Fahrenheit 451

I've been reading Fahrenheit 451. It's one of those classics that I am only now getting to. I don't often get a chance to read for fun, but I'm enjoying this book. By "enjoying", I mean, "kind of freaked out about how true it's ringing when compared to our current American culture." But a certain section really grabbed me in terms of dealing with the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of putting yourself out there.

The basic context of this passage is Guy Montag has the difficult task of heading back to his fireman post after being confronted by his captain, Beatty, about missing work and signaling that he knew Montag had books, that he knew that Montag was questioning his life's work, and offered a chance to burn his book stash and come back to safe conformity. He's talking to Professor Faber, the "old man", his secret librarian, mentor and conspirator via a hidden radio in his ear.

   "My feet," said Montag, "I can't move them. I feel so damn silly. My feet won't move!"

   "Listen. Easy now," said the old man gently. "I know, I know." You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was younger, I shoved my mistakes in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. Now, pick up your feet and into the firehouse with you! We're twins, we're not alone anymore, we're not separated out in different parlors, with no contact between. If you need help when Beatty pries at you, I'll be sitting right here in your eardrum making notes."

   Montag felt his right foot, then his left foot, move. 

   "Old man," he said, "Stay with me."

Bradbury paints this scene and this battle we can all relate to in a great way. The book as a whole has been a great warning of the perils of masking all discomfort and gliding through life as comfortably sedated as possible - something our culture has promoted with every app, every streaming video service, every 80" OLED television sold. But in this passage, he deals with the discomfort and downright fear of making a mistake. Of the possibility of looking stupid. Of the potential to fail, to be shown a fraud. Faber exclaims that without showing what we don't know and exposing our weaknesses, we can't learn, we can't get better, we can't build the art/company/self we want. What really struck me was the imagery of Faber's "blunt instrument" being beaten "honed into a fine cutting point" from having his ignorance repeatedly corrected. I love that so much. Masters of craft - real fine cutting points - have repeatedly failed, have repeatedly been beaten and ultimately honed by falters, false starts, failures. We just don't typically read those parts of the book or see those parts of the movie.

If you want to be good at something, you have to put yourself out there and be ready to get better/sharper from the drama of flailing around, criticism, falling down, mistakes, naysayers who may be right or may be wrong. 

Montag finds courage to do this difficult task and ends up paying a heavy price tag. But he knew he had to do it, doing nothing would have been worse.

Joey Roth

Every once in a blue moon, I listen to the Core77.com After School podcast. It's fun to listen to designers talk about their work but if I'm honest, I get annoyed with the host's mannerisms (a lot of "yeah"-ing for example). But that's because I'm perfect so I get to say that.

Anyway. A while back he did one with Joey Roth. I love his ceramic speaker designs - no idea how they sound - so I've been following him for a while. I have one of his Charlatan, Martyr, Hustler posters that really resonates with me. In the podcast, Mr. Lehman asks Mr. Roth about what his style of working has taught him, being a Designer/Entrepreneur.

Q: You’re a “Cultural Anthropologist” *, you’re presenting things you’ve found in the wilderness. What has that taught you?

A: A designer’s only advantage is his/her own voice. I used to be really obsessed with reading the design blogs and seeing what the trends were and really making sure my social media was on point and just trying to out-entrepreneur the competition...and I never thought I was an exceptional designer at that point, I thought I was just smart about marketing…. and I absolutely believed in the work I was doing, but I didn’t see that as the ultimate goal and value, but I’ve come to see through experience and how things have gone that anyone that’s doing something creative, that needs to be your primary value, because that’s really the only unassailable thing that you have. Nobody else can be you and interpret stimuli and filter things the same way you can and so every part of the creative person career needs to be structured around “How can I best present this unique take on the world that I have, how can it be presented in an undiluted but very appreciable way to people?” and having that as a primary goal puts everything else into place." (emphasis added)

That bold section really hit home for me. We get so caught up in the peripherals of the work, how you seem on social media or what our image is or whatever, and really if you are filtering the world through your lens with honesty, the work you're doing should reflect that and the bullshit surrounding the work should also reflect that. You are the only one of you and that you is unique, which means your take on life/art/design/whatever is unique and while it's impossible not to be influenced by others, if your creating honest work and working hard at it, no one can take that away, even if your twitter feed sucks. 

This is empowering when you're sitting there questioning your work, your brand, your whatever. Was this an honest piece of work or did I do this to pander to someone? If this is truly important, did I do my best, or is this merely serviceable? (note, I realize sometimes it must be serviceable and not your best, otherwise nothing would get done.) 

* "Cultural Anthropologist" - In this context as defined by Don Lehman, means looking at all the cultural aspects of an object before designing it, taking those cultural cues surrounding the object and letting that inform it's design.

Good Advice

Custom Frame builder, Brian Chapman, on working towards what you love to do. Lots of great little bits in there but here are some highlights.

"The eight secrets to making a living as a custom framebuilder (you ready?): Paint your own bikes, live at your shop, eat ramen with peanut butter, learn to lay a perfect fillet, be nice, ride often, cut up your credit cards, meet delivery dates. That's about all there is to it... sort of."

Thoughts on this: first of all, you can sub in anything for "framebuilder," same goes for the specific tasks of his trade for the tasks specific to yours. You have to be good at what you do and live it, cut out the rest. Live simply and kick ass at your thing.

On working for himself:

"It feels like a fake job sometimes. I suppose we should all be doing something we love but when it finally happens, it feels wrong. It feel like I'm cheating the system. I had to make a lot of sacrifices to get here though. That's what life is about though, right?"

Finally, as a daily biker, I love this:

"I am also a firm believer in plain clothes riding. Not entirely anti-lycra but it has to be a long ride before I'm in a full kit. I really just want more people on bikes, custom or not. Looking like an alien with flashy colors racing down the street just contributes to the 'us vs. them' / 'car vs. bike' mentality on the streets. From personal experience, I find that I get more respect from drivers if I follow the rules of the road and am wearing jeans and a T-shirt."