I’ve been wallpapering my home office and therefore cleaning and going through tons of stuff. Today I re-found this A4 that I got maybe about 10 years ago which includes ‘Some rules and hints for students and teachers or anybody else’ by John Cage. It always makes me smile so here it is for you as well:
Some rules and hints for students and teachers or anybody else
by John Cage
RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
RULE TWO: General duties of a student - pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher - pull everything out of your students.
RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.
RULE FIVE: be self-disciplined - this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.
RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
RULE EIGHT: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
RULE TEN: “We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” (John Cage)
HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything - it might come in handy later.
Days just seem to pass without anything special happening. That’s alright, though. But I’ve done a few things, both for my own wellbeing and for the progress of our house building. I’ve read a few novels. What a luxury to lie most of the day in bed, reading! Amazing. Yesterday I defrosted the freezer and cleaned the fridge. Now we are ready for the ripening forest berries and strawberries, which we have to buy, though. But it’s my and my daughter’s tradition to buy a box of strawberries and put them in the freezer for the winter. And every time I make strawberry kissel during the winter, we think about how great it was that put the berries into the freezer.
I’ve kept up with my running and functional training. Most weeks I do three runs and one functional training. If I don’t make it to the functional training, I do a fourth run or go to the gym. I really like the balance of doing running and whole body workout as running in itself is so straining for the legs. Anyway…
Last week was by daughter’s birthday and we had a really nice party. First we celebrated with children and then had some friends over. We baked a lot but for the kids we made this inchworm cake. We had a so much fun and it was such a pleasure to see friends and hang out all night.
The next day I went with my daughter to a friend’s place which is about 30 minutes out of Kuopio. It was heavenly. We went between the sauna and the lake all night, ate pancakes, had serious women’s conversations and just relaxed. I can’t believe some people live in those kinds of places. And yet, at the same time I envy the friends living in New York or London. But, at least I, need both. The country life & the most urban cities. Besides the amazing site by the lake including a wonderful garden, I guess I mostly enjoyed the company of the hostess. I can’t remember when I last have had a sauna with another woman, talking heart to heart, sharing, thinking and just being together in the Finnish sauna. It was truly a bliss.
Kuopio is one of the worst shopping places on earth – at least that’s how it felt today. This was the second time I went to the sales and tried to find something but came back empty handed. It’s ok as I don’t really have money to buy anything but sometimes it really sucks. So I ended up buying a lot of bread from the factory outlet of Vaasan & Vaasan and beetroot lasagne from the factory outlet of Kasvisgalleria.
Have joyous days!
Johanna
