Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Role Model

Ricky Gervais is, unquestionably, a brilliant comic mind. He's prolific, fearless, and unique. And yesterday, I accepted him as my new professional mentor.

Gervais published a post on his eclectic blog about creativity and value of time spent, as he says, 'dicking about'. From the post:
I'm loving having a YouTube channel to dick around on. I know I've always dicked around, whether on radio, TV or at the Golden Globes, but with this it's actually expected of me.

I discovered that this is the best thing about Twitter too. Just playing; mucking about for the hell of it. Although, I could technically count that as work. Dicking about should be tax-deductible for me.

Let me explain. Scientific studies of creativity have basically concluded that it can't be taught, as it is a "facility" rather than a learned skill. Putting it very crudely, creativity is the ability to play. And, to be able to turn that facility on and off when necessary. This makes perfect sense to me. Everything I've ever written, created or discovered artistically has come out of playing.

Fast Company connected the dots in a business context, noting that, "It's safe to expand this point from art to other creative fields, like business, especially the kind that's preoccupied with innovation, as we at Fast Company incessantly are. To that end, there are two points for us to unpack here:
  • that creative work requires exploratory mistake-making
  • that exploratory mistake-making won't happen regularly unless systematized"
You could, I suppose, accuse me of cherry-picking a theory that justifies my penchant for procrastination, for wasting time, for, well, dicking about. You might well even be right.

But you'd better believe I'll be showing this to my boss the next time he catches me blogging at work, and explaining to him how important Gheorghe is to our team's success. I'll let you know how that goes.

36 comments:

  1. I saw Marls dicking about on Twitter last night.

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  2. that mariano rivera moment last night was pretty damn cool.

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  3. Last night TJ mentioned that I might have something to add re: Cecil Fielder being terrible. I do: He is. He lived around here towards the end of his career and early retirement. He owned a house that he bought from the original owners if Carnival Cruise Lines. More like a mansion. The guest house was bigger than most if our houses (I'm guessing). He regularly dropped thousands of dollars at a local butcher shop my friend worked at, all while pounding free beers at the butcher. He had a fleet of nice cars that included a tricked out '64 Impala.

    Not surprisingly he went broke and left his wife and kids back at the house as it was foreclosed on while he drank & gambled with other women. Not an awesome dude.

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  4. other women are always a gamble. or at least that's what i've been told.

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  5. Speaking of gamble am currently in Vegas on a work boondoggle. Staying at The Hotel at Mandalay as are the New Orleans Pelicans. Shot the shit with Doc Martin in the starbucks line. Super nice guy. Was just in elevator with Lance Thomas. Born in 1988. Mark, you'dd be all over it. As you likely know they are playing in a tourney here.

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  6. NBA Summer league, Danimal. Something I've been watching far too much of.

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  7. mark, have you seen any of matt janning or kent bazemore's summer league games? if so, how do they look?

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  8. I've seen Bazemore a little. He's starting and in the game I watched was really good defensively. I generally catch chunks of games. Tough to watch a whole summer league game without a vested rooting interest.

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  9. Lindsay Graham thinks we should boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia because of Eddie Snowden.

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  10. worried about a tea party primary much?

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  11. bazemore's got a wingspan that's something like 6'11", and he's quick with good defensive instincts. he's got the potential to be a great defender.

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  12. I generally respect Lindsay Graham because he doesn't pander. This smells kind of pandery to me.

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  13. Cecil gambled away all of his money. Total degenerate.

    But with that said, I still love Cecil b/c when he blew up with the Tigers in 1990, I looked through my 1986 Topps cards and realized I had a couple of his rookie cards from back when he was a Blue Jay. I should do a post on baseball cards one of these days.

    Trivia question on Cecil - what's higher, his career batting average or his career steal percentage?

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  14. graham's been a pander bear ever since the tea party emerged. he's a pretty moderate dude for a south carolina republican. or he was.

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  15. I think Graham got it right on torture (and the impropriety thereof) and on immigration in the Gang of Eight.

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  16. Things that will get raised eyebrows from reporters = things Senator Graham supports. Most dangerous place to be in Washington is between Lindsay Graham and a TV camera.

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  17. what if shumer and graham are converging on a tv camera? in the midst of a sharknado?

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  18. There is nothing that remotely approaches the senior senator from New York. He is a force of nature when it comes to press. He is also decidedly awesome in meetings, in a "he acts like the sleazy politician is every over the top political thriller" sort of way.

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  19. What if Al Sharpton is holding the TV camera?

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  20. Former PiLam frat guy Wes Wilson worked for Al Sharpton when we were roommates back in the early 2000s. I believe Rev Al still owes Wesley (and a few dozen of his colleagues) a couple of paychecks that seemed to have gotten last in the mail.

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  21. I briefly worked for a moving company in FL that did a job for Fielder. His garage had the aforementioned Impala as well as a Countach and a Testarossa; my coworkers only had eyes for the Impala. "yeah, those are kinda cool too, but check out the Imapala. Damn, that is sweet!!!!"

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  22. my neighbor's 13 year-old son just headed to colorado springs to attend the u.s. national volleyball program's u14 residency camp. he's one of just two kids in virginia to be invited. pretty cool stuff. also cool: he'll rapidly outgrow all of the sweet team usa gear he gets, which will fit me perfectly.

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  23. So...this...

    http://www.uproxx.com/music/2013/07/florida-congressman-trey-radel-live-tweeted-his-review-of-jay-zs-magna-carta-holy-grail/

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  24. The Testarossa has not aged well (I assume it was an 1980's model, not a 1950's model). American muscle cars from the 1960's still look good.

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  25. not nearly enough dicking about around this place today.

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  26. My dick was out and about all day.

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  27. Dood, Lindasy Graham is facking rawk stah! She was so hot in Mean Gurrs!

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  28. Frucking Pi Rams don't even rovoreer deir girlfriends. How you get raid?

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  29. my daughter learned the six-step today. my little b-girl. it was awesome to watch.

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  30. Rob's daughter has a black boyfriend. He doesn't mind though. He's liberal! He's open minded!

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  31. anything to increase our chances of having another stud athlete in the family is cool with me.

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  32. We're regressing a bit in our stance against bigotry at GTB of late. Retro?

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  33. Does this mean we should stop mocking rob's height?

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  34. Wow, the Team Hoyt part of the ESPYs . . . whew. Moving.

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