Footnotes to Crossroads Dispatches

be a light unto yourself - j. krishnamurti on education and gutterpunks

"Be a light unto yourself;
Betake yourselves to no external refuge.
Hold fast to the Truth.
Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves." - Buddha's final words

This excerpt from a dialogue between students, former students, parents, teachers with J. Krishnamurti at Brockwood Park, May 15, 1973 later published in Beginnings of Learning really struck a chord with me since I meet a lot of homeless youth that travel America this way. Today, they're known as gutterpunks, but it goes very far beyond begging (or spanging) as it a deep-seated rejection of the status quo that comes from seeing through the shallowness of our culture; however, while I totally grok that stance, I find solely rejecting or resisting isn't the way to an original flourishing that doesn't depend upon the state or society.  It's reactive rather than creative.

---

QUESTIONER: ``First of all, if I may start out,'' said a young man with clean long hair and beard, ``why should I earn my livelihood? Why should I make a career, knowing where it leads - property, bank account, a wife and children, and the utter middle-classness of it all? I don't want to be caught in that trap. If others want to, it is for them, but not for me. I don't mind being a beggar or asking people for a handout. I sleep in somebody's house and I have enough clothes to get along with. I have been all over the State for the past few years living this way and I like it. Let them all work if they wish and if they feel like supporting me - let them. I don't want to belong to any commune, to any group. I am free and I want to remain free. And I'm not against anyone - black or white. But I'm told this is exploitation: that while I'm young it is all right but when I'm in my thirties I'll begin to see I can't go on like this. I don't know what the future holds but I'm living from day to day and that's good enough. I would like your opinion on this.''

KRISHNAMURTI: Only fools offer opinions. You know the monks in Asia live this way: not in organized communities but as individuals going from village to village begging and being protected. In return they preach the good life: not the physical good life but a life of goodness. That is what they offer, unless they are criminals or exploiters. So what are you offering in return to those who feed you?

QUESTIONER: ``Why should I offer anything in return? I have nothing to give them. I don't want to tell them how to live. Any sensible man knows when the way he is living is bourgeois, square, and it is up to them to break away from it. I have tried talking to people but they don't care. I don't want to offer anything in return for their food and clothes. Basically I have nothing to offer. I don't paint, I don't play a guitar. I don't do any of the things they like. I am entirely outside their circle. If I had something basic I would offer it without caring whether they took it. But I've nothing. I am just as confused as the rest of the world and probably just as miserable. I'm not a drop-out. I've been through college and I'm disgusted with the whole thing; with their hypocrisies and with their pretensions. But what bothers me a little is, I want to find - not God, that is a bourgeois concept - but something that is real. I've read some Eastern books about this but they all take off on theories and ideas. I want to feel something real in my guts which they can't touch or take away. I want to get to the heart of it as quickly as possible. I see the absurdity of instant illumination but I haven't the patience to go through the rigmarole of discipline, fasting, following some system. I want to go straight to it on the shortest road possible.''

KRISHNAMURTI: Surely this is possible: to see clearly `what is' without any distortion, without any motive, and go beyond it. If you see very clearly what is, you are already beyond it. And can you see very clearly what is? See not only the outward, the environment, the social morality, the bureaucratic sanctions, religious and worldly, but also inwardly? To see what is going on actually, without any choice, without any reservation. If you can, then the door is open. That is the shortest way and the most direct. Then you don't follow anybody. All systems are useless and the guru becomes a mischief maker. Can you do this? If you can, then the mind is free and the heart is full. Then you are a light to yourself.

Favorite excerpts from Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam Jr.

Really loved the book Rocket Boys, by Homer Hickam Jr. I wanted to save a few excerpts here before I return the book to the library.

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page 71 Rocket Boys

"What do you think?" I asked. Quentin shrugged. Neither of us knew how rocket fuel was supposed to burn.

We decided to test two of our best mixtures inside devices we hoped resembled rockets. There was some one-inch-wide aluminum tubing under the back porch that Dad had brought home from the mine to make a stand for Mom's bird feeders. I appropriated it with a clear conscience since it looked as if were never going to get around to it. I hacksawed off two one-foot lengths. Quentin called the lengths our "casements." We hammered in a short length of broom handle at one open end and then poured in our powder mixes, crimping the other end with pliers to form a constriction the <i>Life</i> magazine diagram called the rocket "nozzle." The result was obviously crude, but it was for testing purposes only. We attached triangular cardboard fins with model-airplane glue. We knew our fins would probably burn off, but they would at least give our rockets something to sit on. "We need to see how the powder acts under pressure," Quentin said. "Whatever the result, we'll have a basis for modification."

I was becoming used to Quentin's way of putting things. What he was saying was that we had to start somewhere, either succeed or fail, and then build what we knew as we went along. It seemed to me, considering all the rockets that I read about blowing up down at Cape Canaveral, that was the way Werner von Braun and the other rocket scientists did their work too. Without Quentin, I might have been too embarrassed to fail in front of God and everybody. With him, no matter what happened, I felt "scientific." Failure, after all, just added to our body of knowledge. That was Quentin's phrase too. Body of knowledge. I liked the idea that we were building one.

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page 298 Rocket Boys
[Thanksgiving weekend 1959]

I used up almost all of my zinc dust loading the Auk XXIII. Getting more was a problem. The BMCA treasury was bare. Still, I wasn't terribly worried about it. I just had this belief that whenever I needed anything to build my rockets, somehow it was going to be there, provided by the Lord or whatever foolish angels had taken on the BCMA as a project. O'Dell said he'd think about a way to get us some money.

. . . I was tense as I began the coundown. Although Quentin was confident, I was a little afraid of the big rocket. I took a deep breath and turned the firing switch on the professional-looking console Billy and Sherman had built.

. . . There was no sign of our rocket at all. It had simply vanished. Quentin rang up and reported the same result downrange. A towering funnel of smoke gradually drifted over us. <i>Auk XXIII</i> was up there somewhere. What if it came down on the crowd or on us? What if it went uprange and landed in Coalwood again?

"I see it!" Billy yelped. Good old sharp-eyed Billy!

"Where?"

"There!"

It was just a dot, but it grew, and it was downrange, although veering toward Rocket Mountain. It hit the top of a big tree, which shivered from the impact, as if to let us know it had caught our rocket. Picking up our shovels, we ran down the slack, the crowd cheering us as we went past.

"Forty-two seconds," Roy Lee cried breathlessly as we ran.

"Seven thousand fifty-six feet," both Quentin and I called out at about the same moment, both of us capable now of working out the calculation in our heads. It was our highest rocket yet, but it wasn't what my nozzle design had predicted. "What happened?" I worried as we pounded down the slack. "According to the equations, it should have gone three thousand feet higher."

"Don't know," Quentin puffed. "Have to look at the rocket."

Billy led us up the mountain, weaving through the trees and bursting through a line of thick rhododendron into a green glade beneath a ridge. Auk XXVIII was buried there, up to its fins in soft, wet loam. O'Dell looked around and held up his hand. "Stop, boys," he ordered. "Don't trample this place!"

We pulled up short. "Why?"

He dropped to his knees beside a big oak and dug carefully with his shovel, pulling up a gnarly root. "You know what this is?"

When we all shrugged, he smiled. "Money."

"Not another crazy scheme," Roy Lee groaned.

"No, this one's for real. It's ginseng. This glade's full of it. I've never seen so much!"

"What the hell is ginseng?" Roy Lee asked.

"Indian medicine. People over in Japan and places like that think it cures everything."

"How much is it worth?"

"Well," he said as he dug up another root. "I don't think we're going to have to worry about zinc-dust money for a while."

I had vaguely heard of the stuff being dug around the county, but had never actually seen any of it before. I looked at the dirty ginseng specimen O'Dell handed me, thinking of God and whatever angels He had assigned to BCMA. "The Lord preserves the simple," was Mom's response when I mentioned this to her.

the poetical, heroic ideal in the Middle Ages

 

Stumbled across in my research into Medieval Spain, the book The Waning of the Middle Ages by Johan Huizinga.

The cool thing about this book is he looks at history from the point of view of the ideals of the period, as evoked by literature and ballads of the time, including the ideal of chivalry as a way of inspiration and optimism in a dark age.

There's an online copy of the book at http://www.scribd.com/doc/44043728/Huizinga-WaningMiddleAges.From pages 36-39:

"Thus, always and everywhere in the literature of the age, we find a confessed pessimism. As soon as the soul of these men has passed from childlike mirth and unreasoning enjoyment to reflection, deep dejection about all earthly misery takes their place and they see only the woe of life. Still this very pessimism is the ground whence their soul will soar up to the aspiration of a life of beauty and serenity. For at all times the vision of a sublime life has haunted the souls of men, and the gloomier the present is, the more strongly this aspiration will make itself felt. 

Three different paths, at all times, have seemed to lead to the ideal life. Firstly, that of forsaking the world. The perfection of life here seems only to be reached beyond the domain of earthly labour and delight, by a loosening of all ties. The second path conducts to the amelioration of the world itself, by consciously improving political, social, and moral institutions and conditions. Now, in the Middle Ages, Christian faith had so strongly implanted in all minds the ideal of renunciation as the base of all personal and social perfection, that there was scarcely any room left for entering upon this path of material and political progress. The idea of a purposed and continual reform and improvement of society did not exist. Institutions in general are considered as good or as bad as they can be; having been ordained by God, they are intrinsically good, only the sins of men pervert them. What therefore is in need of remedy is the individual soul. Legislation in the Middle Ages never aims consciously and avowedly at creating a new organism; professedly it is always opportunistic, it only restores good old law (or at least thinks it does no more) or mends special abuses. It looks more towards an ideal past than towards an earthly future. For the true future is the Last Judgment, and that is near at hand.

It goes without saying that this mental disposition must have greatly contributed to the general pessimism. If in all that regards the things of this world there is no hope of improvement and of progress, however slow, those who love the world too much to give up its delights, and who nevertheless cannot help aspiring to a better order of things, see nothing before them but a gulf. We will have to wait till the eighteenth century -- for even the Renaissance does not truly bring the idea of progress -- before men resolutely enter the path of social optimism; -- only then the perfectibility of man and society is raised to the rank of a central dogma, and the next century will only lose the naivete of this belief, but not the courage and optimism which it inspired. 

It would be a mistake to think that the medieval mind, lacking the ideas of progress and conscious reform, had only known the religious form of aspiration to ideal life. For there is a third path to a world more beautiful, trodden in all ages and civilizations, the easiest and also the most fallacious of all, that of the dream. A promise of escape from the gloomy actual is held out to all; we have only to colour life with fancy, to enter upon the quest of oblivion, sought in the delusion of ideal harmony. After the religious and the social solution we here have the poetical.

A simple tune suffices for the enrapturing fugue to develop itself; an outlook on the heroism, the virtue, or the happiness of an ideal past is all that is wanted. The themes are few in number, and have hardly changed since antiquity; we may call them the heroic and the bucolic theme. Nearly all the literary culture of later ages have been built upon them.

But was it only a question of literature, this third path to the sublime life, this flight from harsh reality into illusion? Surely it has been more. History pays too little attention to the influence of these dreams of a sublime life on civilization itself and on the forms of social life."

 

 

High School and You, 1937

I ran across a first edition of a book published in 1937, titled, "High School and You" by Irwin T. Simley, then Superintendent of Schools, South St. Paul, Minnesota. It is edited by Harold C. Hand, professor, School of Education, Stanford University.

Connecting the dots, it appears that high school wasn't compulsory in 1937, so the tone of the book is to give guidance to pupils on why they should consider attending high school and how to make the best use of their time there by selecting the best-suitable electives for their unique talents and needs. The tone of the book also leans toward self-actualization of the student's potential and in that way they contribute to the whole of society.

It also seems obvious that high school subjects covered much more breadth, including vocational topics, than offered--many of these subjects have been cut from the electives nowadays--and seems less standardized, one-size-fits-all. It's hard to tell if this is the actuality of high schools at the time of writing, or it is the ideal conveyed by the author and editor. However, the book isn't organized as a visionary tome, but as a simple guidebook for students as well as teachers.

From the chapters in the book, I can tell that the subjects offered in high schools at the time included: English (includes grammar, composition, literature, etc) and is stated as a mandatory course in all H.S., home economics (includes childcare in addition to the typical food, clothing, shelter househould management), bookkeeping and accounting, sociology, psychology, stenography and typewriting, agriculture, business training (includes commercial law, business math, salesmanship, etc), natural science, biology, chemistry, physics, other high school sciences (includes astronomy, geology, physiology, agronomy, botany, zoology, physiology), social science, history, civics, economics, industrial arts (includes mechanics, woodwork, drafting/mechanical drawing, metalwork, printing, etc), music and art, sports and physical education, algebra (not mandatory at the time), geometry (not mandatory), English, Latin and Greek, modern languages such as German, French, Spanish, etc.

A few excerpts (note there aren't any hyperlinks, of course, in the original!)--

From INTRODUCTION by Ernest O. Melby, Dean, School of Education, Northwestern University

Every high school pupil is an essentially creative organism. He is not only different from all other high school pupils, but he has creative capacities. If all the high school pupils in America should paint a picture of a landscape, no two of these pictures would be exactly alike. In-so-far as each pupil in the group was able to express himself in his painting, each picture would be essentially creative. The same thing is true in every field of activity. Therefore, the function of school and the teacher is not to shape the boys and girls in accord with a pre-determined pattern and scheme, but rather to create the environmental setting in which each of these boys and girls can attain the maximum of creative growth and development.

Page 32:

It Will Help You Find Yourself

One time, an English poet, Thomas Gray, when sitting in a country churchyard looked at the tombstones and read the simple inscriptions. He thought that many of the good people buried there might have become great if they had only had the chance. So strongly did this idea appeal to him and so much truth did this thought seem to contain that he was immediately inspired to write a poem about it. The poem is called Elegy Written In a Country Churchyard.

Both the poem and the poet have become famous. People still read the poem and enjoy it because of its beauty as well as its thought.

Many people are great because they have had the chance and because something has happened to bring their greatness! Likewise, people are destined to live in obscurity, because the best there is in them has never been called to the surface! Education will help bring out the best there is in a person and will thus help him truly to find himself.

page 69-72:

Who Should Take Algebra

Now, who should take algebra? There was a time--and not so many years ago--when everyone who went to high school took algebra. There were many reaons for this. To begin with, high school was thought of principally as a preparation for college and, because of the importance of mathematics as a factor or reason for the progress of civilization, nearly all colleges required it for entrance. Then, too, there were--as there still are--a number of vocations and professions that required a knowledge of algebra. Again, there were other subjects that had to be taken for certain reasons, for the successful study of which it was necessary to know algebra. Physics might be offered as an illustration. Thus it is clear that there are many types of workers who need algebra and who use it as a tool but, that there are also a great many who do not so need it. Scientists, engineers, architects, and many other professional workers must not only know and use algebra in their work, but they must also know and use the higher forms of mathematics. To determine whether or not you should take algebra, therefore, you should know pretty definitely whether you are going to college and what you are going to study. Many colleges require algebra for entrance. Be sure about your college future.

There is another test, however, which it is well to apply. Do you like mathematics? Do you like arithmetic or is it hard for you, and, if so, why do you find it hard? There are a number of people for whom mathematics is very hard. If the difficulty is to be found in laziness or in lack of application, the remedy is,--to wake up! If the difficulty is to be found in the fact that mathematics, even after honest and conscientious trial, is naturally very difficult for you, the question should be asked as to whether it would not be a better plan to take up a life work in which mathematics is not necessarily required. There are plenty of such openings and life callings. Incidentally, a person should not allow himself to become discouraged simply because he finds himself unable to master mathematics. Nor should that be so for any other subject, for that matter. Most people find some things hard. Few people can excel in everything. It is always wise first to find the different things one can do and then to choose what one is going to do from among these things that he can do. Hence the question as to whether a person happens to have the ability to succeed in mathematics. If he hasn't, he may still have the ability to succeed in other subjects. The great secret of success lies in first discovering in what field a person can develop success.

Who Should Not Take Algebra

In view of what we have said, it is clear that not every one either can or should study algebra. Though it will not do anybody any harm to study it, nevertheless, if there are other suitable subjects from which to choose, only those should select algebra who will need it for further study, or for college entrance, or for the work they are going to do, and who, because they like mathematics better than other possible subjects, get a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction out of it for its own sake. Who should not take it? Those who find mathematics too hard and those who do not need it for college entrance and who feel they are going to get more good out of something else. It is a satisfaction to know something about all subjects, but it is no disgrace not to know algebra. There are many other subjects of more common use and need.

so I hammered the story into a nice, smooth, straight line. I threw out the magic - Chuck Palahniuk

A friend scanned and sent me the Reintroduction to the latest edition to Invisible Monsters (named Invisible Monsters Remix) written by Chuck Palahniuk. Palahniuk explains how he was finally able to release Invisible Monsters in the experimental, nonlinear format he originally envisioned.

The initial published edition was "hammered" to fit the mold of The Way Things Are (in that case, within known and trodden The Publishing World). Palahniuk explains:

"Back then, neither Monica or I had been published. We didn't want to make trouble. We just wanted for people to love us.

So I hammered the story into a nice, smooth, straight line. I threw out the magic."

I replied to my friend: Happens so often: we throw out the magic to conform.

Well worth reading the entire Reintroduction where Chuck Palahniuk explains his storytelling vision for the new release. I've included the scanned pages below:

Download Invisible-monsters-remix-1

Download Invisible-monsters-remix-2

Download Invisible-monsters-remix-3

quixotic accelerator -- proposal for 2012 Zero1 Festival ARTHere

Revised ARTHere Proposal for MACLA's Peapod Adobe Youth Voices Academy in San Jose, CA. The program is for local youth 13-18 years of age.

Title:  Quixotic Accelerator

Description:

Imagine a crossroads of time and space where merchants and sellers from all multiplicities come together to trade. Their voices hark back to when and where people made their living by living their making. For instance, 1938: Dave Packard and Bill Hewitt bake their hand-painted oscillators on the kitchen oven (while working out of a garage). 2012: San Jose youth tinker, experiment, and unify entrepreneurship and arts through an "accelerator"[1] which blossoms over the course of the installation. 

On opening night of Zero1 Festival, the youth-driven microeconomy emerges at the site of former mercado, improvised together by found and gifted items (for a visual aesthetic, download PDF in the style of Roberto Fernandez' studio whom was inspired by the favelas of Buenos Aires). A simple urban game with transmedia storytelling and role-playing elements invites merchants and buyers[2] into a quixotic pop-up mercado that allows youth to engage their imagination in offering historical, futuristic, make-believe, tangible (basically anything they can conjure up with their heads or their hands) goods and services. Even when the youth aren't actively participating  in person during the full length of the installation, their recorded voices describing their regalos animate the market in their stead. 

Based on the regalos that each teen wishes to express and share, we will work individually and as a team to bring the full mercado to life virtually and physically within a hands-on, experiential "accelerator/incubator"-styled workshop. We will learn how to make the best of the individual, team and community gifts, enthusiasm, resources, mentors and allies we have immediately available and can tap into. In the words of Bob Dylan when asked what was the secret to his success: "I was doing what I could with what I had where I was."

We will take the stipend offered, and use it as seed capital. For instance, perhaps one teen wishes to use their illustrations on a silkscreen-printed T-shirt. They track down and source the materials, and borrow or rent the equipment (there is a screen printing press within a block of MACLA). He may request $100 from the mercado pool of money and show the team that it's plausible to earn $300 in sales. Another teen might sell original MP3 songs and spoken word poetry in our corresponding virtual [2] mercado. She affixes a QR code to the back of a card stock postcard with the lyrics scribed on the back and offered for sale on opening night. Each of the regalos arise from the participant's own innate gifts and self-directed choices; cooperation, and collaborations may form between the youth (one may illustrate a CD cover, another mix the music) and/or allies in the community (by providing advice, raw materials and/or loaning equipment). 

The details of this project open-ended in this description purposefully as the goal is to embrace the objectives and dreams of the youth collectively in a collaborative fashion.

[1] Accelerators and incubators are homegrown Silicon Valley phenomena that aren't always representative of the wealth of indigenous talent that lurks beyond the den of software engineering. Beyond the traditional milieu of venture capital and the support ecosystem it fosters, lie waiting new adventures in culture-making ventures that are self-sustaining for the makers, inventors and artists and a generative, synergistic ecosystem in its own right.

[2] Youth may design their own art currency to use during the mercado, encourage bartering, or other forms of exchange. As both exploration of what exchanges are and/or work around legal requirements of online marketplaces such as Gumroad and Etsy. (The accelerator workshop will address fundraising as well as alternative/complimentary currencies.)

[3] The virtual market will make available the mercado to a global online audience who may not be in San Jose for the 3D festivities. It will use a group Tumblr blog (with each separate post representing an item for sale with links to Gumroad  (digital goods, such as songs, poems, illustrated stories, graphic design of a T-shirt, sketches, etc.) and possibly Etsy (for tangible goods like handmade herbal soap or T-shirt). Each tangible regalo (even performances of dance at the mercado) can be tagged with a QR code that links to virtual mercado.

Artist / Group Bio: Evelyn Rodriguez is a writer that is not going to let her computer engineering degree rot. She once was a startup CTO. She currently envisions narrative Internet games that dissolve the theatrical fourth wall. Her website is evelynrodriguez.typepad.com

Type Of Media: Social Practice

Budget:  The spirit of this installation is resourcefulness and improvisation. We will learn to leverage our current resources, establish partnerships with allies that might be able to help with raw materials or in-kind donations, etc. 

I propose that  we use the $750 as seed capital, and each team member proposes how they might use a portion of that (as described in main proposal). For instance one teen might request $25 for card stock and photocopies. She estimates she can sell 50 postcards for $2 each tangibly for profit of $75 (this doesn't include scanning of the cards for virtual sales). The others will make suggestions and approve the use of the $25  from the pool of $750 for the mercado. I am willing to make the purchases on behalf of the students; but it is up to them to direct the use of the funds so that we don't just spend the allotment but earn it back to demonstrate how self-sustaining ventures operate. We can discuss how MACLA will distribute the profits, but I suggest allowing the kids to keep their profits minus 20% (to thank MACLA for the use of the Academy space and to sustain future workshops/installations).

In general, the $750 will be used efficiently to buy raw materials primarily that are used to make goods for sale.

There may be small amounts that might need to be bought (if cannot be found or gifted) such as paint supplies (to decorate booths), speakers soldered to inexpensive MP3 players (I've priced these at average $6 each) to mimic the voices of the merchants (when the kids aren't there, their recordings play), etc. Items such as these that might need to be purchased (rather than scraped together) should total less than $200. 

In addition, I want to mention that the virtual, online mercado can be an trial mercado  they can use to 'beta test'  their final offerings or offer additional merchandise than a 3D booth might allow for prior to the grand opening of the 3D installation. Sales of a few digital goods they've already made  or can quickly make (for instance, a PDF of a short comic book they created could be priced at $1). These profits can also be used for seed capital of the 3D mercado.

Questions for staff:

I am very open and flexible in terms of collaboration.

I am gathering a list of mentors and allies that might be able to assist us -- from providing advice (for instance, one youth might want to email a real person who sells foods and coffees such as coffee shop owner Nancy Coupal of Coupa Cafe) to others providing raw materials. I'm not sure how your organization works with the youth in terms of outside contact. What I can do is perhaps a Skype or phone call or emails from the Academy where we make our requests to these external mentors/allies (part of this is to teach them that they can learn how to rely and partner within an ecosystem of support from other entrepreneurs and artists). I guess what I am asking is if in their spare time they would be available and interested in making phone calls and email messages to people they might want to reach out to for extra assistance.

I have several acquaintances and friends that are available to volunteer in person. For instance, one friend [redacted for privacy] has a background in interior design, and has worked with many corporations including [redacted] to design and construct office spaces. Her father [redacted] is a well-known restaurant owner and entrepreneur. She has volunteered to help facilitate when we are in the "construction" phase of the 3D mercado for 1-2 days. It is not necessary to have additional volunteers, but in the spirit of also teaching that entrepreneurship is also about an ecosystem of mutual support, it might be a good experience.

I'm still formulating how the accelerator is structured, but I think about 1.5-2 hours per day for about 12 days is necessary; ideally, we have a break of 3-4 days between as I find it is useful to have a break when doing new, creative projects. I envision about 15 youth participating in the workshop and creating the mercado.

I would also suggest a field trip to TechShop one day, and/or another to the Friday Farmer's Market in San Pedro Square to see a few people who make and sell their wares in person. I'm not sure how or if field trips are possible with the youth.

PHOTO CREDIT: Popup storefront hand-decorated by designer Poketo.

ADDITIONAL: Pinterest inspiration board (primarily for visuals of the 3D mercado installation in the 398” x depth 226” x height (to ridge) 123” room. 

Excerpt from "Little Bets" by Peter Sims on Pixar's field trips for inspiration

Excerpt from Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims on inquisitiveness and field trips:

There is a heavy emphasis at Pixar on doing field research to find creative insights and inspiration. For example, the team that developed the movie Cars went on two trips with Michael Wallis, author of Route 66: The Mother Road. They went to racetracks, a Detroit auto show, and on long road trips across Route 66. "The saw the teepee-shaped motels and gas stations," Wallis told the New York Times. "They felt the wind through the winter wheat. They gulped it all in." At an old car-wrecker lot in Galena, Kansas, Joe Ranft, then head of Pixar's story group, stopped for a moment and studied it. And it was there that the idea for "Tow-Mater," the rusty tow truck and beloved Cars character, was born.

Meanwhile, the crew working on Finding Nemo took several scuba diving trips to Monterey and Hawaii. They studied underwater reefs, sea life, fish movements, and how light passed through water at different depths. Pixar also hired Adam Summers, a professor and fish specialist, to give twelve lectures on the subject. "They were infinitely curious about fish, and they were flat-out the best students I had ever had," Summers shared. "By the end of each lecture, they would be asking me questions that I didn't have answers for." 

My main blog is at Crossroads Dispatches. This blog contains longer excerpts from books and resources I've cited or quoted over at Crossroads Dispatches.

Introduction to "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho

Re-read Paulo Coelho’s introduction to “The Alchemist” and I am reminded again how much I love it.

I'm preparing to facilitate a workshop for Latino urban youth ages 13-18 years old on transmedia storytelling where I am going to encourage them to share their gifts and dreams with the world. I thought about how even when adults ask "What do you want to be when you grow up?" it's asked politely already hemmed by familial and culturally-condoned expectations. This book popped into my head as a possibility for an all-ages inspirational tome to pursue what calls you, and express that voice.

p.s. I'm taking a version of that workshop and making an online "summer camp" for all-ages too. Stay tuned.

Anyhow, here's the full Introduction to the book.

I remember receiving a letter from the American publisher Harper Collins that said that: "reading The Alchemist was like getting up at dawn and seeing the sun rise while the rest of the world still slept." I went outside, looked up at the sky, and thought to myself: "So, the book is going to be published in English!" At the time, I was struggling to establish myself as a writer and to follow my path despite all the voices telling me it was impossible.

And little by little, my dream was becoming a reality. Ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million copies sold in America. One day, a Brazilian journalist phoned to say that President Clinton had been photographed reading the book. Some time later, when I was in Turkey, I opened the magazine Vanity Fair and there was Julia Roberts declaring that she adored the book. Walking alone down a street in Miami, I heard a girl telling her mother: "You must read The Alchemist!" 

The book has been translated into fifty-six languages, has sold more than twenty million copies, and people are beginning to ask: What's the secret behind such a huge success?

The only honest response is: I don't know. All I know is that, like Santiago the shepherd boy, we all need to be aware of our personal calling. What is a personal calling? It is God's blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don’t all have the courage to confront our own dream.

Why?

There are four obstacles.

First: we are told from childhood that everything we want to do is impossible. We grow up with this idea, and as the years accumulate, so too do the layers of prejudice, fear, and guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our soul as to be invisible. But it’s still there.

If we have the courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream. We do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent us going forward. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey.

Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. We who fight for our dream suffer far more when it doesn’t work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse: “Oh, well, I didn’t really want it anyway.” We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey. Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.

I ask myself: are defeats necessary?

Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and get up eight times.

So, why is it so important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people?

Because, once we have overcome the defeats—and we always do—we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. We start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure. Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.

Having disinterred our dream, having used the power of love to nurture it and spent many years living with the scars, we suddenly notice that what we always wanted is there, waiting for us, perhaps the very next day. Then comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives.

Oscar Wilde said: “Each man kills the thing he loves.”

And it’s true. The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. I have known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal—when it was only a step away.

This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.” 

Paulo Coelho

Rio de Janeiro

November 2002

Translated by Margaret Jull Costa

 

Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman on economy and community from "Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future (and a way to get there from here)"

Excerpts on economy and community from the book, "Spontaneous Evolution," by Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman:

page 294 "Principle One: Wealth is Well-Being"

"In his treatise on human economics, Aristotle wrote that a city originates for the sake of basic survival, but it exists for the sake of living well."

page 291

"Aristotle first defined economics as the science of household management, the study of the dynamics necessary to sustain individual or family survival. As households joined together in community to enhance their collective survival and prosperity, family economic principles were extended and applied to the well-being of the entire village. Villages with successful economies subsequently grew into cities and, later, evolved into more encompassing nation-states that employed essentially the same economic principles. As nation-states further evolve into the new organism called global humanity, in which all must share the finite resources of one planet, it is again necessary for us to revise and expand our understanding of economics. 

Historically the field of economics has been associated with the dynamics of property exchange among members of human communities. But in a fractal Universe, the same economic principles apply to all living systems, be they households, nations, businesses, or the communities of cells that comprise a human body."

page 292

"Considering our culture's preoccupation with the material realm, it is not surprising that we measure wealth in terms of physical possessions, particularly money. Aristotle recognized an inevitable problem of equating money with wealth over 2,500 years ago when he wrote, "He who is rich in coin may often be in want of necessary food.""

page 308

"Valueless, debt-based representative money is a major contributor to the current global economic crisis. 

. . . In his book Access to Human Wealth: Money beyond Greed and Scarcity, Bernard Lietaer, a Belgian economist who helped design the euro, offers a short-term solution for our economic problems in the form of yin currency. Yin currency is designed as a complement to the dominant money, yang currency, represented by the dollar, the yen, the franc, the euro and so on.

Lietaer emphasizes the nature of what constitutes workable, beneficial money is defined by agreement within a community. Therefore, people are free to create their own currencies to complement the yang monetary system. Without even realizing it, we make use of complementary currencies all the time. Lietaer cites frequent-flyer miles as an example of an agreed upon complementary currency--and you don't even need to fly to earn them.

Yin currency represents a form of money that allows time-rich but money-poor communities to contract needed services from those willing to provide them. Currently, nearly 4,000 communities around the world use yin currencies, most often as a means of funding nurturant care in communities where there isn't enough yang money to pay for social services.

A specific example of yin currency is Japanese fureai kippu, which means "caring relationship ticket." Instead of relying on expensive nursing homes, Japan has created the fureai kippu currency to pay for elderly care not covered by national health insurance.

Here's how it works. Let's say an elderly man who lives on your street cannot go shopping by himself. You do his shopping, help him prepare food, and assist him with his ritual bath, which is an important part of Japanese culture. In exchange, you earn credits that can be put in what might be termed a fureai kippu savings account. You can draw on your credits when you are old, or you can transfer them to your elderly mother who lives in another city so she can pay someone else to look after her.

Surveys indicate that Japanese seniors overwhelmingly prefer services provided through fureai kippu to those paid for in yen because they more closely express the heartfelt essence of community.

Interestingly, the word community is derived from the Latin cum munere. Munere is "to give," and cum means "among each other." Community and fureai kippu share the same meaning--"to give among each other.""

 

spiritual winter and "everything returns to its most essential root nature" - adyashanti

This is an excerpt from the chapter The Radiant Core in the book Emptiness Dancing by Adyashanti:

"Winter is an interesting time of year. Many of our most sacred days of the year are in the winter. It is the season of spiritual holidays such as Ramadan, Hanukkah, and Christmas, and often Buddha's enlightenment day is celebrated at this time of year. Winter is a sacred portal, an opportunity. The leaves on the tree are falling; the fruits drop to the ground; the branches become bare; and everything returns to its most essential root nature. Not only in the exterior world, but also in the interior world there is a natural stripping away.
. . .

Even with its storms, winter is the quietest time of the year. There is nothing like the quiet after a storm. If you have had the privilege of being in the mountains right after a snowfall when there's no wind, nothing is moving, the snow is sucking up every sound, and you hear a deep silence everywhere, you know how potent this silence is.

In a real sense, self-inquiry is a spiritually induced form of wintertime. It's not about looking for a right answer so much as stripping away and letting you see what is not necessary, what you can do without, what you are without your leaves. In human beings, we do not call these leaves. We call them ideas, concepts, attachments, and conditioning. All of this forms your identity. Wouldn't it be terrible if the trees outside identified themselves by their leaves? These are very flimsy things to be attached to.

. . .

[What if we] saw the trees doing this, holding all their leaves to themselves as if they were in an existential crisis? This is our tendency, to pick up the pieces of our pet beliefs and theories, and hold on for dear life.

Sometimes this falling away feels like a powerful storm stripping leaves from a tree. You may have a sacred identity and some wind blows through--usually another human being--and that identity is ripped away. You can be thinking, "I am so enlightened, I can't stand it, it's amazing." Then some wind is going to come along and rip the thought away. Some friend or fellow worker is going to come along and say, "That doesn't look too enlightened to me," and you see it was just another unnecessary identity. If you don't reach down to gather it up, this is a sacred opportunity. Then as it falls you will see that you don't need that identity. It's an illusion, just more dead weight to toss overboard.

Returning to the core, the root of your own self, and seeing through everything that you take yourself to be allows even your most sacred identities to drop away. There is such beauty in discovering what we can do without. The most beautiful gift of this wintertime is ultimately something that is unspeakable; it is only livable. The winter is actually begging you to just let go, and then let go of letting go. Let this natural and spontaneous returning tot he root of your existence happen. Return to that which is not definable.

There is a wonderful poem about a lone tree with no branches standing at the edge of a cliff in winter, which was written by someone describing his own awakening. A crack opens and runs through the bark of the tree, and then the bark peels off. Imagine cracking a tree or log open to see what is in the core. To see what is inside, you have to crack through to the core. What would you find? You find radiant emptiness, the full radiant emptiness of winter. Imagine something radiant coming out of nowhere, something just radiating out, coming out of nowhere, absolutely nowhere.

When you reach the core that comes after allowing everything to drop, you are naturally cracked open. There is a spiritual heart in that core. You uncover not only the emptiness of the radiant mind, but the radiance and warmth of the spiritual heart as well. When you're really resting, you can actually feel the radiant, empty mind--not as a thought, but as the radiant emptiness of yourself, the nothingness of yourself and of all selves. You also experience the radiant heart fullness and realize that the emptiness isn't just a bland emptiness--it is heart-full. When the emptiness awakens, you know that it is also the compassionate heart. The warmth of your own spiritual heart comes alive.

Sometimes the winter seems cold, lonely, and isolating. You might find yourself being very still and at rest and feeling very peaceful but wondering, "Where is the juice? Where is the life?" You can be very still and quiet, and even quite empty in a certain way, and still have all the bark intact, without having been cracked open at all. Then you have what could be called the emptiness of emptiness. This is the fully protected form of emptiness.

. . .

You notice that as soon as you grasp a thought and believe it, the mind closes down onto that thought. So the natural mind is an open mind, and the natural heart is open, come what may. That's the shock of our natural condition--the mind and heart are naturally open and do not know how to close under any conditions at any time. And at the same time, you are beyond even the open mind and heart. Everything is contained within what you are.

The conditioned mind is always taking on God's job, wondering what people are doing and why they do it. But that is none of your business, none of your concern. You can just start walking through life with this natural openness to what is and be that way under all conditions at all times. That's what the true Self has been doing all along. When your true nature is realized, it is not as if you will have some amazing experience, and after that you say, "Okay world, I'm ready." The deepest experience is when you realize that this open, radiant, empty mind and open, radiant heart have always been open. They don't need to open; they are not going to open; openness has always been here. You no longer see two, you see the One in and as everything.

People feel so vulnerable and put up defenses. But putting up defenses is like walking out into the starry night and trying to wrap a little coat around vast infinite space. The vastness just flies out through the arms and the hood. You have this silly little coat out in the vast space and protect yourself inside it and think maybe someday you will open the buttons and be spiritually liberated. Probably not. It's more likely that someday you will stop identifying with the silly little coat. Free yourself of all limiting identities and embrace the infinite.

What allows this opening to take place at a great depth to realize we are already the openness into which we are opening. If we keep identifying with the human aspect of ourselves we think, "My God, I am opening into something too big for me." When we really let go and fall into this open silence, we can't find any end to it. It has been eternally here from before the beginning, and, in that, our humanness finds a welcoming to open itself. This is so because we are not opening ourselves into a mystery that is alien, or foreign, or different, but into what we have always been.

If you touch the sacred quality of winter inside yourself--that quality of everything returning to its most essential form--you find yourself falling off the end of the mind and into openness. You will start to experience this by not resisting the wintertime and just going with it as it opens you. It can be tremendously revealing, tremendously liberating to just return, return, return. It takes courage to do this. You want to ask, "Who will I be? Will it be okay?" But just return to the essential. When you find the courage to allow yourself to return to the essential, you are actually returning to the very root of your own self. That's the fullness that winter has to offer.

It's as if you return all the way to the seed, and only there do you see that the seed contained the whole truth."