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AI and the myth of Narciscs

FIELD NOTES - MAY 2026

SET THE GARDEN ON FIRE

Saturday, 9 May 2026

I have a vague suspicion that modern parenting culture would consider parts of my child-rearing philosophy somewhere between “concerning” and “unhinged renegade.”

When my children were about seven and ten, we made tiny bows and arrows out of hair clips, floss, and matchsticks. I found instructions buried somewhere on the interwebs.

We dipped cotton tips in kerosene, lit them, and fired flaming projectiles at a cardboard castle we had built earlier that week in the backyard.

Before anyone contacts local authorities: it was winter, the castle was sitting on brick paving, the hose was nearby, and I was supervising closely while quietly questioning my own judgement and/or sanity. We had a grand time.

Also, in fairness, the castle had it coming.

My children also learnt to fire twirl really young. They climbed things. Jumped off things. Rode bikes and roller skates down hills with the reckless abandon of people who are not responsible for their own medical insurance.

My eldest was scarred for life (just under her chin) because of her fearless shenanigans.

My kids needed very little encouragement and big surveillance protocols.

I remember watching my youngest perform a surprise somersault off an old concrete bridge into a river. I experienced a peculiar parental paralysis. Fellow breeders will recognise the exact flavour of terror. Time stretched relentlessly, like pulled taffy, then snapped back when my child finally resurfaced. They were delighted and blissfully unaware that the first glimpse of their undeveloped noggin had allowed me to take the first shuddering breath in what felt like millennia.

For the record, I value safety immensely.

In workshops, I am a little too safety conscious, even hyper-vigilant. The probability of one child in a group of thirty treating safety instructions as creative suggestions is ridiculously high. This is why risk management and competent supervision matters. Knowing your audience (or your own child) and their propensity for risk taking absolutely matters.

Then again, there is an immense gulf between thoughtfully managed risk and absolute chaos. The ‘Artistic Disorder’ my team and I create is carefully curated. We scrupulously avoid and minimise the chance of injury or harm to the body.

Still, I sometimes wonder if something has shifted for this generation of children.

Not because children are “soft.” When I describe snowflakes, always assume I’m referring to the weather. Generalising the next generation* isn’t useful, doesn’t appeal to me, and I certainly couldn’t say it three times fast.

I feel like I’m teetering on the precipice of becoming a Gen X stereotype, ranting about ‘kids these days’, and waxing lyrical on the joy of food additives and hose water.

I propose that ‘kids these days’ are less comfortable taking risks where they have a chance of failing visibly. Not necessarily the risk of failing physically and injuring themselves. Social, creative, and intellectual risks are what scare them. The very place where learning lives

Just last week I saw kids unwilling to construct ridiculous engineering prototypes out of recycled junk, not because they did not want to, but because they were worried it might not work properly the first time. Even when we had told them over and over that the whole point of the experiment was that it probably wouldn’t. I have seen children visibly freeze before answering questions unless they are already certain they are correct. I see reluctance to experiment unless success is guaranteed.

Somewhere along the line, we (I am not immune) seem to have convinced ourselves competence should be instant, arriving in our lives polished and fully formed. Somehow, we’ve internalised the idea that mistakes are evidence of inadequacy when it’s evident that they are part of the process of becoming competent and confident in any area of life.

A lot of Artistic Disorder workshops are designed to chip away at some of those risk-avoidant beliefs. We value a less sanitised, messier understanding of risking new ideas, people, and experiences than is culturally current.

It’s quite simple really, and kind of complicated to pull off well. They are designed to give permission. Permission to try something with an uncertain outcome, to look ridiculous, permission to fail publicly and keep on keeping on. I think most of us have benefited from a lived experience of that. I think ‘kids these days’ will benefit too.

I sometimes wonder whether resilience is less about learning how to bounce back from hardships, and more about surviving hundreds and thousands ** of small manageable risks.

Think tiny experiments with surviable little failures. The kind of risk that has your face going a pale pink rather than bright red when you make a mistake.

And if you are busily learning, you will make some mistakes.

Building confidence by being competent is a zero-sum game.

Confidence is built by proving you can survive incompetence. Competance, or even mastery, is what comes after that.

I highly recommend embracing your incompetence.

• Climb something mildly inadvisable.

• Make ugly art.

• Try a hobby you really suck at.

• Build prototypes that fail catastrophically.

• Get paint stains on your sleeves and something sludgy and green stuck under your fingernails.

• Risk sounding foolish in public.

Or set the garden on fire.

After assessing ALL the risks.

*Ha! See what I did there. Etymology is fun.**Hundreds and thousands, once a staple of the Gen X diet, probably aren’t allowed at parties anymore.

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