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Creativity vs. productivity

Julia Cameron wrote in “The Artist’s Way” that when people say that they want to be creative they actually want to be productive. And productivity is usually defined as something related to benefiting oneself or one’s career. In this framework, there is little room for art as a hobby. It is either “professional” Art with the capital A or no art at all that is worth pursuing. Cameron then argues that in fact the opposite is true – that creativity stems from the hobbyist’s attempts that are free of the pressure to be perfect or significant.

Incidentally, I’ve been coming across the truism that perfect is the enemy of the good in various contexts in the last few weeks – from violin playing to writing research papers. It also applies to photography, and more specifically, videography. I realize that what often prevents me from making vlog-like videos is the notion that there has to be some kind of profound story in each of them. This thought is a bit paralyzing, so I end up with a lot of unprocessed video clips. As an exercise to overcome this mental block, I’ve been trying to make short videos simply for the sake of making them, regardless how mundane the subject happens to be on any given day. After all, I believe it was Julia Cameron again, who said that in order to have a chance to make good art some day, you have be first prepared to make a lot of bad art. Hopefully, quantity will transform itself into quality at some point, but now I am just going the reps.

Here is today’s clip that I shot and assembled entirely on my phone. This is sort of a challenge to myself of how quickly I can whip out some video content. It gives me a low bound not only in quality, but also in terms of time required to make a vlog post.

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Be indifferent to where you live

I am rediscovering Miyamoto Musash’s writings for myself. “Go Rin No Sho” (“The Book of Five Rings”) and “Dokkodo” (“The Way of Walking Alone”) are some incredible texts. It is amazing how universally applicable the specific teachings are, way beyond kendo. Actually, when I first came across these books many years ago, I did not even practice kendo, and it was the universal nature of Musashi’s advice that caught my attention. Now, coming back to these books (though “Dokkodo” is probably too short of text to be called a book) from a different point in life, I find them even more impressive.

But the Path that Musashi pained so clearly is tough to follow. Any one of the 21 precepts of “Dokkodo” is deceptively simple in its description, but challenging if you look at it closely. Take “Be indifferent to where you live,” for example. I kind of like Victoria. Just yesterday, on our daily commutes around town we saw eight deer. Not in a group, but eight separate deer sightings! Actually, deer are viewed a bit like pests here, but if I think about it, it’s a pity to take this proximity to wildlife for granted. Also, the fact that I can simply put on my running shoes during a lunch break and in a few minutes be in a forest (well, it’s a park actually) so old and dark that it’s cold even in the middle of a sunny day is fantastic. I really missed my usual running path when I was in Milan last year.

My kendo sensei says that there is a good argument in support of the hypothesis that Musashi is a synthetic or perhaps even a completely fictional character. I hope this is not the case. Regardless, the teachings that are attributed to Musashi are remarkably cool in their directness and generality, so he is an inspiration, whether he physically existed or not.

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Shooting video

I find blogging to be a useful exercise for organizing my thoughts and formulating ideas for photoshoots, research projects, future travel, etc. Basically, it serve a purpose of note-taking. There is a concept, neatly outlined in Charles Duhigg’s book “Smarter Faster Better” that some kind of mechanism of capturing and periodically reviewing one’s observations and thoughts is an essential tool for learning. In other words, don’t just read a book – write down what you’ve just learned. Also, don’t just look at scenery – photograph (or better yet, draw) what you are seeing.

Somehow, shooting video makes for a drastically different experience for me than, say, taking still photos or writing down text notes. For example, videography seems to distract me from the experience of the present moment much more than still photography. Whatever happens on camera seems more like a performance than a real event. Intellectually, I realize that this is a false perception, and shooting video can also be viewed simply as a means of taking notes. In fact, the amount of information that is recorded in video is significantly larger than what’s captured in photos or written notes. I think the difference is that still photography and note-taking forms you to do some processing of the information on the fly and record only the most significant parts. In video, this is deferred to the post-processing stage, which incidentally makes the reviewing of the raw footage quite daunting.

Here is a couple of practical ways that come to mind for overcoming the apparent difficulty with producing video:
a) Shoot selectively, with at least a general meaning of each particular clip in mind.
b) Treat video as a note-taking tool, not as an artistic performance. Deliberately exercise a delay between capturing raw footage and making a movie.

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Meta-art

As I am going through my photos from a recent dance performance, I notice a counter-intuitive and somewhat ironic trend: while motion is an essential and arguably most important feature of dance, some of the best photos are those that literally take motion out of the picture by freezing it. I think this is because most interesting photos show the viewers something that they cannot see otherwise. Naturally, they can see the motion and listen to the music while watching the dance performance itself. But an instant frozen in a photo offers something else – an opportunity to see how the dancer’s expressions reflect their effort at that particular moment or the state of flow they are experiencing.

Another thing that I notice is that dance, being an art form, is a pleasure to photograph. It feels like I have less pressure on me as a photographer to create a beautiful image, because even if my photography is unremarkable, the subject itself is already beautiful to begin with. Perhaps, this is why Emily Carr was criticized by her contemporaries for painting totem poles – the idea making art the subject of art was a bit ahead of her time.

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Applied science for first-graders

Last week, I was invited to give a talk to my daughter’s Grade 1 class about my research. This was a part of a series of visits from parents, where we talked about our jobs. The children have been learning about pollution and contributions to community, so we talked about my research projects related to hydro-acoustics, swimming robots (I gave them some HEXBUG toys as an example) and noise pollution in the ocean.

It was a new benchmark for me in terms of targeting a talk to specific audience. I usually explain to my graduate students that it is important to be able to talk about their research at various levels of detail – from a literally single-sentence answer to a “what do you do?” kind of question to an hour-long seminar-style presentation for colleagues working in the same field. A bunch of first-graders is a fundamentally different audience. I knew from my daughter that the expectations of me to tell something fascinating were high, so I was compelled to prepare well. I don’t remember when it was the last time when I had to refine the focus of my presentation so many times. Actually, as my wife pointed out when I showed my initial draft to her, the concept of “presentation” itself was not a good framework to begin with when talking to six- and seven-year-olds. I knew from my daughter that the expectations of me to tell something fascinating were high, so was compelled to prepare well.

From my perspective, the talk went really well. I told the kids that some of my favourite things to do when I was their age were playing with toys and reading books. And it was pretty amazing to realize that this still applies to the present-time me. More often than not, I take for granted how many cool things I use in my research – lasers, high-speed cameras, model ships,.. and that the actual mandate of my work is to be curious about things I don’t know and to tell other about what I learn. This one realization made the whole class visit experience worthwhile for me.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how interactive our conversation with the kids was. I wish I had a fraction of that level of engagement in my senior undergrad classes. At the Grade 1, there was a forest of hands in the audience at all times, including those when I was not asking any questions! I wonder, at what point in the educational process do the students lose the burning desire to tell others about what they know? Or perhaps, those of us, who don’t lose it, become professors.

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Warm evenings

Last couple of evenings have been uncharacteristically warm for Victoria. Usually, even in the summer, the moist air from the ocean is just cool enough to make staying outside at dusk uncomfortable without a sweater or a warm jacket. This is one thing that we miss about Italy – enjoying the outdoors in the evenings.

The last few days were exceptional, though. The perfect weather also coincided with the peak of tulip blooming. So this weekend, we made the most of both – went to the Butchart Gardens and did some sketching/painting of the flowers while sitting on the lawn until the closing hours. As we were getting ready to leave, we found out that the gardens stayed open until late at night that day because of the arrival of a cruise ship. So we had a chance to stroll through nearly-empty gardens at sunset, which is a rare occasion in any season, but particularly this time of year, when so many people come there to see the tulips. The weather was so nice that we decided to flip the dinner and start it by eating ice cream at the outside cafe before heading home.

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Favourite things to do

My daughter asked what was my favorite thing to do when I was a child (she said that she knew that now my favorite thing to do was hugging her and kissing my wife). I thought that it was an excellent question, because, according to many experts, what people want to become at the age of nine or so is a good predictor of their natural tendency, curiosity and, therefore, a reasonable direction for developing a career or at least taking up as serious hobby.

My favourite pastimes when I was nine were drawing/painting and reading books. I suppose it is not surprising that both of them are still high on my list. Reading widely is also kind of a requirement in my job as a professor. I am glad that I do not depend on art to make a living, though. This is not (only) because I doubt my ability to do so effectively, but because I suspect that it is difficult for creative curiosity to survive under the pressures of doing art as the main job.

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Pattern interrupt

One of the nicest things about traveling is that it forces you into relatively unfamiliar situations, which breaks the pattern of daily routine. So while normally you can cruise through the day on an autopilot, being on the road makes you more aware of the present moment.

I think that with some discipline it should be possible to interrupt the pattern of the everyday grind by making conscious departures from the routine without actually going on a trip. Like working at a cafe instead of the office, going for a run instead of lifting weights, wearing gym strip instead of uniform to school (as my daughter’s class did today) or skipping kendo practice to go for a swim with the family instead. I really like routine, because it frees up a lot of processing power in my brain, but it really binds me and sometimes makes me lose sight of the original motivation for establishing it. So it feels liberating to be able to break the self-imposed rules every once in a while. In that sense, discipline (not to keep up the routine, but to step out of it) really does equal freedom.

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The mushroom story

This weekend was incredibly packed with activities for my daughter, even considering her typically busy schedule. She played violin at a local festival, had two dance classes, and played golf – all in a single day. And then, the next day, we were back at the golf course for more practice – all because she had such a good time the day before with some fantastic mentors from our university golf team.

I am continually surprised at how easygoing my daughter is. I think her secret is that she naturally focusses on one thing at a time and enjoys it. She is definitely a good example for me in that respect. She even turns commuting into story time, by asking me and my wife to tell her stories from our childhood, sometimes retelling the stories that she heard many times before. She actually knows them so well that she asks to make sure that her favourite details are not omitted.

Lately, she has been asking for “the mushroom story.” Here it is.

When I was about five years old, I went to a summer resort with my grandparents. One morning, as we were walking in the forest, we found a huge, round, white mushroom on a log. It appeared there overnight after rain. We picked it and brought it to our condominium, where my grandfather and I turned the mushroom into a monster’s head with some charcoal and sticks. Then, we placed it on the edge of an open window and shot acorns at it from across the room using a slingshot that my grandfather made for me a few days earlier. I suspect that he retrospectively realized that giving a slingshot to a five-year-old was not a particularly responsible thing to do, because I had been shooting acorns at everything in sight since laying my hands on it. So having an actual target must have been a welcome development.

At some point, I had a direct hit that knocked the mushroom/head over the windowsill. Grandpa and I didn’t give it a second thought and went on to play some other game. Our condo was on the second floor, and soon there was a knock on our door. My grandmother opened it – it was the neighbour-lady from downstairs, and we heard that she said something to the extent that “your boy splashed some nasty green paint all over our window.” My grandmother said that it was not possible, because the boy had been under constant supervision of his grandfather, who was an exceedingly responsible gentleman. But the grandfather came out and said that he might have an idea of what had happened. And he went to see the aftermath for himself. It turned out that the mushroom that fell downstairs was full of bright green spores that exploded all over the neighbour’s window (in fact, completely covering it with green goo) when the mushroom hit the ground.

My daughter inevitably asks how it all ended, and she is visibly glad when I tell her that I did not get into a slightest bit of trouble. My grandfather cleaned up the mess himself, probably feeling the responsibility of not directing my playing into a less destructive direction.

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Things to do in Milan

I am not a fan of “Top N things to do in Place X” type articles, partly because I think Rick Steves already does an excellent job with practically any place I realistically would want to visit. Having said this, last week, a friend asked about some advice about places to stay at and sights to see in Milan, so I pointed her to the Sabbatical section of my blog. While doing so, I realized that last year, while on sabbatical with my family, I wrote more than thirty posts about our life there – less than what I originally wanted to write, but more than I retrospectively thought I did. It actually felt good to know that my personal experience and opinion could be of use for someone else, even considering the wast amount of information available on the internet and elsewhere. Rick Steves might be a professional traveller and a better writer than me, but he is not me, so his impressions and opinions are not mine.

So here are my recommendations for a few days in Milan:

I suggest trying to visit the lakes (Como or Maggiorre) if you have a chance. Maggiore is particularly nice – you can take an island-hopping boat tour. Here is my blog post about how we did it. The town to stay in is Stresa. It is also easily accessible by train from either Milan or Switzerland.

In Milan, try staying close to Duomo – it is in the middle of everything, and the cathedral itself is the main attraction anyway. The most posh shopping is right next to Duomo too, but there are more reasonably priced stores (most of the same brands) on Corso Buenos Aires, a couple of metro stops away from Duomo. The kids will probably like the the Lego store (one block behind the Duomo along Corso Vittorio Emmanuele II).

Other areas worth visiting are Brera (for the ambiance), Sforza Castle (for the museum and the park), and Piazza Gae Aulenti (for the modern architecture). There are also some very neat churches, which are like mini museums (…those are real gems, and it reminds me that I’d like to write about them some day).