“Teaching is nothing like the art of painting, where, by the addition of material to a surface, an image is synthetically produced, but more like the art of sculpture, where, by the subtraction of material, an image already locked in the stone is enabled to emerge.

“It is a crucial distinction. In other words, I dropped the idea that I was an expert whose job it was to fill the little heads with my expertise, and began to explore how I could remove those obstacles that prevented the inherent genius of children from gathering itself.

“I no longer felt comfortable defining my work as bestowing wisdom on a struggling classroom audience. Although I continue to this day in those futile assays because of the nature of institutional teaching, wherever possible I have broken with teaching tradition and sent kids down their separate paths to their own private truths.”

– John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

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“When I started producing [minimalism] was my thing… my first record actually says, instead of produced by Rick Rubin, it says, ‘reduced by Rick Rubin.’…”

Rick Rubin, as quoted in Rick Rubin in the Studio by Jake Brown

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A system of reduction sounds good.

The less you try to add the quieter your mind can become.

The quieter your mind the more you can hear of your own voice.

If you do wish to add more then better to add something of your own.

Don’t allow yourself to be force-fed.

We don’t want our minds to be used for froie gras.

What’s the benefit of fattening them up?

Better to cultivate a free range mind.

Lean and agile and free.

“Punk was about more than just starting a band, it was about starting a label, it was about touring, it was about taking control. It was like songwriting; you just do it.”

– Mike Watt, quoted in Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life

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Simply plug in and start recording.

No sophisticated equipment.

Not months but hours to complete.

Polished doesn’t necessarily mean better.

The important component is energy.

Write like a punk.

Write down the idea that has energy.

Share it straight away.

Do it again

You are a writer.

“I try to restrict my requests to the guard to books, so that if he thinks of me after he has left my room, he will think of books. I need books more than I need food. If I were given a choice between more food or a plentiful supply of books, my decision would be immediate.”

– Terry Waite, Taken on Trust

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We can physically have just enough food to survive.

There are a minimum number of calories we need to stay alive.

But is there a minimum number of books we can survive on?

I would feel starved if I only had one book to read at a time.

If I was limited to one book a month.

Or even one book a week.

The nourishment books give us is infinite.

This is something that Terry Waite acutely felt during his four years of solitary confinement after being kidnapped in Lebanon.

His book, Taken on Trust, is magnificent.

I return to it often. Both, by picking up the book, and by revisiting its scenes in my mind.

It’s not so much about his physical confinement but how he struggled with the mental confinement.

Words were his salvation.

“I got fifty Bentley’s in the West Indies
(It doesn’t matter!)
I got a pocket full of cheese and a garden full of trees
(It doesn’t matter!)
I just won the bingo bought a crib in Rio
(It doesn’t matter!)
Cause if you ain’t sharin, people ain’t carin”

– Wyclef Jean feat. The Rock, It Doesn’t Matter

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To most things that worry us we can answer:

It doesn’t matter!

Material possessions aren’t what matters most.

No one likes a show off.

To know what matters most to us, we need to dig a little deeper.

It’s going to be more important than simply what you own.

And if we allow ourselves to share what matters to us, then what we do can matter to others.

(It does matter!)

Sharing is caring.

Noticing: The fruits of awareness experienced through your senses. What we see, hear, touch, smell and taste. The most important noticing is through your sixth sense: Your sense of self. The subconscious that produces ideas.

Noting: Preserving the fruits of your awareness. Using anything that’s close to hand. For me, Apple notes or Otter ai transcription. You collect the notes firstly for yourself, then for sharing with others, who may come across them in their noticing.

“But the most important agreements are the ones you made with yourself. In these agreements you tell yourself who you are, what you feel, what you believe, and how to behave.”

– Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

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We can choose how to think.

This has the power to change how we behave, which in turn can change how we see ourselves, and create the person we want to become.

We always have the power to renegotiate the agreements we have with ourselves.

No solicitors required.

Often all we need is patience and determination.

Both are free.

But not necessarily easy.

One plus one equals two.

My pen plus my pad of paper equals infinity.

These are my tools.

They are all I need to start my work of peering off into the boundless space of possibility.

My job is to connect the top of the pen to the page.

Like connecting an electrical circuit.

The engine roars to life.

And I write.

“But knowing was no match for emotion.”

Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival, P.38

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We can have all the knowledge.

Read all the history.

But unless we can manage our emotions we might as well not have the knowledge.

Emotion is chemicals that can easily override clear thinking.

It’s in the training and practice of managing our emotional state that we learn to access the knowledge.

If we try to put a tent up in a gale we’d better not get angry at the wind.

Better to remember that a tent is tethered by its pegs.

Put some pegs in the ground.

Then you can carry on with the poles.

Soon you will be finished.

If you get angry at the wind, then your knowledge will be no match for your emotion.

You’ll be out there for a long time trying to put up your shelter with your unrealisable partner, emotion.

Take a deep breath.

Acknowledge the chemicals doing their work.

Then ignore them and get on with the task.

I have spent my life with a mind like a simple transistor radio, picking up other’s ideas via books and magazines, podcasts and blogs.

But I want a CB radio so I can have two way communications with likeminded people.

I don’t just want to be a passive consumer of ideas.

I want to share my own and discuss them with others.

Anyone out there?

10-4.

My dad advised me never to let the fuel tank in my car run down to empty.

He said it would result in dirt from the bottom of the tank being sucked into the fuel lines potentially blocking them.

This obviously could cause a breakdown of the car.

There is an analogy here with the human body.

If we allow ourselves to deplete our reserves of energy, if we neglect to stop to refuel and rest our bodies we risk dragging up germs into our system.

Because the body is depleted, the immune system can be impaired and we are at higher risk of breakdown and illness.

So check your fuel levels often.

Do you need to refuel?

Have an early night?

Go for a walk?

Cook a nutritious dinner?

See some friends?

It’s always better to preempt problems. We don’t want to find ourselves on the side of the road waiting for help.

Let’s help ourselves first.

It’s much easier.

Thankyou Brian.

I miss you.

But I am thankful for the snippets of wisdom that got through before your body broke down and we were left stranded without you.