John Cage's "Rules for Students and Teachers."
1 Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
2 General duties of a student--pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
3 General duties of a teacher--pull everything out of your students.
4 Consider everything an experiment.
5 Be self-disciplined--this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
6 Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only make.
7 The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
8 Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.
9 Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
10 Break rules. Even your own rules. Leave plenty of room for X quantities.
Saw a great film recently, "The Visitor" in which an uptight Economics professor tries to play the drums. He is advised 'not to think' but just let his rhythm out--another take on rule #8. Good to be reminded again and again!
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful!! I had not heard it before.. and am now printing it! Thanks so much for sharing it with us!
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