School and work push us to avoid real dreams. Dreamers are dangerous, impatient and unwilling to tolerate the status quo. Existing systems would prefer we simply fit in. The dreams we need to teach are the dreams of self-reliance and generosity. The only way for us to move forward is to encourage and amplify the work of people who are willing to learn, to see and to commit to making things better.* Seth Godin
Every move an infinite player makes is towards the horizon. Every move made by a finite player is within a boundary. Every moment of an infinite game therefore presents a new range of possibilities.** James Carse
It’s not that some have way more attributes than others, It’s that some know how to make the most of what they have noticed about themselves: They have stepped towards the horizon and the horizon has moved. Seth Godin references the two dreams of self-reliance and generosity; These align with Theory U’s two questions – Who is my True Self? and What is my contribution? – And with Joseph Campbell’s two myths that we need, These being the personal and the social. When we emphasise these in our lives, then something new begins spinning around and between the two: possibility.
Before writing and drawing were separated they were conjoined.* Scott McCloud
Pictures and words together make a third thing.** John Baldessari
It had been suggested that I write something about doodling for a Christmas-time blog at the University of Edinburgh, So I thought that I would share this here – It’s a great time to doodle – So here we are: Twelve good reasons for doodling and twelve doodling things to do – all you need is a black pen and paper. Merry Doodling Christmas!
Day 1 Doodle comes from dawdle, It is a great way to come aside from all the busyness and noise and slow down: Use the doodle alphabet to create an abstract illustration, Filling a 10x10cms square.^ Make it busy.
Day 2 Colouring in a doodle is for relaxing. Slowly use crayons, pencils or pens to colour in yesterday’s doodle, and see how it changes; Notice how you change: Changing what the body does can change our feelings, perception, and thoughts.^^
Day 3 Colouring is for relaxing, Doodling is for listening, But there are six other art-for-learning skills: A means to record, Understand better, Create something, Present something. Add your doodle to the following text by way of illustration: Before writing and drawing were separated they were conjoined.*
Day 4 Doodling is one of the smallest ways of moving, And moving is one way we extend our minds and keep our thoughts moving. Draw an A5 frame on a sheet of paper: You have one line with which to fill this shape – You can’t break contact, so You’ll be able to use all the shapes from the doodle alphabet except the dot: Write the words, “Keep Moving” on your sheet.
Day 5 Doodles and text together take us into the world of semiotics, In this case, Conveying meaning in as few words of possible, Enhancing with a doodle. Try copying this doodle from Hugh Macleod*^
Day 6 We remember more when doodling: One study found that people who were directed to doodle while carrying out a boring listening task remembered 29 percent more information than people who did not doodle, likely because the latter group had let their attention slip away entirely.^^ Write out the following Jean Rhys quote, Create a doodle to go with it The hide this and recall all the objects, Including those you imagined to be present: I got a box of Jnibs, the sort I liked, an ordinary penholder, a bottle of ink and a cheap ink-stand. Now that old table won’t look so bare, I thought.^*
Day 8 There are doodling shapes everywhere. I took a load of pictures of buildings and spaces whilst on holiday in Florence and at a conference in Washington, which I later used to create a colouring book. Why not get out your holiday pictures and use the features of buildings and spaces to create your doodle for today?
Day 9 You can doodle anywhere – All you need is a small notebook and a black pen. Hugh Macleod began doodling on the back of business cards, and still creates images that are this size. Play with small doodles by cutting out some paper or card the size of a bank or loyalty card.
Day 10 You never know where doodling will lead you. I ended up with illustrating requests for books and even a board game. Doodle often, don’t worry about what others think, Don’t look at likes or anything, just doodle. Create a doodle with the text: Doodling with attitude.
Day 11 Everyone can doodle; It’s simply a sad fact that someone, somewhere, told us that we couldn’t draw: How old do you have to be to make a bad drawing?⁺ If you can remember who or when, Create a doodle that has on the left when you stopped drawing and on the right has today’s date – Then go crazy doodling.
Day 12 Doodling is for Christmas; For several years now I have created a Christmas card. Here’s your turn for Christmas 2023 – or Yule or Winter or Solstice or Hannukah or Dongzhi or Shab-e Yalda. Have fun and a great holiday however you celebrate.
*Scott McClooud’s Making Comics; **Austin Kleon’s blog: A brief appreciation of John Baldessari: ^The doodle alphabet comprises a: square, circle, straight line, curved line, wavy line, dot, ellipse, cloud, zigzag, swirl, loop, arch; everything you need to create a doodle; ^^Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind; *^Hugh Macleod triggered my doodling; copying his work is a great place to develop our own doodling; ^*Lauren Elkin’s Flaneuse. ⁺Lynda Barry’s Making Comics.
We are the dawning of the universe upon itself.* Rebecca Elson
May you recognise in your life the presence, Power and light of your soul. … May you have respect for your individuality and difference.** John O’Donohue
Sometimes we twist and sometimes we stick; Problems begin when we favour one or the other. Mihály Csikszentmihalyi recognised our ‘two contradictory sets of instructions’:^ a tendency for the conservative and another for expansiveness; Almost two hundred years earlier, Friedrich Schiller had noticed the twin impulses necessary for bringing us to “complete being.”^^ One is convergent, the other divergent – What we know and what we do not know; In-between lies the emergent, the possible, Unknown unless we explore. May your life endlessly dawn upon you, Each day a new day.
If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.*^
genius (n.) late 14c., “tutelary or moral spirit” who guides and governs an individual through life, from Latin genius “guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth; spirit, incarnation; wit, talent;” also “prophetic skill; the male spirit of a gens,” originally “generative power” (or “inborn nature”)
Genius is inseparable from the creative process. The word “genius” is expressive of the capacity to be generative. The genius gives birth to something new. The genius creates. The mark of true genius is that the impossible becomes possible. The unknowable becomes knowable. The invisible becomes visible. The genius speaks the future into existence.* Erwin McManus
Today, we popularly think of a genius as being a standout person of great intelligence, But the reality is that we all have genius, Though I don’t think it’s something set at birth, Rather, I see it as a plasticity to be shaped and manipulated as our curiosities grow, our fascinations lead us, and we begin the hard work. Though some are trampled down and whilst others choose not to explore their depths and many fill their lives with unsatisfying, temporary things, It’s never too late to grow our genius, and to keep on growing.
“Here, I made this.” … These four words carry with them generosity, intent, risk, and intimacy. The more we say them, and mean them, and deliver on them, the more art and connection we create, And we create change for a living.* Seth Godin
Listening is about being present, not just about being quiet. I meet others with the live I’ve lived, not just with my questions.** Krista Tippett
I also made it for me. In fact, the best things I will ever share matter to me, are my treasure: Two myths help us to be fully human: One is personal, The other is social.^
Everything has to work. A new idea or an invention had to be capable of rational proof and be shown to conform to the external world. Karen Armstrong
There is something lying beyond the perfect of logos, Not imperfect as such, but more human, more lively, more beautiful. Joseph Campbell spoke of our need for new myths, For two myths:** A personal myth and a social myth, To understand life and our place in the world; The old myths, Campbell said, no longer serve us as we need them to in our logos-shaped world: Karen Armstrong concurs: Like poetry and music, mythology should awaken us to rapture, even in the face of death and the despair we may feel at the prospect of annihilation. If a myth ceases to do that, it has died and outlived its usefulness.* But myths have been with us since the earliest burial rites, And they will be with us for our future, Not the little stories of social media and weekends and holidays, but the extraordinary tales of the greater good of our lives and how we connect with our ailing world and enjoin with others – these stories held in so many rituals that reveal The beauty of their activeness.
look everywhere for difference, … see the earth as source, … celebrate the genius in others, [be] not prepared against but for surprise* James Carse
As we become people with more on the inside – Love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and such – We find that we are able to see more on the outside.
Mythology was … designed to help us to cope with the problematic human predicament. It helped people to find their place in the world and their true orientation.* Karen Armstrong
Our False Self is precisely our individual singularity in both its “Aren’t I wonderful!” or “Aren’t I terrible!” forms. Both are their own kind of ego trip, and both take the tiny little self far too seriously.** Richard Rohr
We living a false tale when it’s all about us, Or its all about others. Joseph Campbell spoke of our need for two myths: The personal and the social; When these are in place, Influencing each other, Then we have probably found our true story.
THIN|SILENCE 
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