2021-10-14 12:52

Five ideas of practice

– 04

Practice - as a type of work; for it’s own sake or with no clear through-line; embracing the journey and the discomforts of ambiguity and uncertainty; doing something which comes naturally and which you’re good at.

Practice - a resistance; against a discipline seemingly devoted to (and happy to be defined by) a reactionary belligerence; without particular limits or in-built restrictions - so a kind of freedom-from (although not totally).

Practice - an enjoyment; in not-knowing; of having fun through some kind of story defined by yourself; an an idea of play in deliberately setting things up that you might not usually do.

Practice - as invention; the deliberate quest to find or figure something out that’s new (if only to you) so that you can know what you don’t know as a way to know more.

Practice - as reflection; as a way that you think through your eyes and with your hands - together with what you have between your ears; that they are indistinguishable and can’t be detached from one another (thinking and making) and that there are patterns and rhythms to them used together which you also have to figure out (journalling could be useful here - as a way to put the thinking somewhere alongside the making, improving a skill to write in a particular way so that it can be as sophisticated as the other skills being practiced in making).