Week 2: Quote of the Week
Do you own a Dyson vacuum cleaner? I don't, but the friends I know who have one rave about it. It's the top-selling upright vacuum brand in the U.S. In a recent interview in Wired magazine, I found this gem:
"Everything I do is a mistake."—James Dyson
A little later Dyson goes on to say: "[Y]ou spend your time examining why things didn't work and trying to understand. And then, in desperation, doing the wrong thing, doing something someone more skilled would never dare do. Maybe it doesn't quite work, but it sends you on a new path. It's exciting, it's pioneering, and it's also sort of just being obtuse."
I love the phrase about being obtuse. I feel that way all the time. Someone smarter than me, someone who knows more about the right way to do things wouldn't make all the mistakes I do. It's especially easy to feel that way if you spend time online. Most people use social media to brag about their successes, bouncing from one brilliant idea to the next with nary a stinker in between. In truth, a string of successes without any failures is as real as reality TV. ?
Sometimes not knowing how you're "supposed" to do something can be a blessing. This quote reminded me of the November 2012 Cooking Light where they tried baking Cool Whip as a way to cut calories in a Baked Chocolate Mousse recipe. Cool Whip is oil-based. Who in their right mind would put it in a hot oven? But it worked like a charm. Or what about young adult author Lauren Myracle who wrote an entire series of novels using IM (ttyl, ttfn, l8r, g8r)? Sounds crazy (and certainly nothing they'd recommend in a writing course), but the first two novels were New York Times bestsellers.
Experimenting takes courage, persistence, and a willingness to fail. Dyson spent five years building 5,127 prototypes before his first bagless vacuum in 1983. How much do you want that dream of yours?
Original quotation source: "The Emperor of Air" by Shoshana Berger, Wired, December 2012, p. 110-115. You may remember Shoshana as the founder and editor-in-chief of the dearly departed ReadyMade magazine.