Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Younger Older

For my talk at the recent Ars Electronica symposium I tried to simplify my philosophy towards life as:

When you're younger:  Do More. Think Less.

When you're older:  Do Less. Think More.

Some younger students, I find, tend to think too much and it sort of paralyzes them. Thus my usual advice to them is to think less. For older students, sometimes they get too caught up in the act of making, and fail to find a moment of reflection. To them, I say do less. Perhaps the superior model is the hybrid approach where you do both and engage in thoughtful doing or doing thoughtfully. I think I know what I'm doing. But maybe I shouldn't.