Kicking the baby bird diet

Do you know what baby birds eat? Vomit. Momma bird chomps down a worm, gets it all nice and digested and delivers it to the baby via easily digestible digestive fluids. Now there’s some real food going in there, but it’s still pretty gross, and I’m sure it’s nowhere near as fulfilling as slurping that worm up whole from the soil.

So why do so many of us feed our minds that way? It’s so easy to take what others say, to read those lists that the internet is so crazy about and take them as gospel.

The best ways to gain followers on Twitter!



The fastest way to grow your business!



The five steps to salvation through Jesus!



Twelve ways to impress your coworkers!



Nine tips on shopping green!

And on and on and on…

I think sometimes it’s good to not take someone’s word for it. I’m not talking about ignoring good advice—learning from others mistakes is something I’m a big fan of. This is about getting out there, hunting around and feeding yourself with some whole food. Learn it by doing it.

You can read all the lists you want and follow all the important people, but you’ll never be truly fulfilled on a steady diet of regurgitated experiences. You don’t have to go out on your own, in fact some people don’t. Some people stay on the baby bird diet and they’re satisfied and successful.

But I don’t want that.

Maybe it’s because in six weeks I may be unemployed, or because the drive and desire to be what I know I can and will be is getting louder (a full-time writer, illustrator, designer, creator). I just feel like it’s time to jump, to kick the baby bird diet, and find my own whole food. Stop timidly looking over the edge of the nest and feed my mind on my experience. That’s freaking scary, but if it works, and it has to work, then it will be beyond satisfying.

Who knows, maybe someday I can feed some baby birds of my own….gross.

Comments

[izzyboncimino]

Great way to put it - we like lists and "predigested" knowledge for the same reason we like diet pills and liposuction: they require less work than actually exercising our minds and bodies.

I wrote a post about this a few weeks ago (http://caesuri.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/authenticity/) but I like your angle better. Nice job!

[#1 Reason why everyone should]

[...] and creativity, it’s hard to weed out the junk food as well: “processed” or (as Austin Light puts it) regurgitated material that does the heavy thinking for us, or information [...]