{"id":5059,"date":"2022-01-18T19:16:23","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T03:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/?p=5059"},"modified":"2022-01-18T19:16:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T03:16:23","slug":"book-keep-going-by-austin-kleon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/?p=5059","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Keep Going by Austin Kleon"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a while since I finished reading a book all the way to the end – without skipping anything. “Keep Going” by Austin Kleon (2019) follows “Steal Like An Artist”<\/a> and “Show Your Work”<\/a> which I have reviewed previously in this wiki. His idea of separate analog and digital workspaces has been a concept that I bring up in YCISL workshops frequently to help students understand that there are two (or more) modes to make creative thinking work – such as in our divergent-convergent thinking exercise. The analog connects to the divergent thinking creative side whereas the digital connects to the convergent thinking focus side. This incidentally connected well when I read (actually I listened to the audiobook) of “Thinking, Fast & Slow” by Daniel Kahneman where he describes two systems that operate together to enable our thinking.<\/p>\n

“Keep Going” continues the series in his concise and practical, personal and reflective style. The overall theme relates to a sort of biorhythm where his creativity vibrance rises and ebbs, and the resonance he has found in the personal stories of other creative artists to help him “keep going.”<\/p>\n

“Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb.”<\/em> Sad, but true. In the various frameworks we display in the YCISL, we have nodes with labels (the nouns) connected by actions (the verbs). This is especially embodied in the emotional intelligence framework where our awareness is connected by management. We also present design thinking as an exercise focused on both form (noun) and<\/em> function (verb) in order to be compelling and complete. In terms of practice, think of the noun and verb as a pair and be creatively quick in coupling them. This would make an interesting YCISL exercise. For example, I could show a noun then have students come up with three verbs for that noun. The reverse of giving a verb or two, and asking students for a noun to match may also be good for thinking agility.<\/p>\n

“One of my art heroes was a nun.”<\/em> To me, this may be my most fascinating discovery in this book. After reading about her in the book, I Googled Corita Kent and found a treasure trove of things I could use in the YCISL program: (1) Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules<\/a>, (2) “You are who we love.” A collaborative poem for Corita Day posted online at corita.org<\/a> website, (3) the Corita Kent Art Collection<\/a>, (4) the Finder, a simple tool used in “experimentation” to frame views, and (5) the term “Plork<\/a>” combining the words “work” and “play”\u00a0 and describing the resulting emotional uplift [reminds me of Richard St John’s TEDTalk where he says “It’s all hard work. Nothing comes easily. But I have a lot of fun.”]<\/p>\n

“In an age obsessed with speed, slowing down requires special training.”<\/em> In the basketball training paradigm that we use in YCISL, this means being able to switch modes – between ball handler and supporter, or between offense and defense. Speed (and focus) can be critical in some situations, whereas slowing down (assessment) is needed in others. In a reverse way, the YCISL also emphasizes a need to be able to engage in fast creative thinking in problem solving because education generally teaches us to store and recall.<\/p>\n

“To slow down and pay attention to your world, pick up a pencil and a piece of paper and start drawing what you see.”<\/em> The YCISL ITW workshops have been using drawing as a means to express the design thinking form and function. Perhaps more in line with Kleon’s “what you see” motive, we can use the drawing method in a problem statement finding exercise which would promote the attention to the world (or worldview) that we need. Does this have the same meaning as “Stop and smell the roses”?<\/p>\n

“What you choose to pay attention to is the stuff your life and work will be made of.”<\/em> The idea of listening filters and fidelity is something learned from “Understanding Other People<\/a>” by Beverly D. Flaxington, and is the premise behind our workshop exercise in learning to turn off listening filters and fully listen to the information being transmitted. Paying attention to certain things and not paying attention to others is our way of filtering and prioritizing. How the rules of those filters are written and ordered affect our perception and consequently influences our mindsets and behavior. More importantly, our mannerisms and behaviors reflect these filters and shape our identity.<\/p>\n

“Of course, to change your mind is to do some real thinking.”<\/em> How do I know if I am doing some real<\/em> thinking? I’m not sure, but I hope that I am able to do it at least some of the time. Personally, I am open to changing my mind as well as others changing their minds – so long as it isn’t in a vacillating manner or with ill intent. So long as the change is based appropriately in intelligent and intellectual navigation, it should be expected and welcomed. This connects with our YCISL interest in the growth mindset where we are open to new ideas and experiences that may turn out to be good or may turn out to be bad or non-events. But recognizing that real<\/em> thinking is “hard work”, it might not be available all the time – although we should train ourselves to build stamina for it. In YCISL, I think our prototyping exercises and the concept of iteration strengthen us in mindset, skills and abilities so that changing our mind is practically normal and necessary with no dings on our self-confidence and sense of direction.<\/p>\n

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Why is the ETP relatively low?<\/em> I didn’t mark as many parts of the book as compared to Kleon’s other two books. And what I did mark was isolated between pages 65 and 136, a total of 71 pages out of a 201 page book. Then again, the mark for Corita Kent would get a 10x impact factor (if I had such a factor) which makes me super grateful for this book. I recall my thinking being sidetracked in the latter part of the book a couple of times in a way that I started feeling disagreeable. The language used in the treatment of Marie Kondo’s tidying method pinged of singularity (eg, the use of the negativity words “propaganda”, “mania” and “fetishize” in a single sentence) and blocked my search for practical extensibility. It was good and interesting storytelling in the latter part of the book…the fresh air and the walks etc…but I was no longer on the same journey. I became a spectator. Oh well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a while since I finished reading a book all the way to the end – without skipping anything. “Keep Going” by Austin Kleon (2019) follows “Steal Like An Artist” and “Show Your Work” which I have reviewed previously in this wiki. His idea of separate analog and digital workspaces has been a concept […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9,25,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-ideas","category-lessons","category-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5059"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5069,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions\/5069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ycisl.su.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}