My plan to build a habit of inquiry through free association list-making

After reading an article about making lists last night (Josh Spector’s 50 Benefits of Forcing Yourself to Think of 50 Ideas), I set a goal to make a list of 50 ideas. It turned into a list of perhaps not 50 ideas, but 50 thoughts—questions, hypotheses, reflections, memories.

An hour-and-a-half later, I had my list of 50, and a reflective exercise that captures not only free associative thinking, but also begins to build a habit of inquiry. My new goal? Repeat once per week, using an alarm set for Mondays at 7:30 as my cue, and a glass of lemonade as my reward (Thanks, Charles Duhigg!).

As I learned in my list, I will best remember my lists not by date, but by some reference to its contents. Thus, Etymologies and Nectarines vs. Peaches is the first edition.

Etymologies and Nectarines vs. Peaches

50 Ideas, Edition 1—8.22.16

1. Trying to make a memory into a story is difficult because it’s so overly sentimental — a memory happened to me and is thus precious.

2. Itching oneself is a distraction from actually doing something. Perhaps that’s where the old trope of itching one’s head when one doesn’t know an answer comes from.

3. Why is such a great portion of art 2-dimensional? What percentage artists out there are sculptors?

4. Luxury cars are partially luxurious because of how they drive. How will that be impacted once cars are driverless?

5. I think one of the things that makes CCR and the Eagles sound like CCR and the Eagles is the slide.

6. When I was in middle school, my mentor helped me organize a coming of age ceremony/celebration of life, which I occasionally refer to as a non-religious bat mitzvah. After reading about my friend Eli’s bar mitzvah, I feel it was inaccurate to compare mine, because of the effort, study, and thought on the part of the bar mitzvah undergoing the ceremony.

7. I think too deterministically and make logical jumps — when I asked why such a great portion of art is 2-dimensional, I was making an assumption and I am glad I was writing it out which forced me to reckon with it.

8. Part of what makes writing effective is that typing and scribing takes longer than thinking, so you have time to mull things over.

9. Plants grow toward the light. What do humans grow toward?

10. I have a desire to spin the cardboard cylinder that holds my peacock feathers on the windowsill so that the sunlight will more evenly bleach the ink on the container, so I can preserve for longer the words. But would evenly bleaching the cylinder make it more or less readable?

11. What does Mc mean in names? (Looked this up — it’s a gaelic surname meaning “son of”).

12. 50 might be too many ideas for a regular exercise.

13. When I was young, I knew where all of the cuts and scrapes on my body came from. I now often have no idea. Is pain less central to my attention? Is my larger body just more difficult to keep track of? Is it because I know they will heal?

14. Meanwhile, I have begun to heal less and scar more. Or I think I have. Is that a thing?

15. Nectarines definitely don’t taste as good as peaches. Were they bred merely for those who are averse to the fuzziness of peaches? (Looked this up — actually same species with recessive vs. dominant alleles, where dominant expression is fuzzy).

16. Some economists (i.e. Robert J. Gordon) believe that the state of productivity is such that productivity growth will have limited to no productivity gains in the future. Productivity is a way to squeeze out a few more pennies from resources. Could we be happier if we actually twiddled our thumbs for 10% of our time instead of spinning it into gold?

17. I wonder if it would make more sense to be less symmetrical. What if humans had a two-fingered claw as a left hand instead of a left hand — sort of like fiddler crabs with dominant claws?

18. I like it when people balance their smiles with thoughtful pensive faces.

19. How often does my face accurately represent my thoughts, and how often am I merely arranging it in a way that I believe to be most appropriate for the social occasion?

20. Interruption can be a-constructive, but it can also produce creative ideas.

21. Daniel Kahneman’s research shows that when you ask people to come up with a 6-item list of charitable acts in the last month, they think of themselves as charitable, but when you ask them to come up with a 12-item list, they will then think of themselves as less charitable. What if you don’t donate your money or time, but do attempt to live a consumption-lite life?

22. Charitable is not as feel-good of a word as giving or compassionate.

23. There’s a smoothening quality to Adobe Illustrator Image Trace that doesn’t quite read the aesthetic of a photo quite right — the texture is always the same.

24. Gestalt allows us to extrapolate or interpolate based on given information. What if we were to use gestalt to envision the missing pieces of our chronically questioning lives?

25. A lamp might smell like the glue that holds the paper together as it is heated at high temperatures. What does a lamp smell like when it is not on?

26. I see faces in everything, but still can only limitedly draw faces.

27. By creating a bookmark that suggests I read outside, I might prompt myself to read outside more.

28. Shadows can be so much longer than their figures.

29. What is the shadow of the universe?

30. This reminds me of The Postman, a book we read in a poetics course I took. That course has surfaced in a meaningful way across my life. I highly recommend poetics courses to anyone who goes to college — even if you don’t want a liberal arts education, it can give you an understanding of what one might mean.

31. I have begun to label my Spotify Discover saved playlists with excerpts from lyrics from my favorite songs instead of dates because the dates hold little meaning to me.

32. What is the Gallup poll named for? (Looked this up: founded by George Gallup in 1935, originally as the American Institute of Public Opinion, right here in Princeton)

33. For dessert, I had nectarines covered in oatmeal crumble. The nectarine had been in the fridge all weekend, and I believe it had begun to ferment, leaving an interesting alcohol-y flavor. I always pictured Bacchus romping around with wine and fruit and trans-species friends, but have wondered least about the fruit.

34. Do we aspire to be people more than we aspire to do things?

35. Why do coffee cans have ridges? Is it for grip? (Looked this up — the circles add strength to the can through rigidity without adding more material, which helps when heat sterilizing, and allows them to be stacked in trucks more efficiently.)

36. Blue beats cyan. Aqua beats turquoise in writing but not in color. But “like grass” seems better than green.

37. Asterisks (‘little star’ in Latin) are 5-pointed in sans-serif typefaces, but 6-pointed in serif typefaces, and 6- or 8-pointed when handwritten. Some compare its similarity to the Sumerian symbol for god, which was a starlike symbol.

38. Death terrifies me because it is the very antithesis of all I know and could ever know. It is the opposite of the knowledge and experiences I seek in life, but it is also the one thing I am moving surely towards.

39. Is there a word for numbers that are also numbers upside down?

40. The musical group alt-J is written as a triangle, ∆, presumably the symbol that appears when you type alt-j.

41. Into how small a sentence could we reduce what we say?

42. Giraffes are popping up lately — or they seem to be. Bubble has a giraffe painting done by Fae. Mom did a giraffe painting as a commission. And I have my three giraffes looking at me from a collaged box. But I wouldn’t have noticed them just now except for the other two giraffe happenings.

43. I need to go to bed. Sleep should win over transforming a project from a B into a B+.

44. The B, I, U (Medium doesn’t have an underline!) buttons at the top of Text Edit are redundant, which can be okay. I take the time, though, to process the different letters when I wonder if a, a, a (underlined) would be better buttons.

45. Aliens who watched earth would think that there is some innate link between playing guitar and singing — the guitar players are so often the vocalists. Also piano.

46. I don’t understand why a shepherd wouldn’t be able to worship sheep. Or more clearly, I don’t understand why a shepherd wouldn’t be able to be neighbors with a person who worships sheep.

47. There’s something incredibly romantic about peeling fruit. It’s aromatic, it’s nurturing, it’s satiating. I picture women’s hands so elegant and light, bright colors. I should purchase more fruit at the grocery store so I can be a nurturing and elegant person.

48. I have reached the point where subscribing to listservs has overwhelmed me with media. What is the ideal number of emails to receive in a day?

49. If it is too hot, you sweat from the inside of a rain jacket. What is the temperature at which one sweats from the inside and how long do I have to be biking to render my raincoat useless from the water I produce?

50. It would be fascinating to have a measurement of how different one is from the person one portrays themselves as in social media.