was waiting for me when I came home with her blue eyes and her frantic heartbeat. When the blood stopped gushing, stopped pouring, stopped dripping, she was still watching me with those eyes. They seemed to capture and reflect the endless sky she had seen every day. As long as she stared at me, I knew there was no way she could be dead. She did not die easily. I cried, heartbroken, into the crook of my arm. Saying “I’m sorry” wouldn’t bring her back. I tried it enough to know. She would never forgive me, nor stop accusing me with those beautiful eyes. She did not die easily. But when she did, we bagged and paid for her. We plucked and cooked her. Then we ate her. Her blue-eyed stare stayed with me. She would never die. And I would never forget the day I took responsibility for what I ate. I step onto the platform and suddenly I am Art, beyond vulgarity and eroticism, just lines and contours, shadows and highlights. They can trick themselves, but I know the truth. One girl draws me waif thin with sharp animal eyes, while a male student does for my manhood what quack medicine has promised for centuries. I almost point out the disparity in size, and then I remember that models aren’t supposed to comment. Besides, what guy wants an artist to draw him with a smaller dick for accuracy’s sake? I don’t know, and I can’t think of anyone besides myself. Some admire, some desire, and some despise my nude body. But even nude, I’m covered in layers. Every day, I wear my “Asian” eyes, my “gymnast” physique. I wear black, black hair, the pride of my Chinese heritage. I wear flat feet and delicate hands. Nude, I wear what others proffer. They drape me with coarse fabrics – “Asian” and “male” and “athlete” – with or without my consent. When I am nude before photographers or pencil artists, I wonder what it is they’ve clothed me in. But I will not apologize for my nudity, because what I wear when I am wearing nothing isn’t up to me. Clothed or not, we are always nude. But I don’t know if we are ever truly naked. I wonder what naked feels like – to be exactly what you are, with no concealing layers. I imagine that it’s a lot like being invisible. I imagine that it’s a lot like walking in a crowd on a busy day, mutually oblivious of the people around you. I imagine that it’s a lot like wearing clothes. Since before I could even read, a man named Steve Jobs was shaping the field of consumer electronics as we knew it. It took a while for our electronics to be more than just beige boxes, but Steve was ahead of us the whole time. It was never about the flower print or the typography – it was about us. The driving vision, the engine that hummed behind Steve’s eyes and drove Apple through ups and downs, was about providing the best possible experience. Despite allegations of tyranny, tight-lips, and astronomical expectations, it was all a remarkable display of empathy – if I were to look at a computer for the first time, how could I expect to use it? Steve had the heart to go back to the beginning over and over again, make no assumptions, and cut out the clutter to produce only the simplest, most innately understandable functional pieces of art. My nephews have been able to use the Ipad before they could talk. Steve didn’t design computers, he designed extensions of life, as natural to pick up as walking. For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. But that’s not all he did. Steve was a rebel, a round peg in a square hole. He was a dropout, a loser, a nobody for a long time. But he showed us what was possible. Not just for a company, not just for design, but for a human being. From days in his youth spent dropping into college classes to fighting cancer in the media spotlight, Steve’s life has not been easy. It could have been. He could ended his laser focused attention to detail and the user experience with the popularity of the iPod, but he kept on going. He was a showman to the very end, remaining tight-lipped and using slight of hand to distract us from the surprise. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?” This time, the surprise was a sad one. I have no doubt that he knew ahead of time, and planned it like any other event. After years of asking himself “If today were the last day of my life,” I hope he had no regrets when the time came. Steve, you have been the invisible guiding hand of consumer electronics since before I could read. You have shown us what it’s like to live a life that truly follows your dreams. You truly have changed the world. The ones who Think Different will always remember you. Rest in Peace, Steve. So far, I’ve felt the most productive in my career as an author when I wasn’t writing. Eight hours a day or more, five days a week, a happy buzz, and exactly 0 words written. Clearly, I was doing something wrong, so I began to write every day. At first it was easy, but my subconscious was working against me. I wrote 8,000 words of drivel a day during National Novel Writing Month 2010, which, though crappy, still set unrealistic expectations. I couldn’t even write 2,000 words a day. I found myself less and less motivated, and the harder I tried and the longer hours I set, the worse it got. The more I forced myself to sit down and write, the worse I failed and the longer I spent contemplating that failure instead of living life – life, the fabric of stories! I dreaded the act of writing. Meanwhile, the stories and world still came to life in my mind when I daydreamed, which I found myself doing a lot. The story was still alive, but my ability to set it down on paper was in the midst of a slow and painful death, 9-to-5 Monday through Friday. I came to a few important realizations: “When you quit that, and you have these vast blocks of time where there’s nothing you’re supposed to be doing, people get depressed. What you’re doing during that time is you’re learning to self motivate.” What I forgot was that it’s not about wasting time hammering my head against the clock. It’s about telling stories and having fun doing it. It’s about being a complete person. I awoke from the nightmare of the American school system bent on reclaiming my lost time. I spent the summer practicing spoken and written word with Jeff, biking into the heart of Missouri with Wells, and making trips out to Iowa to visit my sister and Albany, New York, for a friend’s wedding. I spent a month getting to know the Chicago trickers and wander around downtown. Then I returned home with a mission to carve out a work space from the untamed wilderness of my parents’ home or burn everything to the ground. Living at my parents’ house is not something I’m ashamed of, whether it’s because of our Chinese culture or our ability to work out our individual problems. But after living in a car and out of my backpack for so long, “less is more” was not as accurate as “less and more,” and the house drives me crazy. It is in a state of endless clutter, which is what happens when there’s too much form and not enough function. Like their namesakes in web design, the function of our tables is to hold clutter so that we don’t have to deal with it in a concise, purposeful manner. Once my room was in a workable state, I began to launch ideas. Real estate, t-shirts, drop shipping, digital goods, movement concepts, videogames. Websites, godawful websites with cats. Thankfully, they failed. Most either turned out to be unactionable at that point in my life or just a momentary infatuation. I learned a lot, in terms of knowledge and self-knowledge, but when the perfect opportunity came up, everything else faded into the background. My life clicked into alignment. When I wake up, I know what I’m supposed to do. I know where I want to be next week, next month, next year. I have a reason to get a full night’s rest every night, to exercise every day, and to eat well. Our time on earth is limited. We’re all counting down from about 100 years. What would you do if you had to spend just one of those years doing any one thing of your choosing? And why aren’t you doing it? Because you will end up doing what you choose. As difficult or unrealistic as it may be, why not choose what you like? Life is better in alignment. PS, I’m following my childhood dreams of becoming an author: http://eepurl.com/fjpKk I’ve read over 100 business books, courtesy of ignoring homework and summers uninterrupted by school. Most business books begin to blur together after a while, because the concepts which they rely upon are, for the most part, the same. Theoretically, by reading any combination of business or self-help books with a discerning eye, you can pick up the key ideas for our generation. This series of posts will cover the books I’ve found most clearly illuminate those key ideas. Photo by Kamil Porembiński, Click for Flickr I’ve arranged the most useful books into a framework similar to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which distinguishes between habits of Independence and habits of Interdependence. It is exactly what it seems: Habits of Independence involve self-mastery, while habits of Interdependence involve success within an organization. Stephen Covey’s classic is missing one element, though – being so focused on habits of individuals, it forgoes a bigger picture view that I found in other resources. So, to paraphrase Mr. Covey’s imperatives and add one of my own, I divided these resources into three categories, each of which I’ll cover in its own post: Make sure to sign up for updates at the end of the post to get the series as they come. These are the three books I found the most helpful for developing a mindset of changing the world for the better, whether it’s your personal life, your business or organization, or literally tackling a world problem. Disclosure: The links provided are Amazon Affiliate links. If you do decide to purchase through them, I receive a percentage of the revenue. Top 3 Books for Individual Independence This is a classic, and for good reason. As advertised, it goes over seven simple, yet profound habits that will change your life for the better, if applied. Again, while they are simple concepts, it’s remarkable how easy it is to forget those steps when starting any new venture. I found Habits 4 and 5 the most shocking and useful: A quick rundown of the 7 Habits can be found on Wikipedia for those who don’t want to buy the book or can’t afford it. Even so, you can find a copy at your local library or bookstore and leaf through it. It is worth writing the habits down on a piece of paper and carrying it with you until they are ingrained in your mind. Give it a try. Getting Things Done is another classic, though I found it to be more of an actual toolkit than a mental toolkit. In it, David Allen describes a state of productivity Zen that can be achieved by having everything accounted for and in its proper place, in an exterior, trustworthy system. The most important concepts I got out of GTD were: David goes on to describe many systems that he uses to remain productive. After trying many of them, I finally heeded his advice to read the book more like a toolkit or a cookbook than a bible, and cherry picked the systems I liked. This website covers almost everything in a thorough manner, but again, this book is well worth reading through. If we were computers, we could read something once and follow it to the letter, but we’re human. It sometimes takes a few hundred pages to hammer the thought in just right. There is one driving thought behind all of Timothy Ferriss’s works, and that is the Pareto Principle: From Wikipedia: The 4-Hour Workweek applies that to concept to income. How can you best use your limited time on Earth, and how can you create disproportionate cashflow with almost insignificant behavioral changes? There is such a significant body of tools and methods in this book that it is almost impossible to summarize other than what I have already said. Suffice to say that it is a compelling read. So now you know how to achieve any goal and why it matters ( 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) as well as what to do at the right time and the right place (Getting Things Done). Furthermore, you should know that almost anything is possible (The 4-Hour Workweek). In the next post, I’ll cover books I found useful for Organizations. Questions? Comments? Did I leave out a book, or should I take one off the list? Comments are love, so leave a comment! And don’t forget to sign up for updates by email.Apprenticeship
-George Leonard, MasteryWeek 3: Hustle
Not Everything’s a Work of Art
Responsibility
What Naked Feels Like
I step between the easels, watching their carefully casual gazes glide past my body. They had pointed me to a changing room, as if they weren’t going to see me nude, anyway. Beneath the clothes I change in and out of from day to day, I remain, for the most part, unchanged. No need for such a room.End of an Era
-Steve Jobs to John Sculley
10.5.2011Full Time Brian
-Ran PrieurSo the new plan:
Alignment
Top 3 Business Books for Mental and Financial Independence
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.