Comments on: Cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt's useful advice for living

By: forgeweld

forgeweld — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m sure her list is perfectly appropriate for her. You can dash off a lot of good, or dumb ideas in sketches, and not be out much time, material, or aggravation. It’s the taking of her list and promoting it as good advice for anyone else that makes it feel off to me.

By: Mark Dow

Mark Dow — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, I had mine tied up in the backyard and accidentally ran over it with the lawnmower.

Kill your lawn, or just let it grow out.

By: forgeweld

forgeweld — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Along the same lines, destroying the aborted attempts might be better advice for myself than some others. I just feel like they are sitting there mocking me, and reminding me of wrong turns. It’s liberating to leave them behind and have a fresh start.

By: tylerkaraszewski

tylerkaraszewski — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Isn’t the same sort of trite advice that you’ve seen a million times in other places? Someone shared this one on facebook the other day. It’s not so much that it’s bad, it’s just that’s it’s uselessly vague and obvious. Did you really need a list to tell you to exercise? How would you even know when you’d executed a dumb idea beautifully?

It seems the sort of thing that gets a “yeah, awesome, preach it!” reaction and then is quickly forgotten.

By: tylerkaraszewski

tylerkaraszewski — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

How on earth is making a circuit board a “dumb idea”?

By: Mark Frauenfelder

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll bet if you followed some of this advice, you wouldn’t be so crabby.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Can we add to this list? … my vote for an addition: “stop reading comments people post on stuff on the Internet”

By: hubbledeej

hubbledeej — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m tired of people giving me advice. It’s like the internet is 98% advice. Bleah.

By: Cornan

Cornan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Little late to the party, but not worrying if it’s going to be good is not the same as not trying to make it good. False connection there. You can be unattached to the end result’s quality but still poor yourself into the process.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

If it seems like it’s being repeated to you, maybe you ought to take some of the advice. A big part of making psychological changes is doing things which might seem silly to you at first. Keeping a journal, reading a book and not complaining so much are all good bits of advice that can have tangible benefits over the long term. They might seem trite right now, but there is a significant difference between thinking about doing something and actually doing it. Try putting some of these things into motion instead of simply laying there and deriding them.

By: tylerkaraszewski

tylerkaraszewski — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

No. (even though I like you)

By: DarthVain

DarthVain — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Execute Dumb Ideas Beautifully”

I like that one. No matter how stupid, you can do it in such a way as to still personally interest you and in the end be proud of your accomplishment despite the flawed idea.

By: TenInchesTaller

TenInchesTaller — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Totally agree with the “Don’t Complain About What You Do.” This is the downfall of many, many, many artists. If you’re in art school and you’re already making jokes about your employment prospects, its a self fulfilling prophecy. People will take you as seriously as you take yourself.

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dumb idea? You haven't seen SatanVision.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps you should try turning off the internet. I hear in some countries, you can do this with a shovel, but here it may be a bit more work.

By: knoxblox

knoxblox — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t know…”execute dumb ideas beautifully” kinda smacks of the joke that goes:

Q. What is one of the last phrases you might hear an idiot say?

A. “Hey everybody! Watch this!”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, Thanks for posting my silly thing! I made this list to paste on my studio wall during a moment of frustration. It’s definitely a little trite and I didn’t intend to preach to or advise others, but sometimes I find it helpful to create simple rules for myself. Even if I end up ignoring them (“Turn off the internet”? Hmn..)!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

And… a shameless plug for her brother:

http://www.alexishanawalt.com/

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1055547/

By: roboton

roboton — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The execute dumb ideas one most likely stems from the same well as (but perhaps not directly from) Ze Frank’s “Brain Crack” idea, that we spend so much time perfecting the bullshit in our heads that we never actually accomplish anything, that our brains gets pleasure from imagining the perfect artwork, so you never have to actually do it.

By telling your self that dumb ideas are beautiful you are short-circuiting the part of your brain that is addicted to itself.

Like Facebook, “It’s Complicated”

By: forgeweld

forgeweld — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Please keep your dumb ideas to yourself. Don’t act on them, they are dumb.
Don’t make it. Hire a professional to make one that will be beautiful, ably serve its purpose, and last a long time. There’s enough half-assed crap in the world. Make only what you are good at making.

Say yes. It’s worth making small sacrifices for people you like.

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I produce circuit board designs, and have been doing so for 35 years. I started out making crappy ones, and they got better and better over the years. Now I can produce excellent circuit board designs.

I had to waste a lot of money and time doing the crappy ones to get the experience, so that now I can make good ones.

That’s the point of that rule – you’ve got to expend a good amount of time and money learning how to do something before you can do it well, at which point you’re the professional.

By: erg79

erg79 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

They left out Wear Sunscreen.

By: caipirina

caipirina — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

if i had turned off the internet .. how would I have ever found this list?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps if you read some of Lisa Hanawalt’s comics you would realize that she is not a preachy person at all. Her drawings are disgusting and hilarious and beautiful and I doubt she even intended for that list to be “discussed” or whatever it is that’s happening here.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Case in point: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5003/5254833524_847140eb44_b.jpg

That’s awesome. I will read her list any day if she keeps making crazy shit like that.

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Doing it is better than not doing it.

If the odds of making something wonderful is 1%, then making 100 attempts is likely to produce something worthwhile, but zero attempts is guaranteed to produce nothing of value.

By: millionpoems

millionpoems — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Or, read poems — they’re shorter, and if they’re any good they stay with you at least as long as fiction.

By: tylerkaraszewski

tylerkaraszewski — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Unless the cost of each attempt is greater than 1% of the possible worthwhile outcome. Would you build a house that had a 99% of falling down before finishing construction (assume that it uses some “dumb” construction method that is difficult to execute, but if completed, is perfectly sound)? Assume you ruin all the materials on each failure.

By: Tango Charlie

Tango Charlie — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Man, Grumpy Commenters are grumpy.

“Execute dumb ideas beautifully”: in the context, it’s a great motto. Do you build homes or industrial goods or freeway systems? Maybe this won’t apply to you. Empathize a little.

“Don’t worry about how good it’ll be, do your best”: anyone who’s been involved in any sort of creative work might be conscious of the disconnect between your ability to appraise your own and other folks’ work versus your own technical proficiency or ability to create to a certain standard. It’s like that pendulum video from a day or so ago. One ball’s your skill, one ball’s your critical eye. Sometimes your skills are in sync with your eye, sometimes your work will never look as good as you want it to. It’s always good to push it, of course, but you have to know when to move on or else you’ll go Cocoa for Cuckoo Poops.

By: Tango Charlie

Tango Charlie — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Also, the big “LISA HANAWALT” header in the screenshot is subtly suitable. This is her list, not yours.

If having a list of things that make you happy helps you be happier, make a list. You don’t have to use all those crazy colours, you can print it out in Univers and kern it to death. You can even include a line like, “don’t do anything unless you can do it perfectly”, if that is what would bring you happiness. I might recommend including a “relax” line in there somewhere, though.