Krishna Rao

Category: The Creative Life

  • Waiting for your Sierpiński triangle

    Waiting for your Sierpiński triangle

    Here’s a math lesson for creators! First, I’ll talk about the math and then the lesson for creators.

    The math

    I follow this excellent channel called Science is Fun on Instagram. The creator recently posted a video demonstrating a mathematical phenomenon called the Sierpiński triangle. (The original video is by Math Letters.)

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtM2j_7oh5h/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

    Start by placing three dots that form the vertices of an equilateral triangle. Make a dot randomly anywhere within the triangle. Now, place more dots by following two rules.

    1. You choose any one of the original three dots.
    2. Move towards the dot you’ve just placed, and at the midway point, drop another dot.

    Again, choose any one of the original three dots and move towards the latest dot you’ve placed and at the midway point drop a new dot.

    According to the video, if you do this thousands of times, a pattern will start to emerge called – you guessed it – the Sierpiński triangle.

    And now the lesson for creators

    Being a creator is like making a Sierpiński triangle. Every day, we show up and place a dot following a couple of rules. The individual dots look meaningless. There is no picture, nothing to appreciate. But place the dots enough number of times, and a pattern emerges. Not just a pattern but one of the most beautiful fractal patterns you’ll see.

    So, go ahead, place a dot. We’re waiting for your Sierpiński triangle.

  • Lean into the burn

    Lean into the burn

    Step-ups, Lat Pull Downs, Bent Over Rows, Cable Cross.

    There was a time when these phrases meant nothing to me. Sadly, these days I know. I not only know them, I live through them a few times a week.

    And it’s not enough to do them once. Ah, the cruel masters of the gym have deemed that hapless mortals repeat these actions multiple times. They try to make it sound cool by calling them reps. Multiple reps make up a set. And you need to do multiple sets. (!)

    Well, if you’re human, a few reps in, you’ll feel your muscles burn. The temptation, then, is to count down. Ten reps left. Nine reps left. Eight reps left… You get the idea.

    But this is a mistake.

    Because now my mind is focused only on finishing the set – avoiding the pain. And avoiding pain is like adding another 10 kilos on the machine. You suffer unnecessarily.

    Instead, I lean into the burn – focusing only on the rep I’m doing and nothing more. So, yes, I am experiencing pain – but less pain than if I were to try and countdown.

    I am discovering that the training helps when I swap the gym for my desk. When I’m staring at the blank screen instead of 25 kilos on the machine.

    I don’t rush to avoid the pain. Instead, I lean into the burn.

  • Why I aim to be ‘better’ and not the ‘best’

    We want to be the best. Aiming to be the best is considered a worthy pursuit in the society. I did too.

    But I recently changed my mind because I am trying to evaluate every thought by a simple yardstick: Does this line of thinking take me towards action?

    ‘Best’ is a binary label. You are either the best or you are not. When you struggle – and all creative pursuits involve struggle – it’s difficult to believe that what you’re creating is the ‘best’. This is the easiest way to lose motivation. Pretty soon I’m logged on to Netflix simply because whatever effort I’m putting in, isn’t producing the ‘best’ results. So, pursuing the best, takes me away from the very things I need to move forward.

    Instead, I try to be ‘better’. The cool thing about becoming better is that I can be better in different ways. I can be better to different degrees. Even if I didn’t produce as many words today as I did yesterday, I am still in a better place today because the story has moved forward just that little bit.

    Trying to become better allows me to put in the work.

    So, I aim to be better, not the best.

  • The most important lesson from Steve Jobs we all miss

    The most important lesson from Steve Jobs we all miss

    Steve Jobs’s obsession with excellence has a somewhat mythical status. Many of us believe we can never be as good as Jobs simply because we can never reach his levels of excellence. And yet, there is a counterintuitive lesson from Steve Jobs’s life that productivity and business gurus often miss.

    In 2007, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone in front of a packed audience. Since then, once every year, Jobs – and after him, Tim Cook – would get up on stage and announce that Apple had created the “best iPhone ever”. 

    This is untrue. Jobs and the rest of the Apple team knew that the phone on stage wasn’t the “best iPhone ever”. A better version existed in Apple’s research labs. Their engineers knew the current version’s flaws and possible improvements that could be made to it. 

    From this, creators can draw an important lesson: We don’t need to wait to create the perfect story, song, or recipe before sharing it with the rest of the world. Sure there are things you could improve. But your creation with all its flaws – known and unknown – is the “best ever.”

    We can take this logic a step further. You don’t have to wait for the perfect mood, tools, skills, or ideas to create stuff. Whatever skills, tools, or ideas you have right now are the “best ever” at this moment. 

    (Image Courtsey: Blake Patterson)

  • Using time

    Using time

    Today’s Sunday. It’s a rare day when I have time. I immediately started thinking about what I could do with this time.

    That’s the funny thing about time. The moment I notice I have it, I start thinking about how I can spend it.

    The moment I start thinking about how I can spend it, I start thinking about how I can spend it well.

    The moment I start thinking about how I spend my time well, I get anxious. Is there a better way to spend time? Just as there is always a better dress, a better partner, a better restaurant, there is a better way to spend time. This is especially true for those of us who are pursuing a creative calling seriously. After all, the time spent not earning money is the time we have to build our creative portfolio.

    So, not having time brings discomfort. Having time brings discomfort too.

    Accepting this discomfort is key to living a satisfying life.

    Here’s what I am attempting. I give up trying to save time or do more with my time. Instead, I focus on just one thing I can or have to do in the present.

    I’m finding that this doesn’t stem the discomfort that’s inherent to life, but it might just be the path of living a satisfying life.

  • Come back

    I almost did not write this post today. 

    I started early in the morning trying to write a different post. But the words didn’t flow. I spent the whole day agonising over breaking my streak (I have written a post every day for nine straight days). 

    I was afraid that breaking it would mean triggering the downward slide. That’s how I have given up my earlier attempts to blog. It always starts with letting myself off the hook – one day, then the next, and then the next.

    But here’s the thing about resilience. It is not just about maintaining streaks. It is also about holding on to something you can come back to despite missing your streak. So, if you missed one day, come back the next. And if you missed that day too, come back the day after that.

    Sometimes being accountable is about letting go of the inner disciplinarian who keeps us in line and reminding yourself why you started a project in the first place. Reconnecting with that initial innocence and naivety can sometimes offer a tiny thread that you can grab and get back onto the streak.

  • Will I run out?

    Will I run out?

    Of ideas. Of inspiration. The sheer will to put in the seemingly tiny amount of work to put words on the page.

    These are the things that worry me. Perhaps they worry you too. 

    I am astonished when I hear that authors wrote multiple books that never got published. The mind boggles to think that they must have written 40,000-80,000 words, then created multiple drafts based on feedback for each book. That doesn’t even take into account the time they spent identifying literary agents and writing proposals.

    How do they come up with so many plots and think of so many characters? Even if the novel is not quite up to the mark, I would find it extremely difficult to create so many storylines. Which, of course, worries me whether I am being a fool even to attempt such a goal. 

    I had the same fears when I started this blog. How many writers have attempted to do this and failed? I know of at least one. Me. I have failed countless times to start a blog. Why should this time be different? 

    The honest answer is, ‘I don’t know.’ But I can tell you I have a different approach this time around. I think this approach will work. At least I want it to work. And my fears regarding ideas? Well, the more I write, build a bank of posts, the more I think about writing, the more I get new ideas. 

    All this is a roundabout way of saying that your mind is an ideas machine. So lead your life, read books, listen to music, watch films. And then show up with a pen in your hand (or the keyboard under your fingertips) and watch it churn out some utter shit, but also a few gems.

  • What the frog – in which I name a frog

    What the frog – in which I name a frog

    One of the fun-nest productivity techniques I have come across is called ‘Eat the Frog’, which takes off from a quote that’s often attributed to Mark Twain.

    “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

    (Note: This does sound like something Mark Twain would say. But I haven’t found any mention of where he said or wrote this.)

    Eating a live frog is perhaps one of the most disgusting things you can do. (Unless, of course, you are a snake, and you find frogs delicious. But then again, you also eat rats. So, forgive me if I don’t take tips on fine dining from you.) Anyway, according to ‘Eat the Frog’, you do the thing that feels as disgusting or difficult as eating a frog as soon as you can in the day.

    The question, of course, is what is the frog in your life.

    The frog might take many different shapes: Going a daily run, attending a class that’ll level up your skills, setting up a meditation practice, or ploughing your way through the first draft of your novel.

    So, you take this action every day as soon as possible – preferably first thing in the morning.

    But here’s the thing – going on a run is not difficult. Nor is typing words on the keyboard or attending an online class. In other words, the act of running or meditating or writing is not the frog.

    The frog is a different beast altogether. In my sightings, the frog takes the form of an icky, sludgy reluctance to do the things that you swore were important to you.

    In his book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield calls it ‘The Resistance’. 

    It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.

    The artist Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal) gives it a more eloquent name, ‘The Blerch‘. 

    The Blerch represents all forms of gluttony, apathy, and indifference that plague my life. 

    I have named the frog Ick-a-lot. I have also knighted him because he has won countless battles with Reason and Better Sense. So my frog is Sir Ick-a-lot.

    Why am I spending so many words naming the frog?

    1. It’s cool to name things – especially frogs.
    2. Just as it is essential to clarify what is truly important to me, I believe it is essential to clearly identify what is holding me back from doing what I have deemed important to me. 

    Okay, so now I have named the frog and redefined what it is. What next? 

    Initially, I thought, “Well, now that I have identified the enemy, I need to quell it – that is, prevent it from existing – before doing all the things that are important to me.”

    That strategy failed spectacularly. Turns out the expectation that I will one day defeat the frog and then never have to feel its icky sludgy-ness IS the frog.

    The trick is to understand that the frog is a part of you forever. Importantly, you can do the things that are important to you despite this.

    • I accept that it will suck to put in the work sometimes.
      (Do the work even if you don’t feel like it.)
    • I accept that the results will not meet my lofty standards.
      (Measure effort, not results.)
    • I accept that I will fail along the way.
      (Forgive yourself when you slip up and be ready for battle the next day.)

    This approach is allowing me to push along and move forward. It turns out Sir Ick-a-lot is not my friend. But I don’t have to make him my enemy either.

  • The simplest thing you can do

    The simplest thing you can do

    I was frozen with anxiety. This was strange because the decision I had to make was not life-changing or binding. I just had to choose a newsletter service. I wasn’t going to pay any money for it – not immediately any way – and switching to some other service would have been fairly easy. But one part of my mind – the dude in charge of the panic button – would tell you a different story. He acted like my life depended on it. As though the decision I took would change my life irreversibly. As though my success as a blogger would depend entirely on whether I got this decision right. 

    I was mindful enough to know panic dude had gone off into a spiral. The realisation did not immediately help break the cycle of thought and emotion. But it gave me enough space to ask, “Where is the danger?” This is a question I often ask to break out of anxiety. Because usually – though not always – there is no danger. 

    I asked myself what I could do in this moment to move. Just a little bit. Let it be imperfect. Just move.

    Here was the answer: Do the simplest thing even if it is a mistake. 

    It worked. I signed up for an email service, played around with its settings on WordPress, and my newsletter was ready to get published.

    Why did this approach work? First, I allowed myself to make a mistake. In other words, I gave myself the permission to learn by taking action. Second, by committing to doing the simplest thing, I had made things, well, simple.

    I am not sure if I have chosen the “best” newsletter service. I am not sure if it will fulfill all my needs in the months to come. I have simply taken action. I am open to learning. Most importantly I am set to ship my work.

  • What’s your core skillset?

    What’s your core skillset?

    It’s easier than ever before to create and publish content. But this also brings in new demands that creators of the past seldom had to deal with. Take standup comedians. Earlier, they would have to write their sets, revise them, perform, and then revise some more. This was their core skill set. They would work their way up from ‘Open Mics’, to performing at smaller venues, then bigger venues. If they became popular enough, they could standalone shows in auditoriums, go on tours, and do corporate shows. 

    Then came YouTube. Now, standup comedians can reach millions of people relatively quickly. However, even though they’ll hire a crew, standup comedians need to have enough understanding to answer questions like, ‘3-cam setup or 4-cam?’, ‘Shoot in 4K or HD?’. Once the video is ready, they need to take calls like  ‘What thumbnail design will attract user attention?’, ‘What’s the best time to upload the video on YouTube?’, ‘What hashtags will push the views?’.

    Digital distribution channels like YouTube and Instagram are also gigantic content machines. You have to constantly feed it and do things that please their almighty algorithm that will get you organic views. You have to know what’s trending in order to ride the what’s-popular wave.

    The problem is that in the vast ocean of things-to-do-to-win-on-the-internet, it is very easy to forget what makes for good writing/music/standup set/artwork in the first place. 

    As a writer, I get better by sitting down each day and put down words on the screen. 

    I am not saying that understanding technology, knowing the trends, defining your audience, or improving production value is not important. I am simply saying that they are secondary or tertiary to your core skill set. Because nothing will work for me if I don’t produce words worth reading.