Ten Rules

Gelezen op Open Culture op 16 april 2014:

John Cage citeerde haar graag, zuster Corita Kent. Ze gaf les op het Immaculate Heart College en was een graag geziene figuur in de kunstkringen van Los Angeles. Op Openculture.com las ik haar ‘Ten Rules for Students and Teachers’ uit 1968. Cage verspreidde ze en maakte ze populair. Er hing een kopie in zijn studio die zijn geliefde Merce Cunningham er voor hem bewaarde. Tijdens de inspiratiedag van de De Nieuwe Wibaut kwam het lijstje zowaar boven tafel. Voortaan gebruik ik ze in mijn eigen onderwijs aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Zelf heb ik er veel baat bij. Omdat ik vandaag jarig ben geef ik de tien regels hier integraal weer:

RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for a while.

RULE TWO: General duties of a student: Pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.

RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher: Pull everything out of your students.

RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.

RULE FIVE: Be self-disciplined: this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.

RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

RULE EIGHT: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.

RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.

RULE TEN: We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.

HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything. It might come in handy later.