064 - The Prose of Cons
If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done - Lewis Thomas
Most conclusions of the myth of Adam and Eve, lend themselves to the roots of morality, right and wrong, mistakes, sin. To err is human, that humans can’t help but make mistakes. But I increasingly find that phrase to hold a different meaning1, that is in erring that our humanity lies, that without mistakes we are not human.
In choosing to bite the apple, Eve perhaps wasn’t choosing to sin, but to set out and seek a world of her choice. Pursue a vision of her own and willing to suffer a mistake in the search for something more. For even the Garden of Eden becomes a prison, after one has been there long enough. Mother eve’s trait runs through us all, not as a fault, but our very being.
Wrapping up a week of considerable mistakes and feeling completely human, this is Bombay Daak finding new ways to get it wrong.
Time Well Spent
Mistakes Will Be Made | I have landed on this essay by Heather Havrilesky twice over the past month, and now finally have an issue that’s perfect to share it:
‘The real challenge of being alive is to savor the moment and give your love freely in spite of the clown show unfolding around you.’
Henry Rollins on defining success | Littered with beautiful poignant sentences, this essay could replace this issue of this newsletter:
‘I think it’s important if you’re a creative person, or aspire to be, that you don’t spend too much time aspiring or asking advice. Just get going and address what’s roaring inside you.’
‘I don’t look for advice. Could I be taught a thing or two? Oh, hell yeah. I’d rather just get it from trial and error and figuring out how I get through the maze.’
The point is not to avoid mistakes then, but to use them faster2. What helps is to have a clarity of vision, when you know what you are pursuing, recognising mistakes is easier. Getting out of one is always hard, but the longer you simmer in one, the more likely you will melt in it, you have to keep swimming, going forward every time.
But where does vision come from?
And how does one clarify it?
Time Spent Elsewhere
It all began with Adam and Eve, a book review
This zine on finding your voice, by Kickstarter
How UK Designer Turns Waste into Stylish Furniture, Nina Tolstrup + Jack Mama, StudioMama
The John Mayer video on the creative process the whole world has seen by now - “… Failing to sound exactly like the person you want to sound like is a wonderful way to sound like yourself”
I do not profess to have perfected an art, but to have commenced one; the limits of which it is not possible at present exactly to ascertain."
Often, when hiking high mountains, you never see the summit until you are nearly there. Often you have to climb up smaller peaks, cut through plateaus and wait for clouds to recede, blow elsewhere, before you see things clearly.
Too often, we confuse vision with clarity of one. Vision is knowing where to look, but clarity comes from commencing on it.
In our resistance to make mistakes today, we rarely begin until we know exactly where to reach. Instead we look for manuals, guides, tutorials, anything but the work to get it right on the first go. A great operating procedure for machines and man made institutions, but not for creative pursuits.
Sunday Matinee
I only came to know of Dürer two years ago, when going listening to an art lesson online. The instructor mentioned his name in passing and I quickly noted his name alongside a question mark. I got to know of his skill, technique, writing and influence much later. In my mind, he perhaps set the ground for printmakers, artists seeking a perfectionism in art. This is most vividly seen in his enigmatic self portrait, that speculates a view of the artists as a creator, as God.
Ways of Seeing
‘As I write to you looking out of my window, I think of all the contemporary American poets and artists who represent their outlook on this strange country, and I find myself beginning to realise that I shall be one of them.’3
I wonder what did Sonja Sekula see as she looked out of her window and made this declaration in a letter to her mother. The year was 1947, Jackson Pollock was probably visualising his famed No. 5, and the post war American art space was shifting from surrealism to abstract expressionism, perhaps she saw the changing tide, for her work finds itself on the spectrum of this transition.
More experimental than stylistic, Sonja’s art reflects an attitude of discovering her vision on the canvas more than reflecting it; corrections, scratches through layers of paint, big black crossings all exist together in one explosion of colours and energy.
Even at the expense of making the mistake of ignoring its latter half and completely changing its meaning, but then that is very prescient of me in the context of this issue
Unlike the piling up leftovers in my fridge (how long can I still use a slab of butter after its expiry?)