40. Welcome to the new season: The Curious Sketchbook

Season 3 of Art for All is called "The Curious Sketchbook." Each week, host Danny Gregory will be joined each week by artist, author, biologist, and nature journaler, John Muir Laws.  They will discuss drawing and painting, nature journaling, creativity, psychology, human brains, and much more in a free-wheeling conversation that promises to be inspiring and fun.
Video recording available on Youtube.

Listeners say:

"I'm loving it!  Two of my favorite artist dudes.  I met Danny in person at the Pasadena SketchKon and have listened to John Muir Laws' videos and bought stuff from him to draw the birds in my backyard.  What a great pairing.  Like fine wine and a rich, mellow cheese.  You two can figure out who is which!" — Hugh O.

"Excellent! Curiosity is one of my very favorite things! Such an interesting discussion and it already provided several concepts I want to explore further. I hope you will expand on some of the ideas touched on in future episodes. I will look forward to this as a weekly workout for my brain... AND for my sketchbook/journal! :-)!" — Kim W.

"OMG! My heart skipped a beat when I read this news! My 2 favorite people in a podcast - AWESOME!!! I really hope it will be weekly and it is wonderful that it will be on YouTube too, feels like we are sitting with you rather than just listening. Best idea ever! Thank you, Danny!" — Charlotte F.

"There’s been such a deficit of this kind of conversation in my life for so long that I’d begun to forget what was missing. Thank you, Danny and John, for letting us sit in on yours. I like that it was not scripted, neatly packaged, handed to us for consumption on a shiny over-produced plate. Instead, it was two creative intelligent people talking about things that interest them, and it challenged me to open my mind and engage with the topics in ways that were different for me. Lovely. I feel more myself than I have in some time." — Nancy P.

• Get your free ebook and newsletter at https://sketchbookskool.com/
• Write to us at podcast@sketchbookskool.com

• Subscribe to Danny's weekly Essay at dannysessays.com.
• Watch the video of this interview on YouTube: https://skool.tiny.us/podvideos
• And learn more at sketchbookskool.com

Transcript

Danny: 0:36

Hi, I'm Danny Gregory. And this is a podcast that is still under development. We're still coming, trying to figure it out. I am an art artists and you see how it's tripped over that. I'm an author, an artist, and the founder of sketchbook school. And I'm joined here by my friend, John Muir laws.

Jack: 0:57

Hi there, and I'm John Muir laws and I'm Danny's friend. I am a an, an artist scientist curious, explore and and, and avid journaler and happy to be here, exploring ideas in conversation with Danny Gregory

Danny: 1:16

in the curious sketchbook. Scintillating long-winded podcasts that will come into every week until we get sick of doing it. Thanks for joining us.

Jack: 1:27

Thanks for being here, everybody.

Danny: 1:30

Good day.

Jack: 1:32

Good day to you, sir.

Danny: 1:36

I'm I'm great. I'm good. I had a fun weekend. My son was visiting from Los Angeles with his girlfriend and we did a lot of stuff and it was a fun weekend. That's fantastic.

Jack: 1:48

Yeah. What was the highlight?

Danny: 1:51

We went to the, the desert botanical gardens in the evening where they have a deal Cerulli show. So they have all these. Oh, yes. Yeah. So there's all this like beautiful desert landscape. And then in the middle of it, are these incredible pieces. I mean, I've been, we've probably been to half a dozen of those kinds of shows now of Julie. But it's it's always inspiring and just beautiful. So yeah. Very nice.

Jack: 2:24

That's

Danny: 2:24

great. So we are going to create a podcast or you're going to figure it out. I'm rolling already because I thought, you know what, let's just like, let's just talk about the idea of what we even think this is, and maybe that's going to be part of the first episode. So I like it. What do you think it is? What is this?

Jack: 2:49

I, for, for me, it's, it's an excuse to have interesting conversations. I, it, it, it seems to me that you're somebody that thinks about interesting things in ways that are interesting, and that interests me. So

Danny: 3:06

an interesting thing to say.

Jack: 3:08

Interesting. And, and I, I want to be. Kind of, I want to engage with ideas that are different than, than mine and the way that I usually think about things. And I like to sort of I like the, the, the, the challenge of thinking thinking along different lines, if I can get myself to do that on a regular basis, my brain is going to kind of keep growing and all sorts of interesting ways. And so this, it seems, but, but there's so little conversation these days. We, we, I, I don't sit down with human beings anymore because of COVID. And so the, the opportunity to kind of get to hang out on a regular basis and to talk and to play with ideas I'm in.

Danny: 3:56

I agree. I think that that is, you know, I find like when I do talk to people, a lot of times it has some purpose, you know, but it's rarely just conversation. It's usually like, you know, a transaction. Even with family and things like that. How are you doing? What's going on? What's new. Okay, good. Okay. Yeah. Are you all right? Fine. Okay. So this will be an opportunity to have no particular agenda. And who knows you and I may be the only audience for this, but that's fine too.

Jack: 4:26

Yeah. So yeah, let's, let's make it a worthwhile for ourselves by engaging with ideas that excite us challenge each other, and yeah. If nobody else listens to it, that's fine. We will then have gotten something

Danny: 4:45

out of it. I was thinking about names for it. Just like, cause maybe there's some focus that if somebody is coming to where they have some idea what it was and the name I was kicking around that I liked the best was the curious sketchbook, just because it was about sketchbooks and it was about curiosity, but it felt kind of open, but I'm open to anything. That's just a first drop of sand in the oyster.

Jack: 5:09

I I'm, I, I, I like that. I like the idea of, of, of, of curiosity, of, of actively questioning things is something that I, I really try to, I try to strive to do, to try to make myself intentionally intentionally curious. And, and so part of that is sort of admitting that I don't know tons of stuff.

Danny: 5:35

I think that's what makes life interesting. Right? Yeah. And I think it's what I mean, cause you kind of exist at the intersection of art and science and those curiosity seems to be an important quality to have in both of those disciplines.

Jack: 5:50

Yes. Yeah. So I think of it as, as, as, as critical that and it's also. It's also, I think of it as a skill curiosity, as a skill that you can cultivate and it gets better with practice.

Danny: 6:14

It's an effort to though, which is maybe why sometimes we don't want to engage in it.

Jack: 6:20

Oh, that's right. Yeah. Our brains, our brains are the most calorically demanding part of our body. So it's what, it's 2% of your body weight. And it uses when you're, when you're actively thinking it uses 20% of your energy and it's just so disproportionate. And so if, if we, the, the easy thing to do is to If, so your brain doesn't have to work hard is, you know, not to be curious to be, just sort of accept things. And that, I think that there's, there's a, there's a certain kind of satisfaction that comes from that sort of thinking that you're right about stuff. But the more that you can push yourself to accept how much you don't know. I think then Ben really interesting, interesting things will come from

Danny: 7:17

that. Maybe we should write the thinking man's diet book, things to think about to burn calories. So you can just sit in your armchair, like reading Lichtenstein or, or doing, you know, some kind of figuring out various mathematical formulas and shedding pounds. Yeah, I,

Jack: 7:40

I, at some point I remember hearing about the, the amount of calories expended by a a chess master in a, in a tournament. I don't remember the numbers, but yeah, if you can yeah, yeah. Think hard to get fit. There you go.

Danny: 7:59

I want to get fit. I like it. Okay. That's that could be the name of this podcast. Think hard,

Jack: 8:07

the and also then tying in the sketchbook with that Sometimes people think of a sketchbook as just drawing pictures. So maybe a journal it's this extension of your brain and that when you get curious, and then you get curious on the pages of your journal, you can do so much more on a piece of paper. Then you can do just kind of sloshing around in your electric meat. That I, I find that like you, you, if you work it out on paper, your ideas will be better and you'll have a better understanding of what your ideas are. You can also hold so much more on paper, then you can just between your ear. Cause

Danny: 8:56

you're externalizing them. You take, you're taking it out of your head and putting it up, making it other, which allows you to kind of look at it differently and see it differently.

Jack: 9:05

Yeah. If people talk about the idea of metacognition, of how you are metacognition being, thinking about what you're thinking about, but the minute you start thinking about what you're thinking about, you're now no longer thinking about what you were thinking about, you are thinking about thinking about that same thing. So you can't, you, you can't you can't watch yourself think about whatever topic it is, but then if you get it down on paper, you can then look at the notes that you have on paper and you can see the way that your.

Danny: 9:45

I mean, I find I'm, I don't know if you would like this, but I find a lot of times I'm sitting there thinking about something. I think, I think in bed a lot, you know, so I wake up in the middle of the night as you know, because I just sent you that huge list of things we can write about. Cause it was, it was offensive. I told my wife about it and she said, what are you doing? Just for the casual listener, just so you know, I woke up at four o'clock in the morning and I started thinking, getting so excited about these conversations I was going to have with Jack, that I started spewing out a huge list of things that I don't know, like hundreds of things. And then I sent them to him and she said, never send anyone an email before Dawn it's it's really it's really,

Jack: 10:30

but it did. It did show me that you're all in on this idea. So I,

Danny: 10:35

yeah, why not? I was at four in the morning. I still, I still am in the daylight hours too, but yeah, so, but what I was going to say is that I find that if I'm kicking ideas around in my head, I really need to have something to write down. Something to not necessarily write the ideas down, but just to have a piece of paper and have a pen in my hand. And a lot of times I'm just, I'll just like write a word and then I'll sort of draw a line connected to another word. And that's sort of mind mapping thing is part of what I do, but I definitely feel like I need to go through that process in the end. It's not necessarily even like building an outline. I'm not, I'd like to be one of those writers who sits down cranks out an outline, and then just easily turns that outline into an essay. But I do feel the need to still sort of like have it on paper, see all the bits and then that somehow rearranges what's in my head. And then I can write from there.

Jack: 11:32

And what's kind of critical about that if those, those sorts of random things on paper is that, you know, unlike an outline it's nonlinear, you can sort of start with whatever it is and then you're looking for relationships and those are those lines. Those, those lines that you start to draw between things you're making connections, but if you were to sit down and just kind of put it into outline form I don't think that there's as much room there for you to think. Laterally. I think the outline is, is useful. Once you have all your ideas in place and you want to figure out the document, you want to sort of write the book, but for, but that's not, I think that's more of a structuring process rather than a generative process. So

Danny: 12:24

those right. Cause that's a different stage in ideation for stages, just dumping stuff out of your brain. And then the second stage is sort of starting to organize it. And the third stage is calling it and kind of breaking, getting rid of the excess bits that don't fit into the flow. But that's all much further down the line and you don't want to think about structure too early because if you do it, it definitely gets in your way in the way of you're just flowing ideas. Right.

Jack: 12:55

So are you, do you currently have as you're sitting there do you have a a pad of paper in front of you with some words, notes and doodles on it so far

Danny: 13:08

for this, for this particular discussion? Don't I have, I have several things in front of me that have stuff written on them, but they have nothing to do with this conversation. I do also have on my phone that giant 4:00 AM list that I sent to you, but I haven't honestly looked at it since we talked. I feel like it's there as a crutch. Honestly, it's a crutch. It's sort of like, you know what? I know that if I get nervous about, well, will we have anything to talk about? I can just glance at that list. I'm not necessarily even going to pull things out of that list. Like I find, I find like I write these essays every week and I have hundreds and hundreds of little snippets of ideas that came to me while I was listening to a podcast or came to me in the middle of the night or came to me while I was reading something and I put them down there, but I find that they're a crutch. Cause every so often I say, okay, I should go and look at those snippets. I'll go and look at those ideas. And then I might have an idea. So the snippet itself, isn't actually the idea. It's just simply the reassurance that I'm capable of thinking of ideas. And then, then I can actually go off and think of one it's. I don't know if that's a normal thing, but that's kind of the way it works for me.

Jack: 14:23

Yeah. Yeah. Just knowing that the well is not dry. That's a good place to start, but I, I, I find it's really, if I don't write stuff down, there are these kind of beautiful threads that I, I, I lose. So for me I, I kind of keep, I keep little, little notebooks that are just when I'm in conversation with, with, with one person, I'll sort of just start a page from that. And there's And then I may not I may not need to come back to that later on, but just because I had that page going while I was talking to that person I think that my thinking is a little bit better. So it's, if I lose these notes, that's going to be okay. But if well actually, no I, I do find myself kind of coming back and re regularly to kind of digging. I know I've got that idea in there. I'll look through it and like, yes, there is that kind of key idea. So what I will also do is sometimes put little stars or a big arrow or googly eyes next to the best ideas that sort of pop out in things. And that helps me then find it later on as I'm kind of scanning through those, those notes.

Danny: 15:46

Yeah, I understand that process too. And I feel like I go back to, and I look at it and sometimes, sometimes it is, it is helpful to me when I sit down to write something. But I've been not struggling, but exploring new ways of writing over the last few months and new tools to use. There's this lot of discussion right now about this thing called the second brain, which I'm sure you know about too, which is basically if we, we spend a lot of time reading things and absorbing information or absorbing them as absorbing as perhaps the right word, but encountering information. And maybe you highlight things, you know, maybe you take notes and then maybe you have a repository of all those notes. And so you have like you know, maybe it's computer files or notebooks full of stuff. It isn't it's inert until you start to make connections between those different things. And when you do those things can generate new ideas, right? So the idea of the second brain and it's, it's, it's sort of it's not an incredibly sophisticated technology, but it's definitely a technology that has sort of coming into its own now, which is that you can take all of these notes that you have and put them into computer repository, and then you can create links between them. And so then, so then the individual notes and pages. Are all in this giant network of linked connections and that those link connections, which may not have occurred to you when you read one thing three months ago, and another thing yesterday start to become clearer because of this second brain idea. And it's also called the second brain, because the idea is you can't possibly hold all that stuff in your head. So you need another place to put it. And a computer is a perfect place to put it, but only if you can access it in a useful way. And so much note taking and note gathering software is hierarchical, and that's not necessarily that useful for this. So in other words, you put it in folders and folders and folders and notebooks and so forth, but ideally it should all float, float free so that it can make new connections. So. Relational. Yeah. So it's tied, it's tied not to where it resides, but it's tied to what its content is. So therefore you can have an idea that might be connected to a completely different idea somewhere else. And that I, for instance, say you're reading a book and there's one sentence that sounds, that really stands out to you. And it may not have anything to do with the sentences before and after it, but it may connect really beautifully to something completely different than some other place. But if it's to connect, if it's too tied down to its location, it can't make that connection. So I don't know, it's very complicated and I've been trying to play with it. And I'm finding that. I think my brain is probably going to do a good enough job on its own without this, but it's, it's interesting to me. So going back to the idea of curiosity, I spent a lot of time just researching this and looking at these tools and reading articles by people and basically doing research into research rather than. Actually doing the thing, you know,

Jack: 19:13

in, in, in my, in my practice I have these sort of three kind of core ideas of observation, curiosity, and creativity, and the, the way that I kind of frame those is I notice, I wonder, and it reminds me of, so my, my working definition for creativity ties into what you're talking about here with these connections and networks. My here's, my working definition for creativity is your brain's ability to make useful connections between seemingly unrelated. That seems to be a lot of what you're talking about here with these, these, these systems is first not losing these little pieces and then kind of giving them giving them little, little hooks that can tie into other ideas. Right? So

Danny: 20:16

it could be the equivalent of like tags or keywords or things like that using computer in the computer databases. You know, but it's still the problem with that is still, it's still problematic because you have to know what that hook is going to be. And it may actually be a hook that doesn't become doesn't reveal itself until it comes into contact with some other thing, right? Like can make changes, meaning we've gone with what you were saying. I notice, I wonder it reminds me of,

Jack: 20:45

I, I noticed, I wonder it reminds her, so that's my, kind of my naturalist monitored. And the, the part that I'm really kind of thinking focusing on, on, on here, or kind of tying in is this idea of, of it reminds me of which is deliberately trying to tie into deliberately trying to tie into looking for connections between ideas. And so you're, you're observing some sort of phenomenon say just the way that drawing mud is, is cracking on the Playa. And you're you deliberately say to yourself, what does this remind me of? And you try to kind of go into your, your banks of your, your brain system to see what can you dredge up that in one way or another. Relates to this. Sometimes those kind of connections, they just pop into your head. But if they're, even if they're not popping into your head, you can often kind of go and root them out a little bit by just deliberately saying, like, what does this remind me of? And then you know, noting those things for and these, these can be stuff that you've read or these can be sort of scientific things. These can be things from the arts. These can be things that are playful. They can be goofy things that your daughter did that morning. But this kind of intentionally trying to look for and build relationships looking for patterns. I, I find a really interesting and rich process. So that's why I like your idea there, of this, that this, this, the second brain, it's not just a, of a, a system of file folders for ideas, but you want to be kind of teasing out what are the relationships between ideas and how does this connect to stuff that's already kind of dancing in your gray matter?

Danny: 23:03

And the result of that is that it makes something new, right? So you've formed this connection and you say, okay, you know, these cracks in the mud, remind me of, I don't know, Jackson Pollock, and then you say, okay, so what else could that mean? You know, do I start, do I start making paintings by throwing mud around? Or do I. You know, look at, I don't know, there could be, there could be things that it spurs, right. That you're taking these two things a and B and you try and create something brand new out of it. Or you, or this they're sparking. Yeah,

Jack: 23:37

that's right. So you can look at that thing. If you, if this does connect with something, then you can say, why is that? You know, in what ways is it really like that? In what ways is it different than that? In what ways is this sort of is the, is this sort of a metaphor for that? And in what ways is this a real direct connection and sort of the, the, the biologist in me then starts there, there's sort of a parallel in that, of what the biologists talk about adaptations that are analogies and homologous. And so when they're, when they're, when they're talking about this, but they, what they mean is that you see some structure on these two critters, right. Are, and they let's say they both have spines. Do these, both have spines because of a a shared common ancestor that somebody that they're related to had spines. And so both of these organisms have spines or is this a feature that, and that if there's a, there's an ancestor, then they that's referred to as these are those are homologies. But if, if there's no relationship between the critters and they both have independently developed spines, then this is what's, it's called an, these are, these, these adaptations are then an, an analogy. And. So you can also do that with, you know, how is this like that other thing you know, what's, what's going on with that, that relationship, this sort of the you've got analogies and homologies in there you have and you know, you know, do these cracks serve the same function or, or the, or the result of the same process that you were seeing in this other sort of thing? Or is this an independent connection with this, with this, with, with this, with this same pattern,

Danny: 25:45

right? So if you look at like a marsupial in Australia, It might have, it might have certain features that came about for completely different reasons than a mammal in Europe did. Right. Right.

Jack: 25:59

Exactly.

Danny: 25:59

Exactly. So, yeah. Or even like something like a duck bill, a duck bill, and a Platypus might've arisen because of completely different reasons. So it's not an analogy, is that okay. So then it would

Jack: 26:10

be an analogy that just these things look similar, but there's no kind of common ancestor that you could go back in their lineages. They they're related to critters that didn't have those. And this is a, it is, it's a feature that is appeared to places because of the connection of form and function.

Danny: 26:38

Right. So that, so, so how does that relate back to ideas?

Jack: 26:42

So when you're, when you're, when you get an, it reminds me of, you can say to yourself, like, you know, why does this remind me of that? And again, in what ways is it similar? In what ways is it different? There's, there's a relationship here. What is the, the, the, the strength of the relationship? How, what are the, what are the kind of, what's the functionality perhaps behind this structure that I'm looking at? What is the origin of this, this structure, or this feature that I'm looking at? And. That I think helps you, when you're, you're saying kind of your, you have an idea or you make a connection and you can turn that into something new. I think that those sorts of insights help you with that last step there of taking this idea and then helping it morph into something that you can reapply in a new way.

Danny: 27:46

Yeah. I mean, completely unrelated. I was thinking about, you know, this new series that's been on apple plus, which is about the Beatles. And I don't know if you know anything about it, but so they, they have these Peter Jackson edited together some 50 hours or more of footage that they had of the Beatles kind of in the year or so before they broke up and doing these recording sessions. And you know, sort of interesting to see. I mean, I personally not only am I not a Beatles fan, but I'm actually the opposite where I actively am disturbed and troubled by the Beatles for psychological reasons. I can go into some other time, but, but anyway, so I I've been watching it. I've been watching it for for other reasons, which is, I'm always interested in the creative process and how people come up with ideas and picking music, which is really mysterious to me, you know, but that music just kind of seems to sometimes flow out of people. And there's a scene. That's the scene that probably people talk about the most from this series of documentaries, which is, which is when Paul to start. Playing a song that turns into a really recognizable song. So he's like playing a song and he can see it sort of vaguely thing seems familiar and then it becomes increasingly familiar. And you realize like this melody is coming into focus, but it's sort of floated it flowed into him. And then he sort of grabs it and shapes it and it becomes I forgot what the song is actually, but it becomes that. And so it's really interesting to see that, you know, sort of like, he's kind of like tuning a radio almost and sharpening it and suddenly you go, oh, that's, that's a melody. We all know. And, but it would have made me think of, as speaking of this reminds me of is remind me of this thing called another documentary called some kind of monster, which is about Metallica. It's another band I'm not particularly fond of, but I watched it because it's about the making of this. Record that they did. And over the end, they brought in this documentary film crew that was going to film them working together on this record. And they were supposed to be in the studio for a month. It ended up being something like 530 days of filming. It took to actually finish this record because they were also going through all this trauma and breaking up. And one of their band, their key original band members had left. And so they were trying to kind of reorganize the relationships between them and creating and sort of figuring out where they should stay a band. But they had a psychiatrist who was like the band psychiatry band, shrink who's with them through this whole thing. And he is sort of helping to bring them together and helping them to come get over these, like, I mean, and they're much more aggressive than the Beatles were in terms of their. Beatles, very British about it. A lot of it, but this metallic codes, obviously this heavy metal band, the biggest band in the world at the time, like the Beatles, but they go through this whole process and he's focusing them and shaping them. And I kept thinking, as I was watching the Beatles thing, if only they had a shrink, like they might've stayed together, but also you see, like, what is it that happens when a creative collaboration doesn't work and when it does, you know, and what are the things that, that, that, that go wrong? A lot of it is, is power struggles. And it's also authenticity. Like, are you being real or are you, is somebody being motivated by ego or are they being motivated by you know the need to make money or what they think will be commercial and somebody else wants to be authentic and just, you know, just losing the original connection that brought them together. Interesting to me to watch both of those and thinking about, about just creative collaborations. So maybe we should start by getting a shrink you and I,

Jack: 31:45

I think, I think we we, we all could use that. You know, things, anything that gives you a bit people who are somebody who's, who's there to help call you on your stuff and not just tell you that you're great is really helpful for, for, for everybody. Because I think that our kind of default modes of thinking about things we, we have the illusion that our, that we're really pretty sophisticated, but I know I'm not a.

Danny: 32:23

Yeah. So I'm very sophisticated. You may be Yoko from California, but I'm a world traveler. Oh, good. That will help. That will help

Jack: 32:34

help our insight.

Danny: 32:36

Yes. Anyway I just, so, so, so, but

Jack: 32:39

I wanted to, just to, to, to, to when you're talking about Metallica tell me a little bit more about you're, you're saying that about the authenticity of, of what they, of what the, the, the band is doing. And it made me kind of wonder about, is, and you're saying that, you know, press, for instance, when somebody is maybe more motivated by something that is commercial I am wondering how that is. That if that is something that is authentically, what is motivating and moving somebody isn't that equally authentic?

Danny: 33:26

Well, I think the question is, did they become successful because of their authenticity? So you have a band who is begins together, right. They begin together and they make music that speaks to people. Right. And it's, and it comes perhaps from their experience. In some ways it's funnel, their experience is funneled through who they are and who they are as a group. And then it becomes something and then people listen to it and they relate to it. Right. So you have the Beatles, the Beatles, same kind of thing. Right. Which is there. Have their life experience and their understanding of all the other music that's going on around them. And all those things make for music that becomes really successful at the beginning because people respond to it. And then over time they start to live this really weird life. Right. Imagine being like in the biggest band in the world, whether it's the Beatles or Metallica, you know, and like there's a whole big scene in some kind of monster where one of the musicians is selling his art collection and it's like, he has multiple paintings that are each seven and eight figure value and he's selling them through Sotheby's, you know, and then anything. It's so far removed from what you think of us as like a rock band, right? These guys with like multi multimillionaires, you know, like multiple wives. And one of them has a really bad substance abuse problem in the middle of it too. So it's like increasingly you kind of can't relate to where they're coming from. And the music that they're making is really more plugged into the music they used to make than it is plugged into their lives as they now lead them. Right. So similarly with the Beatles, there's a scene where they're kind of trying to write new songs and then they end up pulling out all these songs that they made when they were 15. And they're like, remember this and they start playing all these songs, I guess they hadn't recorded before, but there are these songs that they wrote when they were teenagers. And they're now like almost 30 and they've been a band together for like 10 years. And they're, that's what they're going back to. I think that happens with really successful creative people a lot. And they call it the sophomore slump. Right. You bring out an album where you make a movie or you write a novel and it's a huge success. And then it's like, great. Now what are you going to do? And it's like, well, it took me 10 years to write that thing. Right. Like if you're a band, you've been writing songs together, you've been making music together. And finally you get a record contract where you take your best songs and you put them all into that thing. And then now it's like, okay, nine months later. Yeah, exactly. And do it again and again and again. So now all the pressures that are on you have nothing to do with what those original pressures were, those pressures that you did originally might have been much more like, how do we find a voice? How do we express our experiences? And now suddenly it's like, well, how does. Respond to the record company, to our audience, to the press and so forth. And that just makes for, it's not. And I think if you did that authentically, if you and there have been musicians and other artists who have made art about this situation that they find themselves in, you know, but it's not that interesting. It's like, I don't really relate to like, oh, you know, my Lamborghinis in the shop and, you know, I don't know where to put my arm or I'm having problems with my money manager. It's like, whatever, you know, relate to them quite the same way. So that is a problem for people. So that's, that's I think part of the authenticity question

Jack: 37:08

that, that clarifies, that makes a lot of sense

Danny: 37:10

to me. Yeah. But going let's change, let's go back to talking about sketchbooks. Cause that's where we started out. We talked about sketchbook as an idea, a place to playground for ideas, I guess. I don't think most people wouldn't think of sketchbooks unless it was like visual ideas. Like you wouldn't think of doing mind mapping and things like that in your sketchbook. But I think both of us have a point of view towards a sketchbook that it's, it isn't a companion, right? It's a companion, it's something that's with us that we might use for drawing, writing, drawing, and painting in. But we also use it to kind of live our life in, right. That it's, it's something that we'll work out ideas in. And we will express maybe things about our life or capture things about our life in it as well. I think that, I mean, is that how you see it?

Jack: 37:57

Yes. It, it, it is for, for me, the, the, the, I guess I, I refer to it as a, as, as my journal. Right. The journal is a. It is both a reflection of your experience and it is an amplifier and intensifier of your experience while you're having it. If I go to a place and explore, I very quickly will the details, the nuances, the lessons of whatever experience it is, will begin to fade. If I listen to a lecture, I can be like, wow, that was, that was, that was, that was amazing. That was riveting. And then somebody says, well, what did the person talk about? And I'm like, I, now I don't remember, but it was really good. And That if, but if I'm there with my, with my journal and I, I am the it's it's in my hands and as we're, as we're exploring along I am taking some notes of kind of highlighting the things that really stand out for me. It's going to help me work that into my life, into my thinking in a much more deliberate and direct way. So for me, it's, it's, it's an essential tool of of engaging with the world. And that's why I, I, I'm very interested in No, just to kind of give a little bit about my background. I'm a wildlife biologist. If people haven't met me before I I'm really interested in nature. And so if you look through my nature, my journals it's nature, nature, nature, nature, nature, nature, nature. Here's the bird I saw. Here's the, the, this world I saw, this is what the clouds were doing. And because that was what I was putting down in my journals. Those things, they became more, more vivid, more, more real for me, but the things that I wasn't putting in my journals my brain isn't paying as much attention to those. And I was, I was missing, I was missing all sorts of things. So I looked through say you look at urban Sketchers and the sorts of things that they're. Doing there are these beautiful insights into place in community and the day by day experience that you're having, that I wasn't getting, I can be. And so just recently, I've, I've started to try to, I actually made a cityscape in find a nature journal. I'm being more deliberate now about including the shenanigans that my kids do in my journal. And so

Danny: 41:16

it's expanding from being just a, sort of a scientific tool to being more of a window to the world. Yes.

Jack: 41:29

It's a lens for kind of experiencing my life through. And I do find when I use it, my experience is so much richer and when I don't I think I'm, I'm, I'm missing out

Danny: 41:47

now that, that, yeah, I mean, I've talked about this before, but I feel like the process of drawing in my sketchbook and writing in my sketchbook are also a way of increasing the resolution of the memories that I'm making. Since that I can go back and look at a sketch book from a really long time ago and remember exactly what that experience was like, that. You know how I felt, what the temperature is like, what I eat for lunch, what else is going on around me? All those things are really heightened. Cause it was like, my brain is like super energized or super open during that experience. And the drawing is like a hyperlink back to that experience, almost like by looking at the drawing, I connect back to that day and those high resolution memories that are buried in my brain somewhere. Like they get activated, like that drawing is the bookmark to those things I keep using

Jack: 42:45

now.

Danny: 42:47

So, so I, I feel like the experiences that are being recorded, aren't just visual. It's not only did I, you know, do I remember the details of that draw of that building or what the light was like on it and so forth. But as I said, I can also have memories of like I have a drawing. I did. Washington square park, Washington square arch. And I was sitting there on, on, I can remember this morning. It was, it was an early, it was Sunday morning. It was pretty early on a Sunday morning, like 7 30, 8 o'clock streets were pretty empty. And I'm sitting there with my back against the arch and I'm drawing the view up fifth avenue, which is pretty empty, but I'm drawing the buildings and there's a couple of trees and I can see the cabs coming towards me. I'm sitting there and I can feel the, the, the stone of the arch feels like against my back. I can feel what the sidewalk feels like a night, but, but then a guy comes walking in and he takes off his jacket and he points at George, the statue of George Washington's right above my head. And he says, screw you, George Washington. And he throws his jacket on the ground and he walks away and. And I was like, okay. But all these memories, like I look at that drawing and all these memories kind of come back, you know, what it was like, it was, I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. It's a weird thing that all this stuff comes into play so that an inside experience that anybody else looking at the drawing wouldn't see, they would say, oh, it's fifth avenue, you know, but it is, as you said that yeah,

Jack: 44:26

it is. I've had that exact same experience where you oh no, screw you, George Washington. Yeah of, of, of, of being out there with my, my, my, my journal and I looked back at the page and I can, there are all these other parts of that experience, my sense experience of everything that was going on Around me at that point as if that's sort of, the lens of my perception was, was, was, was clear and clean and all this stuff came in and some of it went down on the page and I like your description of the bookmark to your life and your experience because that, that the bookmark isn't the page, right. All that is there in your neural network. The bookmark just kind of helps you kind of get back there. You look at that journal page and all of those, those, those details, even if you didn't write in a little voice balloon with the person saying, screw you, George Washington,

Danny: 45:29

I'll never need to, you'll never, you'll

Jack: 45:31

never need to, or, or at least we have the impression that we'll never need to. There's just all sorts of, kind of interesting things about memories and how our memories do. Change over time. And you know, we have the, we have the perception that our men that are kind of connection with our, our, our, their, their memory is accurate. But our brains are constantly kind of splicing new things into those, those, those memories as we, as we kind of move along. So as down the line, our memories get increasingly inaccurate, but having, so I think it's actually not just a bookmark. I think it's a bookmark to kind of brings you back there, but it also is an anchor because details of memories that we have morph over time. But if it is documented on the page, Both. I think the work of putting that there on the page helps helps us to that part of that memory is less likely to change over time. And also I have, I can look down at the page and there it is a reminder of what I was looking at, and that also helps that part of that memory stay remains fixed as, as opposed to kind of, you know, morphing and blending as my as my brain kind of handles it sort of standard way. Of of, of remembering things.

Danny: 47:18

So it's kind of like frozen on the page or in Hamburg on the page, as opposed to being like a thing that you have in your house that you constantly like having to move around, you know, like, you know, decide whether or not to throw it out and all those kinds of things.

Jack: 47:36

Yeah. that's made out of slowly melting wax that you're constantly kind of resculpting so it still looks like that thing. Yeah. That it, it allows you it takes you back vividly to that experience. And you also now have anchors in that experience that are less prone to change cause human, but the way that human memories work is not like, you know, pulling up a, a file at a computer. It's a, it's a. It's a copy on a bad Xerox machine and you, your, your memory, you haven't you haven't experienced and then you, you, you remember it and it comes out of the bad Xerox machine and you can't really understand part of it. And so what your brain does then is it fills in all the gaps seamlessly so that you have the subjective of experience of remembering this experience vividly. When we, when we remember things where we remember a full picture, but every time you remember something, part of there are new parts that you are. And when it goes through the, you then take that, that thing that you've retouched, and you put that back down on the bad Xerox machine and your memory pops out again. And it's now this, and you now have to retouch other things. So the more that you remember something, the more those memories degrade over time

Danny: 49:09

Right. So

Jack: 49:11

this, this allows you then to then to have kind of, there are, you can bookmark that experience in your life. And then there are aspects of that, that you're going to be able to hold on to more vividly know, perhaps the color of the person's jacket that they throw on the ground that changes over time. But something that you included in your journal there about that, you know, that, that little detail that is that's, that's, that's not, that's, that's less likely to, to, to change. Also the scientist in me kind of likes this because, you know, I then have, I have documentation of like, oh yeah, I saw this bird here in this place at this time. And there were 500 of them. And now I can go back and kind of compare that over.

Danny: 50:04

Interesting. I mean, I think another part of it is also that we even remember something and then we choose, or we've forced ourselves to forget certain things, certain things that might be traumatic or make us look bad or whatever it is. There's some reason that we change things, right. And then we come back to that memory, not quite remembering why it was we've changed the memory we have now, an incomplete memory. And so we fabricate connective tissue to fill in those blanks, which forms a whole new concoction. That isn't really the memory at all. It's kind of like the game of telephone, right? Where you are passing on this information, incomplete information. And so, and I have memories from when I was a kid and I think I got always, here's an example when I was little. I remember I had a vivid memory of. Sitting in a room in London, on a radiator that was turned off with my mother and my grandmother eating strawberries. And then years later I remember telling my mother, I remember this scene, like, what do you remember when that was where that was? And she said that could never have happened. They don't have strawberries in England. And I said, really okay. And then years later, I thought, of course they have strawberries in England. Well, she talking about like, that doesn't make any sense at all. And so meanwhile, this memory has gotten more and more jumbled and I think, do they have radiators in London? Do they? And so now this memory is completely unreliable and, and strange. And I'm like, why did I remember that? And then I also said to my mother years later again, why didn't you say that there weren't strawberries. And then she said, I would never have said that. Of course there are strawberries. Yeah. So it's like, okay, it's a memory of a memory of a memory that has an, I don't even know what would I actually remember anymore. And I often think about a thing that really spooks me out is this notion that every seven years we replace all the cells in our body. So that, that memory from half a century ago is actually something that whole other organism, not me at all, not this me talking to you, it's just this weird. I'm like, you know, a building that was built on top of the ruins of another building on top of the ruins of another building and going back to ancient Rome. And none of it is actually real at all. It's all completely, but that's, we'll talk about this another time, cause we're about to run out of time, but I want to talk at some point about the simulation. We've been living in since the pandemic began, it's computer simulate simulation and all the fantasies I have around that. But for another episode, that'll bring you back to if you, if you haven't tuned out already we'll talk about that in a future episode.

Jack: 53:03

Yeah. And I'd love to explore this idea of, of, of memory with you more because I think it is

Danny: 53:13

that's right.

Jack: 53:15

Maybe, maybe what I can do is want to share with you one of my favorite poems by Billy Collins. That would be great. And this one is called this much. I do remember. And you know, in, we here we've been talking about about the act of. Getting an experience down in our sketchbook as a way of recording that and connecting with that. A and I, I, I see Billy Collins is sort of doing a similar thing, but but by writing a poem around it can you recite that poem? I, I, at one point I could and I no longer cayenne, but I brought, I've got a copy of it up in front of me. Okay. So here's, here's the poem

Danny: 54:03

just telling us the version that you remember, and then we can actually read the actual version. No, we don't have time. Let's read through

Jack: 54:12

that. The, I hear you. So here's the, here it is. He says it was after. You're talking to me across the table about something or another, a Greyhound you'd seen that day or a song you liked. And I was looking past you over your bare shoulder at the three oranges, lying on the kitchen counter next to the small electric bean grinder, which was also orange and the orange and white crew it's for vinegar and oil, all of which converged into a random, still life. So fastened together by the hasp of color. And so fixed behind the animated foreground of your talking and smiling gesturing and pouring wine and the Canberra of your shoulders that I could feel it being painted within me, brushed on the wall of my skull while the tone of your voice lifted and fell in its flight. And the three oranges remained fixed on the counter. The way stars are said to be fixed in the universe, then. All the moments of the past began to line up behind that moment and all the moments to come assembled in front of it in a long row, giving me reason to believe that this was a moment I had rescued from the millions that rushed out of sight into a darkness behind the eyes. Even after I've forgotten what year it is my middle name and the meaning of money, I will still carry in my pocket, the small coin of that moment, minted in the kingdom that we paced through everyday.

Danny: 55:55

I love that. I also like the idea that that feels authentic, right. You know, that that actually happened to him. He didn't create that. I mean, he created the poem, of course, but that moment happened. He turned it into a poem and we've now re-experienced. Right. And, and also it reminds us of things

Jack: 56:22

and it takes this, this ordinary moment and it makes it special just through the act of this deliberate intention of your you're putting it into your sketchbook. You could have done that with any of those other moments in there. And they would have been, it didn't have to be the orange and white crew it's for vinegar and oil. Right. It could have been something else, but it becomes special because of the deliberate attention that we give to it. And so you get to be the curator of your memories and by, by keeping your sketchbook, you are choosing, which of all the moments out of the fabric of your life. Do you want to pick out and say this one and kind of keep it with you? I think that that is, I think that's

Danny: 57:14

beautiful. It is. And that's why we make art. That's why art matters because art shines a light on our lines and it's a sh an, a light, and it's a light we can share. We can share Billy Collins experience and we can also tied into our own lights. So what unites us, and it also shows us things that we may not have fought off. We hadn't really realized that that was beautiful perhaps until he showed us how it is. And so our lives are richer for it, more meaningful, and we're connected to each other. I mean, those are incredibly important things to experience and to have so, so many of our perceptions of what art is for and what it's about and why. Are just so distorted that's would be another good topic for another time is what art really is and why we think it's something that you, you know, rich people buy to hang on the walls or something. So you have to be very intellectual and have degrees in to understand. So, yeah. Well, I think, look, we've managed to fill an hour with blather. I think that was good. Maybe that's maybe that's what we can call this call this podcast, the bladder, our bladder, Danny. Yeah. But this was fun and we will do it again next week.

Jack: 58:35

Well, I look forward to, to just playing with more ideas and thank you so much for the conversation.

Danny: 58:42

Thank you. This was really fun.

Jack: 58:45

It was really fun for me today.