Art and fear reading response:
This chapter reminds me of a quote I heard in the movie Walk Ride Rodeo a few years ago that has stuck with me since then, it goes “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”. I have gotten in the habit of repeating it to myself whenever I catch myself doubting myself and trying to find reasons to give up. Even though in the movie they were referring to barrel racing, I find that this logic applies to almost everything we want it to. As the author mentions, yes some people might be more talented than others but in the end it’s about who puts in the work. A lot of famous artists got recognized only after their death, imagine if they had stopped creating because they weren’t getting the feedback and recognition they wanted. I also believe that in this day and age, people are more accepting of different forms of art than in previous generations so if we find that our art is not really accepted, then we’re in the wrong place.
Lateral Thinking Response:
In today’s chapter, the author focuses on the idea of suspending judgment which is exhausting wrong solutions just because a correct idea can still be derived from it. I found this interesting because throughout my life I’ve been disregarding any ideas that are wrong from the beginning because that was what I’ve been told to do throughout my time. I wonder how many times I’ve made the process harder for myself when it could’ve been easier. The author also talks about how this could be very dangerous because people tend to be more arrogant when they are in the habit of canceling out all wrong options because then they think that any idea they come up with is the right one and the only right one. Unfortunately looking back now, I see that I may have fallen down this path before, but now that I know better, I hope I can get over this.