What humans are for

“When robots and automation do our most basic work, making it relatively easy for us to be fed, clothed, and sheltered, then we are free to ask, ‘What are humans for?’” – Kevin Kelly

Working inside the barn

“I had some time on my hands, I wasn’t working much in my, ahem, chosen profession. An aspect of fortune is that, when it’s raining, then you gotta work inside the barn, you know?” – [Robert Downey Jr.](http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/19/robert-downey-interview/?iid=EL) on recording an album

The beautiful question

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.” – [e.e. cummings](http://www.mrbauld.com/ee.html)

Opposing thoughts

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Character first

I’ve thought about [this sermon](http://vimeo.com/50045277) a lot over the past month. During stressful times it’s good to remember that the real goal is not success in work or even personal life, but rather building character to be more loving, more honest, more holy. Not your circumstances but how you grow in them to those ends.

> When we see a brand new baby, part of what we love about that baby is that little baby when it first arrives in this world is just innocent. How long does that baby’s innocence last? Twenty years? Twenty minutes? Innocence is the absence of sin, but it’s not yet the presence of character. Character is that pattern, those habitual patterns of…How do I think? What do I want? What will I choose?…That’s what life is about. – [John Ortberg](http://vimeo.com/50045277)

The illusion of knowledge

> The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. – [Stephen Hawking](http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/07/18/how-big-is-the-entire-universe/)

Home again

> We shall not cease from exploration

> And the end of all our exploring

> Will be to arrive where we started

> And know the place for the first time.

– [T.S. Eliot](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot)

Wisdom and knowledge

> We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom. – [Michel de Montaigne](http://quotevadis.com/post/20780660637/michel-de-montaigne-we-cannot-be-wise)

Consuming and transforming

“Consumer” is one of those words I’ve never been comfortable with. Along with “user”, it refers to real people as simply receptacles for whatever companies churn out for them. It’s a lazy, impersonal, demeaning, and ultimately unhelpful word.

[Alex Bogusky thinks that as consumption is inevitable, people just need to be *better* consumers](http://fearlessrevolution.com/blog/the-empowered-consumer.html). I agree that’s needed, but still believe our word choice matters and can be improved. [Lots of other people think so too](http://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+word+consumer%22).

The most obvious and simple change is to substitute “people” for these dirty words. That works almost universally, and I use it effectively in my design practice. But today I stumbled upon a use of another word that is more than benign–it’s empowering:

[Transformation](http://www.natlogic.com/resources/publications/new-bottom-line/vol4/12-more-things-change-production-transformation/).

The article itself takes the side of “producers”, acknowledging that nothing is truly produced; it is merely transformed from one (perhaps natural) state to another. Carrying that theme through to the people we design for emphasizes that they too will transform what they receive, putting their stamp on it, doing good or ill with it.

Transformation happens to products, commodities, experiences, and ideas. The word transformation recognizes that people have the opportunity to improve what they receive, but also the responsibility of managing it.

I’m going to try substituting the word “transformer” for “person” in my work–probably just to myself at first–to see if it changes my design decisions.

Quantum-sized quantum researchers

[Jonathan Keats continues to blow my mind](http://bigthink.com/ideas/41923?page=2):

> “Until today science has been completely dominated by one species,” says Keats, an experimental philosopher and former director of the Local Air & Space Administration…”People may not be biologically equipped to understand the universe at a fundamental level, he contends. “Other species might be better adapted to the task.”

> Keats believes that the most promising candidates are bacteria…”But they need facilities,” says Keats. While their minuscule size lets them experience quantum phenomena on a first-hand basis, they have no natural way of exploring the galaxies….

> “Rows of petri dishes filled with brackish water – teeming with cyanobacteria – will be set up atop a flat screen monitor laid flat on its back. The monitor will glow with images of the cosmos provided by the Hubble Telescope.”