One day at work a colleague was talking about his plans to try his hand at roasting some duck - Peking style. And so he mentioned this to his father, who subsequently handed him a plastic bag with webbed feet poking out a week or so later. Which led to his next dilemma… how on earth was he going to pluck the duck? Having never done it myself I had no words of wisdom to offer, except for the observation that whenever I had seen my Grandma pluck the feathers off of one of the chickens that she had just slaughtered, she would boil them feathers and all before giving them the pluck.

So my colleague does some internet research and talks a bit more about it with our neighbours at our little deskgroup. The internet revealed all sorts of options and methods - dipping it in paraffin wax, boiling, plucking it in a large rubbish bag etc etc. And my colleague then proceeds to debate the pros and cons of each method with our neighbour who had expressed an interest in his endeavours to roast some duck. This went on for a couple of days resulting in no plucking action, after which our slightly exasperated neighbour just told my colleague to “Just PLUCK the duck!”

This made him stop and realise that he just needed to get on with it, and to stop complicating what could have been a simple process.

This filtered into our work process the other day, when we were discussing an aspect of our project and the best way to proceed forward. We threw up all sorts of angles and ways that we thought would work and then picked them all to bits again. This went on for a little before we realised we were not getting anywhere really - and that we just needed to “pluck the duck.” To get stuck in and get our hands dirty in the process, not to just talk about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that you jump into everything blindly. Although you would learn a lot, you would also potentially make the same mistakes that someone else did. But what I am suggesting is that it is important to realise that there is a point where you have to muster up the courage with as much information that you have been able to scrounge - little as that may be - and just get plucking. Words of wisdom that will now be a phrase that will always conjure up this story.

So are you all set to “just pluck that duck?”

There was at an event recently where a small group of designers presented their work. One of the presentations really caught my attention as the young professional started talking about his philosophy or point of view on some of the things that we as a society do.  It was a brief comment and I cannot remember the exact wording but it was along the lines of this: that our generation is quite happy to show everyone else how smart we are, perhaps at the loss of a bit of generational wisdom. I could be wrong but it seems that our generation has a lot of smart people, but not a lot of wise people.

It is probably quite obvious why this sparked something in me, made me take a second look at this young freelance designer who was only a little older than myself.

And it got me thinking. We are a very smart generation of people. But are we losing touch with the wisdom of previous generations? There has been very many changes in the world over the last hundred years in the way information is stored and passed on. Writing has been around since 1800 BC and since then civilizations have been recording experiences, knowledge and  wisdom down in a myriad of materials from papyrus to vellum to books. The ability to record sounds and then capture moving pictures on film and combine the two together have created a medium which utilizes most of the senses so that you are fully immersed in that experience. But this information, these experiences conveyed are not always that easy to access and interpret.

Then the Internet came into being and the world changed yet again. What has it meant to our societies now that almost unlimited amounts of information is available at our fingertips? The sharing phenomenon and storage of information in such social ventures of knowledge such as Wikipedia (which I have used as a reference *slaps his hand) has changed the way that we respond to spontaneous questions that pop up in our daily conversations. Well I find that I reply to questions with an attempted answer followed by “…just Google it.” or “…but what does Wikipedia say?” Its not that I don’t have confidence in my replies (which sometimes I don’t…) but I find it easier to just to ask them to check out what the Web says. And this is the thing - it is more convenient to let the information stay on the Web and I’ll look it up when I need to. Our society is definitely about convenience, from the number of fast food outlets around us and their drive-throughs.

How we learn has changed a lot too. A lot of eminence is given to University degrees and acadmic courses, while other types of education such as Polytechnic courses and trade apprenticeships are seen as somehow inferior. I know I used to think that way but I wonder about that. There is a lot that you learn with your hands - by trying things and learning from your mistakes. Coming from a design background we were encouraged to try wierd things and experiment and to make mistakes. This is something that I firmly believe in doing and try to practise it as much as I can on design projects, but in general there seems to be a bit of a taboo on trying something that you know will probably not work. But I think this is changing especially as design becomes more understood as a creative practise.

But I wonder, what does it mean to be wise? I always think of old men with long flowing beards… but is that just an image that Hollywood has taken and embedded in our image of society? Is wisdom something that comes with age? Do you have to know a lot to  be wise? Or is it more about knowing who you are, your values and living them out in such a way that they are attractive to other people? Hmmmm.

No answers on this one but I would definitely enjoy hearing anyone’s take on wisdom. So speak!

“Wisdom is knowing what to do next; Skill is knowing how to do it, and Virtue is doing it.”
~David Starr Jordan

Queenstown, NZ taken by Silas Siew

This is my first post and I should probably record what I want to do with this blog and the point of it. This ramble should hopefully explain some of what I am thinking, and why I have chosen this theme. This is probably more useful to me than it is to you, but hopefully you find it interesting to see where this all started.

I doubt many people know me on the world wide web, and of those who do know me just probably know me as Silas. Some will know that I am a designer who designs masks for people with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. But only a few will know that I am just a simple guy who (a couple of years ago now) joked with a friend that I should start calling myself simple Silas. It had a ring to it.

What does it mean to be simple though?

My understanding of what being simple meant a couple of years ago has changed somewhat. Back then I had a yearning for a less busy life: where I would have more time to do things, escape the hubbub of a life in the city, the expectations of University, part-time work and a social life. Call me strange, weird or nutty but I actually wanted to go and live a more rugged life where you would work physically for your energy sources, hunt for your food, be self-reliant and be more connected with nature. That seemed more simple than the back to back assignments, late nights, juggling part-time work, and events at Church.

I thought that this was what it meant to be simple.  I still yearn for a simple life but no longer like the one described.

And so as I was thinking about the things that I should write about in this new blog that I have set up, whether I should start gathering scoops on cool furniture and things all about design, or whether I should just kinda blab on about anything at all in my life I came across a proverb found in the Holy Bible:

‘Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table. She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city. “Let all who are simple come in here!” she says to those who lack judgement. Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding.’

This really struck me.

It really just made me think I should start writing about things, use this blog as a kind of sounding board for things that I don’t understand and record them down as I try and unravel the many mysteries that I encounter in my life. And lately as I have only just started my job, moved to a new city, and have really experienced a lot of new things in the last year and will most likely still continue to experience things that I don’t understand - I guess I am like that simple person who lack the ability to make judgements or assesments on things due to a lack of experience or understanding. And so I felt the need to write this down, was prompted to record this thought and explain away with words at 12.30am on a Thursday night.

So I guess I feel like I’m a simple guy on a journey to find wisdom in all her fullness, to talk to her, to eat with her, to drink with her and to start walking through life in a way that I gain understanding. And this is the start of me recording this journey.