If you haven’t had the pleasure of Los Angeles public-access television’s Let’s Paint TV…

https://www.letspainttv.com/

Or, to save your eyes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let's_Paint_TV

For more than 20 years, Mr. Let’s Paint TV (artist John Kilduff) has encouraged viewers to “EMBRACE FAILARE”—charitably put, to pass through the valley of incompetence as it’s the only path to the slopes of mastery. Just do the thing.

I couldn’t agree more with that impulse and TFA’s: the common trait that cuts across all the most impressive people I know—from artists to businesspeople to scientists to engineers to even leaders-of-organizations—is a cheerful unselfconsciousness, a humility, a willful simplicity—a willingness to put it out there while it’s raw and stupid and unformed, and hone it through practice with the people around them.

A taste:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PvbL_5rH1QQ

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bdunks 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There is a book called Art & Fear which explores this in depth. A quick read and worth it for people that don’t consider themselves artists.

It has a great story (allegory) about a pottery class, which was shared here in the past. Six sentences. Worth a read:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6097663

	▲	lioeters 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” ― Ira Glass

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nom 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Looks like he is still doing his thing here

https://www.instagram.com/letspainttv/

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xorcist 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> “EMBRACE FAILARE”—charitably put, to pass through the valley of incompetence as it’s the only path to the slopes of mastery

Instructions unclear. Have pushed secrets to github. When will slope to mastery commence?

	▲	embedding-shape an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Once you realize your mistake, and only do it once or twice more times in your life, often when stressed or some other external stressor causes you to not follow your hunch.

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byproxy 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

goddam, that's beautiful. thanks for sharing!

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moss_dog 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Fantastic, thanks for sharing! I hadn't heard of this before. Very entertaining video!

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katzenversteher 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's super trippy but I like it.

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morbusfonticuli 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well, now I went down that rabbit hole. Thanks, I guess :-)