Inside Out

With a run of festivals coming up, first the Winter Solstice, then Christmas, then the arrival of the New Year, we at Totem are going into hibernation for a couple of weeks before emerging in January to set you more challenges, help you have more adventures and most importantly, to help you learn from them.

Every year we look for a piece of advice or prose that sums up the festive period for us and every year we come back to the same one. This piece could probably be read every day with becoming old so once a year won’t hurt. It’s from master storyteller Neil Gaiman and if it needs a title, “Benediction” would probably suffice.

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

Have fun in the snow and we’ll see you all in the New Year.

In the last month we’ve had three groups of apprentices through our Personal Learning and Thinking Skills course, challenging themselves and thinking hard about learning in the beautiful surroundings of Snowdonia. With more groups taking on the course in the coming months we asked one cohort to come up with some advice for those that followed in their footsteps. With no prompting from our Development Guides, this is what they produced;

[Click for full size]

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Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

We are a Mac based workplace here at Totem. I could bore you with why we made that decision, ease of use, low support costs, etc, but you probably don’t care. We like them and we like the customer focus that Apple has.

It was for that reason that we were very sad to hear of the the death of Steve Jobs. Aside from the human tragedy of someone dying so young,  the world has lost a maverick, a visionary and an incredible business man. He probably wasn’t easy to work with but people wanted to work with him. He stood on the shoulder of giants, in the form of his team of engineers and designers, but he assembled that team in the first place. He gave them their goal and ensured they stayed focused. He defined one clear model of leadership in the tech industry.

Fuller obituaries are elsewhere, everywhere really, a measure of the impact he and his team had. If we can have 1/100 of the impact on the world that they have, we’ll be a pretty happy team.

Hidden in one of Apple’s core products is something that I think sums him, and Apple, up well.

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Just look at how the mountains,

So very mighty be,

Sharp as razors at the top,

They span the land and sea,

But don’t forget that though,

Majestic spires capped with snow,

From each and every grain of sand did grow…

Seen on the side of a building off Hverfistgata in Reykjavik, Icleand.

Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
and he pushed,
and they flew.

Christopher Logue

Overheard on a recent expedition:

Assessor: “Can you show me where we are on the map?”

Candidate: “Here, just before the resurrection ground.”

A: “The resurrection ground?”

C: “Yep.”

A: “Do you mean the recreation ground?”

C: “Same thing, isn’t it?”

A: “….”

by Dr. Seuss

I recently read this at my sister’s wedding and I love the sentiment contained within it.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

You’re on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the couple who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets.
Look ‘em over with care.
About some you will say, “We don’t choose to go there.”

With your heads full of brains
and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down,
any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.

It’s opener there
in the wide open air,
Out there things can happen and frequently do
to people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.

You’ll join the high fliers who soar to great heights!

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have all the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang, and you’ll soon take the lead.

OH! THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!

You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!

Wherever you fly you’ll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’t.
Because sometimes, you won’t.

You’ll get mixed up of course, as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up with so many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step. Step with great care and great tact
and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed? Yes! You will indeed!
(98 and three quarters percent guaranteed.)

You’re off to great places! Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting. So … get on your way!

Oh, The Places You’ll Go! on Amazon.co.uk

“For London is like prison for children, especially if their parents are not rich. Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and things, but if your people are rather poor you don’t get taken to the theatres, and you can’t buy things out of the shops; and London has none of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the things or themselves—such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape—all straight lines and flat streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like things.”

Edith Nesbit, Five Children and It

A striking and touching New Year’s Eve message delivered by author Neil Gaiman at Symphony Hall in Boston.

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

via Makezine, picture from guilty’s flickrstream under Creative Commons

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

Andre Gide