Off to Queensland tomorrow. Hooooorahh.. It’s that exciting – despite the horrific experience of flying- that I found it necessary to dedicate an entire blog to it. It’s not so much the turbulence that gets me on the plane. No. It’s more the falling through the air…. head first…plunging into the strangling holds of the deep,dark, dangerous (what do you know, another alliteration) ocean floor…
Yep, with that I think I’ll call it a night.. definitely sleep deficient.
When Adrian informed us in the last ‘unlecture’, that Google gives its employees a day off per week to speculate and undertake this process of design fiction I had to do some research. Verdict??? It literally is THE place to be.
What better way is there to motivate your stuff than by to provide them with a day of to simply dive into their own unique ideas that are eventually (if appropriate) considered and utilized by the company itself. Google was so successful, in my eyes, because, as mentioned on the symposium in this weeks lecture, “they speculated about a new way to organise information on the internet” , and then did exactly that. The importance of this speculation thing is really underplayed in our society.
I get it. It’s a bizarre concept. There’s really no control. It’s you… a pencil (or should I say an ipad/iphone/laptop)… and your ideas. It’s hard, when you don’t have a structure to abide by. Where all you really have is your ability to speculate.
I’m definitely considering becoming an employee of Google (perhaps not solely on the basis that they provide you with free food; but it’s a salient factor). I found an interesting article about Google and its perks by James.B.Stewart . Definitely an interesting read.
“ In a real essay, you don’t take a position and defend it. You notice a door that’s ajar, and you open it and walk in to see what’s inside”.
^ If I had read this statement, my English life in year 12 would have been a hellll of a lot easier. I regrettably presume however, that my results would have been drastically worse.
“So mrs…in the conclusion… do I kind of sum up what I already said in the introduction… but in… different words…?” was my question throughout my entire English VCE experience.; The question to which I received a general “ yes”, as though it were textbook to say so. It was blunt answers like this that left me in an endless state of confusion. I won’t lie, half the things I wrote about I was unsure of, because I was prompted to focus all my attention on the dreaded ‘persuasive devices’. In maturing a little I’ve begun to speculate over these ideas and realized how banal my writing essays was if all I ever focused on was persuasion, especially since, according to Paul Grahams ‘The age of the essay’, “writing that attempts to persuade may be a valid form, but it’s historically inaccurate to call it an essay”.
So if I’m not trying to persuade, nor am I defending an argument, what is it that I ought to put into an essay? Well, Michel de Montaigne answered that question in 1580: Expressing ideas helps to form them. I know, this concept completely shakes the entire school institutions’ English subjects curriculum to the core. I can hear English teachers now.. ‘ ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!’ as they go nuts , scrunching up essays whilst crying at the thought of not having some type of criteria to abide by when marking.
But I love this idea that an essay should come up with answers. I love that you can start out with nothing- just a pencil, a piece of paper and your thoughts- and result in an answer to something neither you nor the reader had previously known. That’s the way to progress, to evolve.
I know this is super philosophical but hey… If I take this concept further, even beyond the realms of essay writing: perhaps humanity is deviating away from the ultimate truth because we’ve stopped trying to find it, rather, we use up all our energy trying to convince people that our opinion is the right one.
Maybe… just maybe… we could reunite humanity if we all stopped being so hardheaded and opened our minds to the possibility of an ultimate truth that we ourselves have not discovered. That’s truly what I admire so much about my course; it’s about speculation and questioning what you thought the truth was.
I think it’s the general consensus that blog are spaces to unload all the things that are entrapped in our minds, no matter how much you fight to ignore them. If for no other purpose than to relieve myself of some of the thoughts swiveling in my mind, then I’m satisfied. The other day I was in the car with mum and – call me a freak- but I thought I’d wave hello to a stranger in the car across from us. The bemused woman in the front seat gave an uncomfortable smile after the realisation that indeed, she had no idea who I am. Although I was doing it as a simple way of self amusement (I know, my life is the definition of awesome), it got me thinking about the way we react to people outside our social groups. Why is it, that people look at you funny if you smile at them on the street? Why is that we reject the concept of friendly human interaction with people we don’t know? Why is it we’re so trapped in this segregated mentality that the only gesture of kindness we extend is to those we are familiar with. Is simply being another human not enough of a similar characteristic to generate a simple “hello” or cordial smile? Even though there are a lot of things I haven’t made my mind about yet, I genuinely believe that the world would be a better place if we didn’t constrain ourselves to these categorical groups that isolate us from each other. You never know, an effortless smile from you could – and i know it’s somewhat extreme – perhaps change someone’s life… perhaps it would renew their faith in human kindness.
P.S I hate to admit my being wrong however I ought to acknowledge the fact that I am just another philosophical ranter … something which I find myself (and preferably my readership ) to be okay with…
On an entirely different note, today is my grandfathers 83rd birthday and I thought it appropriate to acknowledge this fantastic mans greatness in my blog 🙂
I usually write my posts at night..preferably when it’s raining. Can’t really elaborate on that… I just do…something soothing about it I guess. But hey, I thought I’d change it up a little . I’m really not minding this ‘wake up at 11, make some coffee, take out my laptop and write’ idea..
I was definitely intrigued by this week’s creatively assembled ‘Unlecture’ for my Networked Media subject. Although, at the beginning of the course I’d – not to put too light a spin on it – been somewhat cynical as to this whole liberating process of interactively developing my knowledge. However, Adrians words really stuck with me last Tuesday. I fear the following idea is becoming a common mentality of our generation: ‘ If i don’t understand it then it sucks’. I realise now just how pathetic that is. Life is not a tidy puzzle which, when all pieces are correctly placed allow you an omniscient understanding of the world and our purpose in it. Despite this frightening truth, I cannot claim that life itself simply “sucks” because I don’t understand it. Not to appear a sudden groupie of this new system but I think we ought to appreciate how much these blogs let us express our knowledge outside the fixed system of learning. I’ve personally found that I’ve already encompassed – although minute- an ability to, if not entirely adapt, but appreciate, as Adrian suggests, the “ambiguous complexity” of the world of media.
Everytime I blink the world keeps changing. I don’t want to finish a 3 year university degree and find myself trapped in a redundant past while the world progresses towards a new future.
I know this is a little wild but I truly think the idea of Design Fiction is perhaps the closest thing we have to predicting the future. Imagine encompassing the ability to foretell events before they happen. No, I don’t mean that psychic thing Nicholas Cage does with all those numbers in ‘Knowing’ (which, by the way, scared the hell out of me),I mean, that through an inventive imagination, we can prepare ourselves and further, the rest of humanity to adapt to a world even beyond our existance. Hey, if that’s the case then I’ll take all the ‘What if’s’ i can get….
In reading the article with Bruce Sterling’s reflection on Design Fiction, I must say, I had a problem with his definition of ‘bad design fiction’ being due to “stupid” ideas expressed from a “goofy imagination”… Again, I don’t want to plunge into a philosophical reflection on humanities subjectivity but hey; what was considered stupidity hundreds of years ago has been proved ingenious in the last few decades. It’s what makes great people great isn’t it? The ability to imagine the unimaginable. We might consider a “goofy” idea stupid because we don’t have the resources (or rather are unaware of them) or current ways of thinking to successfully transform that idea into a reality. Sterling mentions that an example of bad design fiction would be a comment that goes, ” Hey, gee, wouldn’t it be great if I could flap my arms and fly to the moon?” I say, why not. Bear with me here. What if, one day, perhaps in the near future, we discover ways in which we can inject a type of chemical into our bodies that provides us with the capability to defy gravity ( maybe we won’t reach the moon, but maybe we’ll fly <– sounds like some sort of crappy political campaign ad; although it has a nice ring to it). I won’t lie, it sounds absolutely insane to me too, given that I have no knowledge in the field of aerospace dynamics. But, what if? I say we shouldn’t dismiss the ideas that are…perhaps a little crazy…
As I tiredly sat on the train, earphones in ears, head down and trying to soak up my hour of solitude, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. Here I was thinking ” Please God don’t let it be someone I know and have to converse with” (yes, It was rude, but it had been a long day at uni), when I turn around to see a fragile old man with the biggest smile asking me if I could help him make a phone call from his iphone. After I dialed the number he so laboriously dictated ,I heard a non sympathetic pre recorded voice: ” You have insufficient credit to make this call”. The confused look on this man’s face was perhaps the cutest thing I’d ever seen. I simply offered my phone which he continued, for the rest of the 45 minute train ride to thank me for. After a surprisingly comical and fascinating conversation, the man once again thanked me for offering my iphone and got off at his stop. As cheesy as it sounds, I remained smiling for the rest of my journey as I pondered over the fact that I, in doing nothing but offering my phone to which I had unlimited calls, saved the kind man from the tedious 2 hour walk home from the station. It’s weird how little things we do can equate to enormous things in the eyes of others. Having gone home and been distracted by other things, I was taken back to this speculation when I received a message from the mans daughter thanking me so appreciatively for helping her dad out. I don’t want to offer you a sappy and over-sentimental moral to this story.. I just want to point out how easy and often rewarding it is to help people out, even when you think you’re doing nothing at all.
After a somewhat confusing conversation with a friend the other day, I began pondering over the notion of fear. Society has made the word so repulsively horrifying that we (myself included) have found ourselves afraid – oh, the irony- of fear itself. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t count the amount of times I’ve been told not to be ‘afraid’ in my life. But.. can fear be a good thing? Being afraid to fail provides impetus to succeed. Being afraid to be alone pushes you to ‘get out there’ and socialise. Being afraid of losing someone encourages you to cherish the good times. It doesn’t sound very optimistic, nor will I attempt to sweeten up the following question (Whether you choose to acknowledge it as rhetorical or literal) but… in all seriousness, why can’t fear be a driving force in our lives? I am yet to answer that. Hopefully through my crazy experiences I can one day come to provide you with a somewhat honest and possibly innovative answer…
*Warning*
may contain traces of cynicism
In reading a fellow bloggers’ words about Peter Sellers and his… how to phrase it…how to phrase it… “eccentric” character I can’t help but notice the disparity between the advice I’m currently being bombarded with from all directions, telling me to ‘stay real’, to be myself, to be unique and the fact that, with the current technological advancements, every online forum is -by making it so damn easy- encouraging me to make myself appear perfect for my fellow online generation. With the click of a button, (or perhaps a few in photoshop) I can make myself the modern Marilyn Monroe (there goes another alliteration) within seconds.
So what’s the verdict? Be me? Or change myself based on the forums I use and the alternative impressions I choose to give. I mean, it’s just so damn easy. Why not? It would be fun to play dress up for a day..to deviate from my normal character and become another…I’m not saying try to perfect my self and my physical appearance. Rather, I’m wondering what it would be like to adopt a unique character. I think, without consciously knowing it, we all play dress up; I’d go as far as to say we do it every single day of our lives. You’re going in for a new job as a bank manager, so you purchase a ridiculously overpriced suit that you’d never otherwise wear, you comb you hair back with some ridiculously overpriced hair gel and you can’t forget the ridiculously overpriced briefcase filled with a whole heap of nothing but a desire to impress. This I don’t have a problem with.
Not to go all philosophical on you but the reality seems to be that we live most of our existence lacking certainty as to who we really are. But why is it we’ve been trapped in this ancient way of thinking? Why does the person we are have to be some kind of static and definitive type. We’re not robots. The world around us is always changing. Why can’t we change our character to adapt? I don’t think trying out different characters is a sign of lacking substance. Perhaps Sellers had it all right…