Neverending
Posted on:: December 4th, 2002
While writing an email to AKMA, I realized why I’m not as happy as I should be given the externalities of my life: I’m never done with anything.
I used to be. I’d work on something and then it would be complete. I’d mount the stuffed head on my wall and move on. Now everything is a goddamn thread. At best, things peter out. They may even end. But they’re never done, the type of done where you close the door behind you and it hear it click shut.
It’s probably just me.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Nope, it’s all of us. Which is why open source projects have to flog their participants into releasing complete versions, and directors decide to flatter themselves with special “cuts” of their works, and authors hope to become famous enough that they can re-issue their older books with corrections.
At least the web has made it easy for folks like me to produce usable artifacts, even if they’re never quite finished.
But that’s precisely why, in a time of desperate inconclusiveness, I turned to the weblog form (though I didn’t know its name at first): it’s a way of being done more often, of reaping smaller but more frequent clicks.
Is it not working that way for you any longer, due to interlinking and threading? Or are you craving more substantial closures?
Not meaning to sound Luddite, but I think this malaise has escalated with the PC (OK, Apple too) revolution.
I started out working retail. There were solid accomplishments–customers served, paperwork and inventories (manually) completed, etc. I *did* stuff and saw the physcial results.
It remained true in my standup training days in the late 70s and 80s. I taught classes. I wrote lesson plans (on the Selectric). Again, immediate substance, immediate feedback that something was *done.*
But when I moved into interactive training design, I discovered I never *finished* anything. The software may have been delivered, but it wasn’t “done.” Nope–there were always bugs to fix, incremental updates to release. And a CD just doesn’t provide the same feedback as a happy customer or student syllabus can.
It’s the same on the Web. I agree with Ray that blogs do provide some degree of “accomplishment” (“I wrote that!”)–but the essential nature of blogs as a series of 1’s and 0’s makes them feel, well, insubstantial. I just don’t get the same kick out of finishing a blog entry as I do when refinishing a dresser (to pick a current example).
But when I *print* my blog entries? Ah–it feels better.
Not meaning to sound Luddite, but I think this malaise has escalated with the PC (OK, Apple too) revolution.
I started out working retail. There were solid accomplishments–customers served, paperwork and inventories (manually) completed, etc. I *did* stuff and saw the physcial results.
It remained true in my standup training days in the late 70s and 80s. I taught classes. I wrote lesson plans (on the Selectric). Again, immediate substance, immediate feedback that something was *done.*
But when I moved into interactive training design, I discovered I never *finished* anything. The software may have been delivered, but it wasn’t “done.” Nope–there were always bugs to fix, incremental updates to release. And a CD just doesn’t provide the same feedback as a happy customer or student syllabus can.
It’s the same on the Web. I agree with Ray that blogs do provide some degree of “accomplishment” (“I wrote that!”)–but the essential nature of blogs as a series of 1’s and 0’s makes them feel, well, insubstantial. I just don’t get the same kick out of finishing a blog entry as I do when refinishing a dresser (to pick a current example).
But when I *print* my blog entries? Ah–it feels better.
Oops–sorry for the double entry. I got an error message at my first attempt.
A couple of things:
* that you don’t end things brings happiness to others. This might be small consolotaion for the deficit in your relative happiness but I hope you include this on the ledger.
* your thought reminds me of the people who, at the end meetings, must know and execute upon action items. Every meeting must have closure. Once the action item is discharged thats it.
There are others who seem to hold the meeting in their heads without concluding actions. There is no closure. The meeting is present in every subsequent conversation with anybody on anything.
I doubt this help with your happiness but I percieve the latter to be a far more joyous bunch than the former.
A couple of things:
* that you don’t end things brings happiness to others. This might be small consolotaion for the deficit in your relative happiness but I hope you include this on the ledger.
* I find the notion of an end curious. What about all the unintended consequences of your actions. They continue to exist and are part of your “extended” self. You can’t end those. In fact this may be where you’ve done your best work. Perhaps I’ve missed the point.
* your thought reminds me of the people who, at the end meetings, must know and execute upon action items. Every meeting must have closure. Once the action item is discharged thats it.
There are others who seem to hold the meeting in their heads without concluding actions. There is no closure. The meeting is present in every subsequent conversation with anybody on anything.
I doubt this help with your happiness but I percieve the latter to be a far more joyous bunch than the former.
A couple of things:
* that you don’t end things brings happiness to others. This might be small consolotaion for the deficit in your relative happiness but I hope you include this on the ledger.
* I find the notion of an end curious. What about all the unintended consequences of your actions. They continue to exist and are part of your “extended” self. You can’t end those. In fact this may be where you’ve done your best work. Perhaps I’ve missed the point.
* your thought reminds me of the people who, at the end meetings, must know and execute upon action items. Every meeting must have closure. Once the action item is discharged thats it.
There are others who seem to hold the meeting in their heads without concluding actions. There is no closure. The meeting is present in every subsequent conversation with anybody on anything.
I doubt this help with your happiness but I percieve the latter to be a far more joyous bunch than the former.
I think you’ve hit upon something very fundamental about wired life, David. The constant incompletion may be, as one commenter above said cryptically, creating more happiness for other people. But I think people do need to *finish* things, maybe not all the time, but sometimes. And they need to be able to *stop* working from time to time, as well, even when things are unfinished, and go outside, play with the kids, climb a mountain, or just veg without being constantly plugged in.
I watched “A Beautiful Mind” recently and was struck how much John Nash’s schizophrenia was like my online life: ethereal voices constantly impinging on my attention, demanding responses, distracting me from the work (and people) at hand. Only in my case it’s email messages, not hallucinations.
I think the thought that the earlier things ended was a delusion. If it is possible to be “done”, then we can spin stories about being “finished”, feel “accomplishment”, and “move on”. Your eyes have simply openned to the true nature of the world. It’s all practice. There’s no “done”.
Welcome to my world. ‘Software is never finished, only abandoned’.
But, it is all of us. I feel it too.
Evolution is never done. If closure is your bag, this is not the environment for you. Software, the internet, and technology are all evolving rapidly. If one stops progressing, one is overtaken (eaten? extinct?).
This is also the cause of the rightward swing in politics: lotsa people want things to at least slow down changing if not go backward. But don’t cut off supplying my neat new toys (including medical technology)! Just make it kind of a background thing. Welcome to the technocracy.
nice blog, look at junkeater.com for a spam free blog.
greetings
best wisches for the year 04.
best wisches for the year 04.
best wisches for the year 04.
best wisches for the year 04.
Seems to be, that google changed their algo. bad serps for a few of seos.
greetings from germany
Seems to be, that google changed their algo. bad serps for a few of seos.
greetings from germany
Niccceee pagee