Scatter-gory Mind is Monkey Mind
For a guy who often let's his mind roam, this blog is more helter skelter than Charles Manson on PCP. I've found that the topics are far roaming, and that's not the bad part, but the problem comes in when I start typing at about midnight and finish my post around 2 am while working on my company's website. These posts (debunking the divinci code, no PCI-E please.... ect) are the most sincere of my ideas, but they are so all over the road that you almost can't take them serious. So as a minor nod to my few readers, I've decided to make the topics a little more strict, a bit more structured and readable. Hopefully this will keep my mind on the road, and perhaps get myself a few more readers and clickers.
Today, I'm working on my corporate logo, and learning the joy of using photoshop to create path based illustrations at the same time. I've been using a sketch my wife produced for me as a tracing image, and trying to put each part of the image into a separate path. While doing this, I'm listening to Adam Curry's "daily source code", researching design software to use for my new company, playing popcap's Bejeweled or pimprig's PoolJam, reading my RSS feeds, and drinking my coffee... And still wondering how my former blog posts are so scatter-gory. I just thought it was multi-tasking, not mental mess making.
Now how do you clean up all that mess? Renowned illustrator and animator Richard Williams pronounced himself not smart enough to listen to classical music and draw at the same time... And I agree with him whole heartedly. He wasn't, but today, the idea of playing Nintendo, drinking a coke, yelling at your little brother to put down other controller, and listen to the radio pump out 80's grog-rock (otherwise known as heavy metal today) is almost rote behavior. We of the Nintendo and Gen-X generations have long embraced the idea of multi-tasking even before it had a name. We can devote the appropriate amount of mental capacity to each, pausing one to accomplish another as time and task require. Clean up the mess? Heck, I want to create more... I've been known to listen to podcasts, drink a beer with a friend and play GTA - SA all while scratching the dog and thinking about my site design. I've been brought up with the tools to make this all work together, and I wonder if it's not a new paradim of listener / reader that we need.
Some people are convinced that a rambling oration is the sign of concentration loss, perhaps to be blamed on usage of schedule 1 substance (no, not PCP or LSD, just plain ol MaryJane). Or that it's just someone who can't put their thoughts in line. I say no, it's a mind that is contemplating a lot of things at once while performing daily activities. Like the smoker who can take a drag on his Marlboro Red without noticing that he inducing his daily fix and watch the game on TV, we are a new generation of adults who have always been required to perform several activities at once, just to keep up in today's Fast Food Break At The Red Light Not Before Scan The Headlines And Keep An Eye On The Road world. The only thing I'm disturbed by is that people are finding themselves to be addicted to this lifestyle, and with more and more addictive personalities out there, this is killing us as a society.
You see, before the 1900's, there really was no "work-a-holic", it was a good work ethic with loyalty to your company. But we gave it a name when we decided that we deserved recreation. We are to the point of imortilizing the work-aholic, making it the new ideal employee. Someone who takes the behaviors of our new generation and make them a lifestyle, now forgoing any chance of taking a minute to look at the sky in wonder. Is this a good idea? Perhaps not, because even the steel plant employee of the early 20th century took his family to the country for the weekend, but now, between laptops, palmtops, cellphones, pagers, GPS, MP3 players and countless other devices, we can take our addiction to the country with us, like a junkie packing a spare needle, and ruining our sons and daughters chance of gaining the knowledge of recreation and relaxation that our parents and grandparents so thoughtfully passed to us to store till such a time as we should pass the torch.
Well, I'm then going to make a call to all my Gen-X'ers, my Nintendo Generation, my so called "peeps". Work hard, make your life extraordinary, show you boss you're vested in your job, no matter how inane, and do everything you need to stay afloat in today's marketplace, but take the proverbial stop for rose smelling, and show your future that it's not a bad thing, at least not in small frequent doses.
So, with that, I'm outta here for now... Going to put more work on my blog, logo, website and home. I'll talk to you all later...
Today, I'm working on my corporate logo, and learning the joy of using photoshop to create path based illustrations at the same time. I've been using a sketch my wife produced for me as a tracing image, and trying to put each part of the image into a separate path. While doing this, I'm listening to Adam Curry's "daily source code", researching design software to use for my new company, playing popcap's Bejeweled or pimprig's PoolJam, reading my RSS feeds, and drinking my coffee... And still wondering how my former blog posts are so scatter-gory. I just thought it was multi-tasking, not mental mess making.
Now how do you clean up all that mess? Renowned illustrator and animator Richard Williams pronounced himself not smart enough to listen to classical music and draw at the same time... And I agree with him whole heartedly. He wasn't, but today, the idea of playing Nintendo, drinking a coke, yelling at your little brother to put down other controller, and listen to the radio pump out 80's grog-rock (otherwise known as heavy metal today) is almost rote behavior. We of the Nintendo and Gen-X generations have long embraced the idea of multi-tasking even before it had a name. We can devote the appropriate amount of mental capacity to each, pausing one to accomplish another as time and task require. Clean up the mess? Heck, I want to create more... I've been known to listen to podcasts, drink a beer with a friend and play GTA - SA all while scratching the dog and thinking about my site design. I've been brought up with the tools to make this all work together, and I wonder if it's not a new paradim of listener / reader that we need.
Some people are convinced that a rambling oration is the sign of concentration loss, perhaps to be blamed on usage of schedule 1 substance (no, not PCP or LSD, just plain ol MaryJane). Or that it's just someone who can't put their thoughts in line. I say no, it's a mind that is contemplating a lot of things at once while performing daily activities. Like the smoker who can take a drag on his Marlboro Red without noticing that he inducing his daily fix and watch the game on TV, we are a new generation of adults who have always been required to perform several activities at once, just to keep up in today's Fast Food Break At The Red Light Not Before Scan The Headlines And Keep An Eye On The Road world. The only thing I'm disturbed by is that people are finding themselves to be addicted to this lifestyle, and with more and more addictive personalities out there, this is killing us as a society.
You see, before the 1900's, there really was no "work-a-holic", it was a good work ethic with loyalty to your company. But we gave it a name when we decided that we deserved recreation. We are to the point of imortilizing the work-aholic, making it the new ideal employee. Someone who takes the behaviors of our new generation and make them a lifestyle, now forgoing any chance of taking a minute to look at the sky in wonder. Is this a good idea? Perhaps not, because even the steel plant employee of the early 20th century took his family to the country for the weekend, but now, between laptops, palmtops, cellphones, pagers, GPS, MP3 players and countless other devices, we can take our addiction to the country with us, like a junkie packing a spare needle, and ruining our sons and daughters chance of gaining the knowledge of recreation and relaxation that our parents and grandparents so thoughtfully passed to us to store till such a time as we should pass the torch.
Well, I'm then going to make a call to all my Gen-X'ers, my Nintendo Generation, my so called "peeps". Work hard, make your life extraordinary, show you boss you're vested in your job, no matter how inane, and do everything you need to stay afloat in today's marketplace, but take the proverbial stop for rose smelling, and show your future that it's not a bad thing, at least not in small frequent doses.
So, with that, I'm outta here for now... Going to put more work on my blog, logo, website and home. I'll talk to you all later...
posted by RP Woods at 10:22 AM
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