Background:
I was talking to this guy a lot fall quarter. I thought he was precious, and we got along really well. We texted a lot, hung out every so often, messed around a couple times. It got to the point where he sent me some pictures one night.
And the next day I stopped hearing from him. Like.. the end. This was the middle of December.
Since then he’s texted me asking for Kappa’s social’s number and to tell all the sisters to go to their parties. Any actual conversation pretty much died after about five texts.
Yesterday:
He called me in the middle of class. I was in a huge lecture hall, and it was strange for his name to show up on my phone, so I stepped out and answered. I thought maybe it was a pocket-dial or someone was stranded. Maybe dying. There was really no other logical explaination for him to be calling me.
I answer. He asks if I could meet with him and talk around 1. I skip my next class to find out what was so important that he couldn’t just tell me over the phone.
What did he want to talk about? He wanted to apologize “for everything” even though it was “long overdue” (his words, not mine). Over the weekend, he had some epiphany that he’s been a douchebag to all these girls and wanted to set everything straight.
Okay….
- It’s been almost six months. I pretty much forgot about you. I even had to go back through my texts to recall exactly what happened.
- While I’m honored that I was the first girl you talked to, you really didn’t need to tell me that you were going to give the same speech to others, too. It kind of makes you look gross.
- You did the same with another person you very obviously knew I know after me. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? More gross.
- You remind me of Earl from My Name Is Earl with your “fix-it” list and it makes me laugh.
Ha. Hahahaha. Ha.
Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth
- Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.- Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.- Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.- Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.- Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.- Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.- Study.
A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.- Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.- Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.- Everyone is a leader.
Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.- Harvest ideas.
Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.- Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.- Slow down.
Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.- Don’t be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.- Ask stupid questions.
Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.- Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.- ____________________.
Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.- Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.- Work the metaphor.
Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.- Be careful to take risks.
Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.- Repeat yourself.
If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.- Make your own tools.
Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.- Stand on someone’s shoulders.
You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.- Avoid software.
The problem with software is that everyone has it.- Don’t clean your desk.
You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.- Don’t enter awards competitions.
Just don’t. It’s not good for you.- Read only left-hand pages.
Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our “noodle.”- Make new words.
Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.- Think with your mind.
Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.- Organization = Liberty.
Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between “creatives” and “suits” is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’- Don’t borrow money.
Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.- Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.- Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.- Make mistakes faster.
This isn’t my idea — I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.- Imitate.
Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.- Scat.
When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.- Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
- Explore the other edge.
Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.- Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.
Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces — what Dr. Seuss calls “the waiting place.” Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference — the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.- Avoid fields.
Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.- Laugh.
People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I’ve become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.- Remember.
Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.- Power to the people.
Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can’t be free agents if we’re not free.
And this is why I never put anything on tumblr anymore.
Can we just take a moment to discuss how utterly fucking ridiculous my life is?
All of you would choose tonight to text/call/talk to me on top of the notawesome advice I just got..
I don’t even know what to feel right now. Go away.
I swear these things only happen to me.
One of my biggest pet peeves is getting advice I never asked for.
Sometimes because it’s what you’re already doing, but usually it’s because people start saying things you didn’t really want to hear.
And the people who do it generally don’t know when to stop.
Thanks, man. I was totally fine with everything and having a pretty good day.
Now I’m over-thinking everything and hating myself and not even the great plans I have for the rest of the week can make me not really fucking bummed out right now.
They say the part of your brain that registers pain is right next to the one that registers love.
Tumblr was consistently not working for me forever. Maybe now that it’s had a break, it will.
Anyway, hi. I miss you guys. I’ve been so busy that the last however long has flown by. Like… right past me without so much as a “hey there” or “fuck you”.
I’m so scattered, guys. I don’t know what I should and shouldn’t be doing anymore. Nothing goes right even if I think it’s the right thing. Things around me are going wrong without even trying. I don’t know what is going on. I’ve always been of the mindset that if something isn’t working and everything else goes down with it, maybe it’s a sign that it’s not for you and it’s time to try something else.
But I don’t know what the hell I’m even doing that’s wrong. I go to school. I do shit for Kappa. I hang out with friends. Isn’t that the basics? Nothing added on. Nothing I’m trying to accomplish.
The only solution I can think of is that I’ve been talking to this guy. Right after our first date, I broke my foot. Literally, that same exact night. One of my professors turned into theEnglishbitchfromthethirdcircleofhell. Find out Wells Fargo has been ass-raping me because I hardly look over my statements. (Yes, my fault. But I had no reason to be inspecting them at the time. I was also unaware that my checking account was backed up to my credit card and had put money into my checking account. I thought it was just money I had, therefore it was spent. Now I owe them $440.) I’m supposed to give them $369 tomorrow.
Problem: my financial aid still hasn’t gone through. It was supposed to be here yesterday, but they need to check my grades first because I did so bad fall quarter. Iknowit’sfinesojustlookandgivememyfuckingmoneyasshats.
Also, been hearing from my ex a lot, which has me all out of whack. I keep thinking about him, and then I remember there was a reason we broke up and how happy the guy I’m talking to makes me. Although I’m kind of bitter that he’s hardly talked to me today despite how much I could use it. It’s been long and stressful and I really just don’t want to think about it. He’s entirely capable of taking my mind off of it. I’m thoroughly convinced that the reason I didn’t know my foot was broken and it didn’t bother me was because he’s was there for me. But I have no idea what he’s been doing all day. On a regular basis I go from adoring him to wondering if he cares about me or fucking me. Big difference.
My head is about to explode. My emotions are everywhere. I’m exhausted. All I can do now is fix what I can and see what happens.
That shitty moment when you immediately wish you could un-send a text and want to just crawl in a hole.
So, Tumblr, you mean to tell me that every post I’ve queued never went there and posted?
WELL, FUCK YOU, TOO.
