We all have to complete this assignment, akin to a first-semester journal entry, detailing our reactions to two readings. One is a poem by Robert Frost, whom I greatly admire, and one is a random piece of Internet detritus which breaks off abruptly in the middle of a sentence. They both deal with work, which I imagine is why we have to read them, because we are all doing projects which involve work.
Profound eh? I thought so.
So: "Practicing" appears to have been written for one of the teach-yourself-to-play-guitar websites with which the Internet is so thickly packed that it is impossible to swing a virtual cat without hitting eight or nine of them. The author has a lot of deep wisdom to share about pushing oneself outside of one's comfort zone if one wants to improve at whatever one is working on. I don't really scoff at this. It seems obvious enough, but when I look at my life I see that it really is an easy thing to forget. It's odd, when everything about our world and our species is driven by change, that individuals instinctually don't want any part in advancing that change on a small scale. With a few exceptions, we don't like practice; we want immediate gratification - the final product now, without any of the work. But without the work, the final product cannot exist. So we force ourselves to practice whatever it is we're doing - in my particular case, the skills involved in wheel-throwing - and we are better for it.
I agree with the article's message as a whole, and I think it is sad but true that we need constant reminding to step outside our comfort zones or we won't do it. One thing the article says, though, I do not understand at all: "I can't tell you how many times I've practiced a particular lick or technique for an hour straight with minimal improvement that day, but the next day almost as soon as I tried it, it seemed to flow more easily." I wish I had ever felt this. Ceramics is a crapshoot, if you will - I have good days and bad days at the wheel, days where I can make anything I want and days when the clay seems to hate me and ends up as a useless lump. In my other life as an athlete, this is true as well. So maybe if I want to experience what the author of this article is describing, I need more practice.
Now I come to "Two Tramps in Mud Time". I very much enjoyed this poem, which is written in Robert Frost's characteristic simple, sweet style. But I think I am supposed to be relating these reading to my project, so I won't spend time quoting lines I like, but go straight to responding to the passage I am sure Ms. Gergely had in mind for us:
But yield who will to their separation
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Oh, how nice that sounds, to be able to do what you love as your job, and not relegate it to the realm of "hobby", only to be dragged out of the closet on alternate Sundays. I wish it applied to me. But unfortunately, the things I love best are things that would make me no money at all. Ceramics is a solid example. In truth, that's most of the reason why I took WISE, so I could devote a whole semester to my avocation before going off to college and studying for a vocation which must, for me, be different.
Profound eh? I thought so.
So: "Practicing" appears to have been written for one of the teach-yourself-to-play-guitar websites with which the Internet is so thickly packed that it is impossible to swing a virtual cat without hitting eight or nine of them. The author has a lot of deep wisdom to share about pushing oneself outside of one's comfort zone if one wants to improve at whatever one is working on. I don't really scoff at this. It seems obvious enough, but when I look at my life I see that it really is an easy thing to forget. It's odd, when everything about our world and our species is driven by change, that individuals instinctually don't want any part in advancing that change on a small scale. With a few exceptions, we don't like practice; we want immediate gratification - the final product now, without any of the work. But without the work, the final product cannot exist. So we force ourselves to practice whatever it is we're doing - in my particular case, the skills involved in wheel-throwing - and we are better for it.
I agree with the article's message as a whole, and I think it is sad but true that we need constant reminding to step outside our comfort zones or we won't do it. One thing the article says, though, I do not understand at all: "I can't tell you how many times I've practiced a particular lick or technique for an hour straight with minimal improvement that day, but the next day almost as soon as I tried it, it seemed to flow more easily." I wish I had ever felt this. Ceramics is a crapshoot, if you will - I have good days and bad days at the wheel, days where I can make anything I want and days when the clay seems to hate me and ends up as a useless lump. In my other life as an athlete, this is true as well. So maybe if I want to experience what the author of this article is describing, I need more practice.
Now I come to "Two Tramps in Mud Time". I very much enjoyed this poem, which is written in Robert Frost's characteristic simple, sweet style. But I think I am supposed to be relating these reading to my project, so I won't spend time quoting lines I like, but go straight to responding to the passage I am sure Ms. Gergely had in mind for us:
But yield who will to their separation
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Oh, how nice that sounds, to be able to do what you love as your job, and not relegate it to the realm of "hobby", only to be dragged out of the closet on alternate Sundays. I wish it applied to me. But unfortunately, the things I love best are things that would make me no money at all. Ceramics is a solid example. In truth, that's most of the reason why I took WISE, so I could devote a whole semester to my avocation before going off to college and studying for a vocation which must, for me, be different.
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