My writing tools. Home version

Unlike when I’m traveling, I use a wooden box at home. Also metal mechanical pencil and something else that increases the weight a lot. I still try to keep things simple and accessible. And yes, I’m back to fountain pens!

It’s amazing how these small details can impact every drawing or text produced.

Love the process

1. For TikTokusers/mainstream readers (too much text below!): 

Experiments are good! 🤗💫❤️

2. For curious minds:
“I need to produce good things. Moreover, I need to produce only good things. Therefore, I cannot waste time on drawings that are not extraordinary. Problem solved.” The paradox of excellence.

It’s a big mistake to fall into that trap. To achieve an acceptable level of mastery, a learning process that includes trial and error is necessary, inevitably resulting in often low-quality outputs. The game of creativity is what is it, and the first step is to accept and use it to your advantage. Avoiding that step out of fear of producing failures or, even worse, awakening the ego would be fatal. The ego will immediately seize any opportunity, raise its voice, and cause havoc, blaming its host for such horrible drawing here or that mistake there. What a shame! The ego will say this would be tolerable for a beginner but unacceptable for someone with experience.

However, the reality is that these failed experiments are the building blocks of a future palace yet to be constructed. Once this is understood and accepted, expecting a highly probable disaster, it is important to develop a new superpower: learning to enjoy the process. Reaching this level is akin to attaining Nirvana I guess. Then you can start the journey with some peace and tranquility.

This page serves as an example: an experimental composition with little hope of producing something useful. How boring it would be to use proven solutions whose outcomes are known in advance. After all, this notebook is an exploration tool, and you can’t expect to gain much from well-trodden ground. The possibilities that open up at this point are endless. It’s overwhelming, so much so that it becomes paralyzing, but that’s another topic to address separately. I’m running out of space here, and not everything can be covered at once. To conclude, experience tells us that often, wonderful things emerge from experimentation that would never have come about otherwise.

2050. Huge A3+ notes

This 2050 project has many arms, in many directions, and that's fascinating. I often just let me go with the flow of new ideas. In this case I started to take some notes in this A3 paper which ended up like that. It offers a kind of overview much wider than the pages of a notebook. 

Definitely not useful as a pocket notes to take them everywhere (airplanes, cafes for intellectual people, crowded metro, etc).

2050 notes

Only indigo for these figures. Creating new characters is magical. They are in form of a blurred idea in your mind and minutes later they are so real in front of your eyes. Fascinating!

Abstract Games

I recently discovered Tak and I’m absolutely fascinated by it! Its beauty, simplicity, and layers of complexity are truly captivating. I’ve even started crafting my own wooden version.

Back in the 90s, I played competitive chess (regional level). However, during my university years, I discovered GO, which was a refreshing change from the repetitive positions and memory-based openings in chess. Bye bye chess. But GO requires several lifetimes to master, and eventually, I drifted away from both games.

Now, I’m on the lookout for new abstract games. Tak is the only one I’ve found so far. Have I missed any great abstract games designed for online play? It could be a great combination for a game in the category.

Notes on brown paper

Mixed notes. I always like to write on this kind of brown paper. Far for being the best or even acceptable quality, but it creates the perfect contrast. A kind of dressing for the whole notebook aesthetic.