I grew up working in my dad's hardware store and that was formative training for being an engineer. Good design starts with understanding the specific problem you are trying to solve, and being a helpful hardware store employee does too. If someone says, "My toilet is broken" you don't just say "Here's a new seat", you ask questions: Does it flush properly? Does it overflow? Does it run after flushing? Etc. Especially since in many cases we have to rely on the customer's description, we have to make a first effort and iterate towards a solution. You would be amazed at how many times I have versions of this conversation in my professional life!
I love it. I try a lot to get our kids to not just say "I need help!" but to try to articulate a little of what is not working and brainstorm together what can be done (which sometimes they can try themselves)
Again, me with the math tutoring. If a student tells me they "don't get it", I am constantly working towards having them try to be more specific - partly so that, like Amy, I have a better idea of where my explanation is missing and partly, like you, because it's good for their education in thinking.
I recently had to complete an art project for our church's art group (a reflection on someone else's 'time altar'), and I had these boundaries: the art supplies that I had use of in my closet, the words written by the individual, and 1 week to completion. I am someone who likes to mull over an idea for a decent amount of time before committing - especially since my art supplies were limited and I wasn't going to be buying anymore for this project.
The boundaries actually helped me commit to something. What I created was a linocut print, and it turned out...okay. LOL It was decent for a first attempt I had used all of my time constraint (1 week) to mull over the idea, and cutting into the lino block...that's my boundary of my supply.
It was, in effect, a prototype of a print that I used once...for the individual's print that I'd be gifting to them.
So did I 'fail'? No, not exactly, but I *could* have made it better had I no constraints. I think boundaries actually help the creative process. Endless opportunity/options/ideas sort of feel like the opposite of claustrophobia to me - not hemmed in by too small, but hemmed 'in' (out?) by too large. Regardless, it was fun! I hadn't done a print in ages!
I think most of my poems start out in that kind of playful spirit. I've got a line or a few words that sounds good in my head. Can I add another line? Can it grow? Do these lines work together? What if this is a stanza? What if I reimagine these quatrains as tercets?
Sometimes I start writing with a one word prompt. I jot down different ideas and images that the word evokes and then see if I can attache them to anything else.
Or I start with an image, a photo or a painting and jot down some observations, I often start with description, but also see where it sparks my imagination: what metaphors or similes come to mind? I usually don't know where I'm going. I have no idea if it will work or if it will be a poem or just a writing exercise.
Some days I just come up with disconnected lines, images--they're clearly bits and pieces but they don't belong to anything, they don't work. But that's not failure because I learned something while playing. I don't think I can actually fail while writing poetry because I'm only ever playing to see what might happen, I never have a clear goal in mind when I set out. And maybe tomorrow or next week or next year one of my fragments will connect to something else and will turn out to have been a seed that needed more time to germinate. But even if they don't the play is still worthwhile play.
With cooking I'm a little less likely to take so many risks. We have to eat what I cook or else I've wasted ingredients that cost money and I have to throw them away. Words are free, but meat and veggies are not. And I'm usually cooking with a specific aim in mind: to make something that my family will eat, that will nourish them. I'm cooking with constraints that feel more real: children who have distinct likes and strong dislikes even food aversions, children who have dietary needs, food allergies. And while I do not have as a goal every person liking everything I cook, I do need people to end up with full bellies at the end of the day. And I don't want any one person to have been served up foods they strongly dislike too many meals in a row.
But I'm also an intuitive cook and I tend to have a good sense of what goes with what. I'm able to look at several recipes and then wing it and make something that is my own and not exactly like any of the recipes. My last experiment was an attempt to make gluten-free oatmeal scones with a mixture of oats and almond flour. They were somewhat successful, but still need more tweaking.
The last family dinner that failed was an attempt to introduce burrito bowls. Our kids like rice bowls with a sesame-soy rice, so we thought we'd try them on a Tex-mex variation. Universally they all opted to put the burrito bowl ingredients into a tortilla and eat a more-familiar burrito. They were completely disinterested in the meal in bowl form. Dom and I had burrito bowls, though and they were good.
My co worker at the homeless shelter i co founded was first an engineer and then a vision rehabilitation teacher, for blind people. She embedded early in our organizational culture iterating. We recently brought in a friend who does organizational planning to meet with guests from many different years of the shelter for feedback. At the end they were like "what happened to chores?" or "when did the out during the day rules start?" And we said, "this place is always changing... You might have been a reason for a change and you didn't know it." Ultimately our guests have some major barriers and navigating their maze can be a huge source of burnout. By keeping the "time for a new interation" mindset at the forefront we have been able to tell ourselves this isnt impossible, we just haven't figured it out yet... And we have figured some things out along the way.
What’s the last prototype you built (physical or not) in a curious, playful spirit?
This is, sadly, not something I do much of, outside of my job as a math tutor. I cook with recipes, I crochet with patterns, I copy other people when I do other crafts.
Where (if anywhere) did you get a formative training in iterating and exposing your solutions to testing?
Like you, in math. I tell my students all the time, "try *anything* you can think of because it will help get you started on a solution, even if what you try is wrong."
What’s something you tried that failed recently?
I suppose that would be in math tutoring as well. I'm always explaining things that don't land, and then thinking of new ways to explain them. I think it's essential for good teaching to always think of another way, and another, and another, to say something.
As a SAHM I'm constantly debugging how to structure our days to adjust for shifts in the weather, naptime/s, household chores, schooling, so on and so forth. Every time I have to adjust our usual daily/weekly pattern, I think I get a little better at figuring out which tasks can actually fit in what amount of time. Curious and playful might be a good goal to aim for when I need to tweak things (rather than frazzled and irritated)--thanks for that thought.
I really think my engineering management major and computer science minor have trained habits of thought that help me plan and test solutions to home-problems. Of course there are lots of other influences, too, like watching how others run their households, but to me it's a big advantage to have spent some time in a space where the explicit goal is rigorous, iterative thought.
Yes, parenting is a big domain where you can't expect solutions to stick, because the children are constantly changing.
I remember our frustration and then laughter when our second child was not comforted when fussy by being carried around in the exact same way (facing out, chest hight, clockwise) around the house as had calmed her big sister at the same age. You have to adapt and experiment!
This is a continuous re-realisation for myself as well; my kids are both lovely, but absolutely night and day temperamentally and need very different things from me, different things work (or don't), entirely different areas are difficult or easy.
My husband is an engineer and grew up in a large family where play, collaborative dialogue (they were/are all on the debate team), and a cooperative mindset are regularly encouraged. When we first started dating, I heard him using tech lingo like "exploring the problem space," which is exactly what it sounds like: it's not necessarily solution-oriented, but more focused on exploring what the issues *are* and the context in which they exist so as to better understand the situation, rather than immediately providing a solution.
I'm from an immigrant and biracial/bicultural family where not succeeding the first time was equated to "failure" or simply "not trying hard enough." In retrospect, coming from a communal culture and then navigating the confusing (and weirdly competitive) energy in the U.S. was anxiety-inducing. Perfectionism (and fear of failure) became both about getting something right the first time *so* that you would not let down your family or ppl that depended on you. Naturally, this mindset bled into my friendships and eventually, into dating and marriage.
So dating my husband was an adjustment when I realized he didn't feel the same crushing need to always think ahead, anticipate needs, have a set plan, or nail things on the first try, whether it was a recipe we were learning to cook or communicating over a sensitive topic. And it wasn't until I read "Marriage Isn’t Hard Work; It’s Serious Play" in The Atlantic that I realized that marriage is an ongoing act of shared creation. We both follow Jesus and promised before God and our loved ones that we're with each other no matter what. So as long as Christ remains our foundation and central to our lives, there is much joy in approaching marriage with a "curious, playful spirit!" There's more room for generative dialogue and imaginative collaboration. It's really quite freeing.
Every season/quarter I prototype a new schedule for our local extended family. It involves transportation logistics, dinners, homeschool co-ops, chores on a loop, date nights, pool time, etc. Sometimes it feels like a burden and sometimes it’s kind of fun to work on. Everyone’s better off when we don’t have to discuss every detail every day or every week, but it has to be adaptable, so it never really becomes a “final” draft. Sometimes that bugs me, but then I just print out our best latest version and stick it on the fridge.
I grew up working in my dad's hardware store and that was formative training for being an engineer. Good design starts with understanding the specific problem you are trying to solve, and being a helpful hardware store employee does too. If someone says, "My toilet is broken" you don't just say "Here's a new seat", you ask questions: Does it flush properly? Does it overflow? Does it run after flushing? Etc. Especially since in many cases we have to rely on the customer's description, we have to make a first effort and iterate towards a solution. You would be amazed at how many times I have versions of this conversation in my professional life!
I love it. I try a lot to get our kids to not just say "I need help!" but to try to articulate a little of what is not working and brainstorm together what can be done (which sometimes they can try themselves)
Again, me with the math tutoring. If a student tells me they "don't get it", I am constantly working towards having them try to be more specific - partly so that, like Amy, I have a better idea of where my explanation is missing and partly, like you, because it's good for their education in thinking.
I recently had to complete an art project for our church's art group (a reflection on someone else's 'time altar'), and I had these boundaries: the art supplies that I had use of in my closet, the words written by the individual, and 1 week to completion. I am someone who likes to mull over an idea for a decent amount of time before committing - especially since my art supplies were limited and I wasn't going to be buying anymore for this project.
The boundaries actually helped me commit to something. What I created was a linocut print, and it turned out...okay. LOL It was decent for a first attempt I had used all of my time constraint (1 week) to mull over the idea, and cutting into the lino block...that's my boundary of my supply.
It was, in effect, a prototype of a print that I used once...for the individual's print that I'd be gifting to them.
So did I 'fail'? No, not exactly, but I *could* have made it better had I no constraints. I think boundaries actually help the creative process. Endless opportunity/options/ideas sort of feel like the opposite of claustrophobia to me - not hemmed in by too small, but hemmed 'in' (out?) by too large. Regardless, it was fun! I hadn't done a print in ages!
I think most of my poems start out in that kind of playful spirit. I've got a line or a few words that sounds good in my head. Can I add another line? Can it grow? Do these lines work together? What if this is a stanza? What if I reimagine these quatrains as tercets?
Sometimes I start writing with a one word prompt. I jot down different ideas and images that the word evokes and then see if I can attache them to anything else.
Or I start with an image, a photo or a painting and jot down some observations, I often start with description, but also see where it sparks my imagination: what metaphors or similes come to mind? I usually don't know where I'm going. I have no idea if it will work or if it will be a poem or just a writing exercise.
Some days I just come up with disconnected lines, images--they're clearly bits and pieces but they don't belong to anything, they don't work. But that's not failure because I learned something while playing. I don't think I can actually fail while writing poetry because I'm only ever playing to see what might happen, I never have a clear goal in mind when I set out. And maybe tomorrow or next week or next year one of my fragments will connect to something else and will turn out to have been a seed that needed more time to germinate. But even if they don't the play is still worthwhile play.
With cooking I'm a little less likely to take so many risks. We have to eat what I cook or else I've wasted ingredients that cost money and I have to throw them away. Words are free, but meat and veggies are not. And I'm usually cooking with a specific aim in mind: to make something that my family will eat, that will nourish them. I'm cooking with constraints that feel more real: children who have distinct likes and strong dislikes even food aversions, children who have dietary needs, food allergies. And while I do not have as a goal every person liking everything I cook, I do need people to end up with full bellies at the end of the day. And I don't want any one person to have been served up foods they strongly dislike too many meals in a row.
But I'm also an intuitive cook and I tend to have a good sense of what goes with what. I'm able to look at several recipes and then wing it and make something that is my own and not exactly like any of the recipes. My last experiment was an attempt to make gluten-free oatmeal scones with a mixture of oats and almond flour. They were somewhat successful, but still need more tweaking.
The last family dinner that failed was an attempt to introduce burrito bowls. Our kids like rice bowls with a sesame-soy rice, so we thought we'd try them on a Tex-mex variation. Universally they all opted to put the burrito bowl ingredients into a tortilla and eat a more-familiar burrito. They were completely disinterested in the meal in bowl form. Dom and I had burrito bowls, though and they were good.
I really enjoy your poetry substack for this reason. You encourage me that poetry is something you can mess around with.
Thanks. My hope is to de-mystify poetry a bit and I like the idea it's encouraging more people to mess around with it.
My co worker at the homeless shelter i co founded was first an engineer and then a vision rehabilitation teacher, for blind people. She embedded early in our organizational culture iterating. We recently brought in a friend who does organizational planning to meet with guests from many different years of the shelter for feedback. At the end they were like "what happened to chores?" or "when did the out during the day rules start?" And we said, "this place is always changing... You might have been a reason for a change and you didn't know it." Ultimately our guests have some major barriers and navigating their maze can be a huge source of burnout. By keeping the "time for a new interation" mindset at the forefront we have been able to tell ourselves this isnt impossible, we just haven't figured it out yet... And we have figured some things out along the way.
What’s the last prototype you built (physical or not) in a curious, playful spirit?
This is, sadly, not something I do much of, outside of my job as a math tutor. I cook with recipes, I crochet with patterns, I copy other people when I do other crafts.
Where (if anywhere) did you get a formative training in iterating and exposing your solutions to testing?
Like you, in math. I tell my students all the time, "try *anything* you can think of because it will help get you started on a solution, even if what you try is wrong."
What’s something you tried that failed recently?
I suppose that would be in math tutoring as well. I'm always explaining things that don't land, and then thinking of new ways to explain them. I think it's essential for good teaching to always think of another way, and another, and another, to say something.
As a SAHM I'm constantly debugging how to structure our days to adjust for shifts in the weather, naptime/s, household chores, schooling, so on and so forth. Every time I have to adjust our usual daily/weekly pattern, I think I get a little better at figuring out which tasks can actually fit in what amount of time. Curious and playful might be a good goal to aim for when I need to tweak things (rather than frazzled and irritated)--thanks for that thought.
I really think my engineering management major and computer science minor have trained habits of thought that help me plan and test solutions to home-problems. Of course there are lots of other influences, too, like watching how others run their households, but to me it's a big advantage to have spent some time in a space where the explicit goal is rigorous, iterative thought.
Yes, parenting is a big domain where you can't expect solutions to stick, because the children are constantly changing.
I remember our frustration and then laughter when our second child was not comforted when fussy by being carried around in the exact same way (facing out, chest hight, clockwise) around the house as had calmed her big sister at the same age. You have to adapt and experiment!
This is a continuous re-realisation for myself as well; my kids are both lovely, but absolutely night and day temperamentally and need very different things from me, different things work (or don't), entirely different areas are difficult or easy.
My husband is an engineer and grew up in a large family where play, collaborative dialogue (they were/are all on the debate team), and a cooperative mindset are regularly encouraged. When we first started dating, I heard him using tech lingo like "exploring the problem space," which is exactly what it sounds like: it's not necessarily solution-oriented, but more focused on exploring what the issues *are* and the context in which they exist so as to better understand the situation, rather than immediately providing a solution.
I'm from an immigrant and biracial/bicultural family where not succeeding the first time was equated to "failure" or simply "not trying hard enough." In retrospect, coming from a communal culture and then navigating the confusing (and weirdly competitive) energy in the U.S. was anxiety-inducing. Perfectionism (and fear of failure) became both about getting something right the first time *so* that you would not let down your family or ppl that depended on you. Naturally, this mindset bled into my friendships and eventually, into dating and marriage.
So dating my husband was an adjustment when I realized he didn't feel the same crushing need to always think ahead, anticipate needs, have a set plan, or nail things on the first try, whether it was a recipe we were learning to cook or communicating over a sensitive topic. And it wasn't until I read "Marriage Isn’t Hard Work; It’s Serious Play" in The Atlantic that I realized that marriage is an ongoing act of shared creation. We both follow Jesus and promised before God and our loved ones that we're with each other no matter what. So as long as Christ remains our foundation and central to our lives, there is much joy in approaching marriage with a "curious, playful spirit!" There's more room for generative dialogue and imaginative collaboration. It's really quite freeing.
Every season/quarter I prototype a new schedule for our local extended family. It involves transportation logistics, dinners, homeschool co-ops, chores on a loop, date nights, pool time, etc. Sometimes it feels like a burden and sometimes it’s kind of fun to work on. Everyone’s better off when we don’t have to discuss every detail every day or every week, but it has to be adaptable, so it never really becomes a “final” draft. Sometimes that bugs me, but then I just print out our best latest version and stick it on the fridge.