Practicum 2: low-tech

My second practicum was basically a kind of low-tech week, to put into practice the value I place on being aware of what you’re doing, instead of just pressing a button and waiting for the end result. I tend to think that a lot of those modern conveniences that keep on getting invented to save people a couple of minutes sort of deteriorate that kind of thoughtfulness that could be put into whatever one is doing, and make people lazy, too.

I didn’t use a lot of daily conveniences that people tend to rely on and take for granted: the internet, the microwave, the dishwasher, my ipod, things like that. In some ways it worked out alright, it some ways it sputtered out a bit. I often would only realize that I had used something that I shouldn’t have after the fact, like, “oops, I used the electric kettle”, or, “oops, I used the phone”, or, “I took a ride from my dad to someplace I could have gotten to myself, if inconveniently…does that even count?” All these things are so ingrained into everybody’s life, they’re just about impossible to get away from, and to really do this practicum properly, I’d have to go live with the Amish or something.

So in that way it wasn’t as successful, but in another way, it was successful for the same reason. It kept on striking me over the week that a lot of my quibbles with technology and convenience seemed totally petty. I still place tons of value on being thoughtful of what you’re doing and taking time for and appreciating the process of something, rather than thinking solely about the end result. But so many of these little things I’ve kept harping on just don’t seem to matter that much in the grand scheme of things, and I think I’m starting to let go of those things. Who cares if some bit of technology makes things a bit easier, especially if it actually does the job better than you could by yourself? For example: I broke down a day early because I really really really wanted to make some banana bread, which requires the use of an electric mixer, unless it is to be intolerably inferior. So I made the banana bread and it was totally awesome. I think this example helps me draw the line between what’s being mindless and lazy and what’s not, so that I’m not throwing the baby out with the bathwater (for lack of a better phrase). If I had simply put all the ingredients into some magic banana-bread-making device and sat back to wait for it to be done, then I would have crossed the line, but I was still active in the process, which is what’s important. That was a really nice realization to make, because now I don’t have to feel as much like my values of quality, thoughtfulness, and low-tech are at odds with each other, which was nagging at me for quite some time.

There was another definite positive experience this past week that sticks out in my mind, and that was Deb’s class The Good Rain. Normally I’d have my computer out during that class so we can bum around the net in search of answers for the questions we bring in, but kept it in my bag this time. I had a feeling that the class might not go anywhere without the net, but it worked out really well. Instead of drooling over the computer, we took our thoughts about the chapter of the book we read and ended up having a big philosophical discussion that lasted the whole class. It kicked butt, and I think that’s what Deb’s original intent for the class was.

Something else that’s been on my mind a lot lately (it’s unrelated to the practicum, but I wanna talk about it anyway) is the constant desire for more knowledge. I really strongly believe that people don’t need to know and understand everything, that some mysteries are better left unsolved. Space and Time has given me a concrete example of something to rail against, as far as this goes (sorry, Nic), and has helped me define this belief a bit. As the year has gone on and we keep getting into more and more crazy and obscure stuff, I keep getting more perturbed by it. The universe is obviously a super complex thing, or maybe that’s just it’s been made out to be, and all these scientists are trying to work it out, trying to describe it with all these stupidly complex theories. I think that it’s something we simply can’t understand, and we’d be better off just basking in awe. It is what is it, whether we understand it or not.

In the physics intensive earlier this year, we watched a video about Richard Feynman, in which he talks about a flower, and how it’s beautiful on the surface, but knowing how it works and being able to explain it makes it even more beautiful. I was asked what I thought about that, and at the time I wasn’t really sure. But now I think I’m definitely in opposition to Feynman on this one. Taking something beautiful and trying to figure it out and explain it is like explaining why a joke is funny. It just is, and we don’t have to have all the answers about it. I also feel that to figure things out and explain them like that, you have to break them down into all their little parts, which means you’re treating them like they're simply the sum of their parts.

Having been thinking about this belief, the Harvard Classics reading this week was quite fitting. It was an essay on beauty by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it had a few quotes that really resonated. “The boy had juster views when he gazed at the shells on the beach, or the flowers in the meadow, unable to call them by their names, than the man in the pride of his nomenclature"…"The human heart concerns us more than the pouring into microscopes, and is larger than can be measured by the pompous figures of the astronomer.” (Holy crap, I like this dude!) For me, this gets at, similar to my belief about not needing to understand everything, my belief that not everything has to have a reason. Things can happen simply because they do, and we can appreciate them for that.

There was also a quote later on in the essay that I liked a lot: “Beauty is the moment of transition, as if the form were just ready to flow into other forms.” I can tie this back to what I was talking about earlier, about taking time to appreciate the process of creating something, not just the result, and also to the sum-of-its-parts thing. A bunch of flour and sugar and butter and eggs and mushy bananas aren’t too special by themselves, but seeing them make those transitions from one thing to the next until they’re a batter, and from that into deliciousness makes them more than that. Remember when I was talking about simple pleasures? This is what I was talking about.

Anyways….I really don’t know how to end this. I suppose I’ll end with the last question from the handbook.

What are your core values? What do you believe?

I believe that things are more than the sum of their parts.

I believe in keeping mysteries, mysteries.

I believe in simple pleasures.

I believe the means are more important than the ends.

I believe in being mindful.