Two inspirational things

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favalora

Two inspirational things

Post by favalora »

Hi-

This has nothing to do with holography (well, except as how they pertain to the creative spirit). I just thought that they were lovely speeches, and broke through my usual crusty cynicism.

If you can find 2 x 15 minutes with headphones, check out:

(TED) Benjamin Zander on music and passion
(TED) Regina Dugan (ex-DARPA head) on "What would you attempt to do if you KNEW you could not fail?"

-g
Dinesh

Two inspirational things

Post by Dinesh »

Regina Dugan talks about all the woderful things DARPA has done and she's quite right that fear of failing is the number one reason that people don't start projects. I've found that it's not just fear, it's an absolute belief that some things are impossible. I'd rephrase the question into: "What would you do if nothing were impossible".

Fear is simply a social construct in which people tend to think that if they fail at something, somehow they're standing in some community of friends and colleagues is diminished. If you really don't care about how other people think of you, the fear aspect goes away. For me personally, if people think well of me, it's icing on the cake and if they think otherwise, I have my books, I have my problems (why does a rainbow image? the standard explanation in terms of refraction from raindrops does not explain that the rainbow is imaged at infinity) and I'm no good at social interactions anyway. In 1986, when I was in England working with Kaveh, I mentioned that there was no physics in holography, just display. Kaveh told me that if I wanted real physics in holography, I should go to America, where the really interesting technical challenges of holography was being explored. "OK", I said, "I'll go to America". I went to a travel agent and said, "When's the next plane to America". He asked, "Where in America?" and I replied, "Any old part, so long as it's America". Well, there was apparently a "...flight to Sacramento next Tuesday" Great! I took it and one way or another, next thing I knew I was working on the X Ray telescope mirror for Chandra! If you're too afraid to throw the dice and let it land where it will, you'll never play the game; you'll never lose, but you'll never win either.

The other thing I often find is that people seem to believe that things are impossible based simply on the current paradigm. When you completely accept a paradigm, a lot of things seem impossible, but the word "impossible" rankles me! There is always a way, you simply have to look at something in a different way, adopt a different paradigm, change your perspective. I must say, the word 'impossible' is, for me, like a red rag to a bull! I have a great book called, "The experts speak" ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Experts-Speak ... 0679778063 )in which Rutherford says that anyone thinking of using the energy trapped in an atom is speaking "pure moonshine". A friend of mine once said, "There are a million ways why you can't do something and only one way where you can. Simply look for that one way" I may add, that one way always exists.
zipsister

Two inspirational things

Post by zipsister »

That approach is key to the way professional artists work: taking risks and not being afraid to fail as it is the only way to guarantee breaking ground. Artists who play safe in what they know sells eventually realise that their work has drifted into mediocrity. As a teacher it is one of the aspects that I am forever trying to get students to understand, especially students driven by grades and marks who are often afraid to fail and striking dead ends. It takes courage for them to see that failure is one of the main roads to success; failure provides answers about what you need to do to succeed in the future, even if it is in not giving up.
Dave
favalora

Two inspirational things

Post by favalora »

Quite relatedly is this brief piece about a little boy in LA who made an arcade out of cardboard - and... well, I'll let you just click on it. Have tissues handy.
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/09/9-year ... rd-ar.html

-g
Tony

Two inspirational things

Post by Tony »

Ya that was cool
Thanks for sharing
zipsister

Two inspirational things

Post by zipsister »

Good vid. As always, kids just need support...they have imagination and determination in abundance.
Dave
djm
Posts: 39
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2015 6:11 pm

Two inspirational things

Post by djm »

Yes, that was inspiring, on several levels.
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