In the past five years or so, I have experienced a recurrent and surprisingly urgent need to “figure it out.” It must be that the changing scenery and conditions of my young life cause me to attempt to assure myself I’m on the “right” path. As a result, I’ve taken a simultaneous keen yet shallow interest in philosophy: as if a cursory overview of the topic would yield the viewpoint for which I search. The Weepies sing that, perhaps, “this is not your year.” However, if I was to take guidance on life from media, it would not be that particular song (great though it may be). I would, in fact, take inspiration from the most profound (and, incidentally, most existential) comic I have ever read. That would be this strip of Zippy the Pinhead published on my Mom’s birthday, the 16th of September:
While slightly fatiguing to read when directly quoted, I’ll nevertheless reproduce Zippy’s conclusion here: “It’s not th’ journey or the destination that matters most — it’s th’ thrill of not understanding th’ paradox!” So, I’m where I started, but better equipped to move on: you figure it out for yourself, don’t you? I believe that doing so can be enjoyable. Let’s make it so.
The website iLounge has a 5+ year tradition of a journalistic approach to Apple iPod news; their reviews, articles, and regular news updates are completely devoid of snarkiness, instead focusing on facts and well-written leads. In short, they’re a well respected resource for Apple news. However, their review entitled “Apple iPod touch (8GB/16GB)” did nothing but attempt to reinforce the iLounge opinion that the iPod touch is a “downgrade” from the iPhone. Preoccupation with iPhone comparisons caused iLounge not to miss the boat, but miss the harbor on this one:
…you don’t just lose a cell phone by buying iPod touch instead of a comparable-capacity iPhone; you lose the dock, charger, camera, external speaker, microphone, battery life, screen quality, resilient back casing, Bluetooth, and several applications. Try to read that list aloud without taking a breath. You gain only a limited video-out feature, and a few millimeters of thinness, which we’d gladly have traded for superior performance.
By sequestering itself with a focus on the “iPod enthusiast” (à la auto enthusiast) end of the market, iLounge has lost sight of what an average iPod consumer wants. The iPod has never, ever, been about feature count; given their long review history, iLounge should realize that.
In terms of a public address system, tumbledry is really only a whisper in a gigantic stadium, drown out by the slightest clamor anywhere else. As such, I have never really intended to announce trends or write on the cutting edge of anything — if such writing does see the light of day, it is only because my interests coincided with that which was in vogue. This limits the scope of tumbledry and makes it merely a personal conversation with folks about my life and the things from it I choose to record. In the case of this entry, I feel an urgent need to express my infatuation with an album I ran across (courtesy of Mykala). Knowing that the whisper will be drown out doesn’t make the recommendation feel any less important.
Joshua Radin has been compared to Simon & Garfunkel, Elliott Smith, Damien Rice and Iron & Wine, but for me, these comparisons are pretty meaningless. The only thing I can recommend that will do justice to his album, We Were Here, is to follow these steps:
Carve 40:00 uninterrupted minutes out of your life.
Put headphones on.
Play this album.
I find the best time to do this is in before sleeping, but your schedule may vary.
A recent book called Devices of the Soul by Steve Talbott argues how the preponderance of technology that claims to make life easier seems to, in a fundamental sense, make life harder. That, admittedly, is a rather poor exposition of the thesis… but you need know only the general idea here. Incidentally, this book is predated by a rather more famous example of a similar philosophical exploration called The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. Basically, both works discuss the implications of “technology.” Don’t think of technology as simply computers, however. Here’s a helpful comment from the Amazon page selling The Technological Society (emphasis mine):
What almost everyone fails to grasp is the pernicious effect of technique (and its offspring, technology) on modern man.
Technique can loosely be defined as the entire mass of organization and technology that has maximum efficiency as its goal. Ellul shows that technique possesses an impetus all its own and exerts similar effects on human society no matter what the official ideology of the society in question is. Technique, with its never-ending quest for maximum efficiency, tends to slowly drown out human concerns as it progresses towards its ultimate goal. “…the further economic technique develops, the more it makes real the abstract concept of economic man.” (p. 219) Technique does not confine itself merely to the realm of technical production, but infiltrates every aspect of human existence, and has no time for “inefficiencies” caused by loyalties to family, religion, race, or culture; a society of dumbed-down consumers is absolutely essential to the technological society, which must contain predictable “demographics” in order to ensure the necessary financial returns. “The only thing that matters technically is yield, production. This is the law of technique; this yield can only be obtained by the total mobilization of human beings, body and soul, and this implies the exploitation of all human psychic forces.” (p. 324).
I’d like to take a two pronged approach to the implications of such a view on a young life such as my own. First, a comment from the Slashdot review of Devices of the Soul does a good job of summarizing my thoughts on the relativistic luxury of the developed world:
The ancient Greeks observed that if happiness is the result of having all of your wants satisfied, the surest path to happiness is to discipline your wants.
Philosophy is a pastime of the wealthy. Technological and social progress have created a society where almost everybody is, compared to the helots of ancient times, wealthy. Quite ordinary people now find themselves dealing with detritus produced by a life of unexamined wealth and consumption.
So, this is not a problem of technology per se; it is only that mass produced technology is one of the most abundant and affordable luxuries of our society. The medieval sin of gula or “gluttony” is not simply about gross overeating, it is about compulsive and unreasoning consumption of every kind, which happens to be the cornerstone of our consumer economy. The only reason we think of this in terms of food only is that food is the one overindulgence available to the rich of every society and technological level. Note that food gluttony does not imply massive consumption, it can also be characteristic of excessive delicacy or daintiness. This fits technological gluttony particularly well.
So, it is probably incorrect to call this an “intensifying” conflict. It is more of a “broadening” conflict: broadened to include more classes of peoples and desires than before.
In my continuing (and to me, extremely important) examination of my life and habits, I’m trying to justify my choices for things; by “things” I mean, well, everything… habits, hobbies, activities, opinions. I have a rather interesting bent towards the ascetic, which I think starves my strong artistic and creative desires. (In typical self-effacing fashion, I must stress that I am not asserting my artistic/creative results are strong… but my desire for them is.) In that sense, I am constantly looking for ways I can incorporate a more (for lack of a better word) “relaxed” life into my own self. However, I feel relaxed direction tempered by something more basic, and this passage describes it well: centering oneself in the spectrum of privilege means a combination of boundaries in the face of abundance and giving oneself over to what’s pleasurable. I tend too strongly towards the former. This is, of course, where we come into the second half of the discussion…
Stuart Brown, a physician and director of the National Institute for Play, says that pleasurable, purposeless activity prevents violence and promotes trust, empathy, and adaptability to life’s complication. He promotes cutting-edge science on human play, and draws on a rich universe of study of intelligent social animals.
Dr. Brown is scientifically proving what should be intuitively true: if we are to thrive as healthy humans, we must give ourselves over to “purposeless activity” in which we are “out of time.” That is, not “out of time” but “out of time.” See the difference? The idea is, in addition to play being a critical and rejuvenating component of our daily life, it also contributes to the proper functioning of a fully/properly adjusted human. Dr. Brown discovered this relationship when he quantified the play pattern of homicidal individuals: they universally lacked play in their childhoods. So what is the answer to the society described by Ellul, where efficiency is valued above all else and as the metric for all accomplishment? Why the answer (amongst others) is play, of course. And the point becomes even more salient as we discover that play is universal: witness play in the wild between a polar bear and tame dogs, narrated by Stuart Brown.
Imagine you’re an urban explorer journeying into the gigantic tailrace of an underground hydroelectric station that has been turned off for two years. Then, imagine you combine silhouettes and spotlights in order to photographically illustrate your exploration of the amazing underground space. Well, you would get this picture. You may visit the corresponding story page at Vanishing Point, which describes the Rankine Tailrace and Michael Cook’s journey into it.
The silence at tumbledry lately has been due to a wide variety of different things going on, which will all be discussed in time. The thing I’d like to focus on for now: as of last week, I am employed! Furthermore, I’m currently investigating how much I am allowed to talk about the employment in this space. Naturally, I will not ever be revealing any information remotely related to people, politics, products, etc. … or even the physical location of where I work. However, I am sure it is safe to say that I work as a contract analyst at 3M. Putting my biochemistry degree to good use should be exciting. Big changes are ahead in my life, and I will keep everyone posted as opportunities to write arise.
Oh, also, some clerical notes: I back-posted pictures to the photo-blog, so be sure to check those out if you’ve been starved for the daily tumbledry photography updates. Furthermore, I just posted a whole pile of links that I have been bookmarking (didn’t have time to post) during these past busy weeks. I hope you all enjoy.
P.S. Katy gets her Master’s degree in MATHEMATICSSOON. HURRAH. She has to pass impossible tests first, though. Go, Katy!
sweet jesus! people, promise me one thing: promise me you’ll eat here before you die. the restaurant is on a large chunk of old Rockefeller estate. it’s still a functional farm: they grow and raise just about everything they serve. the food is so juicy-fresh it practically slaps your face for drooling on it when it arrives. (and slaps you again after you’ve eaten it … when the bill arrives.) think of it as Alice Waters-on-Hudson. probably in my top-five dining experiences.
