I have a feeling this might be a long-ish post.  Buckle up!

There’s a line from one of Douglas Adams books that I just love to quote.  I don’t just love to quote this bit, I love to say it fast.  I don’t just love to say it fast, I love to say it fast to people as I’m taking my leave. 1  But, it’s also a way to wish someone well.2  Here it is, “Do what you do.  Do it well.  Win awards.”

I find myself in a ponderous state of mind having watched that little Youtube video of a woman building her own TARDIS.  A few short weeks after posting that video she posted another video about how shocked and pleased she was to have gained 5000 subscribers on Youtube.  I think I’m not really all that surprised at that success.

Here’s the thing – the “risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things” … the attitudes of such people is just plain infectious.  When you see someone just put their all into something, you can’t help but be caught up in their enthusiasm.  Perhaps it is just all this sharing?  Perhaps it becomes easier to empathize, to revel in another’s victory and wince at their failures when they’re sharing every little piece of themselves along the way.

When I look across the blogs, pictures, videos I’ve seen over the last few years from the Maker movement I can’t help but think about how almost heartbreakingly honest they are. 3456

I guess here’s what I’m thinking is that if this Maker movement has taught me anything at all, it is that no matter what – you should find what you love to do and do it as hard as you can. 789

1. I suppose this much is self-indulgence and looking to amuse myself. [↩]
2. Sort of. [↩]
3. I’ve tried to teach my daughter not to be afraid of failure, but to embrace it.

   Tonight she was having trouble fitting some building toys together and getting very frustrated with them.  I asked her if yelling or getting angry would help.  She, of course, replied that they wouldn’t help.  Then I asked her if she thought her mother or father ever got frustrated.  She didn’t think we did.  I told her that we did all the time – but that it’s how we deal with that frustration that’s important.  I told her I get frustrated sometimes when I’m designing something for us to print on our robot, or when I’m programming, or when we’re trying to fix something – but that the best thing to do is always just try another way.

   I know she doesn’t entirely grasp these concepts yet, she is after all only five.  I’m sure she sometimes thinks of me as that jerk who, when she asks for help, tries to engage her with a bunch of Socratic questions rather than just helping.

   Then again, she managed to completely assemble an exact replica of the object in her building toy instructions without my intervention. [↩]

4. It’s so funny being a dad.   There’s this little person living in our house…  I have shoes older than her.  I’ve known her all her entire life.  And for those very earliest years when I’ve known her so very well, she’ll probably only have the very dimmest recollections of me.  This I say without any trace of melancholy – I am quite hopeful and cheerfully optimistic that I’m really going to like the creative, intelligent, and sensitive person she’s probably going to be. I’m also hopeful that one day she might find her way to this blog and see some of the nonsense that I’ve written. [↩]
5. Admittedly, a bunch of this stuff I’ve written here, as with a half-ill-advised e-mail, I would feel so very self conscious about. [↩]
6. Uh, where was I? [↩]
7. And, perhaps win awards. [↩]
8. Tying that all back together was entirely serendipitous. [↩]
9. Subconscious? [↩]