“The Art of Learning” by Josh Waitzkin is one of my favorite books.
Josh Waitzkin was recognized as a chess prodigy and won the US Junior Chess Championships in 1993 and 1994.
Hollywood quickly stepped in and made a movie on his early life: “Searching for Bobby Fischer”.
Before turning 20, he burnt out and withdrew from the chess world and got into Push Hands Tai Chi. And became a world champion.
Then he got himself into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And quickly earned a black belt. And by the way, a BJJ black belt is considered a lot more respectable than a black belt in many other martial arts, because BJJ is a lot more complex (and even demoralizing) than most other martial arts.
Anyway, back to chess: a colleague once suggested doing a Speed Chess tournament in the studio. Chess was a regular part of our office/studio culture at that time. But we hadn’t tried speed chess before.
So we did. And to everybody’s astonishment, I beat everybody!
Everyone thought it was a fluke. I thought it was a fluke too. I couldn’t win my way out of a paper bag in a regular chess game. And yet, I was quickly becoming the undisputed Office Champion of speed chess.
It was weird. But it was also proving a lot of my theories about the subconscious mind.
Speed Chess was forcing me to not overthink and go with my quickest hunches. And consequently, I was playing the best chess of my life.
It reminded me that my best work had mostly came out of minimal effort. And getting out of my own way.
When you basically let your genius work with minimal resistance from the monkey mind.
Insights like these have led to my entire philosophy and work ethic. Such as stream-of-consciousness creation that I’ve been talking about.
As Robert Henri wrote in The Art Spirit: “The objective is not to create art, but to be in the state of mind that makes art inevitable.” (Paraphrased; I don’t wanna go back and verify the exact words and lose the flow of my stream-of-consciousness.)
This has been my greatest weapon throughout my 16 years of crafting stories and building legacies for my clients. And myself.
My best animation, my best art, my best writing has always come from letting go of the need to control the process, and allowing my subconscious mind to take over.
But it takes time to get there. Several years of burning the midnight oil.
Picasso once quoted ten thousand dollars for a quick sketch. The client protested, “But it took you only thirty seconds.” “No,” he replied, “it has taken me thirty years.”
…
Oh, the wonders of the subconscious mind!
Anyway, this is it for my rant of the day. Which wasn’t exactly a rant. But it sounds nice.
If you want me (and my subconscious mind) to work on your stories, brands, marketing and sales, fill out this tiny little form here: https://forms.gle/KAEwd1wHPmX8bVt57