I am taking orders for a limited run of Christmas cards, the design of which I doodled last Christmas Day. This will come with a side fold and envelopes. If you would like to find out more, drop me a line by Monday, 11th November at geoffrey@thinsilence.org or geoffreybaines@gmail.com.

I also have a small number of tea towels from a limited run of only 37 which come with a gift card in the same design. These are £10 plus any postage and packing.

Economic logic suggests that more is better. Psycho-logic often believes that less is more.*
(Rory Sutherland)

Affordance is a property or feature of an object which presents a prompt on what can be done with this object. In short, affordances are cues which give a hint how users may interact with something, no matter physical or digital. For example, when you see a door handle, it is a prompt you can use it to open the door.**
(UX Planet)

I love products that can be figured out instinctively: simple on the outside yet complex within.

It feels as though life comes to us this way, with instinctual clues as to who were are and what we ought to be doing: curiosities, talents, energies. Follow these and we move into the deep and ever-more complex. I’ll borrow some words from Nassim Taleb to describe aspects of this: life becomes more dynamic rather than static, multi-dimensional rather than one-dimensional, and interactional rather than “actional.”^

The journal is an intuitive tool towards this. Where we begin is not where we end up – with its blank pages, you only need begin writing and are led to amazingly complex places:

Writing is more powerful than simple meditation for the same reason that writing down your goals is more powerful than leaving them in your head.^^

Just follow your “pathway of intuition.”

(*From Rory Sutherland’s Alchemy.)
(**From UX Design Planet’s Design Glossary: How to Use Affordances in User Interfaces.)
(^From Nassim Taleb’s Skin in the Game.)
(^^From Ben Hardy’s Willpower Doesn’t Work.)
*^A phrase borrowed from Frank Laubach’s Letters by a Modern Mystic.)

We don’t value things. We value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology.*
(Rory Sutherland)

Pleasure is found in meaning, but it doesn’t necessarily work the other way around.

A single joy doesn’t mean one joy, but a focus or concentration of joy opening a plethora of wonder.

Nan Shepherd’s singleness of joy was given expression within her beloved Cairngorms. I have only driven through these mountains, but I enjoy her delicious descriptions of nature and draw these into my own joy; here, the odour of trees:

Birch, the other tree that grows on the lower mountain slopes, needs rain to release its odour. It is a scent with body to it, fruit like, brandy, and on a wet warm day, one can be as good as drunk with it. Acting though the sensory nerves, it confuses the higher centres; one is excited, with no cause that the wit can define.**

Reading this, I can’t help but wonder what makes each of us giddy.^ And reading a little of James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games this morning (in which he considers society to be a finite game with smaller finite games within it, including education – itself a series of finite games) causes me to imagine this single joy to be our infinite game, to be infinite in nature: open, not judging; compassionate, not cynical; and, courageous, not fearful.⁺

Within our single joy is where alchemy can take place, or, more accurately, between our single joy and the world or environment in which we place ourselves, but first the joy, because I happened upon these words from George Appleton also this morning:

O God, as I go down into the deeps of my being[, s]how me the hidden things, the creatures of my dreams, the storehouse of forgotten memories and hurts. Take me down to the spring of my life, and tell me my nature and my name. Give me freedom to grow, so that I may become that self, the seed of which You planted in me at my making.^^

Whether we have a god or not, the reality is we each have an inner world to be explored, in which we discover our single joy – our nature and name.

There is also our environments, which Ben Hardy critically makes us more aware of:

Because the environment prompts our behaviour, it is the environment that needs to be disrupted.*^

We react and respond and initiate according to our environments, and the aim is to find those that are the most fertile for us.

When we begin to make the inner and outer journeys, we are preparing for alchemy to occur.^*

Towards making sense of this, Ben Hardy also provides us with a means – one I’ve used it these last twenty one years:

Recording your history is a crucial component of journal writing. It provides context to your ideas, goals, and plans. […] A key component of writing big-picture is that it reconnects with your why.*^

Journaling provides us with a way of noticing what we might otherwise miss and to follow its thread through our years, attending to how it intertwines with other thoughts and ideas that come to us from different people and places.

Our single joy is always growing and, at this moment in time, we have no idea of what it will become, only that it will.

(*From Rory Sutherland’s Alchemy.)
(**From Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain.)
(^Checking the etymology of the word giddy informs me that it means “insane” or “possessed by a god.” That about sums it up.
(⁺For James Carse, a finite game is one that includes a certain number of people playing towards a particular goal and always playing by the rules; an infinite game is one that includes everyone and the aim is to keep playing, and if the rules threaten to exclude or bring the game to an end, they are changed.)
(^^George Appleton , quoted in the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer for Day 7.)
(*^From Ben Hardy’s Willpower Doesn’t Work.)
(^*I don’t mean turning lead into gold, but, primarily, the kind of alchemy that can produce something more from an unpromising candidate like me.)

Thou shalt create complex characters rather than merely complicated story.
(Robert McKee)

[M]ost valuable discoveries don’t make sense at first; if they did, somebody would have discovered them already. […] We should test counterintuitive things – because no one else will.**
(Rory Sutherland)

To know isn’t the same as understanding and understanding isn’t the same as wisdom. Though wisdom requires both knowledge and understanding, it brings more to the party, getting head and heart and hands to dance together.

When it comes to our lives, we know it’s easier to shape a complicated story than it is to spend the time on developing our character and personality.

Robert McKee’s quote was for a webinar on building story characters and I noted with interest three of the four elements:

• Creating a Character from the Outside→In
• Creating a Character from the Inside→Out
• The Benefits of Combining the Two Approaches^

Wisdom requires we become complex characters but this we cannot become alone, we need help from outside. If we’re not finding this where we are then we need to move:

A drab looking cage produces a drab looking brain.^^

(And hearts and life.)

But we also need to know and understand our inner complexity and allow this to play upon our outer worlds.

When wisdom in all its complexity gets to play in complicated worlds then what follows can be positively unreasonable.

(*From Robert McKee’s Story.)
(**From Rory Sutherland’s Alchemy.)
(^From Robert McKee‘s blog.)
(^^From Jonah Lehrer’s Proust was a Neuroscientist.)

A startover is an amazing thing: to have the opportunity to begin again, to bring our learnings whilst wiping out the mistakes and failures.

The thing is that you have a pocketful of them to hand out to others.

There’s no monetary cost and you’ve already paid the price of becoming the kind of people who will listen to others deeply, ask humble questions, see the truth others may not be able to see in themselves, and offer your particular support.

ask a dumb question with an open mind*
(Rory Sutherland)

Rules are great when they help us move through the day smoothly and without a lot of the hassle of wondering about things like who should go first or clean up after themselves, or where on the escalator we ought to stand.

And, of course, the best rules are those that externally work with our internal rules

What we can lose, though, through an overdependence on rules, is the development of our internal ones, which are often more complex, imaginative, empathetic and creative.

It’s always worthwhile questioning rules, why we do things the way that we do. Many only exist because no-one is willing to ask the dumb and simple question. We might come to an answer we never imagined.

(*From Rory Sutherland’s Alchemy.)

A few years ago, a small crowd of friends gathered a couple of times around the reading of Seth Godin’s It’s Your Turn, to explore the possibilities of what we might get up to for the good of others.

Somebody came up with the title #libraryofawesome for our endeavour and it has remained an experimental project for me.

It directly led to the last two VOXedinburgh events, focusing on telling our stories and making a difference for others, involving many of the people who’d originally gathered.

I’m beginning to wonder, What next?

It’s people that make the most incredible libraries of all – books, DVDs, podcasts are all extensions of people. We have so much to offer collectively, but also individually, making ourselves available to another can make a huge difference.

Yelling at the ref because you don’t like a call against your team is not nearly as effective as insisting that your team train harder or find a better strategy.**
(Seth Godin)

Don’t wait for permission to express your potential, you already have permission.

Moving every day in the direction of your curiosities and fascinations means you’ll discover the things you have no idea about in this moment of time.

Around fifteen years ago, I was reading about how, if you’re 45 years old and people are still speaking about your potential, you need to excuse yourself, find a cupboard to step into and weep.

Erwin, who wrote these words, helped me take a leap towards doing what I really wanted to do but I didn’t know it. And it all followed a conversation in which we found ourselves talking about the things that fascinated and intrigued us both.

Come to think of it, that conversation took place in Los Angeles. I’d travelled for an event I believed I needed to get to, but as I couldn’t afford a hotel, Erwin and his family put me up.

Forget potential, keep moving:

You and your environment are extensions of each other.^

(*Morgan Freeman’s character Monte Wildhorn in The Magic of Belle Isle.)
(From Seth Godin’s blog: The process vs. the outcome.)
(^From Ben Hardy’s Willpower Doesn’t Work.)

I’ve lived through six recessions and learned two big lessons: 1) fear and anxiety will paralyse you if you are not prepared, and 2) a crisis that forces you to stop, just stop, can be a meaningful moment to learn and prepare for your next stage. In hindsight, recessions (and other types of crises) pushed me into my most creative roles […].*
(Bruce Nussbaum)

It’s a rain-all-day Friday.

There’ll be no blue sky today, no sunshine, not even wind.

A perfect day to turn back to a blog from Bernadette Jiwa with the picture of a little girl and her pink guitar, eyes closed, singing her heart out.

Here’s the blog; go take a look at the picture:

It’s easier to be heard when we shout. But being heard needn’t be our ultimate goal.

What if we aspired to be listened to instead?

To be embraced rather than just noticed.

To be valued rather than used.

To be sought out and remembered.

To be recommended and treasured.

To be loved.*

Today’s a wonderful day, full of so many possibilities, because we are capable of filling today with these things: so many ways to listen, to embrace, to value, to seek, to recommend … to love.

(*From Bruce Nussbaum‘s article: How to Recession-proof Your Creative Practice.)
(**Bernadette Jiwa’s The Story of Telling: Being Heard is Overrated.)

The posture of generosity and connection replaces a mindset of scarcity, and Lionel [Poilane] modeled this philosophy every day. […] Generosity, abundance and idiosyncrasy in service of craft and community.*
(Seth Godin)

When we take something to heart, we also are helping it to move from scarcity to abundance.

It can feel as though we have something scarce when we have valuable information, but when we take it to heart, becoming curious and inquiring, we find ourselves generating it into all manner of possibilities … and there you are, abundance.

It’s why having tools isn’t nearly as valuable as becoming an adapter or maker of tools.

Seth Godin tells how his friendship with Parisian baker Lionel Poilane altered the arc of his writing. When Poilane and his wife were tragically killed in a helicopter accident, Godin wanted to dedicate a book to him. It turned out to be Purple Cow.

Here’s how this book altered my own arc of work.

This book had been the first I picked up from Godin – I can’t even remember how I became aware of it. I loved the content and the format of the book, so much did it resonate with me about how I wanted to live and work, it led to me reading as much of Godin’s writing as I could afford, including V is for Vulnerable, illustrated by Hugh Macleod.

This in turn led to me reading Macleod’s three books in print at the time. I really loved the doodles as well as the ideas in these, and when it came to contemplating a year of blogging every day for a year, and I needed a degree of difficulty, inspired by Macleod, I decided upon doodling.

Six years on, I’m a dawdler and a doodler, bringing illustrations wherever I can.

When information moves from our head to our heart, all kinds of surprising and wondrous things can take place – we’re on a journey from scarcity to abundance.

(*From Seth Godin’s blog: Bread and books.)