Notes from The Silmarillion

When I read The Lord of the Rings, I was endlessly intrigued by the references Tolkien made to the ancient history of Middle-Earth. What had really happened there? Why was it called Middle-Earth? How did the events of LOTR fit in with the rest of its history?

So it was with great anticipation that I picked up The Silmarillion ([Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Silmarillion-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0618126988/ref=ed_oe_p)), in which Tolkien chronicles the full history of the LOTR world.

In its scope and length it reminded me of [Anathem](http://ryskamp.org/brain/books/notes-from-anathem), where a single 900-page book felt like several different, but related, stories. In The Silmarillion, this is made explicit by separating the book into four separate sections. Each section uses a different level of perspective and detail, from high-level creation and deities down to personal interactions. This gives the book immense scope and the ability to give a full history of the world. It also uses the same trick as Anathem with its setting, in a world that is “not Earth”, but clearly “similar to Earth in many ways.” (Technically, Tolkien last described it as Earth “[at a different stage of imagination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth)”)

As a literary work, however, it’s almost the opposite of LOTR and Anathem. While those books start small, with interpersonal issues in a small community, The Slimarillion starts very big, with the creation of the world and its deities. It sets up an interesting overall flow, as the focus shifts from large scale to very small and back again in LOTR.

Tolkein gives a good description of this himself in the letter to his publisher included in the front (of my version, at least), which was at least as interesting as the rest of the book in telling how he created these works. He describes his goal as follows:

> To make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story — the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendor from the vast backcloths. – Forward, xi-xii

The lyrical, poetic writing style is tough to read but is appropriate for the telling of ancient stories. The Silmarillion is set as a work of mythology for the world it describes, not for we as outsiders. As such, it tells the stories to people who are already familiar with the names and places. Fortunately, Tolkien includes a thorough index and glossary at the end of the book for those of us born outside Middle-Earth.

For those simply wishing to understand the history of the LOTR world, the [Middle-Earth Wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth) is probably the best resource. But if that isn’t enough, and you want to hear the stories yourself, The Silmarillion is the place to find them.

### Notes

Just a few notes cribbed here; as with Anathem, the focus is on the reading of the story itself.

Tolkien didn’t write everything with the final grand scheme in mind; rather, it emerged from the writing:

> The mere stories were the thing. They arose in my mind as ‘given’ things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew…always I had the sense of recording what was already ‘there’, somewhere: not of ‘inventing’. – Forward, xii

> The Hobbit…was quite independently conceived: I did not know as I began it that it belonged. But it proved to be the discovery of the completion of the whole. – Forward, xii

An interesting perspective on the Dwarves, which were created outside of Eru’s (God’s) grand vision by an angelic Valar and didn’t have the same respect for the earth that the Elves did. Sadly, this seems also to be our perspective in this world…

> Because thou hiddest this thought from me until its achievement, thy children will have little love for the things of my love. They will love first the things made by their own hands, as doth their father. They will delve in the earth, and the things that grow and live upon the earth they will not heed. Many a tree shall feel the bit of their iron without pity. – 39

And while many of the stories immediately recall similar religious stories, Tolkien says this was not his goal:

> I dislike Allegory–the conscious and intentional allegory–yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth of fairytale must use allegorical language. (And, of course, the more life a story has the more readily will it be susceptible of allegorical interpretations: while the better a deliberate allegory is made the more nearly will it be acceptable just as a story.) – Forward, xii-xiii

Notes from Anathem

Neal Stephenson’s Anathem was inspired by a [Long Now Foundation](http://longnow.org) request for designs of a clock that would measure time for 10,000 years. Stephenson’s idea of a societal, rather than mechanical, system was not chosen, but [did turn into his next book](http://blog.longnow.org/2008/07/21/anathem-and-long-now/).

Stephenson cleverly set Anathem in a place that is “not Earth, but a planet called Arbre that is similar to Earth in many ways”. This allowed him to take as much as he wanted from Earth’s culture (human beings, technologies), while feeling free to change whatever he liked (like adding several thousand years of history). A clever storytelling technique.

The general theme is of a society which separates out its scientists and intellectuals into convents, walled off from the world for predefined periods of time: 1 year, 10 years, 100 years, even 1000 years. The doors to these concentric conclaves are opened and closed at these intervals by the mechanics of the clocks that run them.

This concept is like catnip for geeks: a culture that prizes their geeks so much it leaves them alone to work on their projects for thousands of years. It’s no wonder that programmers and engineers are the ones most excited about the book; the SF launch event attendees were nearly an exact replica of the Google population.

Wired magazine did [a good profile of Stephenson and the book](http://www.wired.com/culture/art/magazine/16-09/mf_stephenson?currentPage=all), which inspired me to attend [the Long Now event in San Francisco where the book was launched](http://www.longnow.org/anathem/). The event ran tremendously behind schedule, which gave me time to grab a copy before it started. And as my friend observed, “these guys are building a 10,000 year clock. Do you think they’re worried about starting 45 minutes late?”

It had been a long time since I’d read a book this long, and I was surprised by the sheer number of things you can do in 900 pages. Stephenson takes his readers on a huge adventure from a monastery courtyard to the stars and beyond; it seemed like at least 3 books in one (in fact, the work it most reminded me of was Lord of the Rings, both in style and scope). I’m now reading The Silmarillion, which tells the background of the Lord of the Rings story, and am developing an appreciation for this long-form storytelling. It was very engaging, though, and I read it in a weekend.

I’ve discussed the book since with several others who haven’t read it, and one topic that always comes up is the concept of these monasteries being shut to the world for so long. In Anathem, the monasteries are not completely sealed. There exist systems for people to cross between them, and of course they’re open to the sky and planes flying over or skyscrapers built right next door. So while the letter of the law is violated, the spirit is kept, and the inhabitants respect the rules of an isolated society.

Anathem gave me a new appreciation for the value of both long books and long-term thinking. Both are underappreciated today, and both seem like just what I need.

### Notes

Only a few quotes from the book that I flagged; the real point of this book is the 900-page trip it takes you on, not the individual ideas.

Just as Eskimos have many words for types of snow, monks in a closed monastery might have multiple words for types of discussion:

> We covered a mile in silence. Even though we didn’t say anything, we were in dialog: a peregrin dialog, meaning two equals wandering around trying to work something out, as opposed to a suvinian dialog where a fid is being taught by a mentor, or a Periklynian dialog, which is combat. – 71

Interesting motivation for mindfulness:

> “Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.” – Fraa Orolo – 109

The introduction of the monastery to outsiders reminded me of the design process:

> “If this all seems ambiguous, that’s because it is; and if that troubles you, you’d hate it here; but if it gives you a feeling of relief, then you are in the right place and might consider staying.” – 141

** SPOILER **

> “Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,” I said. “We have a protractor.” – 320

** END SPOILER **

Notes from 1984

1984 is a favorite of mine; I read it at least once every couple years. I think it’s the questioning nature of Winston that gets me, feeling the same emotions myself on a smaller scale.

Interestingly in London this summer, I thought often of 1984. Whether they caused or were caused by the book, elements of the city constantly reminded me of the story. Cameras everywhere; [tall, windowless buildings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station) ([used in the movie](http://www.oobject.com/15-scifi-movies-15-famous-architectural-locations/battersea-powerstation-1984/2578/), natch); sensationalist newspaper headlines.

As with any political satire, it’s easy to find similarities in our current world. In a time of unrest and war, however, it’s especially good to recognize that many of our fears are artificially-created and harmful, and that an intelligent reading of the news handed down to us is necessary.

### Notes

The dangers of oversimplification; be “as simple as possible, but no simpler”:

> “In your heart you’d prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?” – Syme (55)

A similar sentiment to the “[9/11 Truth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Truth_Movement)” assertions; and of new importance [in our digital age](http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-many/index.html?hp).

> Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, ‘just to keep people frightened’. (160)

The role of “feelings” in a police state:

> Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside. It would not have occurred to her that an action which is ineffectual thereby becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love…The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. (171-2)

War and suffering as a way to keep people in hardship and thus less ambitious. Reminded me of Huxley when I read it:

> The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent…It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. (198-9)

The danger of having the wrong goals:

> The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. Once is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand. (201)

This is eerie given [how routine the war in Iraq has become](http://thecurrent.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/basra.php)…and the public statements that [we could be there much longer](http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/14/mccain.king/); continuous war has the same effect as continuous peace:

> It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The particular pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace…this is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: _War is Peace_. (207)

A friend once said to me that he believed you “couldn’t learn from someone else what you didn’t already know”. I’ve tempered that to “what you aren’t ready to know”…but this passage reinforces his statement, and underlines the dangerous attraction of it:

> The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction…The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already. (208)

Extended, the internet does far worse than this…but also far better, with its freedoms:

> The invention of print…made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end…The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time. (214)

If the evolution of genes is more fundamental than that of individuals, the evolution and survival of memes may be the ultimate societal goal…as [Richard Dawkins posited 30 years later](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene):

> The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. (218)

Like “precrime” in [Minority Report](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(film)):

> In Oceania there is no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future. (220)

Definitons ([complete list of Newspeak words](http://wiki.newspeakdictionary.com/wiki/List_of_Newspeak_words)):

* *Crimestop* – “the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought.” (220)

* *Blackwhite* – “the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts; [or] the ability to _believe_ that black is white, and more, to _know_ that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.” (221)

* *Doublethink* – “the power of holding two contradictory believes in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” (223) Interestingly, this is [the main suggestion of a prominent design thinker](http://www.amazon.com/Opposable-Mind-Successful-Integrative-Thinking/dp/1422118924).

An interesting corollary to [memories as experience](http://ryskamp.org/brain/design/designing-for-memories):

> The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence by survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. (222)

> “But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon parishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth, _is_ truth.” – O’Brien (261)

> Nothing exists except through human consciousness. (278)

I think several politicians right now are wishing this were true…

> To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed…all this is indispensably necessary (223)

I think this holds today…the first part addresses clearly the designer’s problem:

> In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is…One clear illustration of this is the fact that war hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in the social scale. (224)

Notes from Better Off

This book tells the tale of two successful city-dwellers, Eric and Mary Brende, who choose to live in an Amish-like community for 18 months. It goes pretty much as you’d expect: they struggle to get going but eventually love the lifestyle and decide to keep much of it.

One thing the book explored was something I’ve thought of quite a bit. When we have numerous possessions, much of our time, energy, and money is spent just keeping them going. One especially ascetic member of their community referred to this as “turning the machine”. What would our required workload be like if we didn’t need to keep lots of possessions fixed up, fueled up, and upgraded? What could we do instead?

I also enjoyed seeing how minimal technologies can be very powerful. A hand-cranked washing machine, for instance, took less time and energy than an automatic one and spun clothes dry enough to hang. A “yankee drill” made it onto my wishlist for its elegant manual drilling action that spins the bit as you push down on the handle.

Obviously, in a time of environmental and financial crisis, the book sparked lots of thoughts about how this sort of lifestyle could “save the world”. But a doubt that nagged me throughout was that this approach to saving the world doesn’t seem to scale. Alex Steffen [once wrote at his WorldChanging blog](http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007073.html), “Don’t just be the change–mass-produce it”. I’m convinced that one of our world’s most pressing design needs is for ways to radically change the behavior of billions of people, and while I admire Eric and Mary’s courage and perseverance, their account doesn’t suggest a lifestyle that would be accepted voluntarily by most people living in developed countries.

But could it scale? I loved the title of the book: “Better off“. A double entendre about living better and shutting off machines, it suggests that people might enjoy their lives more by living this lifestyle–and that they might realize this through reading the book. I don’t think that this book is going to do that, but a similar approach that envisions a life made *better* by slowing down might.

That’s what I’m interested in designing, and while I do that I’ll continue to enjoy and be inspired by the ideas and strategies showcased in Better Off…many of which are listed below.

### Notes

An interesting perspective on work was that it was not something to be avoided, but rather a natural part of life that can build friendships and be fun.

> Certain Amish groups in the past went so far as to outlaw lightning rods, for fear of diminishing occasions of spontaneous barn raisings. To this day our neighbors forbade the purchase of insurance policies for similar reasons. (40)

They found a type of thought that you simply can’t get in a “normal” situation (reminds me of Anathem):

> In the modern university, with its rapid turnover of assignments and fast-paced technology, the human brain is treated as just another processing device and is expected to keep pace with electronic blips. but Adams’s thought, ponderous and discursive as it was, could not be summarily ingested…This was the secret: to grasp his meaning, you had to be living it. (67)

On enjoying the moment:

> In being slower, time is more capacious. The event is only in the moment. By speeding through life with technology, you reduce what any given moment can hold. By slowing down, you expand it. (67)

The strange ways we counterbalance our lopsided lifestyles:

> Computer users, cramped in a cubicle all day long, jogging around the block…captives of the technological environment fleeing for brief weekends to mountains, beaches, and rustic cabins. (67)

Technology’s antisocial tendencies:

> Cars, telephones, message machines, caller ID, and e-mail grant us unprecedented powers to associate with whom we want, when we want, to the degree we want, under the terms we want, finessing and filtering out those we don’t want–and thin out the possibilities of social growth accordingly. (80)

“Turning the machine”:

> Though his job gave him flexible hours, he inevitably worked overtime in order to buy more refined, processed foods. “I’ve noticed,” he said, “that’s generally the way it goes. Most of the work around here is just to turn the machine.” (126)

A conclusion Brende finds similar to Max Weber’s study “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”

> The means by which the spiritually reborn demonstrated their righteousness were threatening to become their ends. The outward tokens of salvation or self-worth were starting to stand in place of the inner reality. (126)

How taking your time leads to new conclusions, and why you can’t take shortcuts with creativity.

> In true leisure their is mastery. If the enemy of self-direction was passion and impulse, its ally was quiet repose, mindfulness, perceptivity. Yet the act of reflection transcended the rational; it followed a course that could not be entirely foreseen, yielding conclusions that could not be reached if too deliberately pursued. (133)

The elders carefully evaluated each technology, deciding whether it had on the balance more benefits or detriments for the community:

> Here were members of an obscure sect in a prayerful meeting–rationally evaluating the implications of a technology that the rest of us accept on faith. (134)

How less technology can make for a “lighter” life:

> The dynamics of mutual activity take on their own life and liberate a sense of common cause. There is also a real savings in maintenance on fuel-consuming mouths. Now that we have gotten our routine down, it is a good guess that Mary and I spend only about two or three hours a day on work necessary to our livelihood. (227)

Brende’s “principle of minimation”:

> Other things equal, it is better to find a non-technological solution than a technological one, or failing that, a less technological solution than a more technological one. (230)

The reasons for that:

> First, a modern automatic machine is…a complex fuel-consuming being with needs of its own. It gobbles up energy; it demands care and maintenance.

> [Second,] duplicating vital human capacities can have one of only two consequences: atrophying the capacities or creating competition between _Homo sapiens_ and machine.

> [Third,] a complex mechanical entity readily overwhelms or subverts the very purpose for which is was deployed. [think cars built for speed but sitting in traffic jams]

A bit of perspective, recognizing that he does use a tremendous amount of technology inherently:

> Merely by existing in a Western country, I have ready access to sanitary water, vaccines, plentiful food, many mass-manufactured goods, and select forms of automation..and with this degree of usage, I enjoy a balanced life, blending family and work and leaving amply amounts of leisure.

Recommended tool and book: a [Yankee drill](http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-03-043-Yankee-Push-Drill/dp/B0007PNNLQ) and [E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops)

Notes from A Brief History of Time

[Let’s start](http://ryskamp.org/brain/ryskampdotorg/lots-of-book-notes-coming) at the beginning: these notes are 8 years old. On my European train tour in 2000, I ran out of books to read in Nice, France. At an English-language bookstore there, I found [A Brief History of Time](http://books.google.com/books?id=A9nWaIpeXhkC) and learned about the universe for the next few days.

These are the things I flagged on the trains, in the hostels, and in the cities of Europe over the next few days, over 8 years ago.

### Notes

Hawking’s definition of a “good theory”:

> A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations. – 10

And the “eventual goal of science”:

> The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe. – 11

An interesting way to look at our role in the universe…

> Space and time not only affect but also are affected by everything that happens in the universe. – 36

121-126: a concise explanation of how the universe likely began; its first few hours.

Hawking gives a good explanation of the anthropic principle:

> We see the universe the way it is because we exist. – 130

> The weak anthropic principle states that in a universe that is large or infinite in space and/or time, the conditions necessary for the development of intelligent life will be met only in certain regions that are limited in space and time. The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. – 130-1

> [The strong anthropic principle claims that] in most…universes the conditions would not be right for the development of complicated organisms; only in the few universes that are like ours would intelligent beings develop and ask the questions: ‘Why is the universe the way we see it?’ The answer is then simple: if it had been different, we would not be here! – 131

Perhaps Hawking should read [Pilgrim by Tinker Creek](http://ryskamp.org/brain/books/notes-from-pilgrim-at-tinker-creek.html)…

> The strong anthropic principle would claim that this whole vast construction [of our universe] exists simply for our sake. This is very hard to believe…there does not seem to be any need for all those other galaxies… – 133

From Pilgrim:

> It occurs to me more and more that everything I have seen is wholly gratuitous…the sheer fringe and network of detail assumes primary importance. That there are so many details seems to be the most important and visible fact about the creation…If the world is gratuitous, then the fringe of a goldfish’s fin is a million times more so.

An interesting way to explain rapid expansion of the universe in its beginnings:

> In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

> Now twice zero is also zero. Thus the universe can double the amount of positive matter energy and also double the negative gravitational energy without violation of the conservation of energy. – 136

> “It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.” – Alan Guth – 136

How can the universe be finite and yet without end?

> Because one is using Euclidean space-times, in which the time direction is on the same footing as directions in space, it is possible for space-time to be finite in extent and yet to have no singularities that formed a boundary or edge. – 143

Similar to something [Einstein said](http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_distinction_between_past-present-and_future/184152.html):

> The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Notes from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Given my recent interest in the contemplative life and observing nature, a friend recommended I read Annie Dillard’s [_Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_](http://books.google.com/books?id=cB4POeMPE9sC). It chronicles the author’s adventures and observations while living and exploring the Tinker Creek area of Virginia’s Roanoake Valley, and won the Pulitzer Prize when published in 1974.

Yet while my copy of _Pilgrim_ is a modest-sized paperback, it took me several months to finish. More poetry than prose, the rich language and imagery made my customary quick reading difficult. Instead, I read in chunks, up to a chapter or two in a sitting but rarely more.

Another reason I split the reading up was to better savor the experience. Reading _Pilgrim_ slowed down my world–after consuming a chapter I was always contemplative myself, and would want to go enjoy the world around me. One chapter I read while eating Indian food alone at our favorite restaurant in Berkeley. I set down the book and spent 10 minutes marveling at the beauty of the water in my glass, before taking off to wander through the woods. I took 2 hours to return the 1/8 mile to our house.

It was fascinating how simply looking more closely at the world could produce such experiences. After all, it’s the same world that blurs past as I bike, or ride the bus; the same world that sits outside the window as I work. The richness is so easily ignored; Dillard notes this late in the book, saying “how many days have I learned not to stare at the back of my hand when I could look out at the creek?” (271). As a designer, I’m realizing that experiences can only be half-designed–the other half is the person’s own responsibility to engage with and savor the experience.

Within the single theme of watching the world, the book covers a wide range of topics and perspectives. Dillard ranges from cedar trees bursting with light and color to a water bug getting its insides sucked out; from Eskimo folk tales to quantum physics. In many ways the scope, and its focus on discovering some ultimate truths, reminded me of another favorite, [_Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_](http://books.google.com/books?id=ryTm8RbGC_0C).

The writing style is clearly influenced by her process. As described in the afterword, she collected bits from many disparate influences, put them on index cards, then tried to fit them together. Sections jump wildly between tangentially-related topics, but it reinforces the overall theme of chaotic wonder. I enjoyed the structure, actually, as it suggests what a similar collection of my divergent observations and interests might look like.

This is a rare book that I’ll keep around, something I do more with poetry than with prose or informational books. Turning to this might keep me from losing sight of the wonders that are all around. It truly is an amazing place.

> My God what a world. There is no accounting for one second of it.” (267)

### Notes

Our responsibility to open our eyes:

> The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there. (10)

Nature doesn’t pinch pennies:

> If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. (11)

But perhaps we should:

> If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get. (17)

A book to check on: _Space and Sight_, Marius von Senden. About how experiencing sight for those who had been blind was entirely new; they had no conception of space, size, or sense beyond that of touch: “One patient called lemonade ‘square’ because it pricked on his tongue as a square shape pricked on the touch of his hands” (27-8) Others hated it and wanted to go back to being blind (30)

You can’t schedule your epiphanies:

> [The gift of seeing], although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise. (35)

Dillard’s defining moment: the cedar tree “on fire”, which she references throughout the book.

> Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power…I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. (36)

While my specific experiences have been different, I resonate with that description of a peak moment when awareness is hyper-extreme.

Brilliant packaging: ladybugs are shipped in boxes of pine cones; they “naturally crawl deep into the depths of the pine cones; the sturdy ‘branches’ of the opened cones protect them through all the bumpings of transit.” (49)

Caterpillars following a silk path provide a thinly-veiled allegory to humanity…

> “The caterpillars in distress, starved, shelterless, chilled with cold at night, cling obstinately to the silk ribbon covered hundreds of times, because they lack the rudimentary glimmers of reason which would advise them to abandon it.” (J. Henri Fabre, 68)

The argument that it is impossible to fully engage with the present in cities, because you’re always too aware of yourself.

> Self-conciousness is the curse of the city and all that sophistication implies. (82)

> I’m in the market for some present tense; I’m on the lookout, shopping around, more so every year. It’s a seller’s market–do you think I won’t sell all that I have to buy it? (86)

And I thought it was just a coincidence that most people have a resting pulse around 60…

> Before they invented the unit of the second, people used to time the lapse of short events on their pulses. (94)

A fun quote: “Lick a finger; feel the now.” (99)

Watching a stream flow down toward her:

> I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis ball. (102)

Botany as a moral imperative?

> I suspect that the real moral thinkers end up, wherever they may start, in botany. We may know nothing for certain, but we seem to see that the world turns upon growing, grows toward growing, and growing green and clean. (114)

Fascinating: the difference between a molecule of chlorophyll and a molecule of hemoglobin is a single atom at the center (magnesium for chlorophyll; iron for hemoglobin). The other 136 atoms are all the same. (127-8)

The great gratuitous creation:

> It occurs to me more and more that everything I have seen is wholly gratuitous…the sheer fringe and network of detail assumes primary importance. That there are so many details seems to be the most important and visible fact about the creation…If the world is gratuitous, then the fringe of a goldfish’s fin is a million times more so.

> You are God. You want to make a forest, something to hold the soil, lock up solar energy, and give off oxygen. Wouldn’t it be simpler just to rough in a slab of chemicals a green acre of goo? (130-1)

> In the eighteenth century, when educated European tourists visited the Alps, the deliberately blindfolded their eyes to shield them from the evidence of the earth’s horrid irregularity. (141)

Her dream about seeing all of time as a single “long, curved band of color”, as from some point outside time. (142) Sounds similar to a curiosity of mine.

A surplus of animals seems less appealing than one of plants; are humans any different?

> Fecundity is anathema only in the animal. ‘Acres and acres of rats’ has a suitably chilling ring to it that is decidedly lacking if I say, instead, ‘acres and acres of tulips’. (167)

After observing a glob of tar covered in gooseneck barnacles, which had found it the only place to anchor in the open ocean:

> How many gooseneck barnacle larvae must be dying out there in the middle of vast oceans for every one that finds a glob of tar to fasten to?…What kind of a world is this, anyway? Why not make fewer barnacle larvae and give them a decent chance? Are we dealing in life, or in death? (176)

More on the immense “waste” of nature:

> Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me…we value the individual supremely, and nature values him not a whit. (178)

> “When you walk across the fields with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their soul come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.” – Martin Buber quoting an old Hasid master (200-1)

On the similarities between nature observances and quantum mechanics:

> For some reason it has not yet trickled down to the man on the street that some physicists now are a bunch of wild-eyed, raving mystics. (205)

> “The physical world is entirely abstract and without ‘actuality’ apart from its link to consciousness” – Eddington (206) – look up Eddington, by the way; another good quote on 242)

Despite the CERN Hadron Collider, we likely still won’t know everything about our world. Emerson’s prediction that “when the microscope is improved, we shall have the cells analyzed, and all will be electricity, or somewhat else” (204) seems further away now than it did then, with the discovery of quantum mechanics.

> Creation itself was the fall, a burst into the thorny beauty of the real. (218-9)

As she mentions in the afterward, she jammed in lots of good quotes right at the end:

> “In nature, the emphasis is in what is rather than what ought to be” – Huston Smith (241)

> “Life’s greatest danger lies in the fact that men’s food consists entirely of souls” – Eskimo shaman (242)

> “The fact is that we are painters in real life, and the important thing is to breathe as hard as ever we can breathe” – Van Gogh (244)

> “Let us love the country of here below. It is real; it offers resistance to love” – Simone Weil (245)

My favorite bit:

> I smelled silt on the wind, turkey, laundry, leaves…my God what a world. There is no accounting for one second of it. (267)

Ezekiel’s labeling as false prophets “those who have not gone up into the gaps.” (274)

And a nice turn of phrase to cap it off:

> _Spend_ the afternoon–you can’t take it with you. (274)

Notes from The Honourable Schoolboy

As part of an effort to read more fiction (to better appreciate the creative side of writing) and in _honour_ of our trip to London, I read The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carre. It was fun to read it while in London, as I was simultaneously discovering the landmarks it mentioned in the storyline and in the real world.

Just a couple citations I marked:

### Notes

The role of an “intelligence” agency–not much different from user experience design?

> The task of an intelligence service, Smiley announced firmly, was not to play chase games but to deliver intelligence to its customers. If it failed to do this, those customers would resort to other, less scrupulous sellers or, worse, indulge in amateurish self-help…not to produce was not to trade, and not to trade was to die. (68-69)

That reminds me of a quote from the Adaptive Path UX Intensive seminar: “People have to make decisions. And if you don’t give them good information to make them by, they’ll just have to guess.”

And why I’ve always struggled doing the intelligence research myself; good to hear a real spy might pull it off.

> When you’re my size, sport, you have to have a hell of a good reason for whatever you’re doing. (392)

Notes from A Technique for Producing Ideas

[A tiny book](http://www.amazon.com/Technique-Producing-Advertising-Classics-Library/dp/0071410945/ref=ed_oe_p) lent to me by a friend, which can be summarized in far fewer words still. The insights, however, are as strong as any.

The book is a 20-minute read, and someone even [typed it out online](http://tech.moosaico.com/docs/getting-ideas/). It’s worth reading for the examples, though most of the content can be summarized as below.

My main takeaways were 1) the value of life-long general knowledge in eventually bearing fruit, and 2) the importance of stepping away from the work to wait for the ‘a-ha’ moment.

### Notes

The two principles for producing ideas:

> 1. An idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements. (15)
2. The capacity to bring old elements into new combinations depends largely on the ability to see relationships. (16)

And the five steps for producing them:

1. Gather raw material – Both specific (related to your project) and general (anything interesting at all), as much of it as possible, over your entire lifetime, preferably with a cataloging system to look it up later. My blog forms this, I think.

2. Chew on it – Mash up all the material you have, and spend some time looking at it in different ways.

3. Take a break – Stop trying to solve the problem, and go to a concert or something. Let the idea incubate.

4. Have an ‘a-ha!’ moment – Really, it just happens. But write it down, eh?

5. Make it real – the follow-through, and where most ideas die. But if you share the idea with others at this stage, it might just have “self-expanding qualities” where “it stimulates those who see it to add to it.” (39)

The value of the general knowledge:

> In advertising an idea results from a new combination of _specific knowledge_ about products and people with _general knowledge_ about life and events. (25)

> There are some advertisements you just cannot write until you have lived long enough – until, say, you have lived through certain experiences as a spouse, a parent, a businessman, or what not. The cycles of the years does something to fill your reservoir. (44)

Notes from Subject to Change

Perhaps more aptly titled “Things Adaptive Path has been thinking about”, [_Subject to Change_](http://www.amazon.com/Subject-Change-Creating-Products-Uncertain/dp/0596516835/) doesn’t really hold together as a book but offers good, concise, somewhat-related essays about design practices.

The book offers some good descriptions of the research and design methods currently in vogue. As an introduction to the field for beginning designers, researchers, and others, it might be more successful, but for design professionals it doesn’t bring much new to the table.

Unfortunately, _Subject to Change_ suffers from the very things it warns about: it is a single, standalone product (the book), containing a series of features (loosely-related chapters), created from technical competency (consulting learnings) rather than people’s (at least design professionals’) needs. Finally, as the authors confessed when speaking at their book talk, the static, final, published nature of a book doesn’t lend itself well to updates and last-minute revisions. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the design process, it’s that it is always “subject to change”…

### Notes

A definition of “design”:

> At heart, we believe design is an activity…[incorporating] these elements (9-10):

>* Empathy…understanding how people will interact with whatever you’re designing.
* Problem solving…used to address complex problems where the outcome is unclear
* Ideation and prototyping…design is a creative activity, and thus requires actually creating something
* Finding alternatives…less about the analysis of existing options than the creation of new options

What is an “experience strategy”? “A star to sail your ship by.” – Jesse James Garrett (24). Reminds me of my solution to [the Steve Jobs problem](http://ryskamp.org/brain/design/steve-jobs-and-the-designer-as-ceo).

“Empathy” for designers:

> Sharing an experience avoids the distance of pity while vicariousness maintains an observer’s level of objectivity. Thus, we could say that empathy is something like a _balanced_ curiosity that can lead to a deeper understanding of another person. (36)

Their chosen term for early-stage/discovery/user experience research? “Design research”:

> It pushes us out of the purely digital world, and focuses us on the ultimate outcome and measure for research efforts–creating successful products and services. (59)

The most convicting part of the book for me was chapter 5, “Stop designing ‘products'”. Again, the value of designing experiences instead of just their components is something designers have known for a while, but here it’s very well-stated and contains good examples:

> The key message here is not to approach a design problem assuming you’ll create a product, a service, and a system. Begin with the experience you want to design for, and then–and only then–identify the components that will deliver it. (95)

Clay Shirky at Berkman Center

Just a few notes on Clay Shirky’s [talk at the Berkman Center](http://www.shirky.com/herecomeseverybody/2008/03/book-talk-at-harvards-berkman.html) last month ([David Weinberger’s notes](http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2008/02/28/clay-shirkys-book-talk/)):

> [With the internet] Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly are all the same thing.” – 3:45

Within 3 months of the internet’s birth, email–an afterthought application–accounted for 75% of all traffic.

> Nothing says dictatorship like arresting people for eating ice cream – 36:30

Really want to read [the book](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594201536)…