New is beautiful (day 92)

I get a special little thrill when I think about learning something new.  It's a similar thrill to opening up a novel already in progress.  The moment of anticipation of something unexpected and engaging.  It's different but similar to the thrill of creating something which feels exciting and risky all at once.  Learning something new feels hopeful and young.

I know a lot of people don't have this experience but I liked school so much when I was a kid that I would miss it in the summer.  I would ask for extra homework.  I would read books from the grades above me.  I particularly loved looking at algebra books and later calculus books so I could figure them out.   I loved things that had answers and were self-consistent.  Playing with coloured shapes and grouping them together was fun too.  Anything that was well framed and logical.

Looking back now, it doesn't seem crazy that I ended up in computing science.  Though at the time it wasn't such an easy decision.  The hard sciences like Chemistry, Biology, and Physics were much more respected.   And computing science (I'm not even using capital letters), in my mind, was for play...not serious business.  I was so serious.

I still love cracking open a computing science book though I would never immerse myself back in the field as I was.  I love the frame of a system that is logical and responsive.  It's a refuge from the open-ended and much more arbitrary art world (I don't say this pejoratively...I mean arbitrary in the same way that the law is arbitrary...complex systems built over time and highly contingent).

This weekend I'll learn something new about GLSL.  I look forward to it.

A song for this post.

New is old news (day 50)

Have we always been obsessed with the new?  Before there were stores, what was new?  Before there were peer reviewed journals, what was new?  Before there were internet rankings, what was new?  Before patents?  It seems that new is relative but we use the word as if it's absolute.  For me, new has been a sore spot for many years because it often drives a wedge between creativity and responsibility.  I see it in my students too.  If what you are passionate about is not new in the absolute sense, where do you go from there?  To graduate you need something original but yet you need to go through some well trodden steps before coming close to new.  I often tell the story of being stuck during my doctoral research and my supervisor telling me that if everything seems grey, go toward the thing that is a a little less grey.   If you lose the thread of interest, you have to take little steps out.   It's important that personal interest remains a priority and is honoured as unique in the individual.    In fact, the relationship between unique and new is perhaps worth a second look.   In reality, journals and patents are rewarding something in between unique and new.   Same with degrees.   In digital media the new has been especially problematic because technology changes so quickly.   If an artist is using old technology, are they behind or somehow not worthy of being called a digital media artist?  Clearly not, but often there is an impulse to use the latest even as the old has not been explored to its fullest.  I think it's better to view the available tech as mere ingredients.  My winning recipe will not be the same as my neighbour's even if our ingredients are the same.  The unique fusion of ingredients is what should be celebrated.  In computing science, we also talk about the difference between the model and the view.   The model is the underlying structure of the data and processes.  The view is how we choose to represent the model to the senses.   Two data artists with the same dataset (model) will not produce the same visualization (view).   Is it new to re-represent a data set?  I would argue that it is.

Our relationship to new is based on immediate needs and interest.  Something may linger for decades before being dug up as new, interesting, and useful.  Traditionally we've trusted our gatekeepers to tell us what is new but I'm seeing a trend where the crowd is perfectly able to suss that out for itself.   And what's neat about that is that the definition of new is implicit and much more fluid.  My students still need to defend their thesis but the real feedback on the work happens in the frenzy of the crowd.

A song for this post.

Shiny and old (day 46)

A small package of new just entered my life.  A shiny aluminum package.  The click of the keyboard is louder and the click pad is stiff.  I've rebooted twice and each time I marvel at how quick it is.  Each time something new comes in a little bit of disappointment also sets in shortly after.  Chogyam Trungpa wrote that disappointment is a source of great learning.   He also called enlightenment the ultimate disappointment.  He might have been on to something.  Disappointment is that feeling you get when you come face to face with your projections onto the future, the object, the person.   Feeling disappointment can be the pointer to the places where you still long for the magic formula.  So I suppose the ultimate disappointment would be the deep realization that this is it and there is no magic incantation, no super perfect way to be, no state of grace where you are judged good and worthy of a life without suffering of any kind.  There is simply the capacity for delight in paying attention to what is.

I am grateful for the shiny in my life.  I'm also grateful for the aging in my life.  And this is the curious thing.  When I think about having something new, the feeling is so completely different from taking care of something (or someone) aging.   They are both full of projections, but one is a promise of ease, and the other is a promise of struggle.  But the reality is that in the taking care of the old I appreciate the life lived.  In those moments when I let the joy of the process seep in, the old is a gift.

One of my favourite songs for this post.