Louis Menand, an English professor at Harvard and another longtime critic of the Ph.D. production process, notes: “Lives are warped because of the length and uncertainty of the doctoral education process.” In his new book, “The Marketplace of Ideas,” he writes, “Put in less personal terms, there is a huge social inefficiency in taking people of high intelligence and devoting resources to training them in programs that half will never complete and for jobs that most will not get.”

Via NYT

“I have a Sticky on my desktop which lists the To Do projects in a chronological order (first in – first out), and heaps of random notes in a variety of sketchbooks. I’m usually working on several projects at any given time and it all kind of blends together. If I get stuck on one thing, I’ll switch to the next and so forth… I never throw anything away. I have a stack of old sketchbooks and files on my computer of designs that for some reason never saw the light of day, but they provide a good (self) referential library of ideas. It’s not necessarily about recycling old stuff, but they provide a good jumping off point in some cases. I switch back and forth between commercial/commissioned work and self-initiated work. Both inform each other, and many times I have found ideas for commercial work in my personal work, and vice-versa.”

It was the ‘I never throw anything away’ that interested me. I know a lot of creative types work that way, and I think even I do, to an extent, especially if we are talking about visual, material things that inspire me. I’ll tuck away a square inch of paper because I’m sure one day it will be just what I need. But when it comes to writing I really do not like to be an indiscriminate pack rat. Side note: Pack Rats are an actual genus of rat. I never thought the term was scientific.

So, starting circa 1996 (6th grade for me) I started to write a diary. By the end of High School it was something I did daily, if not several times throughout the day, and I had filled a dozen journals with everything from who I ate lunch with to reaction to Columbine and 9/11. College was a swift departure from daily writing, though I do recall writing lots of poems whilst listening to econ lectures (poetically reflecting my grade…). It seems like when I was young I used writing to process situations that are now quite easy for me to deal with. I still find myself compelled to write when I am trying to get to the core of some life conundrum, and I still find it useful, but I am not often driven to that end, and when I am it is brief.

I kept those diaries for years, but a while back I began to purge diaries. Usually it happened when I was doing some major cleaning or moving. I’d think “Nope. Don’t need that bunch of drivel,” and I’d toss it. Eventually I threw away all of them. I used to think they’d be great for my children to read until I realized that the things I though as a child are not the things I want to give my children unfiltered, though I think the process improved my ability to remember. In short, I grew out of the attitudes and beliefs. But also, I was a terrible writer. Nothing I wrote to myself was meant to be read or was worth reading again.

I don’t write a lot of poetry. I used to, but I’ve made a deal with myself that I have to write something long and finish it before I can write any more poems. In the process of getting new laptops, I did a similar letting of old poems. Some were really quite terrible. Some I spent some time with and, after an epic hiatus from them all, it was easier to do the right thing. Certainly at the time I was like “THAT is amazing! That is the best bunch of words ever!” but with enough time I forgot they were mine; I forgot any emotions I had applied to them, I forgot how painstakingly I’d scribbled them and I could cut out anything that now, years later, did not strike me as awesome.

I have also read that when writing stories, a good way to begin editing is to cut the first 3 pages from a novel or 3 paragraphs from a short story: you’ve had time to get your thing going and get into the substance. The first 3 pages are often a structure for the writer but not for the reader. In longer writing, too, I like to delete things that don’t work. Maybe I will throw them in another document or at the end if I really like it but am not sure where it fits yet, but getting to the point where you are certain enough of what you want to say, and how you want it to come about to just slash entire pages is, I think, a great arrival.

I don’t see any point in holding on to words that don’t work, even if there are a lot of them. Of course a good passage could be pruned into another project, even if it doesn’t work in its birthplace. But it is good to throw things out.

It’s easy to see how that might happen unwittingly: a person is good at a particular position, and as a reward for that productivity or what have you, he or she is promoted to the next step up. Often, the next step up is more managerial with different responsibilities and requisite skill set. The Peter Principle in action is fraught with cascading bad decisions and decreased productivity.

So I wondered if there should be such a thing as the Peter Pan Principle, and how that axiom might play out!

The theorem would go thusly: that a person will be promoted to his or her own level of imagination. I think that could indicate something good, or something bad…

Good

Not to be too banal about it, but the good interpretation could be something like: follow your dreams; or, if you can dream it you can achieve it. Well. That sounds pretty unlikely, doesn’t it?

One variation on the Peter Principle is that employees seek out inappropriate promotions because of tangential benefits or rewards like higher pay, status, or even a desire to work less or relax.

So the Peter Pan corollary to that could be that a person who imagines himself in a position has considered what it is like to be there and has the ambition to perform well in that setting.

Surely it could also apply to making the best of the position you are in by conceptualizing its importance, or apply to ambition more generally: an ambitious (or imaginative?) person is more likely to excel in promotion opportunities and learn to overcome obstacles or deficiencies.

But Peter Pan really is about not growing up. So perhaps the negative application fits best.

Bad

Imagining yourself in, say, a leadership role is far, far different that actually being there, or having experience doing it. I can imagine myself as an Olympic skier, but actually qualifying and competing is so far away from my skill set right now (ow, snow cuts my hand!).

Never-never land is not rooted in reality. It is principally escapist. There is certainly a benefit in many jobs to having a thriving imagination, but if that imagination is not somehow tethered to the facts at hand it can’t really be very useful in a job setting.

Or, the Peter Pan principle could be simply that your job is not what you think it is?

What do you think? How would you define the Peter Pan Principle? Can you use it in a sentence?

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

That was before my laptop. I didn’t even have internet at home. If I couldn’t find a loose paper I’d buy one, because I was hungry for current events. I wrote letters to the editor. I wrote to my favorite columnists. I was pretty awesome.

So, here I am several years later. I have a laptop and internet access and the New York Times offers free online content and gets mad ad revenue. And now the Times is unhappy with our current relationship and wants to make some changes. They want to charge for content.

And I’m okay with that. I’ve been with them through the paid Times and the free. They have superior content and are a feeding trough for bloggers, podcasters and tweeters who are all surreptitiously making, if not revenue, then at least news on sites that take readers away from the Times. Some may drive their readers back to the Times with links, sure, and that’s good etiquette. But the Times, like any good drug kingpin, doesn’t want its small time dealers getting rich off their risk, prowess and reputation.

Already, their decision to charge has been called a nail in the coffin of print journalism, as if social media will set upon and devour this frail, defunct machine. Others see it as an affront: all stuff on the internet should be free.

It will be interesting to watch this saga go down, certainly, but this move could just as easily prompt more and more dedicated news organizations to charge for content: a disinfectant against bloggers who snipe content and present it with gusto to their ten readers (ooh, hits close to home). I think then you’d see news bloggers making a decision: should I a) pay for content and sell my own ads or content b) become an actual news gatherer and get out in the world to talk to people, or c) blog about cats. That juncture could make the internet a more useful place. Or we might have a spike in cat blogs.

As to the folk who say content on the internet should be free, I heartily disagree. Content from your government should be free. Everything else is a product, created by a person, and the reason we produce it is to make cash. Sure, a drug dealer will give you some for free: it builds trust, you sample the product, and you get addicted. But after a certain point, no matter how much the drug dealer loves his job of getting people high, he has to has to has to make some money doing it.

Some of my willingness to pay stems from a desire to see the Times continue to operate. It’s the same reason I tip well at my favorite restaurants. Its existence is important enough to me that I would pay a bit to ensure my access to good food, great service, expert content that is researched, vetted, critiqued and edited.

I will pay for online access to the New York Times, because I love their storytelling, I love their video, I don’t think it’s like anything else. I think they’ve adapted in a very classy way to new media, video, audio. I expect to pay for analysis, which is why I am willing to pay for the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Miller McCune, and now the New York Times.

I wanted it enough to dig through my backpack for quarters, and so do you.

This morning I read David Brooks’ NY Times column on having a ‘protocol society’ – briefly, that our economy is no longer marked by the production and manufacture of stuff, instead it’s dominated by the protocols, regulations, the means of dealing with regulations and laws that allow the distribution of stuff made somewhere else. What interested me in his article was the inclusion of ideas – software, drugs – that take a huge investment to create the first item, but after that the manufacturing cost is negligible: so, the manufacturing and distribution contracts and property rights are all in service to the monetizing of that intangible idea.

I will tell you right now that I don’t have an inkling on what new field will coalesce this century. If I did, I’d be trying to sell it.

But I have noticed a few things:

One, your graphic design degree is not safe. Nor is your HTML knowledge, your CSS knowledge; your programming genius is totally dwarfed by some kid in Seoul who’s working for half your salary. Google is making on-the-fly translation easier than ever. I also have a feeling that the designer/programmer’s day is adorned with abominable interactions with the most frustrating clientele.

Two, there is a great lack of actual [computer/web] skills training for someone between business manager and programmer. I hate to think there will be a job like this, but maybe. I also think that the traditional programmer/ designer/ marketer/ advertising hats will be cut up and sewn hodgepodge back together. Businesses in trouble gut advertising budgets first. So-and-so’s nephew can make a website (yes, a terrible one). I think there will be a place for the hack of all trades who can set up a social network but also measure its effectiveness. I think you’ll see business managers that can also do simple graphic design; I think you’ll see librarians who know how to admin a social network. Meanwhile, everybody’s best friend should be http://lmgtfy.com/.

Three, get used to a recombinant degree/recombinant degrees. Oh, I need a dash of copywriting? And a pinch of economics? Ever so little psychology. Definitely a photography class or two. Maybe we won’t go overboard on any field of study, because how many people are actually squarely aligned with their degree and using a good extent of their skills in that area (minus technical skills people and doctors)?

Because everyone thinks they know what people think, and everyone thinks they understand how their product would sell in X market, and everyone thinks they can write and literally everyone thinks they are photographer. So why not actually know? Why not have better answers for more questions without feeling completely devastated when bosses don’t seem to care about the grave empirical and statistical mobiles you could whip up to get the exact answer in a few months? Why panic when someone hands you a camera at a soiree? Learn it all. Be a hack of all trades.

10.) Dexter

9.) Mad Men

8.) Curb Your Enthusiasm

7.) House

6.) Band of Brothers

5.) West Wing

4.) Angels In America

3.) Deadwood

2.) The Wire

1.) Sopranos

With that figure in mind, I will average one word every five-and-a-quarter minutes.

I’m not including emails.

It’s a terrible question to ask, partly because it’s the theme of Mona Lisa Smile, yeah, but also because there’s just no legitimate answer.

There is nothing too mundane that can’t be considered art in a certain context. There’s nothing too fleeting that can’t fall into art’s umbrella. I’d like to wave a few examples around.

Larry Krone creates kitschy cross stitch, costume dresses and curiosities out of hair and teeth – things people often collect or have an sentimental connection to even though it may seem silly. He likes to explore people’s connection to plaid, country music and pithy phrases framed and hung up on the wall.

Joseph Beuys stood behind a glass window mumbling to a dead hare in his arms in a performance understandably called How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare. He lived in a gallery for several weeks with a coyote. And none of that exists anymore, save a handful of photos and the story that it happened.

Readymade art from the Duchamp files uses found objects and may not even modify them, while only their suspicious art-like placement in a gallery tips us off that their purpose has been redefined. Surrealists modified objects to make them ridiculous, like a clothes iron studded with nails or a glass of water the artist insists is an oak tree. Shopdropping is a curious offshoot; it’s essentially reverse-shoplifting where a modified or replicated item is placed in a store.

I know it seems ridiculous that such ersatz work would weave its way into art galleries and general appreciation. I often think there’s a mindless nod, like a shudder, that goes through galleries when modern art happens: it seems like people are saying “ah, interesting,” without any actual interest in reacting to its potential meanings, or pinning down why it is interesting. Or some dismiss absurd art as a self-involved artist manufacturing idiosyncrasy and hype.

And that’s a valid opinion. And it happens, sometimes, that an artist just isn’t that amazing, or doesn’t really do it for you.

But my belief structure, when confronted with the wonky fringes of the art fabric, hopes I’ll see something different if it’s there. I hope to not turn up my nose at a diminished, watered-down discipline but embrace possibility and join Yves Klein in his quest for the infinite. I hope to, like Joseph Beuys, believe that people forging unique, organic paths are intrinsically works of art, and that when art imitates life it’s to wake me up to that possibility, not to stand on its own as an isolated statement. I’d like to think that art that baffles is meant to change the way I think about not just art, but everything. I hope to be able to imagine art, and therefore imagine a world, that confronts what is wrong, from racism to body image to apathy, and constantly looks for a better, more whole way of existing.