Season 2: Ep.10 - On Rules Versus Basics

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Hello, and welcome back to Graceful Rulebreakers. I'm your host, Kirsten Lee Hill, and today I want to talk to you about graceful rule breaking and Billie Eilish. The other day, this was like, probably a lot of days ago now, a couple weeks, maybe a month. What is time? Y'all I don't know. But I was watching Billie Eilish answer questions from fans on British Vogue's YouTube channel. And Stormzy asked her a question about her songwriting process. I'm a big Billie Eilish fan. I think her songs are amazing, her lyrics, just everything about them, amazing. And Stormzy asked for insight into how she writes songs, like, how does she pick the lyrics and the melodies? And how does this all come together? And in Billie’s response, I just, I was watching this… this is, like, late at night, you know, one of those times we can't sleep sort of like learning things on YouTube, one of those nights and I just, I just froze, because I thought, Oh my gosh, this is the most perfect description of, like, graceful rule breaking and how it works and why it's such an amazing, like, way to unleash creativity. And so I had a pen and a post it by my bed, because sometimes I get really great ideas in the middle of the night, and I just wrote down Billie Eilish British Vogue, graceful rule breaking, so I could come back to it later, and I'm so glad I did. So, I want to share her response.

(2:10)

This is a direct quote from Billie Eilish insight into how to write songs and her songwriting process. Billie says:

“It's good to know the basics of something because then you can take those basics and shift them around, and turn them into something else. Because songwriting really has no rules. But if you know, kind of, basics of it, you can kind of go crazy with it. So it's all up to you."

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I was listening to this, and I just thought, yes, yes, yes. This is what graceful rule breaking is. This is what I do in research. This is what I do in self care. Oh my gosh, I have something in common with Billie Eilish. This is so freakin’ cool. And look, y'all, um, I'm not a songwriter. And I don't, I can't even begin to pretend like I understand the songwriting process, but this just gave me chills because this is how I feel about rules in general. In some sense, there are no rules, in that you can do whatever you want. But within… okay, you can do whatever you want within reason, there are, like, laws against harming other people, right? But generally, even though there are laws, you can still choose to do whatever you want. But if you master the basics, if you master the status quo, if you master the way that things have always been done, it gives you space to create something new, it gives you space to play, you have to know the game to change the game. Right structure can be this incredible tool for creativity, whether it's in songwriting, or in research, or in yoga, or whatever your field is, if you master the basics, it's this amazing power, to be creative, and to innovate. And I loved hearing this like there are fundamentals, there are basics.

(4:30)

And this also got me thinking that, well, I hate rules. I hate rules. I hate rules. They are restrictive, and I think they make us feel bad and they keep status quo's in place that are not serving people, that are hurting people and I hate rules, right? But I love the basics. I love fundamentals, and one of the reasons I love basics and fundamentals is in some sense, they are facts, they are truths. They are these tiny components that make up something, but like we drill down to these few core specific things that are rarely clearly defined, and we know what they are, and we know what they do. And they can be these building blocks to do all these other things. So, maybe you drill down, and you have all these really specific blocks. And typically, they're arranged in this really particular way, right? And Billie talks kind of about that in terms of, like, the flow of the song, which again, like, I cannot even begin to explain this. But there's a particular way things could be arranged. So, let's say you typically arrange these blocks in a certain pattern, but they don't have to go in that pattern, you could move the blocks around and make a new pattern. But at the end of the day, whatever the pattern is, it's still made up of these really specific blocks, right? And the blocks, the basics, I love them. I think they're great. I think specificity is an incredible tool for good. Like, I think research is an incredible tool for good, I think, in order to create change, we need to be specific, and you need to master these basics, these fundamentals.

(6:28)

And once you know the fundamentals, play with them however you want, rearrange them, shake them up, maybe you'll come up with new combinations, but mastering these core truths, these core facts in your field and your space, in your life, can be incredibly powerful. And again, this tool for creativity, and to really become an expert and a thought leader and to push the boundaries in your space. When I think about why the basics matter so much, right? Why does it matter to master the basics, these fundamentals, these, you know, quote, unquote, ‘truths?’ I really do feel like the basics are truths, and it's something I want to unpack a little bit more, I'm gonna let it percolate in my brain. But when I think about why it matters, to really have that mastery, like, if you're just going to change everything, why even master the basics, why start there? And on one hand, it's like, you’ve got to start somewhere, right? How do you, how do you change something that you don't know anything about, right? In order to change something, you need some point of reference, right? You need to know what components make it up. Where did they come from, like that? Can't go on and say this needs to change and be like, well, I don't know anything about it. But I know it needs to be different. You can't know what needs to be different if you don't know anything about it, right?

(8:04)

So, there you go, you need some basic knowledge of whatever it is you're trying to change, or that you hope to change. But I know for me, my inspiration for learning the basics and the fundamentals, you know, I went to school for a really long time to learn the fundamentals of research and education policy, and I had a very specific motivation in going and doing that. And it was that, I never wanted to be in a room unable to speak to the rules, right? Unable to speak to and question what people were saying is the way things had to be, and I felt in order to feel empowered in that space, and to make a strong case, I needed to know exactly what these other people were talking about, right? Like, I didn't want to go into a room and have people using jargon or talking about, you know, things I didn't understand, and just have to sit there quietly and be like, gosh, I don't understand that. How do I possibly argue against that? Or how do I possibly even decide if I agree with it or not, right? I didn't want to be in the dark in decision making. I was like, no, I need to go get as much knowledge as possible about these basics so that when I'm in the room, I know what's up. I know what's up, and I can use my voice and make recommendations for how we can make things better. And I think that's really, that's the power of knowing the basics, right? You know the basics. You can speak to what needs to be different and you're informed and educated. I don't we all want to strive to have informed and educated opinions, and to make decisions based on good information?

(9:59)

We need some foundational level of knowledge to be able to do that. And to me, the problem comes in, when the basics get taken, I guess taken too far or taken out of context and become this script that isn't sensitive to the human experience, or to the fact that things change and people, and time, and space, there are different needs. To me, the difference between the basics and rules, is that rules have an agenda. Rules have an agenda, they are meant to guide or to restrict or keep safe, you know, a lot of possible agendas, right? Rules have an agenda. They have a perspective, if you will, they have a bias, potentially, right? Like, someone has made a rule and it could be unfair, could not be fair, it could be relevant to people, could not be relevant, right? Like someone's made this rule, there's a lot going on with the rules. Whereas basics, the basics are again, like, these core fundamental building blocks, there's not a perspective, it's like the basics are so specific and descriptive, that it's just the thing. It's not good. It's not bad. It's just a component, it's a component for you to build with. There's this common point of reference, or is common language for talking about something and that's important for creating change, right? People need to understand what you're talking about, we need to have a shared common understanding of these building blocks in order to start rearranging them and moving them forward.

(12:15)

Gracefully break rules by mastering the basics, master the basics to gracefully break rules. If I had to sum up, why I think the basics are so important, and so not rules, right? The basics are not rules. The basics are fundamental, core pieces of knowledge, information, parts of a system, they're like these core building blocks, see how many times I can say blocks in this episode… building blocks of information. And I would say, doing that, having that mastery gives you a few things. One, it gives you credibility. Credibility gives you power and if you master the basics, and are able to speak very clearly, and show the deep expertise you have in how things are, what's going on, you can go into the room when you know what's up, because you understand the basics. And you can speak to what's going on now, and therefore position yourself to make an argument for how things might change, right? Credibility, power, that comes from knowing the basics and being able to convey that deep expertise to others.

(13:47)

And along those same lines is this common language piece, right? Having this shared understanding, common language of these really specific pieces of the world or of your career or a songwriting process, right? It gives you the words and the way in which you can talk about things with other people and make sure you're all on the same page, right? To create change, you need a shared common understanding, you can't move forward if everyone has a different understanding of what's going on, right? That's gonna be chaos. So, having that common language through which to talk about how things might be different is really powerful. Again, I don't I don't know much at all about songwriting, but I'm very interested in it now. But if we're talking about how to write a song, and you don't have an understanding of what lyrics are, or you don't have an understanding of what a melody is, it's going to be hard to talk about, or like a chorus, or a pre-chorus, it's hard to talk about writing a song because you don't have those basic concepts that get everyone on the same page and tell you what's going on. Maybe you decide to completely throw out the rule of the order of how all this should go. But even if you're gonna decide to do that, you need those common building blocks, that common language, shared understanding, to talk about the process and to change it.

(15:23)

And lastly, for me, my most favorite thing about the basics, being basic, mastering the basics, why I love that, and hate rules is that if you know the basics, I believe you have this incredible capacity for creativity and to play within existing structures, because you know, it's almost like, you know the pieces, the facts, the common understandings that make up the rules of the game. And when you know those small, small bits, that's when you can start to rearrange them and move them and shape, and break it, and tap into this creativity of, like, how things could look completely different, right? Because you've mastered the basics and the understanding, you can position yourself as an expert, so people want to listen to you, they know, you know what's up, and they understand the words that are coming out of your mouth, they have that shared common language, and it's just this tool for creativity. I could go on and on, even in my head right now, like, and there's, like, examples, you know, thinking about yoga and how there are specific poses, like, there are poses, poses are the basics. But then there are practices that have varying degrees of rules, there are certain types of yoga, I will say the one I was trained in, where there's a very specific set of poses and every single time we do the same sequence of poses. And that's the practice, you do the same exact thing every time. And I tell you what, I hate that rule. I'll tell you, furthermore, just how much I hate it, is I get certified in this and I completely stopped practising yoga because I feel so suffocated by the rule that it always has to be the same way every single time that I just like, can't even do yoga anymore, right? I'm too wrapped up in the rule. Whereas instead if I tried to focus on the basics, the individual poses and played with that structure. Like, that feels good, that feels freeing, there's so many things running through my mind right now, about this.

(17:45)

I think there's something here y'all about the basics, and how rules and the basics aren't the same thing, right? I think sometimes people start and say like, knowing the rules is like knowing the basics, but that's not true. Rules are made up of a lot of basics. They're made up with an agenda, and it's a completely different thing. I think if we know the basics, we can gracefully rule break them. Gracefully, yeah, gracefully break those rules. It's been a long week, y'all. I hope some of this was helpful, insightful. I'm really… I'm striving to be super transparent with listeners. I'm trying new things with my podcast, trying to be more in the moment, more off the cuff, less scripted, interesting, if you will, and I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear what you want to know more of. And I really from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate you listening. Thank you so much, and I'll be back next week.