Virtual Magpie (the equivocal adventures of Megan M.)

One of my favorite gifts this year was the Creative Whack Pack, a card set by Roger von Oech. (I told Marty I wanted it, ordered it “from him”, and he wrapped it. But it still feels entirely like a gift, and every time I look at it on my desk I experience a mad sort of glee that I “got” it for Christmas!)

The Creative Whack Pack is a true relic of my childhood. It was always floating around in my parents’ offices when I was little. Em and I would stay there after school until one or both parents were finished with appointments for the day. Amidst all the things we had to occupy ourselves, the Whack Pack was one of the things that fascinated me. I didn’t understand it or really know what it was, but it had pretty pictures and I felt like it had to be something good, something interesting, something I would like… if I had any idea exactly what superior magic it was supposed to work.

And now, more than a decade and a half later, I know exactly what magic it works — and I know exactly how to use it.

Isn’t that just the way of relics, huh?

Friday morning we finished up an album design for the upcoming Cherryfix release — which is fantastic, by the way, and has had me jamming all weekend. Something about doing lyrics layout keeps a song stuck in your head… You can take a look at the results on Flickr (and the album hasn’t even shipped yet!):

Although their site is will most likely be renovated for the tour, you can check them out at the official Cherryfix site or take a gander at Emii’s blog here — and I believe a few of the album tracks are on MySpace.

Have a listen — it sounds awesome!

Update: Em posted a free mp3 from the album for Christmas, and I posted it here — it’s one of the best tracks they have, so snatch it up and share it with your friends. ;}

Ragen and I meet every two weeks to catch up, stay in each other’s monkeysphere, and discuss Virtual Magpie from a business standpoint. This woman solves problems for me like you wouldn’t believe — in fact, we’d reached the end of our meeting yesterday and I was just yammering idly about this thing or that thing, and the solutions just kept coming. We laughed about how hard it is to turn it off; I have the same urge to constantly find solutions, and we work well together because the solutions we’re each best at finding seem to be complementary.

Something she said at our meeting really struck me as a process I’d been going through. It’s been a long, weird eight years, man. I think I took three art classes in college; the rest were all related to my performance degree. I started my work here by reading books, doing commission sketches and building free websites. (Can you say Hot Dog Professional? Wow, have they changed… but me too!) When I look back I am sometimes surprised, sometimes horrified by the understanding I had of what I was doing then. The old versions of PsycHumor.com, for instance, seem to possess a lot of awareness of what I wanted, what I was shooting for… but plenty of other projects ended up looking pretty spare. I’ve come a long way since then — we all have — but what Ragen told me yesterday cut right to the heart of the thing:

When you begin an endeavor, you enter a state of unconscious incompetence. You don’t know that you don’t know shit.

Once you’ve been doing that for a little while, you enter a state of conscious incompetence. You become keenly and sometimes painfully aware… that you don’t know shit. Oh, how I have suffered this one.

After time and work, you will enter a state of conscious competence. You now know what you are doing, but you really have to concentrate and pay attention, in order not to mess it up. This has been the case for me over the last several years — if I stay on the ball (balancing act though it is), I’m fine.

After more time and experience, you enter a state of unconscious competence. You are so proficient at what you do that it becomes second nature to you and only the most complex of problems will require strict concentration and assistance. This… is the state I’ve entered, just in the last handful of months. It’s been especially noticeable since I began working with Cloud Nine — and it’s unnerving because even having gotten to this headspace, it’s so obvious how much more there is to learn. And I’m already discovering new ideas and areas I don’t know anything about, things I want to develop and explore. And some things that are so young, so green for me, that I will have to start from scratch entirely!

The reason this hit me so hard is that I feel like I’m at the edge of unconscious competence, after so long… and at the same time, I’m clearly starting over. It’s an incredible cycle that I suspect will continue for the rest of my life. But what an exciting way to live a life! It blows my mind, a bit.