You Don’t “Find” Your Passion in Life, You Actively Develop It, Explains Psychologist Carol Dweck, Theorist of the “Growth Mindset”

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You Don't "Find" Your Passion in Life, You Actively Develop It, Explains Psychologist Carol Dweck, Theorist of the "Growth Mindset"
// Open Culture

You might spend your whole life trying to find your life's passion, or passively hoping it comes to you. Many have done so and, tragically, have never discovered it. Were they looking for purpose in all the wrong places? Maybe. Or maybe the idea that our life's calling waits out there for us to find—like the fairy tale notion of a one true perfect love—is kind of crap. That's not how Stanford psychologists Carol Dweck and Gregory Walton put it, exactly, but their research suggests that "the adage so commonly advised by graduation speakers," as Stanford News reports, "might undermine how interests actually develop."

In other words, when people think of interests or talents as "fixed qualities that are inherently there," they are more likely to give up on pursuits when they encounter difficulty, believing they aren't destined for success. Working with data acquired by Stanford postdoctoral fellow Paul O'Keefe (now at Yale), Dweck and Walton explained some recent research findings in a paper titled "Implicit Theories of Interest: Finding Your Passion or Developing it?" The article is forthcoming in Psychological Science, and you can read a PDF version online.

The paper describes five studies on "implicit theories of interest" and contrasts a fixed theory with a "growth theory" of interest, an idea that comes out of Dweck's prior research on what she calls a "growth mindset." She has published a bestselling book on the subject and given very popular talks on what she calls in her TED appearance in Sweden above "the power of yet"—a phrase she derives from a high school in Chicago that gave students the grade of "not yet" when they hadn't successfully passed a course. This hopeful assessment encouraged them to keep trying rather than to think of themselves as failures.

Dweck tells her TED audience about giving a group of ten-year-olds' problems she knew would be too hard for them to solve. Those with a "growth mindset" responded with excitement, eager for a challenge and the opportunity to expand their capabilities. The kids who had a "fixed mindset" crumpled, feeling like they had been judged and come up wanting. "Instead of luxuriating in the power of yet," says Dweck, "they were gripped in the tyranny of now." Children thus "tyrannized" by feelings of failure might be more likely to cheat rather than study, make downward comparisons to boost feelings of self-worth, or become avoidant and "run from difficulty."

These strategies are even visible in images of brain activity. None of them, of course, will lead to progress. But Dweck claims that the problem is endemic to a generation of people who need constant validation and who fold when they meet challenges. So how can parents and teachers help kids become more growth-oriented or, in Dweck's lingo, build "the bridge to yet"? Her recommendations may not sound that revolutionary to those who have followed the backlash against the well-meaning but misguided "self-esteem movement" of the past few decades.

For one thing, praising effort, rather than intelligence or talent, will help kids develop more resilience and value ongoing process over instant results. Judicious applications of "good try!" go much farther than repetitions of "you're brilliant and amazing!" Dweck's other strategies involve a similar focus on process and progress. Unsurprisingly, when we believe we can change and improve, we are far more likely to work at developing talent, instead of assuming we've either got it or we don't, an unscientific and self-defeating way of thinking that has done a lot of people needless harm. Dweck and her colleagues show that our life's passion isn't a fully-formed thing out there waiting for us, or an inborn, immutable quality, but rather it comes as the result of patient and persistent efforts.

via Stanford News

Related Content:

What Is Procrastination & How Can We Solve It? An Introduction by One of the World's Leading Procrastination Experts

What Are the Keys to Happiness?: Take "The Science of Well-Being," a Free Online Version of Yale's Most Popular Course

Why Incompetent People Think They're Amazing: An Animated Lesson from David Dunning (of the Famous "Dunning-Kruger Effect")

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

You Don't "Find" Your Passion in Life, You Actively Develop It, Explains Psychologist Carol Dweck, Theorist of the "Growth Mindset" is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don't miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooks, Free Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.

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Kahl Witches

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Kahl Witches
// Deja View

Heritage Auctions recently sold these design sketches by Milt Kahl from the movie The Black Cauldron. I believe that in the original books by Lloyd Alexander the three witches keep exchanging their outfits in order to confuse the group of lead characters.
This story concept isn't easy to get across in just a few drawings, but if anybody might have pulled it off in animation, it's Milt.
Great drawings, though in principle the characters borrow heavily from the designs of Madam Mim as well as Madame Medusa.

You can see a Tim Burton concept sketch of the three Witches here:

https://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-witches-of-morva.html

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Kley's Artistic Evolution

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Kley's Artistic Evolution
// Deja View

Here are three Heinrich Kley magazine illustrations that show how his art evolved over the years.
The first one is titled "Summer Solstice in Heidelberg". I would date this piece sometime during the 1890s, even though there seems to be a later date indicated on the upper left side.
The depiction of men, women and children is realistic and rigid. It is a pretty illustration, but undistinguishable to other artists of that era.

The next one is titled "the late Hour" from 1896. A lot more going on here in terms of dynamic composition, inventive poses and personality. Just beautiful!

The third sketch represents what Kley became famous for. Fantasy illustrations that show, what Walt Disney would call "The Plausible impossible". Surreal, caricatured situations, drawn in a believable manner. In this case a violinist fiddling away while being eaten by alligators. Luckily the drawing shows the process' early stage.

Kley's work at this time also included assignments for the German steel company Krupp. Some paintings show plane architectural (but beautiful) renderings of their factories. But even in those environments he would occasionally include oversized evil, satyr-type or other characters.
His imagination is sometime difficult to figure out, since we always look for the meaning behind such unusual work.
What is easily accessible though is his drawing virtuosity. Way ahead of his time he could depict the most absurd situation and make it look beautiful and believable.

 

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Aerial Images of Swimming Pools

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Aerial Images of Swimming Pools
// Fubiz

Immortalized from the sky by German photographer Stephan Zirwes, these two series entitled «Pools» and «Pools Cut Outs» offer impressive shots of different swimming pools. From above, it is the geometry that strikes, as well as the different shades of blue. In fact, this project wants to show us the importance of water by confronting us to its misuse and waste. With elegance, simplicity and subtlety, he raises awareness on an important issue.

Renowned for his many aerial photographs, the Stuttgart-based photographer likes to play with our perception of textures, shapes and patterns, while proposing the public to discover topics from a new perspective.

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Scotland’s Neolithic Rock Art Mapped

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Scotland's Neolithic Rock Art Mapped
// Archaeological Headlines - Archaeology Magazine

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND—The Scotsman reports that Tertia Barnett of Scotland's Rock Art Project and her colleagues have found evidence of a "ring" of settlements dating back 5,000 years in the area around Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire. She suspects there were probably more settlements, but they have been lost over the years. "It is likely the [River] Clyde was an important artery, connecting different areas to the sea and to the islands," she said. "People would have traveled by water instead of through the wooded interior of the country and people were generally concentrated in the coastal regions." Discovered in the late nineteenth century, the Cochno Stone, a Neolithic cup and ring rock art panel, is one of the 30 markers in West Dunbartonshire. Another 36 carvings in Inverclyde to the north have also been recorded. The next step is to plot the rock art sites on a map of other Neolithic remains. Barnett said the project could help scholars understand how rock art was used, and if it may have marked meeting points for trade and the sharing of news. For more on archaeology in Scotland, go to "Fit for a Saint."
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A Keith Haring Mural Painted in 1986 and Under Wraps for 30 Years Has Been Revealed in Amsterdam

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A Keith Haring Mural Painted in 1986 and Under Wraps for 30 Years Has Been Revealed in Amsterdam
// Colossal

Keith Haring's recently unveiled mural in Amsterdam. Photo: Hanna Hachula, courtesy Stedelijk Museum

Completed over just two days in 1986, a Keith Haring mural in Amsterdam has been revealed once again after nearly thirty years out of sight. The famed artist completed the 40-foot tall-white line painting on an outside wall during his (indoor) exhibit at the Stedelijk Museum. However, it disappeared from view a few years later when the brick facade was weatherboarded to improve climate control; the building was a storage site for the museum's collections. Over the last ten years, graffiti artist Aileen Middel (a.k.a. Mick La Rock) pushed for the mural—his largest in Europe—to be revealed once again. The restoration of the mural was made possible because the museum changed its storage location and the building is now a Markt Kwartier West grocery store and distribution center. (via Artnet)

The mural being unveiled. Photos: Mick La Rock

Haring painting the mural in 1986. Photo: Patricia Steur

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Henry Ryland

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Henry Ryland
// lines and colors

Henry Ryland was a British painter and illustrator active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who shows the influence of Victorian painters like Albert Moore and Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

Though he sometimes painted in oil, he was known for his elegant figurative watercolors. These were rendered — like many watercolors of the time — in a painstaking technique of stipple, with hundreds of tiny dots of color applied to create tones, a process that also imparts a wonderfully appealing surface texture.

 

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Game Mechanics And World Building With Aven Colony | Muddy Colors

http://www.muddycolors.com/2018/06/game-mechanics-and-world-building-with-aven-colony/

Game Mechanics And World Building With Aven Colony

Stephan MartiniereMonday, June 18th, 2018

Monday, June 18th, 2018

I had the opportunity to work recently on Aven Colony, a science-fiction city-building game with the premise of successfully building the first human colony on a harsh alien planet. The mechanics of the game are akin to Civilization or Sim City, with a tile-based grid and a variety of components necessary to start a settlement and scale it into a complex metropolis.

This was the first game that I was involved in designing almost every graphic element – including environments, buildings, vehicles, and more. I was tasked with designing an entire word from the ground up – including landscapes, vehicles, and a variety of "tiles" representing the different items needed to build a sustainable colony, and their various progressions throughout. Each set of images came with their own unique challenges and technical requirements necessary to make the game both aesthetically pleasing, but also easily understood by the players as they progressed.

I started first with the terrain – playing with several different ideas of what the planet would look like. I was asked not only to come up with the overall look, but also how the ecology was populated – with plants, wildlife, rock formations, and more. However, I couldn't go too extreme with the environment because of the technical requirements of the game – the concepts needed to include a lot of open, flat land for players to build upon. Ultimately, they settled on a landscape that was both alien and lush, with most importantly much bigger mountains in the distance to hint that there is much more of the world to explore.

For the building tiles themselves, I was provided a list of all the items that were anticipated to be used in gameplay – from housing, generators, factories, and more. My role was to design each tile with a unique signature and an idea of how each might function.

Working within tiles is certainly a challenge. I was confined by the dimensions of the square,  not able to build too wide or too tall. In addition, while it was possible to zoom into the tiles within gameplay, the function of each piece needed to be easily recognizable from a distance as the player builds their colony.

In order to convey the most information in the most minimal way, I chose to rely on basic shapes to help identify the functionality of each tile. The goal was to subtly pull different objects and visual markers that seem familiar to machines we have here on earth, while still making them unique and aesthetically pleasing. For the generator for example (above right), I chose to use spheres that were inspired by a Tesla coil, to give the impression of something that could produce energy. Similarly, for the hospital (above left) I added a helipad, not unlike what is on existing hospitals, though the form factor is radically different.

Similarly, because of the scale, I had to keep in mind mechanics of movement for each of these pieces. Hinges are particularly difficult to see at that scale, so instead, for many of the tiles I focused on movement through floating elements, such as these turrets (above).

Each tile had three levels of advancement – starting with a rudimentary stage and ending in a much more sophisticated city. I started in reverse – working on the more advanced tiles and identifying the basic shapes that would be present at any level. For the more advanced levels, I wanted to use architecture that was very organic, soft, and light in color to establish a visual signature that sets the tone of the game. Then, as I began working on the earlier progressions of the tiles, I could keep a similar shape, but make it more angular, geometric, and industrial.

Working within the restrictions of a tile-based game allowed me the opportunity to maintain my own style and aesthetic while stripping away as much complexity as possible. But it was also uniquely challenging in that each of the tiles had to be modular, each simple shape snapping together. Like playing with Legos as a kid, the full effect of the game came from seeing each of those shapes put together into a much larger, more sophisticated city. Take a look at the final result in the trailer below!

What is Sketchbook Summer?

https://youtu.be/6713cWedBCI

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-nate