i love MG

i know i've encountered it before, but i was recently reunited with milton glaser's "10 Things I Have Learned." glaser, a pretty famous graphic designer, is responsible for the I <3 NY logo and is one of the co-founders of New York magazine. anyhow, the essay comes from a speech he gave at an AIGA conference in 2001...and though some of it is design-centric, a lot of it is personable material anybody can relate to...

a smile like the joker! look at that big ol thing

some of my favorite excerpts include:

SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.
And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished.


HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.
We tend to believe that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind, although we do not generally believe that everything we do affects the brain. I am convinced that if someone was to yell at me from across the street my brain could be affected and my life might changed. That is why your mother always said, ‘Don’t hang out with those bad kids.’ Mama was right. Thought changes our life and our behaviour. 


DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. ..... Some years ago I read a most remarkable thing about love, that also applies to the nature of co-existing with others. It was a quotation from Iris Murdoch in her obituary. It read ‘ Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.’


ON AGING.
Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. 



i also love that he hates when 'creative' is used as a noun...as in "that dude is a creative." no! don't do that!

read it in full here