4A Acknowledging the Lizard

BRAINWASHED

Each One of these manifesto's i read i become more and more into the ideas that are trying to be portayed in the class. I Agree with 90% of what all of these manifestos are saying, especially this one. I completely agree that we were all raised and taught to conform and become drones for the education system. This was evident for me in gradeschool, in high school, and even sometimes in college. I remember being in fourth grade and i had a teacher who was the type of teacher who only followed the rules and very strongly believed in power and dicipline. I remember this so vividly because it has changed the way that i participate in class to this day. I would always ask questions and never just accept what the teacher said. I needed to know for sure, i needed to fully understand things. Until one day, my fourth grade teacher took me out of the classroom and scolded me asking me, "why do you always have to ask so many questions?" I remember feeling terrible for it and feeling like i should no longer ask questions. Only now do i realize how detrimental that was to my educational career.

School has just never been my thing, though. School was always the last thing on my mind. It was always the thing that seemed the least important to me. Still does. I fucking hate school. I believe its an outdated system run by an outdated generation who believe tradition is where the success of the future lies. However, i believe this is horribly wrong. I believe traditions are good to an extent, but i also think that placing too much emphasis on tradition only hinders the advancement of new ideas and breeds conformity. Tradition and conformity are "the resistance's" friend.

As explained by Godin the lizard brain is a prehistoric brainstem that doesnt like to be laughed at. That wants to fit in with all the rest. It makes being an outcast ones worst nightmare and becasue of this it shuts down out creativity and blocks us from making original art because what Godin calls, "the resistance," keeps our head down and drives us to follow instructions. He goes on to explain that in order for us to be successful and to be creative we need to accept, or acknowledge that the lizard is there and by doing that we are able to continue with our creative output because of our conscious knowledge of the sillyness the Lizard brain actually controls us with.

The other layer that i found to the the most interesting is the SHIP layer. This idea is the idea that if you can get something of yours out the door and place a product out there than you are ahead of the curve and it makes your competitors cringe in fear. According to Godin this is a rare skill that not many people are confident enough to do. Being able to do this helps to inspire others to do the same. But in order to be able to do this, one must be able to acknowledge and quiet the Lizard.

I think that the SHIP layer is closely related to what we are doing this quarter. By having all of our projects posted on a public forum it helps to also acknowledge the lizard and quiet the resistance. However i believe in order for one to fully understand and embrace these principles, he/she needs to take the initiative to SHIP his/her own work, outside of class. By making the projects a requirement, it immediately takes out at least 50% of the creativity, beacuse the composer is not freely doing it, he is being told to. Also because the works are graded, the artist may focus only on completing the assignment   according to the assignments requirements and rubric. There are too many rules and speculations for the projects that take almost all of the creativity out. However there is still room for creativity, but thats only when the artist feels compelled to be creative, otherwise these projects are just like projects for any other class, time consuming, and half assed. And if the projects  arent half-assed, handed in on time, not done at the last minute and seem too perfect to be true, this just shows a sign of a person who has accepted their position as a compliant person, who will do the work they are told to get done, when they are told to get it done, just because they want to get good grades to get a good job out of college. In my opinion this type of student is just another brick in the wall, another product of the education brainwashing system in the United States that is School
I also think that group work is bullshit. It is always an extreme hassle to work with a group, and i understand that for most media professions group work is inevitable. In the same breath by making one constantly work in a group, he/she is always expecting someone else to perform thier required part of the project, instead of promoting individual creativitiy, it promotes conformist collaboration.
My suggestion for projects and what might be better use of the class about the creative process would be to make each student create a work of art within his/her own specialty (whatever major he/she is in, if they dont have a major make them pick one) then at the end of the quarter have them turn in one project which would be a, song, movie, etc, and along with that a strong sort of thesis on what he/she believes the creative process to be. I think it would be really interesting what things people would bring in for their final projects.