I had two main takeaways from watching this interview with the cartoonist and musician James Kochalka.

The first:

"If you are a creative person and you're good at one thing you're probably good at another thing"

Creativity compounds (knowledge builds on knowledge) so you'll probably find that some ways of thinking or skills overlap between the different activities.

And the second:

If you want to get better at something, do it every day, and work hard at getting better at it. That last bit is really important, simply repeating an activity isn't enough — you have to focus on improving to get better.

Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. I know you've been thinking this too... Where are all the aliens?
    
2. Do you want to be more creative? Try pretending you're someone else: "Creativity is not an individual trait, but a 'malleable product of context and perspective.' Everyone can be creative, as long as they feel like creative people".
    
3. Self-healing clothes? Self- healing electronics? How about a self-healing Wolverine-like artificial skin? Researchers at the University of California, Riverside might have a fabric to make just the thing.
    
4. I really like this advice from Charlie Munger: "I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you." Are you a learning machine?
    
5. In the past week I've booked tickets to see two of my favourite musicians play shows in London. So this week's musical recommendation is a track by each of them. St Vincent performing Black Rainbows and Nils Frahm performing Toilet Brushes - More. Can't wait to see them both live again!

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Every Wednesday I share five things I've liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. Fun fact: zebra jumping spiders have a "thing" for green laser pointers and can see the moon.
    
2. The School Of Life asks "are you getting enough sleep?"
    
3. Beethoven and the difference between genius and talent: "Genius has to be founded on major talent, but it adds a freshness and wildness of imagination, a raging ambition, an unusual gift for learning and growing, a depth and breadth of thought and spirit, an ability to make use of not only your strengths but also your weaknesses, an ability to astonish not only your audience but yourself."
    
4. Bill Gates ponders "What If People Run Out of Things to Do?" in his review of Yuval Noah Harari's new book Homo Deus. His last book Sapiens is excellent so I'm looking forward to reading his newest one.
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is Gaunt by Kiasmos. I just booked tickets to see them play Erased Tapes' ten year anniversary show later in the year and I can't wait!

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next one delivered to your inbox.

Cromer 2

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. A great post on how to learn more effectively: Let Go of the Learning Baggage.
    
2. Vantablack is very black: "Vantablack is a substance made of vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays and is the blackest artificial substance known, absorbing up to 99.965% of radiation in the visible spectrum."
    
3. A cool time-lapse video of the Milky Way shot from an airplane cockpit.
    
4. An interesting interview on How Creativity Drives Human Evolution with the author and anthropologist Augustín Fuentes. — "What's distinctive about humans is that we can imagine something and then make it real."
    
5. This week's musical recommendation is So It Goes by the ambient musician and composer Greg Haines. If you like this, check out his albums "Where We Were" and "Moments Eluding".

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and you'll get the next Five Things delivered straight to your inbox. You can check out previous Five Things posts here.

Think Love

Every Wednesday I share five things I liked and think you might like too. Here are this week’s Five Things…

1. I just finished reading John Seabrook's fantastic book The Song Machine. It explores the evolution of popular music, how chart-topping songs are written (or manufactured…) and how the music industry tries its very best to guarantee hits. A pretty mind blowing book, essential reading for musicians and music fans.
    
2. I’ve recently been enjoying The Guardian’s Audio Long Reads podcast (I prefer to read long-reads with my ears wherever possible). A recent episode, The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell (an extract from a book of the same name), tells the true story of Brian Regan and how his plot to sell American secrets was foiled by the FBI. It’s a fascinating story. (Here’s the non-audio version of the piece).
    

3. Here’s a video of Bruce Springsteen working out (with help from his band) how best to play You Never Can Tell live on stage. Great musicianship and great to watch!

4. “When you can’t create you can work” — Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing and His Daily Creative Routine

5. On Monday evening I saw the film Lion. It featured one of my favourite pieces of music, Atomos VII by A Winged Victory For The Sullen. The whole soundtrack was great but I love that song! If you get a chance to see Lion, I’d recommend it, just be ready to shed a few tears…

That's all for this week. If you enjoyed it, sign up to receive future posts or check out my previous Five Things posts.