Earlier this morning, I had what I can only generously call breakfast.
I tore off a chunk of baguette and stood barefoot on the balcony, gnawing on my bread and looking over the city.
Then I went back to the kitchen. I have two cans of sardines. I also have a small ceramic bowl, but no forks. I considered opening one of the cans, pouring out the contents into the bowl, and eating the sardines using my fingers.
I got near to the can, then stepped away. I got near again, stepped away again. “I’m better than this,” I convinced myself. The sardines will have to wait.
I then took a small pot and boiled some water. I took a package of espresso coffee and cut it open — thank God I bought scissors this morning.
But I don’t have anything resembling a spoon. So I shook the coffee package over the boiling water.
Was that about a teaspoon of coffee? Or two? Maybe add some more? The coffee came out cocaine-level strong.
All this is to say that last night I moved into my new apartment.
The apartment is furnished — there is a bed and a couch and things like that.
But many of the absolute necessities of daily life — spoons, forks, shot glasses — were not included. I have to buy them. And in the meantime, I have to make do, or do without.
Some usual things are an absolute no-go. I can’t wash clothes until I get a rack on which to dry them.
Other things, like those fingery sardines, I decided to postpone for later.
Still other things, I figured out some new method of doing, like shaking out half a pound of coffee over a boiling pot of water.
I don’t mind any of this. In fact, I find it kind of stimulating.
In another few days or weeks, I will buy the necessaries, get used to this apartment, get back in the usual groove, and live here much like I’ve lived everywhere else.
But right now, I’m very awake. I’m seeing and experiencing new things and having new ideas — even if they’re terrible, like eating sardines with my hands — that I never would have had otherwise.
But you know what? I have a lot of shopping to do. And later today, I have to send out the first batch of postcards to my Most Valuable Postcard subscribers.
So let me get to the idea I want to share with you quickly and without much ado:
One of the people I’ve long admired the most is computer scientist Alan Kay.
He’s the guy who said a change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points, which is a hope I keep clinging to desperately.
Kay is a bit of a tech visionary. Much of the technology we take for granted today and that underlies our world, like windows interfaces and object-oriented programming, was Kay’s work.
Kay is also interested in design and education and creativity. And he has many interesting things to say.
For example, back in 2009, Kay gave a talk titled, Normal Considered Harmful. In it, he said the following:
“You don’t want to think every time you take a step. You can cripple yourself by questioning everything that you do. But on the other hand, every once in a while, instead of doing meditation on a flower, meditate on all the assumptions you’re making about the world that you’re just taking for granted for efficiency reasons.”
Kay says he performs this exercise every day. Literally every day, 15 minutes to think about all the assumptions he’s making and that he’s taking for granted.
Sure, sometimes you’re forced into this situation, because there’s just no spoon in your apartment.
But like Kay says, there might be value — even big value, maybe 80 IQ points worth of value — in making this no-fork, no-spoon meditation into a daily habit.
So try it.
Or don’t.
Maybe you’re smart enough already. In that case, you definitely won’t enjoy my email newsletter. Otherwise, you can sign up for it here.