I understand this better as an aging adult than I did as a kid - namely, one of the reasons we might not like to study:

Studying is not doing.

Yes there are so many things I want to learn.

But my clock is ticking. There are only so many moments out there and in here.

-

Note: studying *is* doing. It's working through material, rehearsing and absorbing and relating it, and often enough, if we're studying well, sharing it. That is certainly a kind of doing, just as thinking through an issue carefully is a kind of doing, or making a detailed plan is a kind of doing.

But we are also animals. We have large brains, much of which realize they are not being used in anything that looks very active or world-influential right now.

Reading a whole textbook is doing something, for sure. But much of us would feel that playing a basketball game or going on a date or giving a presentation at work is doing a lot more.

-

Ironically, reading a whole textbook might amount to doing more than going and marching in a protest. The one can expand your understanding dramatically, changing the potentials of the rest of your life. The other... might contribute to society reaching a tipping point, but then again might not contribute appreciably.

Either way the action is a megaphone we breathe into with our volition.

I'm not the most imaginative or creative person, but I've learned some things by trying. One is that the beginning of a great home run is the same kind of spark you've experienced many times.

For example, I was on a walk at night, just in the neighborhood, and I went by a driveway up a tiny hill through trees with two garage doors and brass lanterns on them. I can't tell you what it was about them, but I got this intense feeling. It was just... you know, this is a painting, and something's going on in it, and I've never had quite this feeling/image before. It's a unique moment with a unique emotion, unique potentials suggested, somehow. We're always feeling this when we're intrigued by something, whatever it is, however small.

That's the beginning of something. Microsoft. The Space Shuttle. Black Panther. The Star Spangled Banner. Whatever it is.

You might be waiting for a sufficiently great idea, but the thing is, that's all backwards. The little sparks are everywhere. You follow the spark. You pull on the thread. You let the flame travel down the long fuse, watch the fireworks, catch them, rebuild something with their light and heat.

-

(Oh, I mentioned the driveway. I imagined a dad who lived in that house, and I started writing some dialogue. Three hours later, the impulse had become a sketched out story with two pretty well-developed characters and two peripheral ones. If I weren't so... whatever... ADHD... I'd finish that story and share it.

The point is, the quality of the story is extraneous: that initial spark is the same intrigue that creates everything. It doesn't have to be utterly extraordinary. Jesus will not tell you about being God, as it were - if you'll forgive stretching the comparison too far. It's up to you to recognize the humble shepherd's son as more. Then your imagination begins to complete the picture, which is finally slotted into place by the audience, by their own imaginations.

But the next time you or a friend says, "Wouldn't that be a great name for a band?" please realize that you could probably do that. There is nothing exceptional about inspiring moments that become something, except your willingness to listen and then make the efforts.)

It's weird, a lot about a song is how it develops, but when I hear a new song that I'm going to love and hear many times, I often know within a minute. Yes it's how the music develops, but minds generate fractals, and what the music does in a few measures is an indicator of what it'll do in a few verses or movements.

Theory and practice are two different things. From that, many people conclude that theory is bogus and practice is all that matters. This is much like saying daytime is all that matters because day and night are different; the logic is faulty. Try living without sleep! People go crazy where the sun never goes down. Practice without theory is playing the lottery in everything all the time.

Prospectating Far

Humanity lacks goals, in some ways, I think. Wouldn't it be amazing if all the art we enjoy today still existed and was still understandable in, say, a billion years?

That isn't a totally unreasonable goal. No one spends much time thinking about it, but I see no reason to think it definitely couldn't be achieved.

If we don't set our sights long, all we're doing is failing to make it to the end of the century.

Is/Not Perfect

Something I've realized is that there both is and is not perfection. Perfection is mostly a feeling, not a metric. So in that sense it's real. When you see the perfect ending to a great movie and it's just *chef's kiss* that's a moment of perfection. It may not be perfect the next time you see it, but right now it is, and that's a real phenomenon, and very desirable. I've heard this kind of perfection described as "stillness" - it gives you a sense of inspiration and a kind of Zen joy. You have no criticism. Your inner critic's jaw has dropped. That's real. It's a moment.

Similarly if you love someone and you just can't love them any less despite a big flaw you notice - or maybe even love them more because of it - that's perfection. It's a feeling. A moment. And real.

There is no perfectly reliable perfection. By throwing different criteria at anything, you can find ways it falls short of one aspiration or another. That's what we mean by "there is no perfection" and "nothing is perfect."

We're all on Earth only finitely. You will run out of time. Before then, wouldn't you like to do some things? Sometimes the "more perfect" action is like the lover's flaw - it's perfect because it's real and it doesn't get in the way of the intention or the central quality of a thing. A flawed message that expresses a heartfelt thing is far "more perfect" than never expressing that. By allowing perfection to fracture and be a feeling, a moment, an intention, we invite it. In Japan this general idea is called "wabi-sabi." In Italy, "sprezzatura."

Live with more perfection by embracing wabi-sabi and sprezzatura. We have only so many moments. Use them. Well. You will find there is perfection in that.

Losing What I'm Doing

I keep losing myself. A couple days ago a student asked me what I'm doing with my life... because his mother kept asking him. I laughed, because I know what they both mean. And I tried to answer.

But I admitted that I'm kind of lost. There's a lot I'm working on, and I'm trying to get it all to come together. He said something about "a trusting the process thing" and I said "It's very much a trusting the process thing." Except that's a half-truth, because mostly I don't even trust my own process, and that's the biggest problem.

So yeah, I talk about uncertainty being so important and it is, but I recognize that confidence is also important—and even faith. Always have seen that, at least in part! But I don't necessarily talk in such a way that you'd know. And maybe the way we talk changes how we see.

This wasn't exactly the point I started out trying to make here. There's a particular concept, or nucleus/vortex/nexus of concepts, that is so important to me that it's almost who I am - even though it's just ideas, and ideas aren't selves. But when I forget that this nexus is what I'm about, I lose myself somehow.

It's the first thing I studied in graduate school - complex systems, how simple things create amazingly complicated and even living patterns.

That's an art and a science and it's what I'm about. The simple things could be shapes and letters and words and sentences and paragraphs and chapters and life stories. They could be pulses and sounds and textures and music. They could be bits and you know all that IT stuff.

That's what fascinates me. Something from nothing - or almost nothing.

It's why black holes fascinate me. Even the slight chance that they could be universes on the other side - it's the most intriguing thing imaginable. Something from nothing - or everything from one point.

It's why I wonder at games made of plastic tokens or digital bits, movies made of film grain and magnetic crackles, albums made of air made of fingers on instruments.

Does what I'm interested in make sense? It might make sense to no one except me as a single thing, but I see a single thing in that, and that's my life's work. That's what I'm doing with my life, or trying. And what am I going to do but keep trying? Moth to flame. The flame is everything.

Increasingly Inaccurately Numbered List of Coding Tips

There are four ways I know to get into code.

1) Decide what you want to do next and write code for it. (Works great when you're already immersed.)

2) Find comments to add/improve and other ways to tinker and buff up clarity/correctness. (Works to slowly get you immersed because this is much easier than 1 and always possible if the code is yours.)

3) Run the code. Just do it. Play with the running program, look for something you feel excited to alter. Alter it. Any which way. Just do. Find the relevant code and leave it different and run it all again.

4) Sit down (or stand up) with someone who also codes and collaborate.

Despite knowing these things, I go through weeks and even months of being basically unable to do 1), because I can't find my way to the flow state that makes coding easy and fun, or challenging but the best jigsaw puzzle in the world.

5) Music.

Sometimes it really helps, sometimes it sinks the submarine.

6) Set a timer for attempting the above.

7) Keep drinking cups of decaf coffee until zone found.

All right that's all folks. I'm totally out of tips.

I have this saying, "People before principles." What that means is that principles are very important, but in our lives, people are even more important. So if you disagree with a person on some principle and hate that person for it, I see where you're coming from, but I think you're putting principles before people, which to me is wrong.

I teach math and code and other kinds of knowledge and expression. Believe me, I thoroughly enjoy and value principles.

That includes ethical and moral principles.

One of those is "People before principles." I'm not sure where it came from. I think I heard it somewhere.

And you can break that principle, and I will still follow it and put you before the principle. But that doesn't mean abandoning the principle, in this case, because by putting you before a principle, I'm still following the principle. But I'd break a principle if it would save your life, for example.

True objectivity is one of the gentlest of all possible attitudes.

Its hardness comes from background reality, not from a person (yelling, flexing, guilting, etc).

In fact, the energy you pour in may well be the crutch you need because you are mistaken.

Monitor that energy and where it's going and why.

Just a little objectivity tip.

When you have the evidence, winning an argument is almost effortless, and has nothing to do with attitude.

Objectivity wins in the gentlest way because it's there already.

An invading force of 1,000 in a city of 100,000 would need to fight valiantly/brutally, and would need great luck besides.

If the invading force *is* the 100,000 already there, there's no need to fight whatsoever.

That's how objectivity wins: it already has.

And that's how you should argue, as close as you can manage.

I don't know if this is a secret or a trick or just obvious, but every poem is a character. Even if three poems are all perfectly truthful, they paint three different pictures and each has its own character, its own voice. Creative nonfiction is a true story told in an original way, probably with tweaks and embellishments. The same goes even for the truest poem: it has a unique voice, one somehow unlike the voice in every other poem ever written. Each poem is a character.

Photography has a similar quality. A great photo, I often think, is one that allows (or better yet invites) you to imagine a scene and a place other than what was there (around the camera). It's a slice taken from the universe, but because it's removed and held at arm's length, the space outside the frame suggests all these other universes.

Do you see what I mean? Even the truest poem does the same thing. It suggests a character, and people, beings, other than the poet. My heart is attached to me, and I to my heart. But if you remove my heart, it is a heart, and its own thing, and could belong to anyone.

[the image from The Anthologist about fiction/nonfiction poetry not existing as categories]

This is a clipping I posted on my Instagram last year, but it's a thought that chases me around sometimes. Poems often have completely true admissions next to complete fabrications - that holds also for prose or film stories, but they use more space. In a poem, it's all jammed together, like on the DC Metro to the 2017 Women's March. You don't have time, maybe don't even have the leeway to distinguish.

One thing is certain: the poet thought of everything there, and if it's there, almost certainly felt it. In what context? It could have been any context, though. A sad or angry strain need not be the poet's angry or sad strain about that thing in reality. But everyone has felt sad, everyone has felt angry. The poet has put together this arrangement for effect.

Interactive, digital art experiences are a bit like taking a poem, cutting it up, and putting the slices in different gift boxes of different sizes and shapes - or, more boringly, all the same size and shape. It could be wonderful. It could also not. It could feel pointless.

I don't know how else to put it. There's a "boxiness" to interactive art that has nothing to do with pixels. The piece works to the extent that you either love the boxes or you see right through them. If you aren't enthusiastic about the boxes or they're opaque, reading the poem fragments will probably be unsatisfying.

Questionable Speaker: Trans people identifying as women could go into women's bathrooms and rape people.

A: How can you say that?! That's so transphobic! Why do you hate trans people so much? I mean, that's SUCH a misconception. It's a stereotype and you're propagating it, because apparently you're hateful and prejudiced. It's just so wrong and harmful!

OR

B: That's true, it could happen. It has happened and probably will again. What's the probability or frequency? It seems rare, but what can we do about this? And we should be careful not to give the impression that this is normal or usual. All the evidence I've seen points to this being a relatively rare occurrence. And people need to be able to exist. What would you propose?

-

Get my point?

My understanding of human psychology is that B is not only more accurate, it's also more effective.

The original statement may LEAD to misconceptions, but it's a totally true statement. Just like you shouldn't prosecute someone for a crime they haven't committed yet, you shouldn't attack someone for the possibility that their true words could lead to misunderstandings.

If you can't understand why someone disagrees with you, you're at a big disadvantage when it comes to convincing them of anything on the topic.

This goes just as much for misunderstanding or simplifying their position. That does not instill trust.

Now - I should say that it's extremely understandable not to understand why someone disagrees with you. That is probably going to be the default condition. We'd better expect it. But because we'd better expect it, we'd better prepare for it.

There's a way that I think guys are done a disservice. Let me see if I can put it into just a few words.

Remember the classic sex strategies - the female of the species is sparing and choosy, protective of a few eggs and young, while the male of the species is profligate, taking risks and opportunities to basically diversify the portfolio? You know the story. And it's legitimate enough. Much of the animal kingdom is influenced by this pattern, including humans in our history - and today is part of our history. Life is not quite that simple, but it's one of the themes; oversimplified, stylized, but not exactly crazy or wrong. The pattern exists.

Yet promiscuity is seen as negative - not in the same ways for men and women, but generally negative. It's seen as unfaithful or caddish to be sleeping around or interested in many people and playing them off against each other. And that's often at best. It can be seen as objectively hurtful and even, apparently, pure evil. Treatment of cheaters and adulterers has at times been... harsh.

Many guys will understand that it's better, more virtuous, simpler, more honest, etc, to be interested in one person at a time. And to some extent this is maybe because we consider one person enough, and to another extent it is maybe because society has expressed to us that this is a better, more noble way to conduct our lives. So whether it's from some inner compass or reading the room of society, we aren't chasing after multiple women at once. It almost doesn't occur to us. Not usually. We're interested in one person, and we want to know if she's interested back.

The problem is that this is actually - intuitively - read as weak, unmasculine, and possibly desperate by female psychology. That caddish thing that men aren't supposed to be like - you know, cheats, players, etc - is almost the definition of masculinity according to that sex strategies picture, which many have awareness of, including many women, and including some primate instinct around sexuality. So when we ennoble ourselves, we can make ourselves pathetic.

And that's the disservice that's done to men. It's this idea that it's a good thing to be interested in only one woman. And it may be, but we forget that it's also a good thing to be interested in many women. That's perfectly all right, and there are times when that's by far the healthiest - and ironically by far the most attractive - option.

When you flirt with many women, some will flirt back, and some of those will get with you, and all of that will naturally build your confidence and increase the ratio of women who respond. If you don't flirt with anyone, or only one person at a time and it seems like every time you end up rejected - that will naturally harm your confidence, and make the ratio worse in the future. That's a basic equation of human sexuality - again, a bit simplified, but a real pattern.

Yes, it has traditionally been more socially acceptable for men to be promiscuous than women. (This in part derives from matching the sex strategy that goes with the type of sex cell you're carrying, though that concept has been taken to intolerant extremes; strategies of this kind should absolutely not be enforced by others; let people be how they are!) But when men do not want to be promiscuous, or feel that isn't the right way to be in general, they tend to suffer for it, because they seem unmasculine.

And when they like someone? Guess what! That person's opinion matters a lot. In some ways too much. (It isn't supposed to - that's "putting her on a pedestal." And externally this can seem like manipulation. But for the guys I'm talking about - guys like me - it's a purely emotional thing. If someone matters, she matters. If you care what she thinks, you care what she thinks. If you're a little scared of her because you feel intense about her, you're a little scared of her because you feel intense about her. Nothing could be more genuine.) It's easy to get heartbroken and depressed when the one person you really like doesn't even think it's worth responding to a text message, like, ever. It's pretty devastating. Or can be. Then try that on repeat. Because it's what happens on repeat when every person you're interested in thinks you're weak, unmasculine, desperate, creepy, etc... and when she thinks that because she's the only person you're interested in at that time. She'll detect the pressure. Even if you aren't projecting it, she'll sense it. And that will be your undoing.

This has been referred to as "oneitis," and every time I hear it mentioned it's presented as weakness and probably pathetic. Now, if two people are married, then exclusivity is part of the commitment, and it's seen differently. But emotions aren't legal contracts. They happen when they happen. And for men and women the timelines are often a bit out of alignment, probably naturally. (Men seem to fall in love faster, or some do, and women seem to assume it's superficial. Both are probably natural and probably shortsighted in some ways. If a woman can size up a man from his confidence and demeanor and so on, why would we assume men can't do the same? Yet there are some instinctual asymmetries that are not in themselves wrong - just easy to misunderstand.)

This is not adequately explained to men - or women. But I think it's real.

It isn't exactly "nice guys" versus "bad boys." It actually has to do more with flirting, promiscuity, selectivity, and how we process those things - and how those things unconsciously affect our mating instincts.

As a guy, you can be interested in just one person. You can. But you have to let her know you're interested, preferably in a way that's bold but not objectionable or desperate. She needs to know she's special to you and why, yet she needs to not feel pressured by that. And there's kind of a slow reveal; you don't just drop a bomb. Or if you do, it has to be a bomb she likes in that moment - but it can't seem like you're throwing it out there just because she likes it. It's kind of a delicate balance. It's more delicate than the balance of flirting with many women, other women seeing that you like women and are popular with them, and joining in the fun because they expect to have fun.

Basically, the more selective "nicer" strategy is in some ways more difficult to pull off, that is, unless you understand these patterns I've described above.

It's a theory. I don't really know. It's what I think, based on experience, observation, listening, etc.

My definition of "interactive media" definitely includes instruments. I actually feel like an instrument is the canonical example of interactive media.

When you build a musical instrument for someone, you make a game that they can play - for sure it's a rule system that can be tinkered with in improv, and consequences are negotiable.

I'd say dancing is the first form of play, and musical instruments are the first games. But these are my definitions. We can define things how we want.

I'm sure the human voice evolved before board games. But it may be that instruments evolved *after* board games, in which case the latter might be the first games after all. Or maybe the voice box, as first (and certainly prototypal) instrument, still takes the crown as first game. But now we're bending things so much that it's all opinion and metaphor.

I have this weird concept I call quantum solipsism. I find it vaguely but definitely disturbing. And I hope it's nonsense for that reason.

Imagine we really do live in a branching universe, and our free-will decisions help determine that branching. The future would contain many different versions of your life-to-be. All would physically exist somewhere.

The particular life you experience would be only the tiniest fraction of yourself (of all the future-webbing from branching upon branching). In a weird way, even after your entire life, you would be a stranger to yourself. The person with your DNA and body would have led potentially a vast variety of lives. In some, you might be a murderer. And that's where it begins to get especially weird. You wouldn't know. Maybe in this life you have a PhD and three houses, but in most of your other lives you're degreeless and homeless. You'd have no idea. The point is that even after living your entire life, you wouldn't know most of the potentials. You wouldn't know whether most versions of you are funny, for example.

But that's only the PG stuff. It gets worse.

Other people are also branching. Or... are they? See, the thing is, you're seeing only a tiny slice of other people's potentials, as well. And... you're seeing the slices that happen to coincide with your own. Are you noticing something possibly uncomfortable?

If your choices pick which of your life branches you travel down, it seems your choices also must pick, at least in part, which life branches others travel down. Yet you and they travel down all the paths.

It's kind of like looking in a mirror. What you see reflected in it depends on your viewing angle. As you choose things in life, you're picking the branch of the multiverse you travel, but that also constrains which branches belonging to other people still intersect with yours. By choosing, you're moving the mirror, or your viewing angle.

The freakish thought is that maybe it's all the same process and when you choose, you are in a sense choosing for everyone. And so you don't know any people. You just know these sort of shadows of people that happen to intersect with the branches you walk down. They're all reflections of you, and you of them.

It's a very lonely view of the universe and I really don't like it. But my mind comes up with such things apparently because it likes to freak me out.

The universe is the explosion of a fractal. Or, rather, it's an explosion, but it's a fractal. That means you can zoom in and zoom in and zoom in, or zoom out and out and out, and you keep seeing similar fractal shapes.

It means in some sense, the universe blossoms like a plant with flowers. The same sort of self-similar patterning.

At this point the multifractal quality of nature is self-evident.

Fractals tend to come from recursion, meaning feedback a bit like (it's an example) the feedback from a microphone.

In each moment, the laws of physics produce a new universe. That universe then gets pumped back through the laws of physics. And on and on and on and on. It's recursion. The output goes to the input. The snake eats its tail. The mic sings piercingly.