Take what’s valuable and discard the rest.
Good morning. This is Todd Young from toddYoungONLINE with another Canson flipThrough sketchbook. mid-90’s. This one was a class project. Part design class and part figure drawing class. I didn’t want to waste the sketchbook and I had time to use it to do both.
The quote from the beginning, is from by Rick Rubin. I received his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being. It’s his musings on art and creativity and, he starts out by saying, these are my thoughts. Take what’s valuable for you and discard the rest, which I thought was poignant.
I came to that conclusion myself once upon a time. and how I approach my own learning and processes. I think we all do to some degree. Maybe it is called selective hearing or learning, you pick up on the bits you want and then don’t pay attention to the rest.
As far as my learning process, I learned in class a long time ago that, if I actively listen and participate, I learn more than if I’m sitting there trying to take notes. If goes from my ear to my hand to the page, I’m not retaining anything, but if I’m active in what’s going on around me, then I learn a lot more.
As far as academics, you kind of learn, for better or worse, that the material being covered is in the book and is presented a certain way, whereas, practical learning takes more engagement. At work especially, I found, active participation goes a lot further and forcing yourself to be an active participant, even if it’s not, as as interesting maybe as you’d like, but finding a way to participate will help you retain more. And be a better, and more valuable piece of that process.
This sketchbook, was one of those things. that I’ve revisited multiple times. Going through to see where I was. It’s not a is a reflection on what it is and what I did. I should have done more, certainly, applied myself better, but…hindsight. So you smack yourself for wasting potential.
I saw a thing recently on the internet where it said, you know, if you spent we’re able to spend all of your time, 365 days just focusing on something that at the end of that time you would be, extremely proficient in whatever it is you you dedicated your time to.
I keep trying to figure out what I want to dedicate my time to. I keep bouncing around and exploring. I’ve talked about this in other videos. Once you find what you want to do, then that’s the thing that kind of sticks with you. For me right now, it’s not a specific medium. It’s really is just figuring out how to create and finish things.
Lately I’ve been able to go back through projects and with, more accessible means, I’m able to finish previously planned projects. That is really cool. The accessibility of technology let’s you realize your vision so much easier at this point in time and it’s only going to get easier.
I’m a fan of AI as a tool and its potential. There’s going to be an even bigger wave of content as people are even more easily able to think of something and then will it into existence.
Get your vision out there in some way, shape or form and get it produced. That is always interesting to me and valuable. Automation pushes ourselves forward even when we’re not ready to accept it.
It pushes past us. It scares people to be left behind. We don’t evolve as quickly as we could or should. I think part of that is we’re not taught how. We’re not taught how to pivot. We’re not taught how to be critical thinkers. We’re not taught how to adapt to change. Change is hard and can be a difficult thing when you’re very set in your own processes. I think as creatives, we have a leg up. We have, a way to define ourselves and our processes and keep exploring. We aren’t necessarily defined, hopefully, by one thing and are able to keep finding other ways to express ourselves. I there are ways to be creative in technology. In seemingly ridged environments, but they tend to be, or at least, in my experience, hungry for creativity.
That’s why I enjoy the frameworks, that help you, pivot and be a little bit more agile and lean in looking at how to be more efficient and accomplish things. More efficient in how you develop solutions.
Well, we are coming to the end of another sketchbook here. such as it is, it is, you know, good, bad and ugly as usual.
I appreciate your time.
I appreciate your encouragement.
And I appreciate you being here and sharing this journey with me.
Hope you all have a great day and be safe and take care.
Talk to you soon.
