but we also have one uh during the live cast that came up from fiona lieberman
she said in your book you mentioned that you used to be quite messy as someone who leaves a trail
of carnage on a project you have any advice on how you change your mindset to get more organized well
if you look at my shop behind me i think you'll notice that every table surface
is covered with crap um yeah the the shop and the whole space needs a real uh addressing um
advice i am a neater maker now than i ever was before and that's because i've seen the dividends
that it pays uh so even though every every table surface is covered there's very little
uh chaff it's all wheat it's all good stuff and also much of it is localized right like
some samaritan there's a boba rifle case there's some machine tools i bought a future one day build
back there so i now put things in containers and that does a huge amount towards allowing
things to be messy and yet still uh keeping them organized uh on this which is my main interface
with making stuff there's always extra crap on here like this ruler which i plan i bought on
ebay and i plan to clean as a one-day build it's going to be a one-day build so it's just sitting
here kind of waiting kind of reminding me this also yeah there's little things waiting to be
put away but you asked a really specific question do i have an advice on how i changed my mindset
yes and it comes down to that conversation that i like to talk about as a conversation
between present me and future me so every table surface is covered however uh this
weekend i did come in and do a bit of sorting even though it doesn't look like it's neither
i don't lose things with nearly the frequency that i used to and that is a humongous dividend
when i want to work on something i can almost always find it that feels tremendous
the opposite of that feeling is a feeling of total lack of control and
a lack of control is one of the things that i am most afraid of like i
don't like not feeling like i have control over the situation of course control is an illusion
we all have our crosses to bear i just have to come to terms with the fact that control is an
illusion in fact i think that's why i make stuff here at the workbench this is the place where
i get to experience the very pleasant illusion that i have some measure of control over my world
which i do not yeah the universe doesn't care about me i'm an insignificant to quote
tim mentioned i am an insignificant speck of carbon and my life is short and unimportant
but here at the workbench doesn't feel like that
and when present me talks to future me and future me says it's gonna feel a lot better
if that workbench is clear when i come in tomorrow present me says you know what
you're right i'm gonna put on some daft punk and i'm just gonna put all the things away
where they go and that first look at the bench where i'm like i got rulers and i got bronze
props and i got pieces of abs plastic and blades and knives and rapidographs and ink
oh so many things to put away instead of thinking about it i just pick up the first thing and i put
this thing where it goes over there and there and i take this thing and i put this where it
goes over there and within literally like five minutes eighty-five percent of the work is done
it always takes less time than you think it's gonna then you dread it's gonna take
um andrew montgomery has a question talk to me about your meditation practice zen tibetan
do you follow any specific teacher or are you affiliated with a sangha does your meditation
practice inform your approach to making yes my meditation practices are shambles i'm terrible
about the sitting and yet it's really important to the making and it's really important to the
balance in my life um i do not follow a specific teacher there are many meditation teachers i
absolutely love uh and my wife is a much more assiduous student of the field and practitioner
um so much of my exposure to the field is through her um writers and speakers like eckhart tolle
uh or pema chodron pema i love pema chodron i love the way she talks about her practice and i love
the way she talks about herself especially the way she deals with her anger and her meditation
um vipassana is the meditation that i have been taught and that i practice when i do it
and when i do it my life is better it's really that simple
i still uh one of the things i have not done which is a 2021 life goal
now i'm stating it publicly uh is to do a retreat a real retreat a real seven day
no speaking meditation retreat which would have to be virtual right it would have to be kind of
in my house which is the thing and it's a thing that people are doing it's the thing that is
happening um but everybody i know everybody i know and i have many friends and loved ones
who are much more serious practitioners than i am talked about doing retreats talked about
that what happens over a multiple day meditation retreat is something truly special and uh
having had the experience over the last 20 30 years of the meditation that i have done and
how much it has improved my life i i really look forward to to trying something like that it's very
difficult for me to consider pulling myself out of my life for seven days without doing something
i'm addicted to doing um andrew coy former white house advisor to making and uh uh uh
code cs for all uh andrew likes to talk about he calls it get it get it done itis get [ __ ] done
that's i've got that it's really difficult for me to consider removing myself from my life for
seven days and yet i i plan on doing it um my first exposure to meditation was reading ramdas
in my late teens be here now and uh three or four other books and i think i found rom dust
by starting with carlos castaneda not that one led to the other but when you're reading
one you're never far from someone who's going to tell you about the other rum ramdas baba
ramdas an amazing teacher an amazing speaker a wonderful articulator of his experience uh and uh
luckily enough in the early 90s i got to work with him he did a 10-part series at the scottish rites
temple in oakland and i are directed the set that he was on and got to go to all 10 weeks my the
production company i had formed with some friends back then we produced that uh stage series for him
um so we got to meet all the musical guests mimi farina arlo guthrie peter gabriel
bob weir it was a pretty amazing amazing time but interacting with brahmadas really stood out to me
um my favorite thing he ever said my favorite piece uh what do you call it a slogan my
favorite slogan i ever heard from ramdas was only total despair precedes a change in consciousness
only total despair precedes precedes a change in consciousness yeah that sounds bleak it's not
as bleak as it sounds and i have found in my 53 years on earth for it to be holy and entirely true