Feb 01, 2010
Ed Mullen
Looking at the positive and negative aspects of constraints helps to understand how they guide us and when they’re helpful and when they’re harmful.
I think about constraints a lot. Or maybe it’s more precise to say I see constraints a lot. I’m conscious of them. They are part of a worldview that decidedly has a lot to do with my up-bringing: hard-working, middle class, Midwestern, Catholic. In particular, there was an understanding of the benefits of constraints; the belief that they are helpful, keep us in line and are there for a reason. So I’m prone to give constraints the benefit of the doubt, while many think of them simply as negative restrictions.
A constraint is neither good or bad. It simply is. What is positive or negative is the consequence of the constraint and how it impacts you for better or worse. Some are out of our control. Some are intentionally set up by people; some for the good, some for the bad. Some are insurmountable. Some should be shattered and some should be preserved. The point is to see them as structures that actively affect our lives.
There are, of course, different kinds of constraints and different kinds of outcomes. Let’s take a look.
Nov 30, 2010
Ed Mullen
Quincy Jones’s comments about Kanye, while an unimportant diversion, express a criticism you hear from a lot of predecessors that’s worth listening to.
The critique can sound like “he didn’t earn it”, but I think the valuable criticism is that “he didn’t learn it”. As we make things more convenient, we risk circumventing learning experiences that can make our knowledge more whole and our output better.
There are/were real benefits to apprentice-like systems. It’s great that ideas can rise easier these days, but what might we have learned if we weren’t so antsy to get past the student phase? I know I worry about this.
Anyway, here’s the story...
And as good as Kanye’s music is, none of it compares to MJ and Jones’s Don’t Stop TIll You Get Enough. Click the link and let your desk chair dance begin.
Apr 17, 2010
Ed Mullen
The White Stripes’ frontman talks about the value of constraints in the creative process. From “The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights”.