Autour D’Holbox, Mexique, 2016.

市人よ   Hey townspeople, 此笠うらふ  I’ll sell you my woven hat, 雪の傘   The snow umbrella

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, 1988. 

Source: Hugleikur Dagsson, DJ Set, 2013. 

Source: http://arcticcirclecartoons.com/comics/january-14-2018/

Oku-no-In, Koyasan, Japan, 2015.

Source: Mystic Cheesecake Balloon. 

Ferdinand Hodler, Le Männlichen, 1908, huile sur toile, 57 x 71,5 cm, collection Christoph Blocher.

Source: “Hodler, Monet, Munch: Peindre l’impossible”, 15 janvier 2016 au 22 janvier 2017, Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris. 

If you like you can read [this book], and a lot of other science fiction, as a thought experiment. Let's say (says Mary Shelley) that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory; let's say (says Philip K. Dick) that the Allies lost the Second World War; let's say this or that is such and so, and see what happens... In a story so conceived, the moral complexity proper to modern novel need not be sacrificed, nor is there any built-in dead end; thought and intuition can move freely within bounds set only by the terms of the experiment, which may be very large indeed.  The purpose of a thought experiment, as the term was used by the [physicists], is not to predict the future [...] but to describe reality, the present  world.  Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive. Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying. The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It's none of their business. All they're trying to do is tell you what they're like, and what you're like - what's going on- what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies. [...]  They may use all kind of facts to support their tissue of lies.They may describe the Marshalsea Prison, which was a real place, or the battle of Borodino, which was really fought, or the process of cloning, which really takes place in laboratories, or the deterioration of a personality, which is described in real textbooks of psychology; and so on. This weight of verifiable place-event-phenomenon-behavior makes the reader forget that he is reading a pure invention, a history that never took place anywhere but in that unlocalisable region, the author's mind. In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane- bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren't there, we hear their voice, we watch the battle of Borodino with them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed. [...]  In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel- that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it's very hard t say just what we learned, how we were changed.  The artist deals with what cannot be said in word.

Ursula Le Guin, Introduction,The Left Hand of Darkness, 1976. 

Seine River, Villeneuve Saint-Georges/ Paris, France, 2018. 

Source: Mystic Cheesecake Balloon

As a teacher, I no longer use the word, “smart.” I refuse to call any of my students this word, and I am intentional about not using it in my class. What even is, “smart”? Is smart getting the answer correctly? Being able to perform a specific skill? What is it? Because when we tell kids that they are smart, in reality, it does nothing for them. It does not provide any feedback for them. And the worst part is that this word has become a way for people to classify children into 2 categories: smart, and not. When children assess themselves they have difficulty defining their strengths and weaknesses. Instead, it has become a question of whether they consider themselves as smart, or not. And herein lies the problem. I too, can relate to these kids. I always struggled in math, and considered myself, “not smart” in this subject. I could never take a different perspective and evaluate what areas of math were a struggle, and which parts I understood. Was it the calculation part? Was it memorizing math facts? No, after years as a student in the classroom I looked at my peers and compared myself to them because they were “smart” in math and I was not. Leading me to believe I was somehow less intelligent than my peers when in reality, I just learned differently. I required different help. Teachers, parents and students tossed the word smart around as if it was a label which you had to earn. My point in all of this, and even taking the time to write a tumblr post about it, is that the way we perceive ourselves has everything to do with the way the institutions we grew up in engraved it into our brains. You are not smart, and you are not NOT smart. You are full of strengths and weaknesses, and it is much more important to figure those out than label yourself as anything. Instead of telling a child they are smart, point out what they did correctly and why it was correct. Instead, tell them how the skills they display affect the outcome of a situation. Unsurprisingly, I get quite a few messages from college-aged kids who feel like they’re not smart. Or from people who feel like they won’t make it in college because of how they perform in their academics. I had these very same thoughts as I went into college, and as I was in it. The system of education has failed you/me, and for that, I am sorry. The classroom environment should be teaching you how to identify and reflect on your weaknesses, and how to identify and maximize the potential of your strengths. You’re more than a label, please know this and reflect. Knowing all of this now, I hope and pray that you will change your whole perspective on yourself.

Thank you for reading my extremely long post which is somewhat of me venting, while also trying to encourage you. I hope it is taken to heart.

- Lindsay

Trainer Works on Muhammad Ali's Shoulder, Gordon Parks, 1966, Miami, USA.