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Advice for those worried about not being ‘expert’ enough to share their work: Don’t try to think of yourself as an expert, but instead as a peer sharing something you’ve learned.
This podcast between Austin Kleon and Ali Abdaal is the gift that keeps on giving…
At nearly an hour in, Austin talks about not choosing between your passions - your job, he says, is to figure out how to do all of your passions. Doing so might not get you a career, but it will get you a life.
What a brilliant thing to say.
It get me thinking… How could I do it all?
I like writing. I like making music. I like exploring the possibilities of computational art. I like connecting with people. I like taking on a semi-leadership position in a community (eg. the good times at BIMM).
(It might not get you a career, but it will get you a life. In other words, you don’t have to worry about monetising this… it will sustain you, even if you have to take side jobs forever.)
… Later in the evening, I came back to a podcast I’d started listening to 2 weeks ago. There were so many moments I’d like to remember in the 30 minutes I listened to, but here’s the last thing I heard:
I grew up in a rural area, and nobody I knew cared about the same things that I did… Now, I’m in touch with all these people that care about the same stuff as I do. We all know each other because of the work we do. When we met, there wasn’t any small talk - we just sat down, had barbecue together, and were friends… We know the crew we’re in… And that’s all I ever wanted… All these things are invitations. Every piece I put out here is an invitation to come hang out.
- Austin Kleon, 1h22m
Gosh, that’s right. Isn’t that what I’d like too? If I had to choose between making things to attract the right ‘crew’, and writing on behalf of businesses to make enough money to cut back on my college work, wouldn’t I choose the former? Probably it would lead to a richer life… although I’d still like some extra money to cut back at the college!
Another line from that podcast with Austin Kleon came back to me just now, when he says we should adopt Bill Murray’s ‘loose’ approach to life. I forget the exact context - I need to go back over that podcast and make some notes, but here’s Murray’s quote given to a group of baseball players:
If you can stay light, and stay loose, and stay relaxed, you can play at the very highest level—as a baseball player or a human being.
- Bill Murray
I searched for Austin Kleon while making my breakfast, and a clip came up in which he recommends reading obituarites.
I have two main motivators in life: death and deadlines. Death is like the ultimate deadline.
- Austin Kleon (on Ryan Holiday YouTube Interview)
He reads the obituaries every morning, because they remind him of the final deadline, but also because they are largely positive accounts of interesting lives lived, and “reading about what people did with their lives makes me wonder what I’m going to do with mine.”
So I listened to Last Word on BBC Sounds, and heard the story of the MI6 Cold War spy Oleg Gordievsky who escaped the Soviet Union in the trunk of a diplomat’s car, and said of the 1968 Prague Spring:
The Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. Just because [they] wanted to build a socialism with a human face. Not an entirely democratic and liberal society, just another more human variety of communism.
It was a fascinating story - what a life. It made me think about making data art inspired by this life, or gathering related stories from other people about… spying? No, no-one will have a story about spying, it’s too unusual…