The Mess

Making magic from mess.

Tag: action

  • Build a makerspace with these 5 simple steps.

    In my head, what I want to achieve is pretty simple.

    1. Approach the council with a good plan about what I want to do with my makerspace, how it will benefit communities, and education.
    2. Get a space for a workshop donated to me. About 60-100 square meters. Power included.
    3. Move all my tools from my garage at home to this space. Get set up to the most basic, functional level.
    4. Advertise, invite, and recruit through the communities I’m already a part of.
    5. Grow. Thrive. Make things, and make a difference.

    That’s it. Of course knowing where you’re going is always a good place to start any journey- even though the destination might change along the way. We need some gravity, some magnetic force to get us started and pull us along. So, let’s start at the dream, the end, and work backwards. Let’s see where the roadblocks are to building the next chapter in my life.

    Step 5 – Making it

    Aah yes, the “end”. This the exciting part. This is actually the beginning, technically. This is the open-for-business stage. I know if I can get to step 5, everything will be just fine, everything will work. I will bring people, I will bring ideas, I will have already bought the tools. We’ll develop our culture and systems over time, decorate the place, fill up the project board with exciting community projects, and tick them off when they’re released into the wild. Then grow some more.

    Step 4 – Recruiting, spreading the word

    I’m certain I can do this, and can enlist the help of people more organised than myself. I have taught myself that yes, I am able to make friends, I’m able to get people excited about my ideas, people like talking to me, people want to help. I’ve always hated the idea of “sales” – but I keep being told sales is just talking, networking. And I’m really good at talking when it comes to things I’m passionate about.

    Step 3 – Moving in

    Piece of cake. This would involve lots of pinching myself, as this is where dreams come reality. It would mean that somehow, beyond all my doubts and worries and concerns, that I managed to get past…

    Step 2 – Putting the “space” in makerspace

    This is the one that scares me the most. Thing is, it’s not impossible. TAPLab did it. They operate out of the Te Atatu community center, for “free”. So there’s no reason, I can’t achieve this myself, in Albany, close to home. There’s a massive council building, with lots of space for rent. Maybe I can’t get away with free, but maybe I can get away with sponsored, or supported. Whichever way this happens, it’s going to require…

    Step 1 – The pitch, the plan, the dream

    Posts like this one are all a part of the journey. It’s part of the pitch, getting it clear in my head what I want to achieve, and even if it’s just letters on a screen, it’s making it one step more real than it was in my head.

    Personal Growth

    I must say, I’m quite proud of how far I’ve come in the last 4 or 5 years. I’ve gone from someone wallowing in self-pity about my lot in life, my work situation, how trapped I am, to not just believing, but knowing that if I want to achieve this dream of a maker community, that builds projects for real-life people and problems, it’s completely and utterly up to me.

    Nobody is going to hand this to me. No sell, no pitch, no great idea is going to cause anyone to jump into action and puppet me to success. The only person that is going to make this happen, is myself. And that, like how a raindrop grows by pulling in surrounding raindrops on its way back to earth, I will naturally pull in people and their minds to grow this space, and what it’s capable of.

    My old beliefs that people who achieve this kind of thing are 90% lucky has completely flipped. It’s 90% blood, sweat and tears. Effort. The remaining 10% “luck” I no longer see as a barrier, but something that can be overcome, by persistence, relentlessness and resolve. Perhaps then it’s all effort. I’m a software developer and we always say that last 10% of a job takes 90% of the time. Perhaps this is a more universal truth.

    Next Steps

    I’m going to start putting myself in more places. I’m going to go into the council building. I already walk every morning to a cafe. I have met some people at those cafes, and made friends, got contacts, been pointed in certain directions (e.g., TAPLab).

    I don’t need to worry about getting turned away because I’m just trying to sell something, or get something for myself. I know that what I’m doing is something that’s needed. Something that will be beneficial. I know the people can help me progress through these steps will see that too.

    Your support

    Follow me. Sign up. Follow me on my socials.

    • https://www.youtube.com/@themessnz
    • https://www.twitch.tv/mess_nz

    More to come…

  • Potentially pointless

    “You have so much potential. I hope you don’t waste it.”

    Dad, that’s not what I needed to hear. I needed you to ask “what piece is that? I really like it.” Or perhaps “Your playing is really improving, I enjoy listening to it.” Now my playing is tainted with a need to succeed, to reach some height, some purpose – all of which I have no idea what they are.

    The fact that my piano playing was (and has to this day remained) a personal challenge, emotional expression, escapism, and has for the most part been kept to the ears of myself and my closest, should be enough. Shouldn’t it? Is it ok to play for the sake of playing, enjoy the sounds and feelings of the music, and the strange pseudo-spritual connection to the composer and their intent, taking over my thoughts and body? My soul says yes. My mind says “of course not you fool, so I’m just going to remind you of all your failures and self-professed short-comings while you play unless you’re either locking in and going to be a concert pianist, or you give up and go so something that will actually help us reach our potential”

    What even is potential?

    I’m a bit of an electronics/physics nerd. One way of visualising potential in electronics is imagining a hill or a valley. A ball is on the top of the hill, or the ledge of the valley. The potential energy this ball has available to give, is determined by the height of the hill relative to the “bottom”. The other way around, how much energy would it take to push the ball back up the hill?

    What does that have to do with me becoming a concert pianist to make my Dad not think I’m wasting my potential? Is that the target I have to reach? Is that the bar that’s been set for me? And how the heck did he know that’s my potential and I still don’t? Maybe it’s wrong. Maybe potential isn’t this thing that I should be.

    It’s Meaningless

    Potential is meaningless as a target.

    Potential fundamentally, and by definition, is NOT a target. It’s a capacity, a requirement, an amount of work that can or needs to be done, and can be used and expended.

    What happens when you use all of the electrical potential in a battery? It goes flat. If it’s non-rechargable you throw it in the bin. If it’s rechargable, you can recharge it, and it gains all this potential back, and it can roll down the hill again.

    What happens when the boulder is at the bottom of the hill? You need to push it up there again – if you want it to gleefully roll back down, for whatever reason. I don’t know. Was Sisyphus happy? Albert Camus certainly thought so with his conclusion “One must imaging Sisyphus happy.”

    Doesn’t life often feel like slogging away at rolling a boulder up a hill, a brief respite at the top then pushing it down the hill and watching all that momentum expend itself, then come to rest at the bottom?

    So what did Dad mean?

    I conject that my dear Dad wasn’t consciously aware of what he actually meant when saying he hoped I would reach/wouldn’t waste my potential. He certainly hadn’t read this definitive blog post on what potential actually is.

    What he may have been implying by saying I have “huge potential”, is that in his opinion I’m sitting on top of a very high hill. That I have a lot of energy to give to the world and holding onto it, not pushing that boulder down the hill, is wasted and perhaps (what it felt like to my 14 year old mind) selfish.

    At the time, sitting there playing music I thought I WAS using all my potential. What else could I be doing at that moment? It’s funny thinking about it now. In my little head back then I actually had the right answer! I was in the moment, I was doing what I could then and there, and that’s all that I ever could have been doing. So no wonder Dad coming in and saying that he didn’t want me to “waste potential” was confusing and frustrating to hear. It fundamentally didn’t make any sense.

    Results are not guaranteed

    It’s scientifically psychologically and physiologically testable that “action” only happens in humans when there is some “potential” – either positive or negative. Perhaps we have the promise of money, love, dopamine. Perhaps we have the threat of no money, loss, or a lion waiting to eat us.

    Potential is a slope, either up or down from where we are now, to the place that we need to – or better yet – know we’re going to be whether we like it or not. The steeper the slope, the greater the difference between now and this destination – in other words, the greater the potential, and the greater the likelihood and drive for action to take place.

    It seems to me the way to maximise potential, and maximise the likelihood for action (motivation), is make that slope steep somehow. How do we do this? Do we set ourself lofty goals and targets that are huge beyond our wildest dreams? Am I going to gain one million blog readers by the end of 2026? Be a concert pianist?

    NO! …. aww…

    The results, the outcome – any metric that is outside of your control to make certain – are not good motivators to get moving. The promise of results is not what is going to give you the potential to act, to do, to move. Why?

    A result that is not met doesn’t exist!

    They are phantoms. They are intangible. Results and outcomes may be useful for assessing the work you’ve already done, perhaps learning for future attempts, but they are NO good to make you do the work.

    “Aha!” You may say. “My boss says if I don’t meet these targets, then I’m in trouble, ergo I work hard to meet them.”

    Yes – subtle difference. Is it the result making you motivated? Imagine if you had those targets but your boss said “Hey, if you don’t meet these targets that’s all good, no stress at all, doesn’t mean anything” – do you think you’d put in the same energy? The contrarians of you out there may say “YEAH I WOULD BECAUSE I’M NOT A SLACKER” but even that proves my next point.

    Maximise your potential

    If you want a surefire way to maximise your potential – stay focussed this is subtle – don’t give yourself a goal or a target to reach but instead:

    Give yourself a responsibility and/or a deadline.

    The responsibility could be external. Being accountable to someone else is extremely motivating as it taps into our social animal and our sense of duty and purpose in society.

    It could be totally internal. An example? Me writing this, right now. Why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I’ve got a target of engagement I want to meet? My million readers by the end of the year? No way. I’m doing this because:

    • I know that if I write more, I’m going to get better at writing (that’s not a specific result) and I want that.
    • I put a website live on the Internet, and I told myself I’d keep the content fresh.
    • I gave myself a requirement to write a post every 2 weeks.
    • I don’t want another project dead in the water.
    • I know I enjoy writing once I get going.
    • I was bored, and I didn’t know what to do with myself before bed, and I wasn’t tired yet, so needed something to fill in the time.

    That’s it. That’s enough to get me writing and re-writing this and posting it for all (the millions) to see. I was mincing around the house not knowing what to do. Then I remembered I had this post that “needed” to be done. This created a slope of potential which happened to lead down the stairs to the dining room table where I’m typing these words.

    That’s it. That’s the secret. That’s all it takes.

    Some of those reasons like “not wanting another project dead in the water” sound pretty sad. To me, that’s incredibly useful. I’ve lived a life of not finishing projects – jumping around all over the place, and getting disappointed in myself if I didn’t follow through. Avoiding those negative feelings is actually quite motivating! My past failures have built up my future potential to actually stick to something for longer.

    Also note that some of those “motivators” are self-assigned, and some are through learning. “I gave myself a requirement”. Am I letting down anyone externally if I don’t do it? Not yet… Just me. At the moment, that’s enough of a responsibility I have to myself to create a potential to write.

    In summary

    You’re reading this post because I achieved the impossible. I reached my potential. I set up a website, and told myself I’d post about once a fortnight. I have lived 42 years and failed probably twice as many times, which feels bad and I don’t want to feel bad. I got bored before bed, had a list of things I could have done, but the slope of potential tipped me towards finishing this post.

    And I’m done. I’m pushing publish. I’m going to bed a happy, fulfilled man who feels like he’s achieved something. I’m going to wake up to a million readers. Or not. It doesn’t matter.

    I also know that in a few days, I’m going to start thinking about writing another post. I’ll start jotting down ideas to get ready to fulfil that 2 week turnaround responsibility I’ve given myself.

    I’ll push the boulder back up the hill, and watch it roll down again.

    One must imagine me happy.