Today was a good day. I was able to stay focused on the important things. The information deluge was still around but somehow I could see through it. It's too bad I don't exactly know the recipe for this good day. It's somewhat random and somewhat willed. Perhaps all learning is like that. One thing that was different was a degree of renunciation. I didn't feel bad about not clicking on a link and not scanning all my feeds. I was clearer about whether I was interested and whether I could live without it. I don't need to be a walking repository of headlines. I think this change of mind was induced by adding twitter as one more source of information to my environment. As it colonized the landscape, I had to prune to make everything healthier. Am I taking this metaphor too far? I resisted twitter for a long time for fear of 'one more thing'. My fear was justified but I think I gained something from having to sharpen my pruning scissors. Okay done with metaphors. Tomorrow I'll probably be back to managing chaos but who knows. No doubt it's best to expect nothing.
I came across this quote from Sun Tzu's Art of War:
"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate."Somehow it seems appropriate to the Smart Graphics theme. When presenting an image for the purpose of maximum impact, formlessness and soundlessness may be just the subterfuge you need to keep the eye interested. I have to think about this some more.
A song for this post.
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Your idea of formlessness in Smart Graphics makes me think of a program I saw on the weekend about Takao Tanabe. He's a BC painter who does landscapes of... nothing (sometimes something). His more formless paintings focus on prairie landscapes that comprise of nothing but sky and grass. I like them because while they are as formless as actual abstract work, they deal with the real. Very beautiful. I felt like buying one, but they run $20k+.
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