New Ideas

New ideas go through stages of acceptance, both from within and without. From within, the sequence moves from "barely seeing" a pattern several times, then noting it but not perceiving its "cosmic" significance, then using it operationally in several areas, then comes a "grand rotation" in which the pattern becomes the center of a new way of thinking, and finally, it turns into the same kind of inflexible religion that it originally broke away from. From without, as Schopenhauer noted, the new idea is first denounced as the work of the insane, in a few years it is considered obvious and mundane, and finally the original denouncers will claim to have invented it. Alan C. Kay - The Early History of Smalltalk
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The Grubby Little Room

Clowns, comedians and cosmologists enjoy the pursuit of 'crazy ideas'. Every new idea was crazy once (cooking your meat, wearing animal skins, flying to the moon), and 'lunatic thinking' (for fun) is part of being human, is the difference between soaring about in a limitless universe and being locked up in a grubby little room.

Keith Johnstone - Impro for Storytellers
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Don't Punish Yourself

At school a 'Buddhist' tranquillity would have got me smashed on the head, but if I gnawed my pencil and crunched up as if in agony, my teachers would perceive me as 'trying' and would either write the answer for me or veer off and torment someone else. This strategy kept me safe but it didn't teach me anything, and it carried the risk that 'thinking' might become a 'forced activity', never again to be experienced as effortless.

...

"We only try when we don't trust the forces within us [...] Sometimes being average is the best possible strategy."

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Continued Failure

If students continue to fail, I'll say, "Excellent! We've found something that's really difficult for you! What a great opportunity to improve your technique!" Or "How many times have you played this game?"
"Never!"
"And are you supposed to be good at it?"
"Well - not really..."
"So why shouldn't you screw up?"
This makes the students smile and cast off the tension visibly.

Keith Johnstone - Impro for Storytellers
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Blame Me

"So if you're in trouble, tell yourself: 'Keith got me up here, and he wasn't any help. What an idiot!' Or blame the situation, blame the class for having too many people in it, blame the noise from the air conditioning, but never blame yourself."

It would take a while before my behaviour persuaded them that I was serious.

'My mistake!' I'd say. 'I should have asked you to be altered when he insulted you!' or 'What am I thinking of! I should have taught you the Blind-Offer Game first!'

Accepting responsibility for the students' failures makes me seem very confident. Soon even shy students will volunteer, knowing that they won't be humiliated, and the class begins to resemble a good party rather than anything academic.

Keith Johnstone - Impro for Storytellers
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The Secret to a Good Listener

Defining the present you receive is the secret to being a good listener.

Keith Johnstone - Impro for Storytellers
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Winning

"Every group I've taught behaves like this," I say. "Except Zen monks. Normal people try to win no matter how inappropriate the circumstances."

Keith Johnstone - Impro for Storytellers
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Beginning

Yo-yoing between arrogance and humility when you're a beginner is as inevitable as falling off when you learn to ride a bike.

Keith Johnstone, Impro for Storytellers
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Herrenmoral, Sklavenmoral - been wondering where I'd read this, guess what, it's Nietzsche

There is nothing very odd about lambs disliking birds of prey, but this is no reason for holding it against large birds of prey that they carry off lambs. And when the lambs whisper among themselves "These birds of prey are evil, and does this not give us a right to say that whatever is the opposite of a bird of prey must be good?" there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such an argument - though the birds of prey will look somewhat quizzically and say, "We have nothing against these lambs; in fact, we love them; nothing tastes better than a tender lamb."

Friedrich Nietzsche quoted in: The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

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Tomorrow's People Today

Hi, this is a photo taken by Camera Timer.
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Birthday Drinks - 26th January 2013, The Melton Mowbray, Holborn, 7pm

OK - this is throwing the net pretty wide, but to celebrate surviving my 43rd year, which someone once told me was supposed to be, on average the most miserable year in most people's life.

Also to celebrate the passing of "blue Monday" - this year, the day before my birthday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Monday_%28date%29m , I will be having some celebratory drinks here:

http://meltonmowbrayholborn.co.uk/ at 7:00pm on Saturday 26th January 2013.

If you know me, and think you'd like to come along and celebrate my birthday, please do.

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