This week of turning 50, I honor 50 of my teachers.
1.
Mother, Joan Rutherford. "For work, buy an olive-green wool suit from Canada. Do what you say you'll do, when you said you'll do it. If you have to take personal time, take it at 11:30."
Work hard.
2.
Father, George Rutherford. "Anything you want to learn, you can find in a book."
Play hard.
3.
Brother. "It's not how many situps you do, it's how slow you do them. Then it's how many."
Love your kids.
4.
Niece. "No matter how bad a day you've had, dance class will make it better."
Keep trying.
5.
Actor, Rick Hoge. "To buy a flowering cherry, use the nursery the landscapers use."
Devour beauty.
6.
Philosophy teacher, Patt Hawthorne. "A haiku is not just 17 syllables. A haiku is 17 syllables and the space for god."
Write in your journal every day.
7.
Chemistry teacher, Jerry Bennett. "If the math is too hard, fiddle with it till it gets easy."
Science and math are easy.
8.
Ballet master, Wendy Shankin Metzger. "Move your back back. Keep your knees over your ankles. In arabesque, let the back move."
If you dance all day all summer, you can catch up.
9.
Margaret Knowles Conrad. "Men are beautiful."
Love.
10.
Writer, Madeline L'Engle. "Size doesn't matter. A mitochondria, a cherubim, a girl, a man, a black snake, and a galaxy are the same."
Think big, wonder bigger.
11.
Writer, Rumer Godden. "'Pax,' it said, carved in a crown of thorns on the stone gate to Brede Abbey. Note, it is 'Not the world's peace, but My own I give to you'."
Seek the divine.
12.
Drummer & marine biologist, Jeff Parkhurst. "I don't even remember that Emerson Lake and Palmer solo. But my body does."
Play music your whole life.
13.
Network architect, Ken Harrenstien. "If you grow up in Hawaii, no place else is ever as lovely."
Be as smart as you are.
14.
Saxophonist, Mark Friend. "Have sex, water-ski, rehearse, work. That's a good day."
Create good days.
15.
Computer scientist, Robert Poor. "Look at how this code is structured and commented."
Beauty is integral.
16.
Software test engineer, John Dimmick. "Nibble. Do a little bit every day on a big project."
Do chores Saturdays, take Sundays off.
17.
Art director, Jerome Domurat, "Tools affect the process."
Your job is to learn how to do your job.
18.
Computer scientist, Adele Goldberg. "If people ask whether you will edit technical journal papers for money or for free, always say for money. The papers will be better."
Bring your twins to work.
19.
Ice hockey coach, Dick Hocking. "Let's not get hurt out there."
There is such a thing as a bad day, and that's when injuries happen.
20.
Suzuki master, Robyn Hunt. "Move without disturbing the air."
Your body knows how.
21.
Drawing teacher, Michaele leCompte. "Art is not about what it looks like. Turn off the lights and draw."
Every drawing is beautiful.
22.
Theatre director, Bart Sher. "Explode the symbol. Keep unpacking the meaning."
Don't use one chair on stage, use seventy-five.
23.
The Oracle of Obsessed With Sodoku. "Look for patterns. When you start to solve things in one area, it will spread. You will start to solve things in other areas more easily."
Go meta.
24.
Chef and painter, Radmila Sarac. "If the food is not good, the whole event is not good."
Everything counts.
25.
Actor and painter, Kris Strong. "You have got to be in character. As yourself in your livingroom. As your character on stage.
You are scrupulously protected by your ethics.
26.
Software program manager, Lyon Wong. "All you need is one."
Commit.
27.
Master therapist, Jim Rapson. "One of the hallmarks of organic growth is, we never see it coming."
Persist.
28.
Painter and illustrator, Shane White. "Work out every day."
Love your body.
29.
Computer scientist, Danny Hillis. "Go to your lab and make stuff.'
It is fun to be a grown-up.
30.
Writer and physician, Anton Chekhov. "Only the truth can heal. Only the truth can cure."
Be tender.
31.
Actor, Mark Williams. "Being in the Special Forces and making theatre are about equally hard."
Shakespeare has power.
32.
Master calligrapher, Thomas Ingmire. "Calligraphy is mark-making."
Make your mark.
33.
Concert pianist, David Kaiserman. "We will spend the next two months only on how to drop your arm onto the keyboard."
Start at the beginning.
34.
Mathematician, Bill Gosper, "Sometimes I write letters that are nothing but equations."
With friends you can go faster.
35.
Theatre director, Konstantin Stanislavski. "Everything is easy once you are in the zone. The trick is how to get in the zone."
Keep experimenting.
36.
Choreographer and Olympic athlete, Lee Eisler. "Don't bore me."
The transitions are the dance.
37.
Theatre music director, Peter Sills. "If the actors can't sing it, slow it down until they can sing it five times in a row."
The only way out is through.
38.
Teamwork Researcher, Jim McCarthy. "The unconscious never makes a mistake, especially when it is painting."
Trust your intuition.
39.
Teamwork Researcher, Michele McCarthy. "If you only got one thing out of this week, and that one thing was to learn to Ask For Help, that would be $5,000 well spent."
Take what works and feed it back into the system.
40.
Painter, Wes Hurley. "You look very bad in this portrait right now. You will look much worse before I finish."
Change your last name to match your partner's.
41.
Singer, Bono. "When I started talking to world leaders to save Africa, I didn't know how. So I studied Martin Luther King."
Ask for help. Study people who are good at it.
42.
Theatre music director, Zhenya Lavy. "I can teach anyone to sing." Her actors can start singing at the same instant, in far corners of the stage, while doing acrobatics, with no pitch given, in perfect tune.
Excellence is the only option.
43.
Theatre director, Joseph Lavy. "This piece of the text is a Latin prayer. It is pronounced like this. It means this. It is sung like this.'
Prepare thoroughly before the actors even enter. Put it in your body, then put it in theirs.
44.
Theatre director, Leonid Anisimov. "Affect the space first."
Look to Nature.
45.
Game designer, John Miller. "Try to get your problems to converge."
Solve it fast. Solve it again. Version the solutions.
46.
Game designer, Ben Ellinger. "Injecting stimulus and energy into a closed system increases the likelihood and frequency of phase shifts."
Going fast is more fun.
47.
Computer scientist, Eric Fleegal. "Faith is the seed of all recursions."
Relish complexity. Embrace spirituality.
48.
Games manager, Joshua Howard. "Regularly broadcast state, to stabilize the org."
Love in all directions.
49.
Software architect, Jason Mai. "Your brain will unfold it all for you. Just give it time."
Look at everything at 4 levels of meta. Then slow down and look again.
50.
Big wave surfer, Laird Hamilton. "You don't surf the big waves alone. For the big waves, you need a team."
Do what you love. Joyously. Safely. Uncompromisingly. With your friends. Boom! Bim! Bam! Boom!
No wonder I am resonating to Laird. Laird embodies the teachings of my mom, my dad, my brother, and myself:
Work hard. Play hard. Love your kids. Do what you love, with your friends.
