"The Thought Project"
The week wraps up with some prolific thoughts from a genius friend of mine in Jackson, MS. For 30 years (or longer) he's been scribbling epiphanies, ideas, quotes and excerpts on tiny scraps of paper and storing them for the day he writes a book. That day is now. This September Lucian Dixon will try to publish his voluminous works in a revolutionary book he's calling "The Thought Project". His ideas are extensions of great writers and thinkers like Thomas Jefferson, Charlie Chaplin, Harry Browne, Lord Buddha, Fritz Perls, Nietzsche, Albert Ellis, John Lilly, John Lennon and even Bob Dylan. "It will be packed" says Lucian, "I have a lot of thoughts about success and failure, what emotions are, how what makes a difference in our lives is how we actually use our time."
Graduate of Princeton University, Lucian is a voracious reader and active producer of several German film documentaries. He's traveled the world over and can, impressively, speak or to some extent understand about 10 languages. Because of Lucian I've been introduced to Egyptian poetry and Anais Nin, Burmese photography, dream analysis, U Thant (Secretary-General of the UN from 1961 to 1971 and a vocal critic of the Vietnam War), the Rocky Mountain Institute website, Incan tree measurement, German philosophy and of course, tons of tips on light and film techniques.
"The Thought Project" will be a semi-organized grab-bag because, says Lucian, "the world is random so the way we need to deal with things is random."
Lucian hopes the book entices more than a few people to toss their idiot boxes into the nearest body of water as well as inspires people to live consciously, think about their decisions and take responsibility for consequences. He aims to reintroduce the concept of clear thinking to the world - basic cause-and-effect stuff. When the book hits #1 for 10 consecutive weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, lets hope Lucian flys north to personally autograph some copies. In the meantime, look for Lucian when he launches his new website in a few weeks.
posted by Sonja Stark of PilotGirl™ @ 12:15 AM
2 Comments:
Ohmigod, Sony! You're forcing my hand - my secret is out! Now I've *got* to do it - it's 'put up or shut up' time!
One of my favorite books is 'The Universal Traveler' by Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall. It's out of print again (I think) but still available from Alibris - and I'm tempted to buy five or six copies - it's a 'must have' book on my shelf.
Here's an Alibris link to it: www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?qwork=6933257&matches=32&qsort=r
It's subtitled:
'a soft-systems guide to creativity, problem-solving, and the process of reaching goals.
It's an amazing book which discusses design (thus problem solving) as an adventure, as a journey of discovery, not a hassle, and goes through the stages of the journey which are:
1. to accept (no problem will be solved until you *decide* to solve it)
2. to analyze (ok, what's the problem *really* about?)
3. to define (narrowing down to specifics)
4. to ideate (intelligent brainstorming)
5. to select (decision time)
6. to implement ('real' decision time - not just in your head - it's time to buy that camera if you're serious)
7. to evaluate (well? did it work? - if not, what's the next step?)
And gives you ideas as to how you can implement each of these steps.
As an example, at the 'ideation' stage the authors suggest magpie-like behavior - bringing everything home you can find (e.g., pictures, toys, gadgets) which will help you keep your mind on your goal.
This reminds me of John Asharaff's 'Vision Boards' - pictures you collect to remind you of exactly what you want which he discusses in the videos a friend of mine sent me a link to on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DXFGsB9CZ0 which are amazing. At this stage they also suggest
'The Universal Traveler' even says 'Bon Voyage' as you take off, the whole point being that the problem-solving journey should be fun or you're on the wrong path.
Unfortunately, some numbskull at the publisher's (not understanding the basic concept of 'don't fix it if it ain't broke') decided to 'improve' the book a few years back and did such a terrible job that a smarter soul reissued it in its original form after many protests so if you do buy it, please get the updated classic edition with the brown cover, not one with the hideous purple/lilac cover (which will ruin your day).
One of the very first steps of a journey is commitment - deciding to actually take it - and if you're unsure about whether you're really going to take a journey, one of the methods the authors recommend is telling a friend you're going to since you want to be a person of your word.
Well, now you've publicly made me commit myself to this journey, Sony, and thank you.
Just one of the author's statements about the design journey:
'Design is a process of making dreams come true.'
Wish me luck - and thanks for the blog entry and the push.
Ohmigod, Sony! You're forcing my hand - my secret is out! Now I've *got* to do it - it's 'put up or shut up' time! One of my favorite books is 'The Universal Traveler' by Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall. It's out of print again (I think) but still available from Alibris - and I'm tempted to buy five or six copies - it's a 'must have' book on my shelf. Here's an Alibris link to it: www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?qwork=6933257&matches=32&qsort=r It's subtitled: 'a soft-systems guide to creativity, problem-solving, and the process of reaching goals. It's an amazing book which discusses design (thus problem solving) as an adventure, as a journey of discovery, not a hassle, and goes through the stages of the journey. One of the very first steps of a journey is commitment - deciding to actually take it - and if you're unsure about whether you're really going to take a journey, one of the methods the authors recommend is telling a friend you're going to since you want to be a person of your word. Well, now you've publicly made me commit myself to this journey, Sony, and thank you. Just one of the author's statements about the design journey: 'Design is a process of making dreams come true.' Wish me luck - and thanks for the blog entry and the push.
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