Sister Corita was a nun, visual artist, and a teacher at the Immaculate Heart. A strong proponent of slow-looking, she used to take her students on walks across the city with a paper frame. Allowing them to focus on typographic and design elements in the everyday. ^[1]

John Cage was a music composer. His deep interest in Zen buddism led him to make what he considers his most important piece, 4′33″. Four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence. ^[2]

When you walk into a battle with fear, one needs to arm themselves with the wisdom.

• RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
• RULE TWO: General duties of a student — pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
• RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher — pull everything out of your students.
• RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.
• RULE FIVE: Be self-disciplined — this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
• RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.
• RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
• RULE EIGHT: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
• RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
• RULE TEN: “We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” (John Cage)
• HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything — it might come in handy later.

Opening snippet from john cage - “III. Communication”:

• NICHI NICHI KORE KO NICHI: EVERY DAY IS A BEAUTIFUL DAY
• What if I ask thirty-two questions?
• What if I stop asking now and then?
• Will that make things clear?
• Is communication something made clear?
• What is communication?
• Music, what does it communicate?
• Is what’s clear to me clear to you?
• Is music just sounds?
• Then what does it communicate?
• Is a truck passing by music?
• If I can see it, do I have to hear it too?
• If I don’t hear it, does it still communicate?
• If while I see it I can’t hear it, but hear something else, say an egg-beater, because I’m inside looking out, does the truck communicate or the egg-beater, which communicates?
• Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
• Are the people inside the school musical and the ones outside unmusical?
• What if the ones inside can’t hear very well, would that change my question?
• Do you know what I mean when I say inside the school?
• Are sounds just sounds or are they Beethoven?
• People aren’t sounds, are they?
• Is there such a thing as silence?
• Even if I get away from people, do I still have to listen to something?
• Say I’m off in the woods, do I have to listen to a stream babbling?
• Is there always something to hear, never any peace and quiet?
• If my head is full of harmony, melody, and rhythm, what happens to me when the telephone rings, to my peace and quiet, I mean?
• And if it was European harmony, melody, and rhythm in my head, what has happened to the history of, say, Javanese music, with respect, that is to say, to my head?
• Are we getting anywhere asking questions?
• Where are we going?
• Is this the twenty-eighth question?
• Are there any important questions?
• “How do you need to cautiously proceed in dualistic terms?”
• Do I have two more questions?
• And, now, do I have none?
• I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY AND I AM SAYING IT

Looked up at the mirror holding K. after my shower. I saw how shaggy my hair and beard looked and told half-jokingly, "how do you love someone who looks so ugly?". To which P. said we shouldn't reinforce that only something that's beautiful deserves love. Never gave aesthetics of perception much thought before this. Something to correct going forward.

Mosquitoes were vicious yesterday night. I came in to sleep at 3, thought I killed all of them. They still got us through the mosquito net. They did a number on both P. and my hand. I just hope they didn’t get K.

Tom Critchlow digital garden.

We are so accustomed to trying to find leisure with scraps of time thrown at us. My manager was talking about how we should work at our job for 24 hours a week. 3 days. The other 4 we leave for ourselves, our families and interests.

Why is it that so many of us partake with this machinery that is keen to chew us up.

Worship billionaires. Corporations. Hoping they would be our salvation.

One day after another—

Perfect.

They all fit.

poem by robert creeley

Engrossing walkthrough of Dayanita Singh's exhibition.

Her installation is set up in such a way that one could very easily change the places of images. Playing the very integral aspect of photography — context and interplay between neighbouring images. Also, it forces the viewer to bend and shape themselves to the form of the “museum”.

Mouquitoes descended on K. on his freshly bald scalp. Even though both P. and I were feeling really tired, we put up the mosquito net. And, along the way sent a few of them to mosquito hell.

We went to Tirumala with K. Today was the day he is going to get his head tonsured. I am very conflicted with this tradition. For one it has been going on for generations now. On the other hand, he is going to really really hate it.

he hated it, i hated it, but its done

Sometimes when singing to K. a song comes from the deep recesses of the mind. Like waterfalls falling from fissures in the brain. Washing over this tiny baby I am holding in my hands.

Lulling him to sleep.

A song that pulls at a feeling that many others have felt across centuries. A thread woven into the very fabric of our existence.

How a work of art comes into being is always a mystery.

A TODO list is for the weak.

A TODO list is a haven for procrastination.

The DO list is the way to get things done.

The DO list is your future and your past

What’s a DO list

• Take a pen and paper
• Split the paper into four quadrants
• Write the tasks you want to DO anywhere on the quadrant. In any quadrant that you want
• Carry it in your pocket
• Add any task that you want to DO to it at any time
• Once all the tasks are done. You retire the paper and start a new one.

I: Work To Code: Or, Creativity is the Enemy

• Trust the system in place
• Inventions must happen within existing vocab
• Stick to what has been defined for you to do

II: Sacred Space

• Respect of the work space is essential
• Personal items should be put on hooks are discretely stowed away
• Do not become distracted by work of others unless instructed to do so
• All respect should be given to a worker completing a task

III : B.O.T - Be On Time - Come Prepared and Commit yourself Entirely

• On the clock mentality that carries to all things. Not just being punctual
• Your present task is your highest priority. It must command your focus
• B.O.T means you care for yourself mentally and physically so that you are well prepared for work

IV: Be Thorough

• Thoroughness means paying attention to tasks that come before and after what you do. (Always carry pen and paper to make notes of TODOs)

V: I Understand

• For effective execution, SAY that you understand ^[1]

VI: Sent does not mean Received

VII: KEEP A LIST

• Keep a prioritized list at all times
• Carry this list at all times
• Your list is your future and your past

VII: Always Be Knolling

• Scan environment, put away things you don’t need.

• Knoll

IX: Sacrifice to Leatherface

X: Persistance

“Nothing in the world can take place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” Ray Kroc, Founder of Mc’Donalds.