Brainwashed

Brainwashed Article

Seth Godin has a very interesting outlook on the creative process, and in this article he presents seven layers that are vital to reinventing yourself. The first is about "Acknowledging the Lizard", which may sound ridiculous, but is something that every artist struggles with. In this case, the Lizard is that annoying little voice in your head that tries to discard every idea you create in fear of being made fun of. Before an artist can complete a potentially magnificent idea, he must always overpower the Lizard and continue to work out the idea. There have been many times that I have begun to flesh out an idea and stopped because I thought people may not like it or understand it, and in these psychological battles, the Lizard won.

The second layer that I identified with was the "Fail" layer. Godin suggests that artists must fail in order to succeed. This idea has been presented in a trillion different formats, like Michael Jordan talking about how many game-winning shots he's missed. For me, though, its a little different.
I have never succeeded.
And I never will.
My definition of success is to be completely done. I fail everything because I never want to be done with anything. When I 'finish' a movie and watch it, it is impossible for me to watch it without finding everything that is wrong with it. The day that I can watch a movie I made in its entirety and cannot find one mistake is the day I will succeed, but I believe that day will never come. It is because I fail, every single time, that I will become better because I will never be satisfied with what I create.

I can relate to Godin's layers until he starts applying them to school. While he basically talks about school being useless, I believe school is wonderful. It is not what we learn in math class that is important. Memorizing factors of 32 is no different than memorizing the rule of thirds. By figuring out what makes up 32, you understand the number even better than before, similar to understanding why the rule of thirds is important to follow.My knowledge of calculus may never help me in life, and I could certainly advance without knowing it. It is how I learned it that is important. Working out problems over and over again helps student develop techniques to solve other types of problems as well. It allows us to remain calm when stressful situations arise in class or during a video shoot, and that will help us create solutions to make our final product better.