“ The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.
—
Gilbert Keith Chesterton by way of
Farnam Street. He continues, “Everywhere in things there is this element of the quiet and incalculable. It escapes the rationalists, but it never escapes till the last moment.”
There it was — as persistent as it had always been. A stubborn, short, quiet hair on the arm of my jacket this afternoon. My hand went up to brush it away, and then it stopped. Routine interrupted.
There it was. Although several weeks before, my beloved red dog had peacefully passed away. My closest companion of 12 years had once shed — generously and unadulteratedly — across the things of my life. And while she was gone, here: her trademark doghair still stood.
How lucky I had been for the red hair. How lucky I had been for the loyalty two companion animals provide: commingled, intertwined, co-habitated. Shedding upon one another our lives such that when we went back into the world, we had these small red badges of courage.
In our dozen years together, this animal taught me more about being a person than any person I’ve known. Importantly:
- Learn at least one impressive trick.
- Shake when wet.
- Wag.
- When off the leash, it is best to run to a loved one.
- Accept treats from strangers energetically yet cautiously.
- Roll in grass whenever possible.
- Wonderful things can sometimes be found in the trash.
- Barking is a last resort.
- Know when the right time is to let go of what you love.
- True life partners do exist.
Lucy passed away November 15, 2012. The loss devastated me so deeply and personally that I couldn’t speak of it at all. Now, I think back on what I have been known to say, “When in doubt, trust the one covered in dog hair.” Trust them, and know they’re carrying badges of much more.
How lucky we are if we have known dog hair.
This thought was first published by The Pastry Box Project, and inspired by Lucy and my infinitely kind brother.
Peer over someone’s shoulder — on subways, at desks, at kitchen tables — and chances are good you’ll quickly find a list maker. Inventories, enumerations, lists are sensemaking for nonsensical things.
Lists guide and advise. Not only do they provide temporal structures for moving through a day space, they demand coherence, story, and priority. “What’s your number one priority on this project?”“What’s your top ten list of apps?” “What are the top x of y,” people ask, the content mattering not at all, in contrast with a hunger for the list itself. We have numbered lists, therefore, we are.
Hence, when recently asked the “five things all designers should know,” I offered a list.
1. Be comfortable with fiction like nonfiction.
Leadership is 50 percent fiction/50 percent nonfiction. That is to say, leadership is the confidence in knowing what you know and what you know you’ll know. It’s the ability to speak confidently, knowledgeably, and easily about the latter that sets some apart. Be comfortable with the fiction.
2. Know presence from present.
It’s a relatively mundane thing, after all. It’s what we do when we show up — we’re present. However, presence is different from present. In both cases, one is there. But presence offers those also there the resonance and memory of something larger than just being there. When you show up to talk about your work, are you present or do you have presence?
3. Make practice spaces.
Design is only as meaningful as the way it is communicated. Think not of design reviews and presentations as the only opportunity to talk about your work. Consider every day an opportunity to talk about the thing you believe in. Look at the exchange with your barista, the dog walker, the phone call with your great aunt, the family dinner table all as opportunity to test out your idea in the wild. Life offers a practice space for an idea. Use it to practice live.
4. Find a yes threshold.
We do a lot of filtering. A lot of filtering out interesting from not interesting, smart choices from the less smart, good email from spam, nourishing from the draining. We have less practice saying yes. Instead of practicing filters, try practicing good ways of saying yes. Accept invitations. Say yes to the offer to have coffee, to write a post, to do a project. Practice saying yes and not only will you expand your networks, but you’ll learn your yes threshold so you can use it wisely.
5. Have a trustable framework.
This morning I had cereal, fruit, and milk. Same as yesterday. And five years yesterday. Truth is, I have the same thing every day. Little routines of sameness create a foundation that’s trustable. Trustable small frameworks make whatever unpredictability that happens throughout the day more doable. Whether its thank you gift, a way you take a photo, a song, frameworks create possibilities for what’s possible.
As for making any of these part of a daily routine? Add it to the list.
“ We experiment; we assume; we fail; we experiment some more. Finally, tentatively, we succeed.
—Megan Garber on the City of Tomorrow and the
dead dream of the dirigible. She continues, “
[They are] a timely reminder not just of the short, happy life of airship hegemony, but also of the crazy contingency of history. …. Like the hot-air balloons that preceded it and the wing-thrusted planes that would render it all but obsolete, the Zeppelin represented a hope for a future that might have been, but, finally, was not — an accident of history whose demise was as inevitable as humans seeking the sky.”
