tonygoodson

Learning to be a Creative Genius

Déjà Vu, I come here to write about 10,000 Hours to Become a Genius, and realised I’d already used exactly the same title when writing about exactly the same subject last November.

So let’s call this Part II.  I’ve realised recently that for 42 years I’ve been struggling.  Struggling to fit into an education and white collar working system that has a very narrow confine on what is intelligence.  And I’ve fitted in, I’ve had to, but at great cost to myself and talents.

At aged 6, I was highly mathematical, spatial, chess, sporty, but I couldn’t handwrite properly, struggled to spell, couldn’t draw well, struggled with English comprehension.  I was a classic geek, shy of girls (but loved them really), crap dancer.

My 10,000 hours of genius, didn’t go into a single subject but across a number of subjects.  Sport, Man United, Chess, Maths, Sport, Current Affairs, TV, General Knowledge, Newspapers, Encyclopaedias, Science.

That inability to write and draw, and remember language, has been a blight on me ever since.  I’ve been blessed with enough intelligence to survive it, but I shouldn’t have to survive life.

So now my oldest child has just come through being 6, and my youngest is fast approaching 6, I’m really attuned to what’s expected of them in education, and what they can and can’t do.  But here’s my own breakthrough and realisation.  Genius may not be nature.  It might be nurture.  We find our talents out early on for ourselves, or someone helps us.

I say this because, I’m noticing some things my kids aren’t learning for themselves.  That doesn’t mean they can’t do something, just that they don’t know how to.  Jay’s reading is great now he’s started school, and I should know, I taught him (proud Dad), but his handwriting and drawing are behind many of the kids in his class.  Mmm funny, but that’s me at school all over again.

Now, for the last few years, I’ve been looking for a cartooning book to help me learn to draw for when I’m training and writing on boards and flipcharts.  I made a concerted effort to find a book this week, for my sake and now for Jay’s.  And hallelujah, I’ve found it. 1001 Awesome Things To Draw.  A fantastic book.  Suddenly I’m a genius cartoonist (and so is Jay) just by following the rules.  Neither of us can naturally draw, but who can.  The untold secret is that many children and adults, learn to draw using the rules, without telling the rest of us, what the rules are.

It’s the same with Improv.  You may look at Who’s Line is it Anyway and Thank God You’re Here, and watch in wonderment at how those performers and comedians take on random situations and be so funny.  It’s rules based.  There are basic Improv rules, which if you follow with a few hours of practice, I’ll guarantee most people can get up there and perform very well.

 

And I’ve just bought a book on design and layout, How to Understand and Use Design and Layout. It’s rules based again, along with some artistic genius!  It’s taken me years to find a good book on Design and a good book on Cartooning, and now I can be an Artistic genius like the rest of you.  Now I just need to find those 10,000 hours!

Bobby Fischer, Kevin Keegan, and Sarah Green!

I'm getting powerful vibes from the 70s.  First Bobby Fischer.  Died on Thursday.  Kevin Keegan back at Newcastle United, and now my old school has a teacher suspended for making a raunchy advert, before she became a teacher!

I'm getting strong early 70s vibes from the Time Lords!  I grew up on chess.  My Dad taught me, and then I progressed, to a fairly good level.  So Bobby Fischer is a part of my psyche, he's a part of my pre and early teens.  So is Kevin Keegan, but not as someone I worshipped, in fact he was the enemy, unless playing for England!  I don't know Sarah Green, but she's what my school wasn't about then!!

It's funny, but when Bobby Fischer dies or Kevin Keegan walks back to Newcastle it takes up more of my thinking and emotional time, than it really should.  It's my curiosity that sends me on to the internet, to Wikipedia and beyond, but then again, in the late 60s and early 70s, I had my encyclopedias, football, and chess books to lurk in.

Chess Girl

I'm teaching my daughter chess (she's aged 5).  It's spooky, because chess is at my very soul and my Dad taught me chess.  I've said this before, but if there was nothing else in life, I'd play chess in the park, or my luxury item on The Desert Island would be a computer with a chess program.

Prodigy she ain't, after one day, but it freaked me out just before to find the chess board perfectly set up with the pieces.

Flow not Fun!

Hey I just realised something the other day.
It's not Fun that I'm seeking but Flow.
Flow being the thing that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about in his book Flow.

It's the "In the Zone" "Mind like water" kind of thing.

Hell, I'm an introvert, I don't do "Fun" I get an inner satisfaction with "Flow".

No wonder I hate golf.  I always thought it's supposed to be fun, but it ain't! At best, it's Flow.

All my things are about Flow, I now realise that.  Tennis, Cycling, Chess, Reading on the Internet. Go Karting, what a buzz that is, but it's Flow for me, not fun, I drive round the track muttering to myself and telling myself I'm Alain Prost "The Professor of the Track".  That says it all, nice and steady, wait for the person in front of you to make a mistake.  The same with tennis.  I hate doubles, unless I'm playing with a partner where we can really get to the net in unison.  That's rare.  I'll stick to the self muttering singles game.  All my sports are solitary things.  Flow.

It's the Flow I'm aiming for and not the Fun that I thought was missing.  Fun is about saying, "Whoopee I enjoyed that."  No way!  I'll stick to "Mmmmmm that was nice!"

So, more Flow in my life.

 

Fishy Christmas

A quiet day with the kids.
Went to the Melbourne Aquarium. Very quiet so we could easily look around.  All the Aussie fish and things that can kill you!!
Sharks, Crocs, Sea Snakes, Spikey Fish, Jelly Fish, and normal nice fish as well.

And I treated myself to a present yesterday. Wandered down to the Chess Shop, and bought a chess set and Fritz 8, so I've been playing chess for part of the day.  Playing a computer hardly improves my game.  I've managed to find "friend" mode which seems to match my standard so I have a chance, instead of losing badly or winning easily.

300+ RSS weblog feeds to read, so it's taken most of today to clear those down, and lots of links to blog about, but somehow I can't be bothered.
My wireless network needs sorting out, so that I can use it with just my laptop on, and not needing my PC.  And of course, I need to secure the network.
Several hundred ideas I have in my head, and some work to do, including my tax!!

Maybe for a day I should say stuff it all and do something different.
Going for a cycle would be a good start!!

The Master Game

They say that to attract more readers to your weblog, you have to try to send them away!!
Ok here goes.  There are more possible games of chess, than atoms in the observable universe!!
Think about that. I used to as a kid, when I read my Guinness Book of Records, which had that fact as the intro to Chess records.

My Dad taught me at about aged 6, and I took to it straight away. I'm dyslexic, can't write, struggle to spell, have a spatial mind, and was great at maths as a kidd.  Perfect for being a great chess player!!  My Dad was great to play until I kept beating him, but unfortunately there weren't any other good chess players around to really take me to the next level with openings, and tactics, and end games.
So I drifted away a bit.  Also the school where I was at, seemed a bit strange with their selection for many of the sports teams including the chess team.  The teachers had an amazing talent for not being able to spot talent!!  I saw it so often in all the sports I played, observing who the really talented players were, rather than those who looked good.

It wasn't until I was 15, that my chess was ignited again for a very brief period when a guy called Ken Hughes joined our class.  He wasn't academic in the conventional sense so he didn't last long, but I'd met a guy who was in a dream-world of spatial games.  His was a spatial talent, and not an academic one.  Someone I could talk openings with for hours, and he knew what the hell I was talking about.  The other great thing in the UK which ignited my interest again was "The Master Game".  A BBC chess tournament, 1 game per week with commentary by the players as they play!!
You saw inside the mind of a master or Grand Master.  Deep tactical theory and idea for where to place the pieces for later on in a game.
Oh shit!!!  I hate it when I'm writing a blog and go search Google for a link, and find that someone has died a few years ago that I didn't know about.  It's just happened again.  Tony Miles, Britain's first Grand Master died aged 46 in 2001!!  I just read the obituary and I'm close to tears.

Many Brits were on the Master Game, John Nunn, Tony Miles, Nigel Short, as well a series of eccentric nice players, not quite in the top niche, until Karpov arrived at the BBC, and I think Kasparov also played.  It was amazing every week to see inside a Grand Master's brain.

And Bill Hartston, a great and witty writer would commentate, but this never came out in his commentary which was a bit dull.  I loved his book when I was a teenager, "How to Cheat at Chess". 

Are you bored yet?  Oh well, at least my passion has been revived!!
I think I've reduced my readership to one!

Today I stroked the Chess!

It's too late to rant or praise, so I'll do a "today I stroked the cat" kinda weblog entry. We had our family photos delivered today.  It's the first time I've had professional family photos taken, since I was a kid in a sailor suit!  They're great.  I must post a few photos and get my ass sued!

More technology today, using the new Samsung video camera, and playing back through TV. I haven't had time to change my wireless network settings, so that my laptop can still access the network, even when my PC is powered off. This isn't the case right now!

And finally, I kicked Cameron Reilly's ass at chess.  Actually, I lost on time!!!! I've been thinking a lot about chess today.  Cameron posted a comment that they don't play chess in Central Park.  They did when I first visited in '92, and a few times after that.  Maybe they've stopped playing.  I'll have to find another park when I get there, with my possessions in a bin-liner.

I realised today why I lost interest in chess years ago.  I couldn't take to the new standard chess notation.  All my books, recordings, and thinking, were of the "Pawn to King Four" P-K4, and not e2-e4.  I still have to count along a board to work out what the hell they're going on about.  I wonder how many other geniuses were lost to chess in that era because they couldn't comprehend a damn word the books were saying!!

Oh and fear of blunders, and either killing computers at chess, or losing through impatience and boredom.  And cheating by taking back moves, so not taking the game seriously.  I noticed that one of Bobby Fischer's suggestions is to be allowed to take back moves, to take the fear of blunders away.

Lots more to say on chess. I think I'll start a "chess" category on this weblog.