Learning feels like drowning. I mean this in the best way possible.
[photos above are process shots of the Sunk Cost Fallacy project.]
This week I have been working hard to make progress on a project for Entrepreneurial Design. I have to explain a concept in plain English, and decided on the Sunk Cost Fallacy as my topic. It is one that is close to my heart, as it has as much to do with financial responsibility as it does with psychology and decision making.
I decided I will really overreach with this project. I envisioned a podcast that’s audio-synchronized to a long scroll webpage. It will elaborate on the idea and hopefully teach people about what sunk cost fallacy means and how to avoid it. It is going to have a podcast where I voice the narrative, with snippets of music and sound effects. It is going to have studio photography to accompany and iconify concepts I am talking about.
So, I have coded a couple long scroll webpages. I have done a bit of design work. But I have never done any studio photography before. I don’t understanding lighting, nor filling out shadows, nor white balance, nor art direction.
I have never done a podcast either. I have never done any voice training. My writing has never been for performance. I have never done any recording, nor post production with sound. My musical taste is not terrible, just non-existent.
In short, I am massively underqualified for what I have envisioned - and I am drowning in the details. I would imagine that if this were to be done professionally, it would require a whole team. A studio photographer who would shoot and prepare the images. A voice actor to do the voice recording, and perhaps a recording engineer to do audio post production. A web developer like me would then be brought in to build the website, wrangle the javascript, and put all the pieces together.
This is madness. However (cue the 300 Spartan scream) - This is gradschool! This is my chance to push boundaries, and really learn where the limits are for my capabilities. So I said - to hell with limits, let’s do this.
This self-directed, overly complicated project has become the project where I am learning the most this semester so far. I have done this by doing everything twice. I didn’t start out trying to do everything twice, but that’s just what happened. I have written the script twice, recorded twice, sound edited twice, designed the layout twice, shot the photos twice - I suspect I will have to write some of the code twice too. This has led to quite a few “oh it’s 2am” nights in a row.
As I reflected on the last three weeks, I realized I have learned a ton, simply by forcing myself to plainly overreach. This incredible discomfort associated with over-reaching feels like drowning. I might never get this chance to so massively overreach again - grad school only lasts so long. I must keep remembering that this feeling of drowning is also what learning feels like.
I can’t help but wonder where else I can start overreaching.
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