You are a writer and you’re happy because it’s late in the evening and you just finished a chapter. You’re good !
You can go to bed, you’re tired after all ! You deserve it, and so on…
But don’t.
Just go on, for a few minutes. Add ideas, little words, drop them on the page. Draw something. More : write shite here, and there. Anything.
The day after, you will find all these. Oh ! You will trash most of it, of course. BUT, maybe, you will find one seed, or two. Seeds for the mind.
It will (maybe) give you a sparkle, une étincelle, a little little flame, with maybe you could start a big new fire.
But there is more. Seeds were in your head TOO. Your brain worked and played with them all night long. Who knows ? Maybe you’ll find a whole tree in your head in the morning, full of fruits, et voilà pour vous !
Tool : Think about the “Pause with Seeds” concept. Where could you use it ? Writing ? Creativity ? Music ?
OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll your eyes.
In front of impressive masterpieces you can find yourself very SHY. It happened to me a few years ago with La Recherche, by Proust : In Search of Lost Time, a pack of seven big books, you know, MMMasterpiece of Masterpieces, blabla. I bought it and never dared to begin ! How to read this ? With what kind of solemnity ? Terrifying ! (I’d add : poor you, if you have to read this in English and deal with the choice of translation).
You may also have this feeling in front of a domain you know rich, but you don’t know a penny about it. I had to handle this when I decided to open the door of the Opera territory. From where to begin ? Which composer ? Mozart ? Wagner ? Who ?
Shy as a little chicken in its shell, I began to read books about Proust. In one of them the author was angry at me. Really ! He was saying something like I was silly to be solemn about La Recherche, advising me to shup up and read what I want, in the order I want, and to let go “annoying pages” (!). It was as if a good father was talking to me, so I obeyed, and it was perfect.
After trying a little Verdi (boriiiing) I searched for the “next Italian composer”, found Puccini, and I… didn’t know what to do. Each opera was very long ! And there were many…
I remembered Proust and I tried not to worry too much : How to choose a first opera to listen to ? Director ? I began to wander randomly on YouTube and I listened to things with little “I don’t care” ears. Of course, it worked.
I remember it in the most crystallest clearest way : Manon Lescaut was singing somewhere in my headphones as I was writing an email. The music then began to stop me. One time. Two times. Three. I had to really stop writing, like “Heyyyyy ??!”. Le plaisir was slipcrawling into my brain.
I got it ! The wire. I pulled it, and now I love Manon Lescaut, and Il Trittico, and La Bohème, etc.
Tools :
The Cauldron Method means two things :
1/ Don’t care that much about Masterpieces (with big M capital). You won’t hurt them ! These are not Cathedrals of Culture. Let go. Breathe. Find your own entrance. A lateral one. Then the kingdoms of pleasure are yours.
2/ Loosen your belt. And your tie. Be casual. The Masterpiece is probably a real one. IT WILL CATCH YOU ANYWAY.
“I used to watch things to understand what’s the big deal”
…but one day, you stop.
One day, all of a sudden, you effing don’t care. At all.
One day something is a big deal and you want to watch something which is NOT a big deal.
One day you let the big deal be the big deal without you.
One day you watch the crowd running here and there like sheeps in front of Thrones and you stay under a tree reading a nobigdeal novel – Giono for example, or a Pulitzer from the sixties, voilà.
One day you don’t even KNOW what is a big deal and what is not, so there.
(You just decided to explore Joseph Losey‘s movies, instead).
One day, you just make your own path.
Tool : What do you need ? More mainstream, or less ? Highways or mountain footpaths ?
OK I’m French. When I began to learn english at school I was interested, but also surprised by two things.
1 : In English, things have no gender. In French, things do have a gender. La voiture (car, female), la maison (house, female – does it make sense ?), le soleil (sun, male) et la lune (moon, female).
OK, I know, “un arbre” (a tree, male) is difficult to say for an American…
So you see ? For us, a car and an house, the rain and the moon are female. A pen, a month, a tree, and the sun are male. In France, a dress (une robe) is female, and trousers (un pantalon) : male.
Well it doesn’t matter, you could say. But i does matter, poetically at least, no ? A car is obviously a female, for a French. I assure you !
2 : In English, possessive pronouns agree with the possessor. It’s the contrary here.
If the car belongs to Mary, it’s HER car. But if it belongs to John, it’s HIS car.
Well, in french, il s’agit de SA voiture. Her car. In both case. Because it agrees to the noun !
…and a car is a female, as you know.
So, well, your insulin pump, this little assistant, une pompe, is a female. Say hi !
Tool : in case of lukewarmness, just check the french translation. Add the gender in front of each element. Then try a little systemic therapy, hahaha.
Clément Rosset is an astute French philosopher. Like his colleague Gilles Deleuze, he likes to invent new little concepts (I mean, far from “Big Concepts” with capitals, like Truth or Reason), to use them as… tools.
He is the inventor of the Loss of Level 2, which seems délicieusement useless, until…
Well, the Loss of Level 1 is… when you lose something. From “I lost my hat” to “End of a love story”, it’s easy to understand : you had something, and then you lost it. Bim.
The Loss of Level 2, says Rosset, is… when you keep something with you or next to you, but… you are not interested in it anymore !
Ha !
This strange idea seems funny, and it makes you smile, no ? Who needs philosophy to learn this ??
It’s like a seed for the mind. Maybe you don’t care, be maybe you’re thoughtful. You want to search how oriental it is. You maybe think about Tool Creativity.
Personaly I think about another way to create my own “Level 2”. Of what ? Love ? Creativity ? Change ? Choices ?
Tool : In your activity, could it be useful to “think different”, this way ? Making here a connection between “I lose something” and “I’m not interested anymore”, can it be reproduced ? Why ?
Some ideas are thumbtacked into our heads : it’s complicated, trop sophistiqué, ridiculous, random snap. Avant-garde. There’s a wall here, and you don’t want to go further.
But what if you dethumbtack, for once ? What happens when in music we go outside of our comfort zone ?
There’s a wall, let’s call it the Boulez Wall. Stay there, in front of the wall, stay on YouTube. Can you say why you don’t like this music ? Are you able to jump over the wall ? No ? OK, try : just listen to the music, the whole thing. Is that sooo terrible ?
You can try to understand many things in fact. Why you don’t like it, of course, but Also… how it is made (Google is your friend). You can explore also some good old questions sur l’Art : does it have to be pleasant or beautiful, or can it be interesting to analyse, too ? Is there a territory (comfort zone) you could spreadwiden ?
You maybe just have to know that the flutes are linked to an electronic device. Go to minute 29 and wait a few seconds, listen to the veils of sounds….
You will probably have to find your own way to appreciate the music (Close your eyes and see things ? Battle against your incompréhension ? Listen with dreaming distance ? Etc). Voilà !
Dial : Here, it’s about the Comfort Zone Dial. In art or life or work, you can just want to stay in this zone. Good. This is a territory, which has boundaries, les frontières. If you go outside of the zone, are you interested or afraid ? Curious, or bored ?
Lever : Choose something you “think” you don’t like. An author, a genre, une période de l’histoire, a movie director. Play. Insist. Or not.
When in front of a piece of art, some music, a photograph, a painting or a movie, some might want to feel pleasure, or emotion, or simply “find it beautiful”, or feel nostalgic, or energy-moved, whatever.
My triggering thing is the Eyebrow Criteria. I want to feel one eyebrow (or more : my two eyebrows) coming up. Up up up !
Does it mean I want to be surprised ? Yes.
Because THEN my little analysis-brain begins to work with a question : “What is happening here ?”. Ohhh this is SO good !
The artist is playing with us. He has many possibilities to do this. One of my favorites is :
Strangeization
Strangeization is a concept invented by the Russians (well, in Wiki they call it Defamiliarization), saying simply that you can avoid the boring “I’ve seen this” elements in art… by adding strange things. A way to disturb the lukewarmness of our perspective.
I found this painting on Instagram in the middle of dozens of pictures, I suddenly stopped, both of my eyebrows went up : OK, the light and the colors are cool but mainly, this picture is flooding me with surprises. Flying roses. The angle of view. The body attitudes of both the characters. The white rose. Is it drama ? What is happening here ? Is it a dream ?
This a good strange. Thank you !
Dials : The dials are your eyebrows. You should pay attention to them.
Levers : Well, you got it. Adding strange elements to your art or to your product can be useful to re-catch an audience, lost into familiarity…
OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll your eyes.
Each time I try to understand Mary Poppins, I take my magnifying glass (ma loupe, quoi !) and I see a bunch of paradoxes.
She comes as a nanny, but she saves “Mr. Banks” (the father, of course – it’s funny, in fact, to watch the other movie, you knowwww, Saving Mr. Banks, after Mary Poppins). Her mission is hidden, never really told. Father lost in job, cut from children, relinked : check.
Mary will “save” the father, but the mother, she won’t. The mom’s too busy for that. This situation is a complete unresolved knot : This mom is on a good way on a woman path (suffragette, remember ?) but she seems an innocent forgetful funny mother who does not care that much…
Mary is magic, but she likes organisation : cleaning the room is the first thing to do, and she’s the last to laugh at the ceiling in the tea scene, after many “You shouldn’t”. Is she a Virgo ? Look at the way she’s dressed : poor, but strict. Tight, almost. But magic, graceful, of course. And a smile…
Her employer is Mr Banks, but she has her own way to “listen to orders and do her own way” (letting the poor Banks in perplexity).
It’s a movie, but there are animated parts. Dick van Dyke is Bert, Mary’s friend, but also Mr. Dawes Sr, the old director of the Bank.
Spit, but spot, too : Spit-Spot !
This character is an Archetype. The Intruder coming from outside, and revealer of things, trigger of changes. Is she an Intercessor ? An Angel ?
Levers :
Find your own levers, come on ! Archetypes are seeds. Think : revealer, bifacets, hidden missions, wrong ways up, intruders, reconnections and paradoxes…
After all, maybe you need to be saved, too ?
Think about how lucky you are, the day you find your Mary…
OK I’m french. My english is a frenglish, it’s rusty and wobbly, et voilà. Try me, though. I’ll do my best. I promise. If sometimes it’s too bad, just laugh at me or roll your eyes.
Some movies are… well, you cravewait for them ! And then trailers come. YouTube. Theaters. TV. Pretty well done. Spectacular ! You watch them. Woah. OK, they spoil the movie. They show too many things. C’est complètement stupide, but we are accustomed to stupidity, no ? So there…
It’s difficult to avoid trailers. But one day, try. You resist. You’re strong. You DON’T click. In theaters, you close your eyes and index your ears. TV-Go-Pee. Fermez les écoutilles !
Then, well : discover the pleasure to discover a movie the day you watch it. Incroyable mais vrai. Bim.
You’re an artist and you’re stuck, you’re a writer and your page is very very white, you’re an architect and your next house looks like a shoe, your painting is a croûte; you’re a musician, and, well, “too much reverb, Bob”. Blo-qué.
You tried all levers you know about. You had a break, you drank coffee, or wine. Vous choisissez un bouquin au hasard, or click here and there on the web : nothing. You can run, too. Or let go for a day.
But you maybe didn’t think about getting some help from an ignorant friend.
Tool : Call him. Someone you know – but not to close, no family, no “best friend”. It’s hard : you’ll have to EXPLAIN your difficulties. He is naive, ingenuous, innocent. Knows nothing.
Perfect.
Call him. Call her. Offer a tea, or a beer, depends. Explain why it’s difficult, and how you’re stuck. Tell the stucktale. Bend. Try to show the knot.
Useless ideas will maybe (probablement) blossom. But possibly suddenly the destucking will badaboom. Lightbulbing ! Thanks !! Done !
The simple idea of telling the blocking block to an ignorant can make the job.
a french toolbox 