Austin Kleon

You could think about it in terms of like in the social sciences, they call it explore and exploit.

You know, when you're young, you're exploring, you're learning, you're figuring things out.

Then when you get a job, you're exploiting that knowledge, you know, to make money or do whatever.

But I think in order to grow as human beings, we need to kind of toggle back and forth between that knowing and not knowing, right?

Because the minute you think you know what you're doing is a very dangerous place for anyone who's doing any kind of work because that's the moment things start getting boring and they start getting stale and you start doing things by routine instead of doing them because of what is needed.

You have to balance that, I think, in your career of that cycle of knowing and not knowing.

And the kids just put me in that perpetual not knowing mode

that is really rich for creative work, because I really think to be a parent is to be a perpetual amateur.

And the reason is neither of you have done this before.

Neither of you have been in this relationship before, this exact relationship.

And even if you've already had a kid before, that doesn't mean that what works with the last kid is gonna help with the new kid.

And that's true of books.

And it's true of art.

Just because, you know, the last one worked this way doesn't mean that this one's going to work that way.

And that works with our corporate projects or whatever else we're working on too.

And so to get comfortable being in this amateur, I always like the word amateur because it actually in the French, it means lover of, right?

And so to be an amateur is to be someone who is mostly in love with the thing that they're doing.

They're doing it out of love and not out of material reward.

And certainly in parenting, the only thing you can really do is show up and love the kid.

Kids are great because they'll knock you on your ass as far as you're pompous