Why You Should Explore
The Importance of Being You
My thoughts revolve around a few general ideas. My impulses cause me to jump to the next idea without much thought. Every once in awhile an idea cycles back around and it becomes new again to me. This past week I found myself re-indulged in the joy of exploring, but I probably will not get to this for a bit.
A little over a year ago I was wandering around downtown Manhattan and found a book on the curb. After waiting a time that felt sufficient enough to claim the book as my own I untied the closure and read
101 NEW USES FOR YOUR BRAIN
Psychology of Creativity
Dr. Kenneth Phillips
Each page has a short blurb written on a loose piece of paper. There is something interactively fun about taking the page out and laying it somewhere. If you wanted to you could fold it up and put it in your wallet. Of course, the book will slowly lose its purpose but now you can read it on the go. And for many of these pages they are worth reading on the go.
I have yet to figure out why the book was made or find another printing of it, but it has pushed me down a rabbit hole deep enough to connect isolated pieces of the last 24 years of my life in a significant enough way to remind me who I am.
Standalone the book is a masterpiece. 101 new uses for anything is sufficient for years of discovery. You not only have to read it but understand it, implement it, learn it, eventually realizing you could never reach a conclusion for each use since things change ignoring the fact you still have 100 new uses to test out.
Naturally I started by trying to find Kenneth Phillips. As of now I only know him through a memoriam written by a friend of his. The book begins to make more sense as you learn who Ken was. He was a modern day explorer.
Like I mentioned at the start I found this and moved on to a new thought taking it with me but only in the passive storage of my mind for it to return when we crossed paths again. I showed many people the book and rambled about how odd and "interesting" it is, but could never explain it.
1/1/2024
I discovered Printernet. A service that packages up your favorite words found through digital exploration into a neat little physical booklet. I purchased two, one booklet determined by the writer based off my digital footprint and the other with the writings I adore most or want to experience outside of a screen.
The story about Ken was one of the pieces I included in my print. As I read about Ken yet again I drifted far away from the anxieties shrouding me. Steve Jobs once said "One of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation for the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there." I know from my own time spent making there is a spiritual joy to successfully finishing the thing that was once just an idea. And from the consumer's view that joy can be felt if it was made with purity. Ken's creation embodies this and my Printernet booklet reminded me of this.
The man who wrote about Ken is Mike Hawley. An equally fascinating person. At one point in his life he shared a living space with Steve Jobs and assisted in the writing of Steve's 2005 Stanford commencement address, a speech which I included in a project 6 years ago. A speech about why you need to live.
The prompt for the project was to show a feeling through video. I chose the feeling of being happy. Looking back the cinematography could be improved but I hold the idea heartily if not with more value now that I understand it a little more. In 2018 my happiness was found through exploring, and I am realizing the meanings of the word explore are as endless as the act of doing it.
To my benefit or not I have an immutable urge to explore, so I remade an old booklet to make the journeys easier. If you are reading this there is a good chance you have found one of these booklets.
I hope you understand why this essay exists as a story more than instructions and you can find use in the booklet you found.
I wanted to show my appreciation for humanity and I hope you can find a way to show yours.
