Living Squiggle-ly

Federico Fellini said, "You have to live spherically--in many directions. To accept yourself for what you are without inhibitions, to be open." I ran across this after I had been thinking for several days about how life does not follow a straight line. I also saw this clip by Carol Bartz talking about how careers take shape in a pyramid, not a ladder (okay it's kind of a corporate talk, but you get the idea).

Thing is, our education system does seem to be in a straight line. Everything seems to be on a continuum. You are in a grade, with people behind you and people in front of you. You score a number on a test, there are numbers below it and numbers above it. Even the school day is kind of linear - you do this, then you do this, there's 1st Period, then 2nd - and on and on.

But the really cool classrooms and learning environments do kind of feel like spheres, because they associate everything with everything else. The only thing that changes is the focus. So maybe you're doing math problems, but there are shapes and drawings on the walls. Or you are reading, but there are graphs and maybe a terrarium or a view of the playground. 

My career has been more of a plate of spaghetti than a line. I've moved all around, done different things, and had lots of times when I felt like I had no focus and why couldn't I be the kid who discovered his genius at age 12 and went on to excel in something and have movies made about her and all of this.

But, for everything that I am doing now, which I love, by the way, I can point directly back and say, there is something in that muddle of pasta noodles that I call a career that has made this possible. Everything from being able to upload my cartoons onto a server, to negotiating contracts, to drawing. All of it. Every bit.

So, here's to wiggly scribbly careers, and living spherically, and hoping that we can encourage kids to make scribbly wiggles too.