Boundless #25: When you find something gross, what sound do you make?

Oct 10, 2018

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Greetings from Taipei! I'm doing some travel down the west coast of Taiwan with a friend from Singapore I met at the "World Domination Summit" earlier this year. One of the things I've tried to do over the last year is to make friends not following a traditional path. It's been amazing to meet interesting people from around the world not following the script.

I put some additional effort into "upgrading" the newsletter this week as I want to make sure I'm bringing you interesting perspectives, articles, tools or whatever else your hearts desire. If you have any ideas, requests or contributions, e-mail me!

If you want to join the newly created "Chipotle Bowl" club, you can join the 12 other Patrons who support this crazy journey I'm on.

YuTing Chiu on creative expression, bacon instruments & cultural sound differences

Web • Itunes • Stitcher • Google Play • Overcast • Spotify • PlayerFM

YuTing Chiu is a sound designer and multimedia artist based in Taipei and is someone filled with creative energy. When we first met for coffee, she said to me, “do you want to see the instrument I created?” I’ve never had someone ask this question before and plus, who says no to that question? What she pulled out was an incredible handmade triangle instrument that was her re-invention of an African rainstick, except here was the “infinite” version. She wanted to improve on having to flip over a rainstick every time it stopped making a sound.

Her instrument-making curiosity started when for a project for art school in Chicago, she decided to build a Bacon-themed instrument. We talk about how that got started and how it led to other creative projects such as her Cultural Sound project, where she is trying to map people’s sounds or reactions they used to common occurrences in life.

For example, when people see something gross they say “ai yeuh” in Taiwan, but “ewww” in the US..

My first attempt at recording a video podcast succeeded

ON FRIENDSHIP: I thought this passage from David Whyte from a recent On Being podcast was worth passing along in full:

"One of the great disciplines of human life, I’ve always felt, is friendship. A good friend is always inviting us out beyond ourselves. They’re always attempting to address the better part of us, hopefully through subtle diplomacy rather than coming at us head-on with our sins and omissions. But I often feel that, by definition, all long friendships are based on mutual forgiveness, because you will always trespass against your friends’ sensibilities. You will always say the wrong thing at the wrong time, and they will have to forgive you. That’s why they’re still friends. You will have to forgive them too. So, just by definition, you’ve been on a path of mutual forgiveness and of knowing each other’s sins and difficulties and omissions and still addressing both the better part of the other person and the future that you’re both dedicated together.

The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life. A diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence.

Through the eyes of a friend, we especially learn to remain at least a little interesting to others.

[laughter]

When we flatten our personalities and lose our curiosity in the life of the world or of another, friendship loses spirit and animation; boredom is the second great killer of friendship. Through the natural surprises of a relationship held through the passage of years, we recognize the greater surprising circles of which we are a part and the faithfulness that leads to a wider sense of revelation independent of human relationship: to learn to be friends with the earth and the sky, with the horizon and with the seasons, even with the disappearances of winter and in that faithfulness, take the difficult path of becoming a good friend to our own going.

Friendship transcends disappearance: an enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence, the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent internal conversational way even after one half of the bond has passed on.

But no matter the medicinal values virtues of friendship, of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement. The ultimate touchstone of friendship is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

Quotes

“I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason " - John Keats

"We are all chained to fortune: the chain of one is made of gold, and wide, while that of another is short and rusty. But what difference does it make? The same prison surrounds all of us, and even those who have bound others are bound themselves; unless perchance you think that a chain on the left side is lighter. Honors bind one man, wealth another; nobility oppresses some, humility others; some are held in subjection by an external power, while others obey the tyrant within; banishments keep some in one place, the priesthood others. All life is slavery. Therefore each one must accustom himself to his own condition and complain about it as little as possible, and lay hold of whatever good is to be found near him."
-Seneca

Podcast

This 20-minute epsiode of On Being featured a poetry reading from David Whyte, who I've written about before. He has a reflection on friendship which is beautiful and powerful and starts, "One of the great disciplines of human life, I’ve always felt, is friendship. A good friend is always inviting us out beyond ourselves. " Listen/watch/read here: David Whyte (On Being)

Reads

Boundless Reads Issue #91 - my weekly newsletter of five good reads every Sunday, going on almost two years.

Articles

The Death of The Liberal Arts?: When I was looking at colleges in high school, I did not understand what “liberal arts” colleges were for. How did people get jobs? I was practical and majored in business and engineering in undergrad. I was highly employable, but I still knew little about the world. In grad school, I took a class called “literature, ethics & authority” taught by an English professor that blew my mind open and pushed me down a path that led me to a wider range of literature, history, and philosophy. I’m quite grateful for that push.

Should universities be solely in service of the economy or do some of these liberal arts colleges have it right? Andrew Taggart tackles this question better than I could in Quartz => How workers killed the liberal arts

What would you be doing with your days if you were born 300 years ago?

Chipotle Bowl?

Since going solo, I have been averse to the idea of "building a business" and "monetizing" my work. I am driven by helping others and try to devote my energy to being generous and creative - wherever that takes me. When I create tools like the Freelance Target Income Calculator, I want to get it into as many hands as possible.

I have embraced Patreon as an experiment for people to support me in continuing to do this work. Think about it as Kickstarter for creators, but focused on supporting one's life.

If you want to get on the chipotle bowl tier ($9.99 a month), I will blast your name at the top of the next e-mail, send you a book I love and set up a call with you to talk about your path, wherever it has led you...

Guac please

TOOLS

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