Accumulated knowledge vs. beginner mind

Our dear friend James Turner has an excellent short daily newsletter. It’s targeted at an intersection of creatives and business professionals; what I can tell you in practice is that Shannon and I always seem to find something relatable and thought-provoking in it.

James’s piece today felt deeply relatable; it’s something i’ve observed, and it’s something I’m keen to avoid, because it feels like calcification, which is death to an artist:

The more you know about something, the harder it is to learn.

This is a frustrating but understandable truth.

It comes courtesy of Everett Rogers (who coined the term “Early Adopters”).

“The more someone knows about how to do something, the harder it is for them to learn to do it a different way.”

I don’t know about you, but I can totally relate. I can think of a number of things I do where I’ve completely turned off my sense of curiosity and wonder, and now just go through the motions.

And: this is why I'm constantly buying new plugins and throwing them into new songs I'm working on!

I figure if I'm always at least slightly unsure of what all my tools are doing at any given moment, it will force me not to take anything for granted, which should in theory make me a more engaged practitioner of my art … which could hopefully mean that I can prolong beginner mind somewhere close to indefinitely? I suppose we’ll see.

Always upsetting my own applecart — jamie