humanity
The gutting of our human subjecthood
A sense reflected in the plans
An ethics of mutual care
Foregrounding maintenance and repair as an aspect of technological work invites not only new functional but also moral relations to the world of technology. It references what is in fact a very old but routinely forgotten relationship of humans to things in the world: namely, an ethics of mutual care and responsibility.
I choose a world with pyramids
Which would you choose: a world with pyramids? Or without?
Humanity has always dreamt of flight, but the dream is cursed. My aircraft are destined to become tools for slaughter and destruction. But still, I choose a world with pyramids in it. Which world will you choose?
Cardinal sin
Indifference towards people and the reality in which they live is actually the one and only cardinal sin in design.
The duty of industrial design is first and foremost to users and the users are, generally, human beings, with all their complexities, habits, ideas and idiosyncrasies.
Making Death a Victory
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself—and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concenter'd recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.Nature undisturbed
My chief aim is simply to describe and explain the technological fabric of society, not to judge whether it is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. And yet I would not argue that technology is neutral or value-free. Quite the contrary: I suggest that the signs of human presence are the only elements of the landscape that have and moral or aesthetic significance at all. In nature undisturbed, a desert is not better or worse than a forest or a swamp; there is simply no scale on which to rank such things unless it is a human scale of utility or beauty. Only when people intervene in nature is there any question of right or wrong, better or worse.
Creations of human artifice
In the twenty-first century, the question most of us ask when disaster strikes is not "How could God let that happen?" but "Who screwed up?" This is a salutary development: We take responsibility for the world we live in. Whether or not our world is the best of all possible worlds, it is a world we have made for ourselves. We live in an engineered landscape, on an engineered planet. Our cities and farms, our dwellings and vehicles, our power plans and communication networks—these are all creations of human artifice. If we don't like it here, we have only ourselves to blame.
Humility
Maybe what the real world of technology needs more than anything else are citizens with a sense of humility – the humility of Kepler or Newton, who studied the universe but knew they were not asked to run it.
Why I Walk
An Article by Chris ArnadeOn my first day I literally walk across the city, to the extent it can be done…The next day I do another cross town walk, but in a different direction, filling in the blanks from the prior day’s walk.
Then, over the next week(s), I walk between 10 to 20 miles per day, picking and choosing from what I have seen before, highlighting what I like, what I want to know more about, refining the path, till by the end of my trip, I have a daily route that is roughly the same.
While that is certainly not the most efficient way to see a city, it is the most pleasant, insightful, and human. I don’t think you can know a place unless you walk it, because it isn’t about distance, but about content.
Makers and Making
An Article by Alan JacobsThe [Silmarils] are good; their making was at least potentially innocent; but afterward arose a lust for owning and controlling that led to great tragedy… The aspect of humanity which the elves represent most fully – both for good and ill – is the creative one.”
And this is why “making” in and of itself is not the answer to our decadent moment. “Love of things, especially artificial things, could be seen as the besetting sin of modern civilisation, and in a way a new one, not quite Avarice and not quite Pride, but somehow attached to both” – and this is the Fëanor Temptation. It is in light of this temptation that I advocate repair, which is a mode of caring for what we have not made, but rather what we have inherited. We will not be saved by the making of artifacts — or from the repair of them, either; but the imperative of repair has these salutary effects: it reminds us of our debt to those who came before us and of the fragility of human constructs.
evermore, and other beautiful things
An Article by Linus the SephistIf all evidence of civilization on Earth was destroyed, and humans had to re-build society from the ground up, what would be different? Feynman reckons that pivotal scientific moments, like the discovery of the atom, will still happen in the same way. Perhaps mathematics will be similarly rediscovered.
Someone told me once in response to this question, no artwork would ever be recreated. The art we create – music, stories, dance, film – isn’t a fundamental element of the universe, or even of humanity. It’s unique to each artist. If you choose to create art, you leave something in the world that has never had a chance to exist before, and will never again have a chance to exist. There will never be another Beatles or Studio Ghibli or Picasso. Art, in its infinite variations of originality, is cosmically unique in a way the sciences will never be. Art immortalizes human experiences that would otherwise vanish in time.
The mortifying ordeal of being known
A Fragment by Tim KreiderYears ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.
sodelightful.com
A Website by Christina TranI'm Christina Tran. If you want to trace the trails I've made in the world through the intermittent marks left on the interwebs, below is a map of my becoming in no particular order. But I also hope we get the chance to share a meal, explore nature, experience art, and/or create something together sometime. Because we are all multi-faceted, multi-dimensional beings who can't be TL;DR'd.
Sunshine
A FilmA team of international astronauts are sent on a dangerous mission to reignite the dying Sun with a nuclear fission bomb in 2057.
The Alchemist
My own beauty reflected
The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:
"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."
Thicker books
He told himself that he would have to start reading thicker books: they lasted longer, and made more comfortable pillows.
To find God in the seminary
If he were to tire of the Andalusian fields, he could sell his sheep and go to sea. By the time he had had enough of the sea, he would already have known other cities, other women, and other chances to be happy. I couldn't have found God in the seminary, he thought, as he looked at the sunrise.
What others want them to be
When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
The soul of the universe
"When you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe...And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."
When each day is the same
When each day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.
The drops of oil on the spoon
"'Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you,' said the wisest of wise men. 'The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.'"
Like everyone else
"I'm like everyone else—I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does."
This language without words
There must be a language that doesn't depend on words, the boy thought. I've already had that experience with my sheep, and now it's happening with people.
He was learning a lot of new things. Some of them were things that he had already experienced, and weren't really new, but that he had never perceived before. And he hadn't perceived them because he had become accustomed to them. He realized: If I can learn to understand the language without words, I can learn to understand the world.
If my dream is realized
"I'm afraid that if my dream is realized, I'll have no reason to go on living.
"You dream about your sheep and the Pyramids, but you're different from me, because you want to realize your dreams. I just want to dream about Mecca. I've already imagined a thousand times crossing the desert...I've already imagined the people who would be at my side, and those in front of me, and the conversations and prayers we would share. But I'm afraid that it would all be a disappointment, so I prefer just to dream about it."
For something believed in
There was a language in the world that everyone understood, a language the boy had used throughout the time he was trying to improve things at the shop. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.
Two hours closer
Yet the boy felt that there was another way to regard his situation: he was actually two hours closer to his treasure...the fact that the two hours had stretched into an entire year didn't matter.
They're not my sheep anymore
It reminded him of the wool from his sheep...his sheep who were now seeking food and water in the fields of Andalusia, as they always had.
"They're not my sheep anymore," he said to himself, without nostalgia. "They must be used to their new shepherd, and have probably already forgotten me. That's good. Creatures like the sheep, that are used to traveling, know about moving on."
It is written
Maybe he was also learning the universal language that deals with the past and present of all people. "Hunches," his mother used to call them. The boy was beginning to understand that intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there.
"Maktub," the boy said, remembering the crystal merchant.
So that we can understand those few lines
In one of the books he learned that the most important text in the literature of alchemy contained only a few lines, and had been inscribed on the surface of an emerald.
"It's the Emerald Tablet," said the Englishman, proud that he might teach something to the boy.
"Well, then, why do we need all these books?" the boy asked.
"So that we can understand those few lines."
Because we have to sleep
Two nights later, as he was getting ready to bed down, the boy looked for the star they followed every night. He thought that the horizon was a bit lower than it had been, because he seemed to see stars on the desert itself.
"It's the oasis," said the camel driver.
"Well, why don't we go there right now?" the boy asked.
"Because we have to sleep."
Pictures and words
He had only one explanation for this fact: things have to be transmitted this way because they were made up from the pure life, and this kind of life cannot be captured in pictures or words.
Because people become fascinated with pictures and words, and wind up forgetting the Language of the World.
Someone in the world awaits you
When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke—the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love.
...He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it's easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you.
Go and try
"He asked me if I had ever transformed lead into gold. I told him that was what I had come here to learn.
"He told me I should try to do so. That's all he said: 'Go and try.'"
..."So, then try," he said to the Englishman.
"That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start now."
Love without ownership
He tried to deal with the concept of love as distinct from possession, and couldn't separate them...if anything could help him to understand, it was the desert.
...He followed the movement of the birds, trying to read something into it. Maybe these desert birds could explain to him the meaning of love without ownership.
The history of all things
He knew that any given thing on the face of the earth could reveal the history of all things...Actually, it wasn't that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul of the World.
Only a moment of light
"If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return."
Looking only for gold
"And what went wrong when other alchemists tried to make gold and were unable to do so?"
"They were looking only for gold," his companion answered. "They were seeking the treasure of their Personal Legend, without wanting to actually live out the Personal Legend."
A world that is perfect
"The wise men understood that this natural world is only an image and a copy of paradise. The existence of this world is simply a guarantee that there exists a world that is perfect."
A simple grain of sand
"The desert will give you an understanding of the world; in fact, anything on the face of the earth will do that. You don't even have to understand the desert: all you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation."
We, their hearts
"People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly."
A threatening place
"Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place."
Just a whinny again
"There was a time when, for me, a camel's whinnying was nothing more than whinnying. Then it became a signal of danger. And, finally, it became just a whinny again."
To become better than we are
"That's what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too."
Everything that happens twice
Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.