anh gave a presentation on how the pisa study mislabels children’s dreams about the future to make categorization easier. for example: a kid who says “i want to be president” gets filed under “legislators and senior officials”.
and then she found a video where kids actually say what they want to become, unfiltered. she then makes the case that the scope for a ‘valid’ answer keeps shrinking as you grow older (dinosaur → fairy → job position).
anyhow, that got me thinking about how we ask people: “what do you want to make of yourself” or “what do you want to make of your life”. i have a conversation tonight with a younger designer, and i anticipated myself asking this question.
i think this question is wrong. no one can decide what they want to make of their life, at a period in time. i’ve seen so many non-linear trajectories now — so very many — that it’s clear to me that we should be asking: what do you want to do next? because the answer to that is motivated by their current curiosities.
also makes me think curiosity is a luxury.