Book review: A Whole New Mind

1) Being an artist as well as a teacher in the conceptual age Daniel H. Pink describes in his book A Whole New Mind, will make me become a significant asset to the faculty of a school. It will also be a great benefit for the students in class. Considering the fact that Pink believes the conceptual age will be run by right-brain thinkers, being an artist is an extreme benefit for any person. It gives the artist an upper hand in society by being able to think about the whole picture, along with the complexities of a problem, while figuring a out how to put them together in a new way. Artists excel because of their fresh ideas, and the way these ideas fit into the lives of the people of the artist's time, or times to come. Not only is being an artist a good advantage for someone heading into the "conceptual age" Pink describes, but being a teacher in this time will also be benefitial for students, and in turn the world to come. Having the chance to talk to kids and teach them all the things you know about art and life is an amazing gift. These students will take the information and generate what they make out of it themselves, according to their own personalities, views and even values. However, having the luxury of being able to stir their minds and make them think is fulfilling for a teacher. They are the people, and potential artists who will go out into the time after ourselves and run the future. It is as though teachers have a hand in that fact. They play a crucial role in creating the future, and can potentially destroy it as well. This is why teaching art is great, because instead of killing off a student's creativity, we try to bring that part of them out. We get the chance to help them develop the right side of their brains, which is what Pink believes will rule the next generation.


2) Out of all of the sixth "senses" Pink describes in his book, which were design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning, I believe that I have great strengths in story, empathy, play, and meaning and that I am sometimes weaker in design and symphony. For instance, since I was a little girl I have been a great story teller. I am one out of five children in my family, and I think coming from a larger group of brothers and sisters has helped me develop my story-telling. Whether it was to scare them or make them laugh, or to defend myself to my parents, when I was little there was a lot of story-telling going on in my house. The difference is that now I try to be honest in my stories. Stories amaze me, they are one of the first ways people used to get their ideas out to others. They can make a reader so many emotions. After all, it is my belief that behind every work of art there is a story.


Everyone has always told me I am very empathetic. I'm always the one making sure all of my family and friends are okay and asking them if they have a problem to tell me. I can usually tell by the look on someone's face if something is off, and I'm never afraid to ask them. I wouldn't push it if they didn't want to talk about it, but they know I'm there. Once my sister told me I care too much about other people than I do myself. I don't believe that is necessarily true, however I do care a great deal about the people surrounding me. I work at Papa Gino's, and sometimes so many customers come in and our crew has to make so much food at once that people start bickering. I'm always the one trying to calm everyone down, asking them why they're upset and trying to figure it out. I find myself trying to solve every problem, even though I know that is impossible. Growing up with all my brothers and sisters has also forced me to understand that there are other people surrounding me who have feelings that need to be noticed.


Play is also another one of my strengths. I have a good work ethic, but I always know when to just kick back and play with stuff to see where it goes, or even just strictly to laugh. Staying severely focused on something for long periods can ruin things, especially art. Even while reading I find myself taking little breaks to go jam out to some music with a friend and drive around. We do what we do because it is in our souls, we love making art and sharing our views. However, we need to live at the same time. I think in order to live we need to be around others and play, laugh, and love. Life is too short to get dangerously stressed about work. Although we need to be serious about our professions, there is always room for play.


Meaning has always been a concern of mine while making art. When I do paintings there is always a meaning behind them. Lately I've been in this situation where I can't stop painting about past events my family went through. I use symbols and small details that I know about to show the meaning of the piece. This is pretty cool actually, because since viewers probably don't know much about my family's history, the meaning is still left up to them to decide.


Although I think I'm good at all these senses, I might need to focus a little harder on design and symphony. As far as symphony goes, when I make a work of art I always try to perfect it. Usually I perfect it too much. I found out over the past two years that perfecting a couple points in my art makes the whole piece work better together. Having too many focal points can make people just look at something and see it for what it is, but think no more about it. Having some focused areas, and others more left up to the imagination will make an image stay with a person. Then they have an experience with a piece, rather than just the realization of it as a whole. This relates to the way I design my art. Usually when a thought comes to me and I want to paint it I get so excited I just jump right into it instead of thinking for a little while about the design of the art. The composition is extremely important, especially in painting. I need to spend more time focusing on that.


3) I truly believed Pink's idea that symphony can help anybody with their art. The ability to see the lines and curves of an object and transfer them to canvas, or paper, etc. helped him out tremendously in his self portrait. I tried to explain this to my boyfriend a while ago, that anyone can draw if they use their eyes. Usually people think that they can't draw because they have a preconceived notion of what they're subject looks like, and let that idea interfere with what they actually see. When people are trained to see things for what they are, and combine that with new ways of seeing, or their individual way of seeing, they become a successful artist. Symphony plays a large role in this. In drawing you aren't just using your pencil, you're also using your eyes, mind, arm, wrist, and heart. To be able to use all these things in unity and create art requires an ability to think symphonically. Symphonic thinkers correlate all these things together.


Delving into the meaning behind a person's face was interesting for me. I agreed with Pink's observations when he was talking about deciding whether someone was genuinely smiling at a person or faking it. I always wondered if there was an easy way to tell. I did notice it was something about the eyes that gave away whether they were being honest or not, because in pictures people with these wide eyes just look like they aren't really happy. It actually looks pretty scary to me. Although I know this is a science, and there has been studies behind it. I believe that if a person knew this as a fact, they could train themselves to use their eyes even when they are fake smiling, and it would be less detectable than just fake smiling without involving the eyes.


I disagreed with the assumption that men are less empathetic than women. I don't believe statistics are a fair way to judge this. In my experience, some of the men I have known are so caring, and sensitive to other people's feelings. Of course I have also known many women who are the same way, but I wouldn't say it is fair to judge either group. I suppose on a larger scale, statistics show that women are more empathetic, but the women and men that take those tests judge those statistics. If every man and woman in the world took a test like the ones used to prove these statistics, maybe it would be a fairer judgement, however I don't think statistics are fair.


Although I really hope that what I got from this book is true, I don't have faith in the fact that it is. I think the world is waiting on people who have new, innovative, right mind generated thoughts, but I also think some of those very people might not be successful. Artists with insane talents are sometimes left in the dust until far later in time. Some of the most famous artists were long past dead when they were discovered for their brilliance. I believe in order to succeed in this world, people have to work extra hard to get their art or message out to as many people as possible. Maybe someone who does that will be more successful than someone who doesn't but still has more talent. I think there will always be a demand for the left minded thinkers and the right minded ones. There are so many jobs which are the backbone to the way society works that strictly call for left brained thinkers, such as banks. Banks will never cease because it will always be necessary to organize money.


4) The little suggestion packets Pink puts after each chapter were very helpful. Now that I know there are laugh groups I talked to a couple of my friends and they want to go. I think we would laugh so hard just being there and I am excited about going. Having Pink point out some ideas about how to practice what he talks about in his chapters was a good idea. It's like he's sayin, hey if you don't have what I'm discussing in my writing in your life, but you want it, here are some ideas on how to obtain it. I never have read a book like that before. His was of speaking is also like he was having a conversation with me. Although he clearly states a lot of his opinions, it helped the cause of his book, because he is a passionate believer that right minded people will be the leaders of tomorrow. His chapters consist of what he believes the right brain consists of, and he really goes above and beyond to stress that these things are important to the right brain.


I firmly believed in the idea that the setting of a hospital room can help a person heal faster. When a young girl who is close to me got really sick, she was taken in at the Children's Hospital. The rooms there are painted with bold colors that have matching decor. My idea of a hospital room used to be a stomach turning, headache starting experience. However, when I went to go visit her, I could have stayed for hours because I felt completely relaxed. I think this had a lot to do with the setting of the room. She was very sick and got better in a shorter period of time than the doctor expected, so maybe this idea is true. There really is no way to prove it, but the feeling that I got when I walked into the room made me believe it was true when I read that it actually does help heal people faster. It was interesting to relate my reading to this experience.


I found it interesting when Pink reported the incident about the two men who both thought they had anthrax. I always learned to get a second opinion if you think there is something seriously wrong and a doctor dismisses it. I thought it was awful hearing that a man died because a doctor didn't use his empathy and believe the patient's assumption and evaluate the situation further. I can only imagine how the doctor must have felt afterwards, and I believe he should be taking the necessary steps to improve his empathy, if that didn't wake him up enough. There was once a situation where my sister felt really sick and believed she had food poisening. She went to the hospital and they told her it was just a stomach virus and she'd be ok after a day or two. However, two days later she was significantly sicker and had a bad fever. She went back to the hospital and they figured out she had severe food poisening from something she had ate. Although it would eventually come out of her system, they kept her there to make sure that was all it was. These doctors showed much more empathy than the ones prior to them, it was like they actually cared for my sister as if she was their sister too.