- Mar 2024
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Katherine Sarafian,a producer who’s been at Pixar since Toy Story, tells me she prefers to envision triggering theprocess over trusting it—observing it to see where it’s faltering, then slapping it around a bitto make sure it’s awake. Again, the individual plays the active role, not the process itself. Or,to put it another way, it is up to the individual to remember that it’s okay to use the handle,just as long as you don’t forget the suitcase.
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As Brad Bird, who joined Pixar as a director in 2000, likes to say, “The process eithermakes you or unmakes you.” I like Brad’s way of looking at it because while it gives theprocess power, it implies that we have an active role to play in it as well.
This is a useful frame with respect to any process.
How would one apply it to zettelkasten for those having issues in their workflows?
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Likewise, we “trusted the process,” but the process didn’t save Toy Story 2 either. “Trust theProcess” had morphed into “Assume that the Process Will Fix Things for Us.” It gave ussolace, which we felt we needed. But it also coaxed us into letting down our guard and, in theend, made us passive. Even worse, it made us sloppy.
One could consider the simplicity of ars excerpendi/zettelkasten against the phrase "trust the process", and this is fine for some of the lower level collecting methods, but one needs to be careful not to fall trap to the complacency of only collecting and not using the collection to actively create.
Many people rely too much on the collection portion of the process and don't put any work into the use or creation portions. They may be left wondering what the ultimate value is of their unused collection of treasure.
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Likewise, we “trusted the process,” but the process didn’t save Toy Story 2 either. “Trust theProcess” had morphed into “Assume that the Process Will Fix Things for Us.” It gave ussolace, which we felt we needed. But it also coaxed us into letting down our guard and, in theend, made us passive. Even worse, it made us sloppy.
Compare "trust the process" as a guiding principle with "let go and let God" which has a much more random and chaotic potential set of outcomes.
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Likewise, we “trusted the process,” but the process didn’t save Toy Story 2 either. “Trust theProcess” had morphed into “Assume that the Process Will Fix Things for Us.” It gave ussolace, which we felt we needed. But it also coaxed us into letting down our guard and, in theend, made us passive. Even worse, it made us sloppy.
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