natalia ilyin

I rerun this Valentine's Day post since it is on the subject of gift-giving, a touchy subject always. Just substitute "Xmas" for "Valentine's Day" and it should work, though there's so much more to Xmas in terms of cultural storytelling, but I need to be working on something else right now so can't go into it unless someone responds who really wants to dig through.

xxx
It's Valentine's Day.
Time to remind you that men and women view gifts differently. Speaking generally, men give and like to receive tools, while women give and like to receive symbols. This is why many suburban husbands hate Valentine's Day. It's a day of Symbols. They like to give and receive Tools.

Conversely, women generally love Valentine's Day. It is a day of Symbols. (more…)

Mount Everest. That huge mountain-- symbol of human will vs. nature: ice and cold and lack of oxygen and quick decisions and chance and no way out but up. From base camp to summit, Everest has given the climber the chance to unlock everything within himself in order to achieve something great on his own terms. As any climber will tell you, most of the combat goes on inside. Self versus fear. Self alone.

A friend’s daughter recently texted her from Everest. Things had gotten a bit lonely hunkered down in the old tent, so she thought she’d check in with Mom. With that call, the entire opportunity of Everest changed from real to pastiche, from true struggle to extreme entertainment.

In this time of ever-fresher apps and endless Facebook and constant texting, the greatest challenge to our growth as human beings and to our society is our growing inability to be alone. America is based on an assumption that, deeply, all of us want independence, want to call our own shots and make our own decisions for ourselves. We celebrate liberty, we admire the lone cowboy. But none of us is a lone cowboy anymore. Nor do we really desire to be one. The thought of riding the range without instant access to someone else is scary. What if we needed something? What if we found ourselves...out of touch?

In just the last few years the designers of technological features have been teaching us to fear solitude--inadvertantly . Current apps teach people to be dependent on the comforting call to Mom, on endless texting, on being able to send a stream of "I am here" noises out to a seemingly ever-listening Universe. Like a prisoner tapping on the wall of his solitary cell, we want to know someone is on the other side. We want to know someone will tap back. We must have them tap back. What would we do if they didn't?

We want to know exactly where we are, and we want someone to tell us what we can do there. A glance at my ipod tells me my location, what is around me, what I should do next and when the best time to pee occurs during the movie I am currently watching. I feel safe knowing that someone has done the thinking for me. Safe from what?

The very value of independent thought is lessened these days. I can see it in the faces of some students. Why bother deciding for ourselves if it has all been laid out for us already? Why look farther than Google? We assume that the choices we are shown are the only choices--that there's no agenda in the ways choices on Google are shown to us. We assume that new apps are created in our best interest-- helping us live the best lives we can live. We are beguiled into believing that what tech companies can provide for us is what we need to live. But that's not true.

New technological “advances” exist only to sell products. They do not exist to make life more valuable. These features and app.s are also fairly random-- none of the explosion we are living through is a coordinated effort. There is no council of techies thinking about what that technology will do to you or to your life in the long run. Oddly, in this day of umbilical security, we are just as much on our own as individuals as we have ever been. And if we are to live lives we look back upon without regret, we have to make independent choices about just how much of a baby bird we’re going to be, and just how much false security we’re going to let tech companies cram down our throats.

Independence is hard. It is scary. To think for oneself is to be in a certain amount of pain a certain amount of the time. Now there’s a marketing disaster for you! No one wants to hear about the pain of confronting reality. It’s so much cozier to call Mom from the basecamp. But what happens on the day that Mom doesn’t answer? What happens when the slow realization dawns that she'll never answer again?

Avoidance is easy until it isn’t. I say this as a woman who has avoided much in her life, hoping that somehow the way through would be clearer later. I understand how easy it is to avoid the responsibility that comes with independent thinking, to text yourself into a state where you do not care about anything much except the the back and forth that spends your days and time so comfortably. Lulling. Comforting. We all do it. But we need to look at what we're doing.

It is so much easier to let the web carry the burden of choice. To assume that everything we will need is just a Google away so there's really no need to learn the skills to think anything through. Oh, to be a charismatic cult leader right now! I could really clean up: rake in the big bucks. With such a level of inculcated credulity, I could start the Young Pioneers of Natalia. I could start the Natalia Youth. They'd have nicely designed uniforms.

By staying occupied and attached, we are teaching ourselves to be part of a herd, a docile herd that is a great boon to those who need the great mass of people to be quiet and to follow. This is working out just great for the people who would rather we didn't think too much for ourselves. Bread and Circus: Text and Facebook.

The avoidance of solitude we find in constant distraction gives us no practice in the simple mental toughness people need to get through life. We're like the man who always lines up the next girlfriend before the last has left him, like the woman who has sixteen pizzas in the freezer just to make sure she never has to experience not having one the moment she wants it. But the unpopular, unmarketed, unadvertised experience of separateness is the only way through to being a real person with real values and real beliefs. If we care about living lives that are truly ours, we've got to have the courage to break away from communication dependence and go up that mountain alone.

Like studying for a midterm or doing some gritty thinking for a large writing project? When I find myself stuck in the blither that is avoidance my quickest trick is to look at Merlin Mann's blog at "43 folders". Not only does reading a few entries allow me to avoid doing something I perceive as undoable, huge and awful for at least a few more minutes, but, since it's a blog about doing your best creative work and overcoming avoidance, I feel I can avoid productively by reading about avoidance.

I find that reading about why I procrastinate takes the steam out of procrastination. Just isn't worth it after reading a few of Merlin's entries. I've used tips on this blog to kickstart everything from ironing shirts to writing articles. Let me know how his thoughts work for you.
http://www.43folders.com

A great essay about life and choice:

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/

When I was an undergrad, I had a professor ( Sr. Nicholas Maltman O.P., PhD.) who started each day by studying archaic Italian for a full hour. My uncle Nicholas Boratynski, held as the family genius, used to start his day at the office by solving a fresh mathematical problem posed to him by his colleagues.

Now I have found what I would do had I their perspicacity and mental drive. I would start each day first thing with a lecture by Douglass Scott. Hard to pull off, since he lives in Boston and I in Seattle. But worth it should one have the opportunity. Blows the carbon right out of the engine. All those gorgeous examples of type and image and color and texture, his deep knowledge and great love of his subject-- by each lecture's end you're ready to tear out the door and attack your own work.

In a design world so often dominated by "personalities," by people who can be harsh or patronizing about student efforts, Scott's dynamic yet even-keel approach makes a place where students can open up and absorb and create without risking life and limb. Of greater value hath no teacher.

As it turns out, I am not fun. True, I am funny sometimes, but funny is different from fun. I have this on good authority.

You can’t imagine the shock this news gave to the old system. I, Natalia Ilyin-- not fun? All these years of the wry remark, the ironic glance--for naught? But there it is. I am not fun, not fun-loving and I do not inspire a carefree, sunny joie-de-vivre in others. I'm a veritable Kafka at the barbecue.

Walking home from this moment of intense realization, I bludgeoned myself for not being fun. For it's true. I'm not fun in the way other women can be fun. I do not jump up and down in delight at the drop of a hat. I do not giggle irresistibly over the cute things cats or men do. I have no desire to giggle irresistibly.

Sweet is exhausting to me. Just trying gave me under-eye circles that rival those of Ahkmatova. And as far as infectious laughter, that’s pretty much gone the way of no sleeves. My years of ecstatic clapping at the repeated performances of others are pretty much over. I am the second-act Maude Gonne without the political agenda.

Yet, thinking over my wide aquaintance, very few of the people I know seem fun-loving, with the possible exception of my business partner, who’s got enthusiasm nailed. But enthusiasm may not really be a synonym for fun-loving. Fun-loving has a “Hey let’s all tumble into the convertible and go berry-picking” quality about it which even Pam does not possess.

Just how fun-loving IS a really grown-up person? How breezy and light the average business-owner in the midst of a recession who spends his days working and nights mentally totalling the month's receipts against the payroll? Do most responsible people spring about, dancing small jigs of happiness, enthralling others with their cheery charm when they are dragging a bouquet of mortgages and wondering where the next big contract is going to come from?

If they do leave it at the office, have the ability to turn off the worries, really let it all go, then I think them rare and brilliant. A loosening of the old bonds is probably a healthy idea, given the price of metoprolol. Yet for me, describing a person as "fun-loving" after the age of 25 has the distinct ring of “someone else is paying the rent.” The exception to this rule is friend Karen Irish who defies pigeon-holing and works like a dog and is truly fun-loving. But she's such an exceptional person that I hesitate even to mention her.

I vow to reliquish my somber personality. To this end, I have created my new “get fun-loving fast” action plan. I’m pretty sure it's going to work for me, and I recommend it to you, should you want to be thought of as a chuckling, living-in-the-moment kind of person.

1. Avoid thinking of death first thing in the morning. Hold back on mental images of torture until after lunch. If you must know what's going on in the world, get others to read the censored NY Times headlines to you.

2. Practice a purring giggle. This may not feel comfortable at first. You may feel more comfortable with warbling sweet nothings like, “If you leave your wallet in the unlocked car one more time for someone to reach in and steal I’m going to knock your head off,” but leave it alone, let it go, and invoke the purring giggle.

3. Every time you think a negative thought, switch your bracelet to the other arm. Count how many times you switch and try to reduce daily. Use And D ointment to quell skin irritation due to bracelet-changing.

4. Learn to perform fun gags and rib-tickling.
5. Poise a pail of water over the cracked door your husband walks through after a long day, and wait for the fun to begin.

I’m hoping this shape-up plan works on me. Because being full of the zest for life is one of the great talents. After thirty, joy takes cultivation. This I have learned. Not fun. But true.

It's Valentine's Day.

Time to remind you that men and women view gifts differently. Speaking generally, men give and like to receive tools, while women give and like to receive symbols. This is why many suburban husbands hate Valentine's Day. It's a day of Symbols. They like to give and receive Tools.

Conversely, women generally love Valentine's Day. It is a day of Symbols. (more…)

Epictus once said, "If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write." But in my experience, the best writers read. A ton. And the best designers read a ton, too.
How to do it? There's the rub. We live, we work, we commute, we cook, we take care of children, we see friends. When are we supposed to read?

Scanning while in meetings, glancing over things and speed-reading are not the answer. I can't tell you how many times some nice designer has come up to me and said,
"I just loved your book. I can't really remember what it was about, but I loved it while I was reading it."
Honestly. They say that. Might as well just shoot me. Nothing a writer likes better than becoming part of the confused cultural haze that clouds your head.

So scanning is really not the answer. Reading without concentrating is a waste of time. Luckily for you, however, I have accumulated a pocketful of tricks for getting a lot of reading done. Here they are:

1. Never read anything you do not want to read.
This may seem obvious, but it is amazing how much junk is forced on you that you do not have to read. People with moist eyes press books into your hands.
"It's about living in the moment and it changed my life!" they say.
I say skip it.

Read ONLY what YOU want to read. Be it graphic novel or JC Penney catalog. Because if you only read what you want to read, you will never avoid reading, and it will become as natural to you as breathing in and out in the eternal NOW.
Oops. Forgive me.

2. In future, avoid any book that has the word "Syndrome, Plan, Secret, or "The Story of" in the title. Also avoid any book that describes the protagonist as uncovering, hunting, taking control of, communicating (with dogs), targeting (for death), taking on (a new assignment) or discovering (devastating secrets).
You really just do not have the time.

3. Similarly, avoid books which feature:
a rogue CIA agent
a lethal teenage gang
a vampire summit
a gangster patient
or combinations of the above.

3. Good stuff in, good stuff out.
If you keep your mind clear of craposis, poor writing, rogue agents and lethal gangs, you will be able to concentrate on things which can affect your life for the better. By this I am not saying you should only read profound books, like Siddhartha. ( I just hated Siddhartha. How come the women just got to stand around having mouths like cut figs? That was their entire role! Annoying. But anyway.) I am saying only read books that are written well. What is written well? Pretty much anything that has won the Booker Prize. Anything that has won the Pulitzer. Anything that has been in print for over 50 years.

4. Read abstracts, precis, and introductions to academic works BEFORE reading the works themselves. Then, if you are really interested, read the piece. Read the original writer before reading any sort of commentary on that writer. For instance, Jung is a far better writer than most of the people who comment on him. Just cut to the chase and read Jung and Heidegger and Hegel in the original.

I read all academic works in the tub. That way, if I get bored with the academic prose, I tend to keep reading to the end, because it's more work to get out and dry off than it is to finish the piece.

5. Put loved ones to work.
I remember being terribly jealous years ago when a friend told me that her husband and she took turns reading aloud from Greek literature while the other did the dishes in the evening. How cultured is THAT! My jealousy knew no bounds. But a few years later, this tip in the back of my mind, I was able to steal their technique for getting through epics. I recommend having a well-placed baritone read to you from the Aeneid. This practice over the suds, day in and day out, will get you through the St John's Reading List at a slow, yet valuable, pace.

6. Read happy things on the way to work. I include the design blogs, STEP, PRINT, CA and Metropolis magazine in the happy zone. I feel happy looking at all the bright colors and hearing that soon everything is going to be nice and green and that everyone will soon have attractive lamps and tile.

7. Read the Times at lunch. If lunch is filled with clients and prospecting, read the Times in the morning right when you get in and everyone else is getting in late and talking about what a line there was at Starbucks. It's amazing how long morning office-settling takes, and you can be done with it before they're ready to go.

8. Read anything with the word "Journal," "Newsletter," or "Update" in the title on the way back from work if you travel by public conveyance or shuttle. If you commute by car, stop doing so immediately. Commuting solo by car will have to go if you are going to get your reading done.

9. Have only one book on your bedside table. Read before sleep or if worried. Avoid anything with an exciting plot. I like a nice long mid- eighteenth century novel. Also, the Russians are great for plots that unfold in real time. Tolstoy yes. Lermontov yes. Dostoeyevsky no, because he'll rile you up too much and have you thinking about the damned questions and so forth.

10. I save the French Post-Structuralists for times when I have had red wine or caffeine by accident and it's kept me up. I figure these are similar conditions to those in which they were probably written.