Yes man…one of my biggest inspirations ever…
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Outliers...10000 hours...
Macklemore I swear you’re the greatest
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You’re probably familiar with the adage that mastering a skill takes 10,000 hours of practise. It’s an arbitrary number, meant to illustrate that practise makes perfect. Whatever.
Well, 30 days ago I made an equally arbitrary decision to shoot for that number. I figured out that if I drew for four hours a day, every day, I’d hit 10,000 hours in just under seven years - i.e. before I turn thirty. That seems like a pretty cool goal!
Now, realistically, life gets in the way. I’m not an art student, and I’m not in a position to become one any time soon. Between the chaos of real life and the necessity of real work, I probably won’t manage to draw for four hours every single day for seven years. But just like the nice round number of 10,000 hours, four hours a day is something ambitious yet achievable. Something to aim for. So I set out and started logging my drawing time on Toggl, with the promise to myself that I could brag once I hit thirty days straight.
And guess what, you guys??
It was a lot easier than I expected. Sure, there have been nights where I’ve had to race the clock to log four hours before midnight, but there have also been mornings where I’ve woken up stoked to do two straight hours of figure drawing. There were days when I had nothing but time, yet struggled to raise a pencil…but then there was the day I sat my final exam, came home and finished three pages of my comic in a sitting, and watched a movie before bed. And there was the day I clocked six hours! Yow!
So after thirty days, I’ve ticked off 129 hours of drawing, and I can already see and feel a thrilling difference. I’m going to keep up the 4-hour/day regime, and hopefully I’ll be back in another month to brag a little more.
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wide & narrow
I saw a t-shirt once about writing a PhD. It said “I know more and more about less and less, until finally I know everything about nothing.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of expertise. One is the type you already know – content expertise, immersing yourself deeper and deeper in a subject, practicing for 10,000 hours and all of that.
But I think there’s a connection expertise too. That comes from going horizontal rather than vertical. It’s about knowing a little about a lot, and finding wisdom in how things connect in new and different ways.
I’m not sure about short-cuts to the first type of expertise – I’m not an expert in anything, so clearly I’ve not found them if they do exist – but the fast track the second type is about exploring the different tendrils of what’s interesting and what you’re curious about. For instance, I’m reading about books that are non-fiction (neuroscience, media, gaming, biographies) and also fiction (Young Adult, Australian contemporary, classic Russian). And out of that eclectic combination arises a unique speciality, connections only I’ve made.
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Things It Would Be Fun to Be a Master At
- sex
- writing
- flirting
- parallel parking
- cooking turkey dinner
- shaving without getting nicks
- break dancing (pop,lock and drop it style)
- arnold schwarzenegger impressions
- krav maga (gorilla street fighting)
- rapping nicki minaji lyrics really fast
- pinball tommy-style
- singing adele in the shower
- eye contact seduction
- japanese
i’ll start putting in my 10,000 hours now.
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10,000 Hours to Success
Just thinking about Malcolm Gladwell’s infamous assertion about how 10,000 hours of deliberate practice leads to expertise. Not quite sure how I feel about the theory; it’s kinda nice knowing anything is possible, and that I could become an awesome singer by the time I’m 30 if I so chose. But at the same time, 10,000 is A LOT. That’s about 3 hours a day for 10 years. I’ll tell you all right now, I have put in nowhere near that amount of time in anything so far, and I’m already 21! What a waste!
Still, I suppose life is still young, so maybe now would be a good time to decide what I want to be good at and test out Malcolm’s little theory. Maybe, there is still hope that I can amount to something after all! Anyway, if I ever have kids I’ll be sure to remember this rule. I can start them up at 5 and they can all be master performers and athletes by fifteen. Plus, provided that they don’t hate me after being forced to put so much time into mastering a lucrative skill, I might even be presented with a nice condo in South Hampton’s to bring in my golden years.:) Thanks Malcolm!
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Recorded this in a 3 hour time span using garage band and my laptops built in microphone. The bass is actually just an acoustic guitar, the distorted instrument is a concert ukulele, and the percussion is a cajon. I wrote this song a little over a year ago.
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[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]
FINALLY! Some music. Cover I’m working on. Norah Jones-Don’t Know Why.
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I am trying a 30 day drawing challenge. Do something a little different in between drawing flowers and skulls. I know this isn’t a great self portrait BUT it is miles better than any other attempt Ive ever done. The drawing class I took a year ago really has helped me a lot. I used a grid method i learned in that class and I dont think I would have even gotten this close to my actual likeness without it.
