Hey friends. I mention it here and there, but for those of y’all who don’t know, I’m a big meditation guy. One of the folks I really appreciate listening to is James Low. James is one sharp tack — super quotable, funny, articulate. He frames high-falutin concepts in simple ways that land with me.
There’s a phrase of his that has been knocking around in my brain lately: “Stop telling the world what it is.”
Most of us don’t realize that we spend days doing exactly the opposite. We tell the world what it is by defining, categorizing, and ranking everything we encounter. A great deal of this conceptualizing is useful, hell even necessary. Categorizing and ranking the colors of a traffic light for instance. But if you're dealing with art (either at the level of creation or consumption) it can cause problems.
Take listening to new music as an example. For me, the biggest obstacle when listening to a new song or album is me. I’ll hear a song and be so busy “telling myself what the song is” that my ability to experience it is severely degraded. My mind defines (oh so they’re going for that ’70s Nilsson thing), categorizes (oh that reminds me of Revolver-era Beatles), and ranks (this doesn’t feel as subversive as Bad Guy). These are all thoughts — and loud thoughts at that. Sometimes a new song doesn’t stand a chance simply because there’s nowhere for it to land. All the seats in my brain have been taken. (Katie Crutchfield had a very relatable take on this with respect to how late she was in listening to Olivia Rodrigo).
I can run into similar issues with my design. If I’m working on a shirt design, I start telling myself what it is instead of asking things like “what does this want to be?” It’s the difference between defining something too soon and remaining open throughout the process. Or the difference between forcing and letting. Seems wonky and subtle, but hey.
This sort of thing is a problem for humans especially as we age. After we’ve been around the block a few times we begin to think we’ve seen it all. As a consequence we end up not really seeing anything. Things get prematurely dismissed before they have the chance to reveal their poetry and meaning.
Low’s phrase is a simple (but not easy!) antidote: Let the world show you what it is.
What does that look like in practice? For some folks it may be meditation, for others something more chemical. What it amounts to in the end, though, is cultivating an ability to hang out in the world as it immediately is — to try (however briefly) to get out of your head and let everything appear — as impermanent sights, sounds, and sensations. The word immediately is worth emphasizing — as in not mediated. This is the difference between expert-mind and baby-mind.
What I’m trying to describe is the world, but before all of our ideas about the world. Making frequent visits to this before-world is useful for creative work. It can be easier to solve problems when you aren’t over-burdened by doing things the “right way.”
I love the word grok for this.
Grok: transitive verb: to understand profoundly and intuitively.
What I’m trying to describe is the difference between listening to a song and grokking a song. Trying and failing I think — I’m no James Low.
Anyhow. Stop telling the world what it is. A little phrase I like to chew on. Maybe you will too. See ya next month.
Recent Work
Some of what’s flown the coop. You can always see more over at the ol’ portfolio: brentmccormick.com
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Whiskers on kittens
A few of my favorite things.
Demon Copperhead was a semi-recent audiobook listen. A straight ahead meat-and-potatoes story about an orphan kid encountering odyssean hurdles in post-Dopesick rural Virginia. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and powerful. Made me see where I live with new eyes.
Jerks.store is super fun to scroll through.
Ben Levin is so weird. It's great.