3–2–1 Design · Issue 85
Unlearning What No Longer Fits
It is a quiet morning.
The sort where the kettle finishes boiling before the day has quite begun.
Work sometimes starts like that too.
Not with momentum, just with a small moment of noticing.
The sort where the kettle finishes boiling before the day has quite begun.
Work sometimes starts like that too.
Not with momentum, just with a small moment of noticing.
3 Thoughts From Me
I.
A lot of creative work quietly involves unlearning.
Habits picked up early on.
Rules that once made sense.
Ways of working that slowly stopped fitting.
Letting those go can feel uncomfortable.
For a while it can look like things are getting worse.
But sometimes that is simply what change looks like from the inside.
II.
The creative process is often described in tidy steps.
Preparation.
Incubation.
Insight.
Evaluation.
Elaboration.
In practice it rarely feels that orderly.
An idea appears and disappears.
Something sits in the background for days.
A small shift happens while doing something completely unrelated.
Progress tends to move in loops rather than straight lines.
III.
Creative work often becomes a quiet mirror.
Not just of what is being made.
But of the person making it.
Patience shows up in the details.
Pressure shows up in the pace.
Uncertainty shows up in the hesitation before sharing.
Over time the work starts to resemble the character behind it.
Not all at once.
Just slowly.
2 Quotes From Others
I.
On unlearning
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”
(Book, 1970)
There is something reassuring in the idea that not knowing can open doors rather than close them.
II.
On becoming
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
(Interview, 1959)
That sentence carries a quiet kind of permission.
1 Question For You
What part of your work currently feels like it might be asking for a different way of thinking?
With thanks,
David
David
P.S. Sometimes change begins with the small realisation that an old way of doing things no longer feels quite right.
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— Dm
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