The Person I Saw From Afar
I have seen a person from afar. Or rather didn’t ‘see’, as it often is these days.
All these great leaders of nations you see on TV – you will never see her be.
She is in the realm of magic, but since magic went out of fashion, she exists in no realm.
I have seen a person from afar. Or was she near? It’s hard to tell these days.
All the songs that sing of beautiful things, they didn’t sing of her.
Once there were ten millionaires – inexpensively, she gave something to expensive for money to buy.
I have seen a person from afar – when people spoke of technology, science and new things – their minds were to small to gasp her into view.
A person who can’t be seen.
A person who can’t be heard.
Would you believe me when I told you I once saw a person from afar?
Da Vinchi’s Art
0. Warning, confusing post ahead.
1. The artwork of Da Vinchi is not his pretty pictures.
The genious of Da Vinchi is an idea that there are things to be understood from nature that can be applied to other things.
For example:
We take a black box, which contains one amazing characteristic, which can be found in nature, e.g. the flight of birds, or shortly, flight.
Then we take an object, for example something easy to make (like a wooden stick) and apply the black-box characteristic to the object.
Hence, a flying machine is developed.
Here, we took a characteristic of a bird and applied this characteristic to wood.
It is the generalization that any characteristic of a natural object can be applied so that it becomes a characteristic of another natural object.
2. Examples of this have already been know in mathematics for a long time. For example:
What do we need to add to 1, so that that the result will have characteristics of the number 8.
Possible routes to solve this would be would be:
So, 1+x = even number
1+x = a number that can be evenly divisible by 4
And possible solutions would be: 7, in the first case; 15, in the second case.
In the same way, Da Vinchi came up with many possibilities of how the machine would be constructed.
Is Wikipedia the Best We’ve Got?
1. Knowing the way we learn has become more important. We no longer live in a world where we would spend more time trying to acquire the information (we, exceedingly, no longer need to go to expensive schools, be born in or travel to a certain (social) place etc.) then we take to understand it (that is, work ourselves through the material).
2. When i went to grade school, the way people learn wasn’t discussed. The assumption was – we give you access to the information, you will deal with it. But now, with internet, we all have access to the information. So the question should be – how do we efficiently present it, making the best use of the medium (this now being a computer with ever-advancing software)
3. We tend to still think in terms of traditional media – we were thought what a pencil can do; but few know how to actually use the advanced tools a computer brings. Sometimes we use the ‘fake’ markers, brushes, animation. But few can actually present something well in an interactive form – something peculiar to the medium.
It is like we did not develop the ‘fine motor skills’ to use the computer. We fiddle with software like young kids do with pencils, we are unsure what to do with the new tools. We write text, we stuff the gadgets in things resembling pencil cases. We look at whether their cover glitters or doesn’t, or looks like it has been blessed by the latest (now geeky) celebrity. We show our friends how our tools – computers, smartphones, look on the outside, never having a real clue about what they do. It is a good thing that the tool is similar enough to our old one that we do not try to eat it, like small children would try to do! Often we never realize that the new functionality we think it has, was really possible in our old one too. We buy them, ‘sharpen’ them, lug them around in bags for awhile, and throw them away when our friends no longer seem impressed by them.
This time, there will be no grown up teacher telling us what to do, and no parent making sure we attend and listen – but still we should all take some time and learn to use the tools we got as best as we can. The computer will always be a bad pencil. We should learn to use it as its own tool, not as an emulator.
4. How do i present what i know if i don’t know how people learn? The science is getting there, but i have this impression that this issue is most often showed off as of inferior importance, mostly of the ‘grade school’ assumption that is still made by the majority of people.
5. Literacy of today is not the literacy of yesterday. A program has substituted the word. We cannot read if we cannot use software, nor can we really write if we cannot program. Today’s new illiterate are tolerated, but this is only so because they are the majority. It is something we, as people and as a society, will have to overcome. How will we teach the use of the new medium? How long will we postpone and reserve it for the ‘blessed’? I wonder, how long the majority will have to ‘work in the fields’, to gain the time (as money is no longer an issue much) for an education?
The ‘How To’
The painful yearning of being in love is usually just a sign that one needs to take one step forward in trusting the other person.
Often, that one must do what is forbidden or impossible – and thus prove it otherwise.
Questions, Answers, Improvement
I.
Some books contain questions, some contain answers. Reading one with answers to a person without a question will leave him disappointed. Reading one with questions to a person full of them will make no change.
They will be asking themselves “When does the author shut up already”?
The one is not better then the other. We make use of different kinds at different times in our lives.
Kinda like kids – suddenly a child is all questions; or sometimes they just keep telling and showing you stuff you don’t really care about. They intuitively know how growth, learning and improvement is done. Adults should learn from them.
To often, people push the question kind of book on others, telling them it is art or faith.
To often, people push the answer kind of book on others, telling them it is science.
But they are really not apart from each other: human experience is both art and science – first, it is great to come across a great question; then it is great to come across a great answer. Both are equally needed for us to improve.
II.
If you look at the design of most textbooks, you will see how they try to force this process (which is not bad in itself, since it makes people learn fast). They include both the question, and the answer. If the problem is not specifically posted, the titles are usually actually questions. For example, they will say: Principles of Biochemistry; meaning “What is it, that Biochemistry is based on? What concepts will i find most often in any problem in the field?”.
The many people having problems focusing on their schoolwork (or people who tend to worship “experts” too much) should try this if they don’t do this already – make the title into the question. It may often make the answer more intuitive and easier to learn.
Interior Design
The way of arranging and aquiring stuff tells of a feeling we would like to re-experience. An opens space feels like freedom, a filled one feels safe. This is because there is nothing worse then experiencing – in terms of emotions – something new. If we do – are we still going back to where we are, or spin into madness?
What you know is what you know you can cope with.
Decoration is simply slavery to our own emotions. As they rule the mind, rationalizations about why we own what we do are becoming an art themselves. There no rational explanation for owning knick-knacks.
Don’t be afraid. Instead of walking around with a duster, you could be walking around with a friend.
Times of Slavery
Once upon a time, if a person was born a slave, he would prepare dinners, clean the rooms, take the kids to school. It would make for a better environment for him and his master. Slaves grew food and helped repair things. Their life was that of a slave, but somebody got something out of it. Occasionally, even though they were slaves, their work was appreciated, and some of them were freed.
Todays wage slaves don’t have it this awesome. They work in factories, where they produce chemicals and knickacks. For a bowl of food a day, they work their lives off for fake plastic fish and fake shitting pigs.
Who cares for that? Will they ever be made free men because someone will appreciate their work enough as may have happened to some slaves in the past?
Don’t waste your money on enslaving people, and making their lives so purpuseless. Be mindful of the things you buy. With money comes power to buy objects that further human knowledge (like buying a new computer), creativity, or just waste human time and life. With money, you are likely making people do what they really don’t feel like doing. Be kind, make their (and possibly your future) work worthwhile and appreciated.
zacione 