I've been reading a lot lately, but unable to actually finish as much of that as I want.
Sometimes I just move on to the next, or whatever is important at that time. Sometimes it's just because I get too busy. But actually the dilemma is that some of this material is very dense, and it's hard for me to get through.

For example I had to put down "Elegant Universe" because I got to a point where I just couldn't understand what Greene was talking about anymore — the math & physics were above my ability to imagine coherently.
Then last night, I was reading Adorno and, excuses aside, there were some pages that I had to re-read ~5 times before I felt like I understood it well enough to be able to "teach". I find myself unable to concentrate, or just getting so lost in "detail" words that 5 re-readings later I realize that the main idea is something SO simple... too simple for so much effort.

Anyway it's very frustrating. I was hoping you all might have some tips how to read not only comprehensively but quickly.

What allows beings to love each other is also what makes them lovable, and ruins the utopia of autism-for-two.

Has anyone here heard of the Tarnac 9?
Or, "The Coming Insurrection"? (from whence the above quote was taken).

I asked some questions a while back, in the entry No Secret.

Namely, I wanted to know:
"When is the time to act ... to invent, create, show, teach something worthwhile?
Is it a conscious decision at all, or just a natural byproduct?"

A lot of you came forth with answers, and I thank you for that.
It was a few months ago that I asked, and now I'm happy to be able to answer myself as well, and assertively so. I'm happy to answer myself because advice is always helpful, but it's always said that isn't until you can teach something that you truly know it, so...

The first part of Acting is courage.
I keep mentioning Tillich's The Courage to Be because he addresses it so well,
because courage is one of the most difficult things. At this point I'd say that the difficulty of attaining and keeping it may even surpass the struggle of the pursuit of happiness, since that latter can hardly be embarked on without some courage.
Courage will allow one to act, knowing full well that one is always in the process of learning, and that mistakes will happen. Courage allows for fluidity, and unapologetic growth.

With courage, one can proceed to act while learning.
I had a teacher, F. Young, who would always say: "Just do the work. Don't judge, just do the work." Hell of a guy.

The application of knowledge is both a natural byproduct and purposeful. It happens because it can't help but happen if one is learning while making, but it's conscious because it requires effort and thinking. Sometimes there is even the realization: Wow, I never would have done it this way before, but this works. It happens when one allows an idea in progress to transform itself as it requires, as the learning informs it, so that the end result is hardly the same as the original intention and yet truer, more correct and thus more beautiful than it would have been had it followed the plan exactly. In that way, a good idea, a good action imitates life.

On a similar note, sometimes good work might not be recognizable right away as useful or as work at all, if it's naturally informed as is the good idea.

"Tell me, have I done anything of worth? Tell me if anything was ever done."
— Leonardo da Vinci,
at a dark time when his work was interrupted due to accusations of witchcraft and necromancy.

"When you judge as you're making, it slows you down, it's an undue burden, and in some ways it's not up to you to judge — it's up to someone else; it's social. ... [However], as you're making, you see a kind of reason and rationale. You follow that."
— Paul Chan, artist

Based on that, I'm realizing that I'm working even now. Writing is pleasurable for me, it's a good way to figure things out; so I hardly ever think of this or blogging or a lot of what I do as work. But if I'm pulled to do it, it's because this feels like the most important thing I could be doing right now — nevermind that paid work, or homework is waiting. This is The Act, even if it is unrecognizable.


Leonardo spent years immersed in the sciences, learning and apparently trying to master them all —

"And yet he had a reputation as a flake."

This was so because Leonardo's mind was a free-associating one: he would go from one thing to the next, because the particular thing in which he was absorbed at any given time was

"the most important thing in the world"

and then it would be "over" and the next thing would be the most important thing in the world.
In moving from one fascination to the next,

"you don't get much done over a short period of time, but over long periods of time you get a great deal done."

(These quotes and re-phrased ideas are from "Leonardo da Vinci", the 2004 BBC documentary.)


It's unfortunate that doing the important thing and that lacking adherence in favor of fluidity is seen as flaky or, by today's standards, quite ADD.

To finish up, the idea that well-informed, successful work is somehow accidental, or rather, "suddenly inspired" seems to be fairly prevalent (as in the case of Newton's apple).
I really like what Malcolm Gladwell has to say about that, in this short talk about The Beatles:

"It tells something very valuable about the distorted way that we think about success that we constantly talk about '64, but we don't think about '59."
— MG

Other possible titles include:
What Creative People Have in Common with Angsty Teens, or Why Artists Are Assholes.

~

Artists are notoriously unable to live with other people. Throughout history there have been a notable amount of especially talented individuals who seem to have had troublesome home lives, if not remaining at least somewhat isolated.

In "The Courage to Be" Paul Tillich writes of the state of being of a modern human from a philosophical & psychological perspective. Therein he mentions the Creative as being unable to accept into or create a unity with himself and reality due to a profound dissatisfaction with it as well as with the "absolute threat of nonbeing". The problem that arises from this dissatisfaction is that one is then faced with extreme anxiety, which is defined as a state of constant worry and unease due to a situation. Since the situation in question (living itself) is somewhat inescapable, "Anxiety turns toward courage, because the other alternative is despair. Courage resists despair by taking anxiety into itself," to quote Tillich. Despair would lead to a kind of escape, but that sort which promises no greater comfort for the anxious and for that reason is often a last resort. Tillich asserts that the "average person keeps himself away from the extreme situations by dealing courageously with concrete objects of fear. He usually is not aware of nonbeing and anxiety in the depth of his personality." However, "He who does not succeed in taking his anxiety courageously upon himself can succeed in avoiding the extreme situation of despair by escaping into neurosis."

This neurosis is present in many a creative individual because these people are thinkers, sensitive, and unable to ignore their own anxiety, thus having to turn to this method of coping when despair becomes unbearable. To refer to Tillich yet again: "Even if pathological anxiety has psychotic traits, creative moments can appear. There are sufficient examples of this fact in the biographies of creative men." The anxiety of the neurotic is what leads him to create alternate worlds: both the artist and the man of logic throws himself into a type of problem-solving which is idiosyncratic on some level. The "world" they create is not necessarily the stereotypical castle of imaginary wonders or something so concrete as the very stylistically differentiable works of some artists... Tim Burton comes to mind straight away as an example of a clearly obvious "world-creator". No, the world is a mental construct wherein one is safe to evaluate reality on his own terms and to create based on his dissatisfactions. For instance, Einstein (who is known to have had a less than excellent relationship with his wife and family, with whom he was rarely if ever photographed) became completely obsessed with light at a young age. For him (as with many logical creatives) the dissatisfaction had to do with the fact that the problem of light was thus far unanswered, so he felt it his duty to provide the world, even if only his world, with what it was missing. Ergo his inner universe would consist of the blueprints, objects, connections, etc. having to do with this particular interest, until he solved the problem.

Unlike the serious neurotic who derives more pain than pleasure from his escapism and who instead desires some means of coming back to reality (medication, therapy, etc.), the creative is often quite happy to continue living in his own fortress and not only that but is actually encouraged by society because he is able to channel his neurosis healthily: it's clear that historically, artists, inventors, scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, and even shamans have been held in high esteem for their positive contributions, even if possibly simultaneously ostracized for their maladjustment.

Now, the issue is that a created world demands upkeep, and the problem-solving that goes on within demands a serious dedication. It's for this reason that artists often have to choose to live or at least to work away from others: the Other can be either a distractor from or a contributor to the creative's inner world, or both, but hardly both at once. On occasion the creative needs a distractor, usually during periods of rest, while the other who functions as contributor might be known as a muse. However, should the other become a distractor during a time of concentration (even if the concentration is not readily visible) or basically, interrupt at a time when the creative is immersed in his inner world, it's possible that the creative will feel threatened by the intrusion, as if it were an actual assault (by the other's own reality) akin to breaking and entering. This distresses the creative, who will feel the need to take any measures necessary in order to subdue the attack: he might shut himself in, shut the other out, erupt in anger, or attempt to stopper his anxiety with reason, etcetera and so on depending upon his disposition. Needless to say, this behavior can create stress for either or both parties, which is why it becomes truly arduous for the artist to live in close quarters anyone at all, especially if he particularly cares for that other.

Speculating further, this could be the reason for some creatives' preference of an animal companion. Because a house pet, through loyalty and affection, can aid with loneliness that is bound to arise from extended isolation without actually disrupting the flow of thoughts that contribute to world creation and management (due to their diminutive ability to communicate), they are able to fit comfortably into the creative's lifestyle. That isn't to say that an animal doesn't require work, nor that they aren't troublemakers — only that in being unable to interject with their own spoken "outer"-worldly ideas, they are less disturbing than a human might be. In fact Michelangelo —one of the first artists who preferred to be alone and refused assistants while working — reportedly had a small dog who was allowed in the Sistine Chapel as the artist was painting.

This partiality to pets may also have contributed to some of the myths about witches/wizards and their "familiars" (often cats, toads, and the like). The early high regard for shamans fell out of vogue especially during religious times, so it would be hardly any surprise if a "witch" was actually a neurotic creative, isolated not only due to the reasons discussed above but because of fears of and pressures from the townspeople, thus living with animals to make up for lack of human interaction.

There's a general widespread anger about education lately, and not only that but the anti-intellectualism, the "blissful ignorance". Public education isn't accomplishing what we need it to; curiosity and experimentation are being killed off in favor of standardization, which doesn't even necessarily lead to real learning.

"Democratic nations ... will cultivate the arts which serve to render life easy ... they will habitually prefer the useful to the beautiful, and they will require that the beautiful should be useful."

— Alexis de Toqueville, in "Democracy in America"

Utility is good, but when it gets in the way of creativity (which can lead to revolutions naturally) it can be a problem.


((Image related; crap (well-intentioned as it may be) like this fills classroom walls.
I think I would have been a lot more interested in math during school if it somehow pertained to my curiosity, rather than required because "EVERY JOB NEEDS IT" ... I knew that, as an artist, I would hardly need higher maths. I was sort of right, but now that I'm out of school I regret my former disinterest, not because of my JOB, but for my life... for my mind, for what I could do with it, intellectually & creatively.))

I feel it's the same (as Alexis described) with education; that is, because public school teachers are to cater to many students at once, the curriculum is instilled and this is not to make geniuses of any of us, but to create a well-behaved populace who knows just enough to "succeed", work a job, and know just enough to get by. I've heard a lot of complaints from smart kids who feel they're being ignored (especially lately, with cut backs in higher placement programs and honors classes — there is even one case currently in Philadelphia where the school board is attempting to cut Chemistry and Physics; the regular sort, not even honors or AP.) because the institution "panders" to the "average" student who just wants to pass the test and GTFO.

There is nothing wrong with having non-educational interests or pursuing a "regular" life; it isn't that everyone should be under the pressure of trying to become a genius, but I think it's a sad state when higher ambitions are almost discouraged — that we are pressured, instead, into shooting for average because the ones who don't are singled out as "nerds" or "think they are better than everyone else" or what have you.

Anyway, this clip from "Isaac Asimov on Bill Moyers World of Ideas" is absolutely beautiful, & addresses many of these issues. Isaac talks about how the internet will (& has; he was speaking in '88) revolutionize personal learning.

Personally, I love having my stupidity handed to me on a silver platter every now and again. It feels good when it happens often, because I figure it must mean I'm learning something and it leaves me with the choice to either laugh about it and continue on, or stand there and cry for a while at the expense of blurring my own vision. I keep trying to choose the former, since it helps to see if you want to move forward.

Anyway, it happened again. Not that I wasn't really aware of this, but I'd never seen it put forth so well, before. But I'll get to that.
First, the premise: As a graphic design student, I've been doing some reconsidering of what my priorities are and how I will be able to contribute to both myself and the world, or at least my immediate vicinity/community/audience.

For myself, I need the spiritual stimulation that comes with fine art as well as the monetary stimulation that is a byproduct of practical, commercial work. I thought being a designer would be a perfect way to mix the these, and then be able to give something meaningful and helpful to an earth that desperately needs it. I don't know what that third thing is yet, but I'm hoping to figure it out soonish.
Unfortunately, being a designer often isn't really as glamorous or righteous or easy as that. I knew this already, even just from freelancing for a few years (Sometimes you want to give people telephones, but they just want a lobster. That kind of thing.) but it became even more apparent here in art school, and in real-world jobs. Lately I just find myself wanting to learn/read/study much more than to create anything.
In the search for answers on how to proceed, I came upon (by teacher suggestion) the Project M. It's pretty well known by now, but if unfamiliar:

We are part of a design movement. We believe that ability equals responsibility. And we are not the only ones. So, we built a lab where designers like you can make a difference. We are building the tools that will build the future.

While poking around the PM site, I found this article:
THREE WISHES:
(What Your Students Want, Even If They Don’t Know It Yet)

The author (E. Heiman) brings up a lot of good questions, and follows up by answering them... it's a recommended read if you're a design student or at all interested in the applications of design and how it can be brought up out of it's superficiality. Basically, what B. Fuller would have wanted.

Some content from the article:

Until a design student has such an eye-opening realization, how can we expect him or her to create meaningful output? In our classrooms we stress form, content, typography, craft, professionalism, and probably most importantly, cultivating a personal design voice. But how can a design student cultivate a voice they don’t yet know they have, nor know how to access? We often ask our students to take a stand with their work, to be authors. Have we ever stopped to think that maybe they don’t know HOW to do this?

Most of the graphic design in this country seems to fall comfortably into two categories: on one end of my personal all-encompassing design stick there is the market-driven commercial work; on the other, the more inwardly focused work that often comes from within academia’s walls or from the fringe realms of fine art. There is a small amount of work, though, being done in between these two poles that combines the consumer galvanizing motivations of the commercial with the self-initiated, critical mores of the academic.

I am not condemning the work at the each end of this proverbial stick. I myself do both kinds, and appreciate what they provide spiritually and financially. But by only providing our students the abilities to articulate the shell instead of the whole entity, and worse, in a moral vacuum, this is all that they will do. Undergraduate design instruction that breaks down the wall between studio and the Humanities might help produce graduates that not only create more work in this aforementioned in between area, but also elevate the inquiry and quality of work on the two ends of this proverbial stick as well.

The recent words of Milton Glaser tell us, “If our field aspires to be significant and worthy of respect, it must stand for something beyond salesmanship.” So should design education.

Heiman continues to describe the current problems with design, which are the lack of focus on utility vs the overabundance of superficial "style". The condition is constantly being improved upon, but "FRESH!" is still a criterion.
Amongst the "Wishes" ( WISH 1: Let’s get over this inferiority-to-artists complex. // WISH 2: How about some new dialogue! I think we’re in a rut! // WISH 3: Curiosity, Empathy, Humility. ) I found yet another article: Wonders Revealed: Design and Faux Science.


(here's a hi-res of this :D )

Hmmm... faux science. That rings a bell.
Personally, I love science. I like to learn about new advancements, as well as study the progression of old ones. I'm fascinated with the universe, it's workings, how it's put together. I'd happily attend lectures or be lectured at by physics majors, if I knew any.
Nevertheless, I'm guilty. And so are a WHOLE lot of other designers, thinkers, and artists as of late.
It's a good read, only a few pages, but basically Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel critique the current state of affairs, like so:

This new scientific style-seeking — let’s call it Faux Science -
- is the antithesis of modernism: it’s form awaiting content, or worse,
serious form retrofitted with interchangeable content. So DNA is used
as a paradigm for business strategy, our genetic legacies reborn as
branding schemes for bran flakes. Petrie dishes are procured as objects
of desire, inhabited by blurry bacteria used to metaphorically
represent everything from bus schedules to bleach advertisements to the
end of civilization itself. Designers document and chronicle and
organize and record and list and process and craft endless diagrams
with carefully plotted line weights and meticulously managed color
specs, but what do they really know about enzymes or molecules or the
structure of an atom? What do they really know about the world?

And aren't they right? It's altogether too easy to shoot for insta-credibility just by attaching some theory, numbers, and molecular blobs to an otherwise bland and useless project.
Maybe I just haven't noticed other discussion on the matter (if that's the case, I'd like to know about it), but it seems like the fact that Science has become the "knee-jerk" go-to is the really gigantic, smelly "elephant in the room".

So, how can we save ourselves and design from being arbitrary, useless, & just-for-show?
From the pretentious cataloguing of dust bunnies?

Is true curiosity coupled with motivation the key?
Apparently it isn't hopeless yet:

Science represents an enormous opportunity for designers, but not
if their contributions remain fundamentally restricted by what they
know. At the core of this critique lie serious questions about the role
of education. Why don’t design students study music theory? Why aren’t
they required to learn a second language? And why, for that matter,
don’t they study science? “The difficulty lies not in the new ideas,”
wrote John Maynard Keynes, “but in escaping the old ones.” In other
words, design beyond reach.

What do you think?

“I cannot understand why human beings should be so little individualized. Why they should behave with such great collective uniformity.” He says, “I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I’m never served a cooked telephone.”
-Salvador Dali

I loved this passage from Dali. He had a real savoir-faire.
Where are our grilled telephones? Why not?

My last contribution was about the futility of the American Dream, the endless circles of the pursuit of happiness; the search for "Walden".
I've been thinking about the reasons why people like anything (ideas or objects or each other), psychological and biological and evolutionary — very simply, we want to live. It's that stupid pun: we're just dying to live. We love the things that bring us life; progress and the evolution of the Whole.

It's an old, tired subject. Some people find the way by "dropping out", others within spirituality or religion, and still others within a lifestyle that allows for Love of some kind (of a partner, a hobby, a cause...). We all know this, these stories. They're especially prevalent in the entire money-suck industry of Self Help.

But, I came across a documentary the other day. Regardless of all the repetition of this subject, this film caught my attention because of the sincerity involved. It details the lives of real people, stuck in the system by choice, running in circles trying to heal each other and themselves. Some have criticized it for not establishing any real conclusion about the situation, but I think that's where its strength lies — I was able to connect with the characters, to understand instead of judging them. The premise is very specific, but I found it to be very far-reaching and relatable even so.

It's from 2006 so maybe it's old news, but I feel the need to mention it here because of the nature of the SC community and for those who haven't yet seen it:



“People are not so strong… especially alone. People are lonely and sad. But they are wonderful and shining. They have warm hearts.”
— from The Great Happiness Space

From reddit:

Gossip about celebrities exists for the same reason religion exists - because it is a very powerful meme. Humans evolved to fit about 150 people into their sphere-of-people-they-care-about (or monkeysphere if you're familiar with that article), and by gossiping about those people with others the people in a community are able to confirm their community's morals and standards. Most of us no longer live in small villages of about 150 people, so celebrities serve as a proxy - that is, while you and I probably don't know ANY of the same people, we both "know" a bunch of celebrities. By having a "national dialogue" (or gossipfest) about these celebrities, our society is working to preserve its "values" (e.g., adultery = bad). Similarly, when you and I talk about a celebrity, we are coming to a consensus that that type of behavior is bad (or good, or none of our business, or whatever we decide about it).

Personally, (perhaps like many on reddit), I'm an introvert and have room for about 8 people in my monkeysphere, so I don't spend much time thinking about or caring about celebrities. I also tend to be progressive, so it is not in my nature to work hard to preserve status quo traditions through methods such as expressing alarm at 'immoral' celebrity behavior. But condemning people who use gossip as a method for attempting to preserve the status quo as 'silly' or 'stupid' or 'sick' seems to be ignoring the larger social purpose of the human fascination with celebrities.

If you want to opt out of the meme, or even be agossipistic (if I may create an analogue to atheistic), great. But it might help to think about what you're opting out of, why it exists, and whether or not you are really opting out or just replacing the people you talk about with "other" people/things that fit better into your monkeysphere (e.g., can you think of one or two things that redditors essentially "gossip" about?).

*monkeysphere = Dunbar's Number

I was reading a post tonight, on one of my favorite forums, about someone who managed to live very cheaply without sacrificing spontaneity, happiness, wholesome meals, or mental health. He seemed to be... Free.

I followed the posts to a link to "How to Drop Out" by Ran Prieur, and I found so much of myself in his writing that I wrote this mini-essay about my "American Nightmare". I feel too guilty and embarrassed to post it due to its honesty and probable naivete, but I wanted to post the link to Prieur's writing here in case anyone hasn't read him, and to ask for your thoughts on the subject:

How to Drop Out

and the part within which I found that strong relation:

When you begin to get free, you will get depressed. It works like this: When you were three years old, if your parents weren't too bad, you knew how to play spontaneously. Then you had to go to school, where everything you did was required. The worst thing is that even the fun activities, like singing songs and playing games, were commanded under threat of punishment. So even play got tied up in your mind with a control structure, and severed from the life inside you. If you were "rebellious", you preserved the life inside you by connecting it to forbidden activities, which are usually forbidden for good reasons, and when your rebellion ended in suffering and failure, you figured the life inside you was not to be trusted. If you were "obedient", you simply crushed the life inside you almost to death.

Freedom means you're not punished for saying no. The most fundamental freedom is the freedom to do nothing. But when you get this freedom, after many years of activities that were forced, nothing is all you want to do. You might start projects that seem like the kind of thing you're supposed to love doing, music or writing or art, and not finish because nobody is forcing you to finish and it's not really what you want to do. It could take months, if you're lucky, or more likely years, before you can build up the life inside you to an intensity where it can drive projects that you actually enjoy and finish, and then it will take more time before you build up enough skill that other people recognize your actions as valuable.

...

The opposite of hard work is quality work. Quality work may be done quickly, but it is never pushed. It arranges itself around the goal of doing something as well as it can be done, and it finds its own pace.

Another opposite of hard work is playful work. Like quality work it may be done quickly but is never pushed. But playful work is indifferent to quality, or even to success. When you're doing playful work, you don't care if it ends in total failure, because you're having such a good time that you would look forward to doing the whole job again.