In my second action project this term, the second unit, "Understanding the Five Faces," was all about learning the five faces of genius and who they apply to. We researched an assortment of famous people who displayed distinct features of each face. For example: Chance The Rapper is an Alchemist because he loves to mix different genres to create his music. I now look at people differently because of learning these faces, I like to just sit and observe and it has been a fun experience. This project was slightly easy because it’s mostly opinion-based, like how you can pick the famous people you want to review. It’s also really fun to analyze some of your favorite role models to see how they think.
There are five faces of genius. These five titles are given to certain types of people:
- Seer: A Seer is someone who uses visualization in everyday life, like picturing things and visualizing the past and future.
- Observer: An Observer is someone who is trained to look at all the small details and then come to a conclusion from them.
- Alchemist: An Alchemist is someone who is normally inspired by something and likes to combine two things to create something, sometimes even more beautiful.
- Fool: A Fool is someone who doesn't look at problems as serious or simple. They like to mix things up and are inspired by absurdity.
- Sage: A Sage is someone who uses simplicity and history to think about things.
Earlier in this course, I took a survey that helped me define who I am. I definitely agree with my five faces survey. My more dominant faces are based off absurdity, which should not be much of a surprise to those that know me in real life. For example: whenever a problem occurs, I usually say something ridiculous and my friends just ignore me. This happens a lot. This can very well classify me as a Fool. My second face is Alchemist, for example: I use my characteristics of absurdity to make up ideas, one of my ideas was mixing Pineapple Pop and Orange Juice to make a Pineapple Orange Pop which is delicious by the way. My least dominant face, that I scored 0% in is the Seer face. I'm not really surprised since I am always denying my ability to be visual and also because visualizing things isn't the first thing I look to when in a situation.
I interviewed TC, a student from my school. I asked him a question that I found interesting. As all my questions were yes/no, I felt like this was one of my more dominant questions that identify Sage: Do you find simplicity as a benefit to society? He answered yes to this question, which definitely could classify him as a Sage. Also TC answered all my Seer questions yes, identifying him as a Seer.
“Do you find simplicity as a benefit to society?”
"Yes"
Me And TC. Interview, December 10.
Adora Svitak is a 12 year old that believes adults should embrace “childish” beliefs and that adults should be more willing to learn from kids. She shows signs of Fool and Sage. She uses absurdity because kids don’t teach adults and this is quite crazy because it elaborates on the fact that she is one of the more educated children in the world. She also uses Sage techniques because of the simplicity of her thinking, it may sound crazy, but how simple would it be to just reverse the roles of teachers and students.
I love the quote below because it's stated in a sarcastic way and it makes me smile because I can definitely relate to being called childish:
"Every time we make irrational demands, exhibit irresponsible behavior or display any other signs of being normal American citizens, we are called childish."
Chancellor Bennett, also known as Chance The Rapper is one of the most inspirational people to me. He displays characteristics of a Fool and Alchemist, as do I. He likes to make music using different genres like jazz and R&B. Also if you really follow Chancellor, he displays Fool techniques in plenty of his personality. He loves to have fun and make people smile and laugh, and he is definitely absurd because if you know anything about him, he is always making statements that are rather peculiar and unreasonable in his music and in his personal life. Maybe this is why I follow him, we think alike!
I love the quote below because it defines how I think about the world. The man who created the iPhone is no different than the man who created Peanut Butter, “we just people with ideas”
“In the real world, we just people with ideas.”
These are some ways I can implement the five faces in making my service project effective: For Seer I could make it look nice and presentable, I could also use Seer techniques to envision my own success and make my goal easier to reach because of my confidence in succeeding. For Observer I could make sure everything is in the right spot and things come together nicely. Also for Observer, I could use small details in my art to create a better experience for my local Chicago people. For Alchemist I could mix things up and create things using two ideas, such as: using quotes from real celebrities that people look up to or follow and making their quotes useful to my cause. This combines press and art, or trends and art. For Fool I could use absurd thinking to create problem-solving by maybe implementing abstraction to my art. I feel like abstract art can make a very nice contribution to my piece by attracting more attention. For Sage I could keep it simple, understandable, and relatable. As far as these three aspects go, I think they make things feel real for the viewer. I feel like making things simple and relatable, it will make the viewer understand me more. It will feel like I'm there in person presenting it to them. I was thinking about raising awareness for resource distribution problems by leaving a mural or some art in a public park somewhere because I feel like we have the food and resources to feed millions but these things are being wasted because we aren't sending them to the right places! I could also make stickers that say Don’t Shoot to contribute to that cause because I am growing really interested in that campaign. Or maybe even put "Don’t Shoot" on napkins around the Chicago area! The "Don't Shoot, I Want To Grow Up" campaign is something related to the violence and shootings in Chicago, and I want to join the cause.
