"Don't Call It Art", by Austin Kleon

Notes on the latest book from one of my favorite authors. As always, these are mostly for myself, but they might be useful / interesting for someone else out there ;).

• There’s an idea strewn across the book, which is that of parenting yourself. In the introduction, there’s a quote by Fiona Apple, who said in an interview that she reads parenting books to learn how to parent herself, i.e. to show oneself the same love and care you would show to your children, even if you don’t plan on having children.
  (The author also refers to the book as a “parenting book in disguise”)
• In chapter 1 of the 10 chapters that comprise the book, “Don’t call it art”, there’s this section that talks about how it’s better when you don’t know things; this reminded me a lot of a short story by Linda Barry called The Two Questions.
• Still in chapter 1, there’s this nice two-axis graphic: the horizontal axis is “unintended <-> deliberate” and the vertical one is “perfection <-> imperfection”. The interesting stuff happens in the “deliberate imperfection” quadrant: punk rock, chance operations, wabi-sabi, Navajo rugs, etc
• In chapter 2, “Don’t take things too seriously”, there’s a nice quote by Stephen King that might serve as a guiding principle, career-wise and for life in general

Ask yourself frequently, ‘Am I having fun?’.
The answer needn’t always be yes. But if it’s always no, it’s time for a new project or a new career.

• Still in chapter 2, when talking about “playing the fool”, there’s the similarity / analogy with the Zen principle of the beginner’s mind: the fool is not “a stupid, unthinking person, but one with the spirit of the medieval fool, (…) the carefree fool in the tarot deck who bears the awesome number zero, signifying (…) the state of emptiness that allows new things to come into being”
• Chapter 3, “Give yourself time, space and materials” makes a reference to John Swatrzwelder, legendary writer for The Simpsons who might or might not be a cryptid, according to episode 105 of 500 Open Tabs, one of my favorite podcasts. (It was nice to see that reference in the wild :D )
• Chapter 3 still, when talking about playing with new materials / instruments: apparently, the super famous riff on R.E.M.’s hit Losing My Religion was born when band member Peter Buck picked up a mandolin and started playing around as a way to feel more inspired, since his trusty guitar wasn’t working for him at the time :O
• Chapter 4, “Believe in magic”, might be the thing that makes me abandon my skeptical ways 😆. Especially the section titled “Messages from the universe”, which has this very interesting phrase:

Take everything as a sign and you’ll be less stumped about what to do next

(It hit close to home for me, as I’ve been stumped recently on some fronts)

• Skipping ahead a bit to chapter 9, “Nothing is wasted”, it mentions how when you check in on creative people at different times of the day it might look “like they are doing absolutely nothing, or doing the kinds of things kids get yelled at for in the classroom: daydreaming, fidgeting, doodling or staring out the window”, which reminded me of this comic strip by Tom Gauld (whose book, Physics for Cats, arrived just a few days earlier than this one)
• On Chapter 9 still, there’s a drawing by one of the author’s sons that looks like a video game screen drawn on paper, which I find very endearing because I used to do the same, when I started playing video games and could only dream of creating my own 😊
• And lastly, on chapter 10, “You don’t need a vision”, there’s a section titled “Work with what’s in front of you” that reminded me a lot of this Hank Green video titled Don’t Follow Your Dreams, Follow Your Tools. Both talk about giving adequate weight to the resources you have at hand in the present moment and not letting your plans (or your disappointment when said plans don’t work) blind you to other opportunities that might appear.