DAY 037 – DESIGNING DANGEROUSLY

Use Feeling Words

Feeling words help us not polarize discussions, not to get too didactic, as these types of words speak of our experience rather than the status of an idea as supremely right or wrong. If you’re like me, you’ve sat in meetings where it feels like a collaborator brought a chainsaw and a Red Bull to a tea party. As others are conversing quietly and either enjoying themselves or trying to appear as if they’re enjoying themselves, there’s this caustic, one-note interjection. It drowns out all else and polarizes the experience because, truly, you’re either on the right side or the wrong side of a chainsaw. There is no middle ground to be had. 

Also, obviously the chainsaw and Red Bull was a flawed idea from the beginning--a chainsaw is a two-handed instrument of destruction. How are you going to glug your RB?

Within the context of design meetings and art, speaking to how we feel or what we think to be true also allows us to change, to adapt. We are by nature variable creatures, and we should leave space for difference. None of us are the sole bearers of ultimate truth.