I recently found a tiny bit of optimism in the unlikeliest of places.

I was in a coffee shop near Boston Common (while on a 2-week adventure exploring the city). 

After seeing some unhinged interactions on social media and hearing about more terrible news from around the globe, I was lamenting the fact that we’ve all become “Receivers of Memory.” 

Specifically, that we’re not equipped to interact with the thoughts of billions of people all day every day…

And then I saw a man reading a book. 

He was in his late 40s or early 50s, with thinning hair, wearing a track suit, and beat up sneakers.

And he was reading a book that initially made me chuckle: “Running for Local Office for Dummies.”

But almost instantly, my mindset changed. 

While everybody else is performatively yelling at each other online (and not changing anybody’s mind), raging about one injustice and immediately jumping to the next (without actually making any impact)…

This guy is actually trying to learn about something he CAN impact.

He wants to run for local office. 

Maybe he wants to be a comptroller or water commissioner or local councilman. Maybe he wants to fix the potholes on his street or improve community projects for kids. 

Here’s why this gave me inspiration and hope:

He wasn’t embarrassed about reading this book in public; he was interested in learning the basics for something that he didn’t know enough about yet. 

He wasn’t scrolling through ragebait on his phone.

He was reading a real book and taking notes. 

Whatever he runs for, I hope he wins.

(Fun fact: I actually bought Building a Website for Dummies back in 2007 after buying the domain for NerdFitness.com!)

I admire this dude’s courage to be seen learning. 

And he might just be smarter than the rest of us. Let me explain.

Paul Thomas Anderson and Children’s Books

One of the year’s most anticipated films comes out this week: Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another.

My coffee shop experience reminded me of an incredible story from Anderson (or “PTA” as he’s known to the cool kids) about his award-winning film, There Will be Blood.

On an episode of the SmartLess Podcast, co-host Will Arnett (shout out, GOB Bluth!) asked Anderson how he was able to build such a practical, realistic, detailed set and scenery for his period piece about early 20th century western America.

Anderson’s response was transparent, humble, and helpful:

“I worked with Jack Fisk, one of the great production designers who started his career with Terrence Malick and David Lynch.

I contacted Jack Fisk and had written the script and I needed to create…

I needed a lot of help with making oil derricks and the recreation of an early California town. We were trying to learn how to get oil out of the ground, and really trying to do our research. 

And [Jack Fisk] said the greatest thing, he’s like ‘you know I found that if we can just get a children’s book about this,

it’s really better than trying to really understand how to do it with all these kinds of books that are [very] thick.’

And it was one of these great lessons…

Yeah, get the children’s book first … it’ll have drawings, it’ll be simple. And it was like, ‘Wow, Jack Fisk gets the children’s book first. 

Alright, that’s really good advice.’”

Here’s a director at the top of his craft, sheepishly asking an industry legend how to recreate something incredibly complicated.

The solution was to just buy the dang kid’s book!

In other words, we shouldn’t shy away from learning kid’s books, or books that “dumb things down.”

These sources often cut out all the fluff and get to the important stuff without any pomp or 

Plus, there are pictures!

A Beginner’s Mind: The Courage to Try

After stumbling across the “Great Wave off Kanagawa” multiple times over the past few months, I wanted to learn more about its artist, Hokusai. 

But, inspired by my Local-Office guy, Instead of buying an 800-page biography, I bought the children’s book, it was full of art and told Hokusai’s story in a delightfully concise graphic novel.

These days, I’m learning a lot of new things and scraping away the parts that no longer fit my identity, which means I am doing a lot of things for the first time or thinking about my life in a new way.

This requires a different mindset: a mindset that requires courage to be seen learning.

In Zen Buddhism, there’s a term called Shoshin, or “beginner’s mind:”

Shoshin encourages us to approach life with curiosity, openness, and no preconceived notions.

That even when we think we know something, not attaching our ego to being right, and instead constantly looking to learn more.

When we try something new…

• We can learn from whatever source helps us get out of our own way.
• We can try and know that failure might be one possible outcome and that’s okay.
• it’s okay if we fail or we screw up or we don’t like it.

It’s all just a test-run to decide if we want to do it “for real” next time.

-Steve

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