April 2010 Archives

We learn a lot about Ishmael in chapters three through seven because we spend a lot of quality time with him alone with his thoughts. We get an understanding of how he sees the world We get a sense of his values and beliefs, and also some foreshadowing of events to come, by the way he describes the whaling town of New Bedford and its inhabitants.

In search of a place to stay until he can find a ship, Ishmael bypasses the better inns and choses instead, The Spouter-Inn , a dive close to the water. The bar is chock full of images and artifacts from whaling ships. The image is of a hard world. It would be fair to call it cruel. The whaling implement hanging on the wall are long, sharp, jagged, well-worn and battered. You get the sense there is a lot of death in them, both man and beast. Behind the uneven, rugged bar hangs the jaws of a whale and it's within those jaws that barman, nicknamed Jonah, serves the worst kinds of alcohol. It's here that Melville interjects his opinion of one of the big issues of his time, temperance. By Ishmael's reaction to the bar you get the sense Melville is clearly on the side of the prohibitionists. But I won't hold that against him. (It was at this point I set the iPad down and poured a bourbon.)

Later, we're introduced to two characters who are to play a major role in Ishmael's story. The first is a mysterious person who enters the bar with his returning shipmates and slips off as they begin spending their wages at the bar. The second character is Queequeg, Ishmael's bed partner for the night (the inn is full up). Queequeg is a giant of a man and we get the sense that his soul is as deep as his body is wide. He's tattooed from head to foot. A cannibal who sells shrunken heads on the side. He's also devoutly devoted to his faith, praying to his idol before climbing into bed.

It's here that Melville comments on another major issue of his time, slavery. Not once does Ishmael see Queequeg as less of a man because he is black. He has no objections to sharing a bed with a black man though he's a little unsure about sharing it with a cannibal who slips with his knife. But sleep in the same bed he does. Ishmael is more curious about Queequeg than anything.

Melville also uses breakfast the following morning to further extend this position. At breakfast in the inn all whalers are equal regardless of color. It's their skill and experience that earn them a seat at the table, not skin tone, or rank, or breeding. Experience is what gives a man substance and makes him comfortable in the company of others. It's what make a man genteel. Ishmael says, "...to do anything cooly is to do it genteely and one only becomes genteel through living." For Ishmael experience, worldliness trump breeding and rank.

As he walks the town, Ishmael admires how metropolitan New Bedord is compared to the rest of Puritan New England. From Ishmael's perspective, a ship is the most worldly place inhabited but only the worthy from around the world and port towns like New Bedford are extensions of that.

Ishmael does not put much stock in the afterlife. At least that is the sense we get as he comes upon a graveyard and a church. Though he does seem conflicted on the notion of a God above who is simultaneously benevolent and cruel, like the gods of ancient Greece. Though unlike them it seems Ismael's god, the Christian god is indifferent to those whose who worship him. He describes faith as a jackal feeding on the fear of those tied to the dangerous life at sea.

It was at this point I put my iPad on my nightstand and fell asleep. But before I nodded off I had to check. Turns out I'd read about 35 pages without giving a second thought to the device. 

This is a book club designed for anyone with two loves: reading books and technology. Really you only have to be a book lover to be a member because we take all kinds of technologies. It can be an iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, phone, PDA, any device really. Even a plain old fashion book. They were once a new technology to.

The rules of the club are simple:
1. We agree on a book to read
2. We obtain said book via our technology of choice.
3. We read and discuss said book and how the technology shaped our interaction with it during the agreed upon time frame.

That's all there is to it.

Our inaugural book is Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick. We're reading it starting now through May 31, 2010. I thought it necessary to put the year in this one so we're all on the same page.

We can discuss the book and the technology over Twiter using the hash tag #mmbc (multi-media book club). If you blog please also write about your experience there using the same tag, mmbc. At the end we'll produce some type of artifact, could be a brief paper, series of short YouTube videos, images, etc., that capture the essence of the experience including the book itself, the influence of our chosen technology on the experience, the experience of bing part of the club, and the implications we draw from it all.

We should probably create a wiki page where we can post our vital information: members and way to contact each other, books we've read, any specified meeting times and mediums, etc. (Any suggestions/preferences for a wiki site?). We can all takes turns leading. I can take the lead on this one and we can pass the baton around.

What do you think? I'm open to suggestions (other than telling me where to shove my idea. You'll need to get in line for that bit. And, it's a long line.)

So whadya say? In for a little bookworm fun techie style?

I know @Robin2go, @jackier, @honeydo, @bpanulla among others expressed interest. I'm @jeffswain. All are welcome.

That's how I felt tapping open Moby Dick. (As an aside, will tapping open replace cracking open a book in the vernacular?) I read chapters one and two propped up in bed last night. I had the iPad propped up vertically, only one page at a time is visible, and the screen locked so my movements would not cause it to flip. I have to say, I was comfortable. Seven hundred pages never felt so light.


Melville's Classic on the iPad (landscape view)

The story begins with the narrator, Ishmael, explaining his love for the sea. These chapters are important because they serve as our first opportunity to get to know Ishmael. Based on our initial impressions we decide if we like him. Is he trustworthy? What's his mental makeup? Is he a romantic or a jaded cynic? It's critical information to know because we're going to be spending a lot of time together. Plus it's through Ishmael we will come to know the character of Ahab, the subject of the story. How we come to understand Ahab, his motivations, beliefs, and fears, will be filtered through Ishmael and we need to keep that in mind as we form our own opinions of the ship's captain.

At first blush, I identify with Ishmael. I have no love for, and even less knowledge of life at sea but, oddly enough I was able to connect with Ishmael. I think it's because his passion for the sea is very much akin to my passion for running. While waxing romantic, Ismael describes the sea as, "...the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and that is the key to it all." To which I thought, 'exactly." Just earlier in the day I was talking with my dissertation mentor about running.  Yes, the mentor is different from an adviser and I'm fortunate enough to have both. He wanted to know what I get out of running. It's hard to put into words but running is the closest I come to feeling spiritual. It's when running that things make sense to me. I think I see the greater working of the universe.


The moment I identified with Ismael (highlighted on the iPad)

To talk about the iPad again for a moment, I was very impressed with the highlighting tool, available through the Bookmark option. It highlights in multiple colors even catching the nuances of doing it by hand. You can see the pressure point where the tip of the highlighter would be and it also displays the imperfect movement of the hands across the page. As someone who marks up all his books, books I read for pleasure included, this was a nice touch.

Through pain there is transcendence. That's why I run. I embrace the pain because it's taking me to a place I cannot get to otherwise. And that's why I think Ishmael loves the sea. It's there where the universe makes the most sense to him. It's there that meaning can be found and a meaningful life be made. His voyage is my marathon.  As he's telling us about himself you get to know that although poor he is educated. His religious and Greek references are enough to send you Googling in order to complete the metaphor he's making. It's also interesting that although opportunities for position and rank are available to him, he prefers to go to sea as a common sailor.  He gives several reasons for this but they all come down to the same thing for Ishmael: it's there where it all happens. Others of rank and responsibility have to be by the nature of their position removed from the real flow of life. In other words, to manage what's going on they have to reside outside of it in order to see the things they need to see. It's the difference between running a marathon and coaching someone else for it. It's always more real for the runner. He also displays a disdain for the passengers for they two are removed from the real experience by virtue of buying their passage. For Ishmael life has to be lived. It's ugly, messy, beautiful, graceful, inconsistent and takes place in an indifferent Universe.  And the only way to live it is to meet life head on, on its own terms, and try to make some sense of it.

I've received lots of feedback regarding my thoughts on the iPad as an e-reader. Specifically people have been asking if the iPad could ever really replace reading an actual book. It got me to thinking, could it?

First off, I don't know. My experience with e-readers in general has been less than satisfying. Sure the iPad is light years better than the Kindle but, is that enough? Will I want to come back for more? Could the iPad become a go to choice for reading? I've decided to put it to the test. I'm going to take one of the classics, defined by Mark Twain as a book everyone talks about but has never actually read, and see what the experience is like. For my experiment, I chose a book I always wanted to read but never could bring myself to make the emotional commitment to tackle because it's just so damn daunting: Herman Melville's Moby Dick. It's a free download from iBooks so there's no financial investment. But it is a book that commands ones attention.

Over the next few weeks, and perhaps months, I aim to pursue this classic on the iPad as if it were my own personal white whale. I'll chronicle me experience along the way here on my blog. I'll also try to write as many of these posts from iPad as I can along the way though that may prove difficult because of it's limitations as a content creation device. I'm a big reader as the bookcase in my study and the boxes in the basement will attest. I often have two or three books going at a single time. So, I'm hoping my experience will be beneficial to my other bibliophiles out there. (If anyone wants to play along you are more than welcome. We can be one of the first iPad book clubs) So who's in?

Not long after I posted my thoughts on how the iPad may spell doom for the Kindle, I came across these two three articles articulating the potential of the iPad as an e-reader. The first is from the Daily Finance and written by Sarah Weinman titled iPad and IPhone Apps Revolutionize Book Marketing -- and Reading. (See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/cf9i5P). The part of the piece that resonated with me was a quote from Cody Brown, founder of NYU blog The Local. About the iPad Brown says:

 "If you, as an author, see the iPad as a place to 'publish' your next book, you are completely missing the point." He reasons that the device's multimedia platform and touchscreen interface can't help but transform what we think of as a book -- static text, maybe some illustrations -- into something more richly interactive."

Precisely. Media changes and shapes culture by how it enables us to participate. It's not about what we can do already; it's what we can do that we couldn't before. It's about ways of making-meaning that were not available before the new media. Can you imagine reading Harry Potter as an interactive text? Or the Lord of the Rings? Or Homer's Iliad and Odyssey?

The second piece was from The New Yorker and written by Ken Auletta titled Publish or Perish: Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business? The article is about the unveiling of the iPad back in January and Apples ambitious launch into the e-reader business. From the article:

"Onstage, Jobs made it clear that he would present Amazon and its C.E.O., Jeff Bezos, with a serious challenge. He told the crowd that five of the "big six" publishers had agreed to sell their e-books through Apple's iBooks store, which would open in April. And he said that Apple, through its iTunes and Apple stores, had access to a hundred and twenty-five million credit cards, which would make it easy for consumers to buy books on impulse. The iPad was clearly a more versatile device: it would provide color and full audio and video, while the Kindle could display only black-and-white text." (Read more at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_auletta#ixzz0lZacwZIp)

I'm fairly plain when it comes to running gear. Other than my sneakers, I don't pay much attention to the clothes. I generally run in gym shorts and old t-shirts. Eventually, no matter how much I washed them, a ripe funk seems to get baked in to the fabric. Well, it wasn't me, it was my wife who had enough. She had coupons from Dick's Sporting Goods that were about to expire and she took it upon herself to by me some proper running clothes.

My first set proper running gear

Well, when I first laid eyes, and hands, on them, I noticed how light they were compared to what I'd been wearing. But it was was when I looked inside the shorts that I got my biggest surprise..the inside was lined with mesh underwear, kind of like a bathing suit. My first thought was, how in the world am I going to run like that? I mean, well, those are some of my favorite parts of me and I was worried about them getting bounced around and treated much like the airlines treat my luggage.

But I sacked it up and wore them on my long run Sunday. And I got to say I was impressed. I ran 16 miles and felt good the whole time. The light fabric kept me cool and the wicking material kept me dry. When I finished my run the only tell tale sign of sweat was the dry salt rings that gave my shirt a tie-dyed effect. And the boys felt great. The mesh lining kept everything in place and the air flow kept me feeling light and cool. Another nice benefit was the lack of chafing I get on my long runs from the thicker seams of my regular shorts. It was nice running sans underwear alfresco style.


A closer shot of my Alresco gear

Sue bought me two sets of shorts (UnderArmour) and three shirts (1 Reebok and 2 Russel). I've been alternating them in with my regular gear all week and can definitely tell a difference in the feel. The Reebok shirt (in the picture) is much better at wicking than the RusselI shirts but both brands are lighter than what I've been running in. I'm generally not a gear guy but, I may have to add more into the mix. But first, lets see how they wash up....

"The medium is the message." Marshall McLuhan's great cultural insight says that to really understand who we are at a given point we should focus more on the media that is delivering the message than the message itself. If this is the case than the currently popular e-Readers, such as the Amazon Kindle may headed for the dust bin of history rather quickly. Here's why.

Ultimately I find the e-Reader experience leaves me, well, very unsatisfied. It's not that much different, experientially speaking, than the Sony reader I had ten years ago. While the electronic ink technology produces a much better readable screen it has its limitations. First off, it only exists in grayscale. A color version of e-ink is supposed to happen and for the company's sake, the sooner it does the better. Also, because the screen must refresh itself in order for you to go to the next page it hinders the flow of reading.

Second, if find the device, the Kindle, awkward to use. For me there's not that natural feel to it. Pages are flipped by pressing next and previous buttons. Navigation is done via a button and menu, back and home buttons. It's very sterile and mechanical two words you don't normally associate with a pleasurable reading experience. Reading is an intimate act and the Kindle fails to deliver in that regard. 

The iPad, in contrast, as an e-reader is killer. One thing Apple gets that other companies don't is the people who use their products. Apple's success has as much to do with the aesthetics of their design than the content it contains. In short, Apple is a lifestyle choice.  Apple's understanding of the importance of the user experience is very clear when you look at the iPad.

Whether you're reading books purchased through Amazon or through iBooks what immediately jumps out at you is the crispness of the page. The black text stands clean on the white background. And you navigate by sliding your finger across the screen. It's much the same action as turning the page of an actual book. Other things the iPad has going for it as a reader include the use of real page numbers with books purchased through IBooks. It also tells you the number of pages left in a chapter and it has a progress line across the bottom. This is much more orientating than The Kindle does that as well except that it replaces the page number and the number of pages in a chapter with a Location number, whose purpose I'm not completely sure of. Then there's the screen itself. On the iPad, it looks like a book from the lines of pages on the side to the subtle shadowing where the crease of the book would be. It feels like a book. It is an intimate experience.

Plus it's in color. It's not enough for any new device to simply model what you can do just as well, or even better, than what you've been doing. The Kindle as a reader fails to live up to reading a book but the iPad not only comes close to matching the experience it uses the ability of the device to do more. You can get books in color and include animation (the version of Alice in Wonderland is a great example). While still in it's infancy, I see the beginnings of a new kind of reading experience in the making.

Yes, you can take them both with you. Yes both the Kindle and the iPad are very travel friendly. Especially for those of us who normally travel with a lot of books and magazines. Both certainly decrease the amount of weight I'm lugging around an airport. But ultimately, this is another check on the iPad side of the ledger. You see, the iPad is a lot more than just a reader. It can do mail, RSS, social media, and even some work related things the kindle can't.

The Kindle does shine in one area. Currently the iPad does not have any agreement with textbook publisher's, which Amazon has, so there is a  limitation there. But for how long? There also the ability to highlight and annotate text on a Kindle that I find useful. You can highlight on the iPad using the bookmark feature, and do it in multiple colors, but you can't annotate. Again but for how long?

In an age where single devices can perform incredible amounts of functions a single purpose tool had better be killer at what it does. If it doesn't transform our thinking about things it most likely will have a very short life span. For the Kindle, in its current incarnation, that's what I see.

My weekend with the iPad.

My title is tongue-in-cheek but like most humor there's a lot of truth, or wishful thinking, behind it.  By know most of you know I'm a runner and I do my long run for the week on Sunday. After which I like to take a nice hot soak while enjoying a scotch and a book. The iPad, or any lifestyle device, that I could use in the tub would be an instant winner with me. Now onto the weekend.

To begin with, I agree with NY Times tech writer David Pogue who asserts the iPad is it's own device and should not be compared with a cell phone, netbook, or laptop. If a phone or mobile computer is what you need than buy that. The iPad is different. If the iPad was meant to be the hybrid of your phone and your computer it's a tremendous failure. It can't make calls and it doesn't work like a notebook. But that's not what it's for. I see it as more of a lifestyle device that I would have in addition to those other things. 

 I also approached my weekend with the iPad from the perspective of Marshall McLuhan who correctly, in my opinion, claimed way back in the 1960s that the medium is the message and if we want to understand things on a cultural level that's where we should be looking. I was curious to see how the iPad could extend my interactions with the environment or alter my perceptions of reality.  I wasn't so concerned with what it did compared to other devices, e.g. what bells & whistles it had, what cool apps., etc. I was really focused on the device and how the device shaped the content and my understanding and interactions with it. This was the framework on which I approached our weekend together.

For the Fanboys I should begin by commenting on observations from several colleagues who had the iPad in their hands before me.  The first was an observation that using the iPad in class or meetings, etc., is better than say a laptop or netbook because there is no screen between participants. That this somehow removes a barrier giving the feeling of being more present. I would argue that this assertion is misguided and irrelevant. Any device in a meeting or in a classroom requires split-attention. To say you're attention was somehow less split is not accurate. Using any device in these settings requires one to divide their focus, whether it's looking at a screen in front of you or down toward the table.

Instead, I acknowledge the distraction and further argue that it can be leveraged into something productive. If I'm an instructor, rather than ban any device from my classroom or surrender to the notion that no one is listening because they're all on Facebook, I would explore how these devices can actually be used to foster learning, including during class. The Fanboys, by making the argument that a device that doesn't put a screen between you and the other participants makes you feel more present are actually arguing the other, anti-device in these settings, side.

I've seen other comments that people would or did buy the iPad in part because the price was comparable to an iPhone. To which I reply, So? Would you compare the price of a motorcycle to a car? Why? They are essentially different modes of transportation with some overlap in use. A more apt comparison would be to compare the price, aesthetics, and performance of the iPad to similar devices, such as the HP Slate when it comes out. 

For the Haters who love to howl about the iPad being a large iPhone that can't make calls I would say you are missing the point. It's not an iPhone. If you need a phone compare phones. Another argument they like to make concerns the shortcomings of a first generation product. Again missing the point. If the iPad is truly the first product representation of a new media, one that captures the public's imagination, these issues will be worked out over time. Did folks give up on television when it first came out because of all its inherent faults? Maybe some did but, as a culture certainly not. And look at where we are now.

The best observation I saw regarding the iPad was a colleagues comment that they wished they could fold it in half and carry it in their back pocket. Exactly. I can't wait for these devices to become more of a natural fit inline with how we do things. Then we have a media that's a game changer.

The second best observation I saw was by a colleague who tweeted about using the iPad to read the Sunday paper on his porch. That is a signal that a device like this can influence how I interact with the world. I can certainly see myself reading many things, including newspapers and magazines in this way.  Which leads me to where I think the media can take us.

Extending Reality and Altering Perceptions Two things really struck me about the iPad during my time with it over the weekend. The first was how it extended my activity in reality. The touch screen feels like an natural extension of myself. Much like my coffee cup it's just there for me to pick up when I want it. It's also tactile in a way humans like to be tactile. You can do a tremendous amount of things with just the tips of your fingers without typing. This is a huge paradigm shift that can't be stressed enough: the removal of the need for a keyboard to interact is a major step toward making any device become more of a natural extension of the self.

The second thing I noticed was how the device changed my perception of connecting.  The web was no longer a 2-step destination where you first had to get on the web to get where you want to go. Now with the touch of your finger you can go directly where you want. I found myself thinking less about web pages and urls and more about specific places to go, places within places.

Both of these innovations are in their infancy and therefore still require some old time typing and knowing addresses but this is the beginning of the end of that need. Soon with a touch we'll be there, wherever that there happens to be.

Which brings me to the main limitation of the iPad in its current format: the need for a keyboard at all. I know it's a necessary evil for now but I can envision a time when voice and  touch, and perhaps even sight and sound, will eliminate the need for typing at all.

A second limitation lies in connectivity and responsiveness. There were times when my fingers were moving faster that the iPad causing a disconnect by interrupting the flow of interaction. Part of this may have been due to the WIFI connection and part may be due to the processor, I'm no sure. But if this media catches on these issues will be resolved.

Up Next for Me and the Ipad is that now that I'm looking at the device as a potential new media I feel liberated enough to look at it's potential.  The hardest part is to get beyond comparing it to things that already exist. We need to create a new model of understanding. Much like television was different from the movies which were different from live performance which were different from the written word, The iPad is the first foray into a potential new media and that is how it should be explored. Instead of comparing it to a cellphone or a laptop we should be exploring its potential for new ways of meaning-making. Does it alter our perception of reality? Does it enhance our interaction with the environment? Those are the question that will determine its value. 

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Whenever Apple releases a new product it inevitably evokes a bi-polar and visceral reaction from within the communities I travel. It's like West Side Story for the Geeks but, instead of the Jets and the Sharks we have the Fanboys and the Haters.

This was evident again this past week when the first edition iPads were shipped. Twitter, Facebook, and the blogosphere exploded in a cacophony of absolute opinion. The fanboys declared it the biggest moment in human history since Moses brought the tablets down from the mountain. While the haters rejoiced at every report of WIFI and charging issues claiming it proof that the iPad was nothing more than a golden calf. My two favorite responses, one from each side were:

From a Fanboy (tongue-in-cheek): "Shaving my eyebrows so that I can be clean before touching the iPad."

From a Hater (sarcastically): "The apes in 2001 displayed more objectivity toward the monolith."
The inference in both statements is mine.

But out of this pissing contest actually came a legitimate question for those of us working in education. Do we need to maintain some sort of objectivity when looking at the iPad, or any new technology for that matter? In other words, do we have an obligation to our audience, students and faculty, to seriously explore the potential of any new technology before we make a pronouncement?

We all have our own technology loves and hates and I think it's okay to write about their personal impact. In fact, I find it valuable. But, do we also have the responsibility to put that feeling (positive or negative) about a technology aside, as much as possible, in order to explore it's potential impact on our audience? Are we responsible for looking beyond functionality factors and at other things such as the potential unintended consequences of introducing a new technology, at economic and other potentially discriminating factors? Even if it means coming to conclusions and making recommendations that rub against our personal preference?

One of the most profound changes to humanity brought on by the ubiquitous web is the changing notion of the self. As individuals we are used to crafting our identity to meet the expectations of a given group or circumstance.  To quote William James:

"...we may practically say that he [an individual] has as many different social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups."

This isn't about being phony. It's about presenting the appropriate representation of who you are to meet the moment. For example, we surely don't talk to our boss the way we do our children. Nor our significant others like our co-workers. With each circumstance comes an expectation of behavior. There are norms and customs that, we trust, can guide us safely through any interaction. We also take great pains to keep these different groups, and, by proxy our different selves, separate. Or at least we used to.

In the not to distant past we were all expected to adhere to certain roles with more rigidity than met the eye. For me, there was work Jeff, husband Jeff, son & brother Jeff, friend Jeff, etc. It was a time when the inter-mingling of, say, old friends and people from the office had the makings of high comedy.  It's what Erving Goffman referred to as audience segregation--the individual ensures that those before whom he plays one of his parts will not be the same individuals before whom he plays a different part in another setting. But the ubiquitous Web is changing all that.

I do not know if it was our desire to connect that gave rise to the ubiquitous web or if it was the web that led us down this path but, either way a new dimension has opened up that, depending on your perspective, is either causing great discomfort as social worlds collide or feelings of liberation because we feel no longer bound by these norms and can be closer to our 'authentic' self. Odds are you've felt both ways at one time or another.

This is because the ubiquitous web 'produces multiple orderings of time and space which cross the online-offline boundary' (Hine). It allows us to 'connect observations from different times & spaces not accessible simply from within a physical space' (Fields and Kafir). In other words, there is part of us out there in public all the time, whether we're present or not.

Twitter provides a great example of what I'm talking about because it combines the immediacy of a chat room with the long-term capability of a discussion forum. And, for the most part, it's done out in the great wide open. All your followers are in on it regardless of whether the conversation is directed, or of interest, to them making it difficult to impossible to segregate our audience. Work people see friend Jeff and so on. This in turns causes a dilemma as to which part of the self, and how much, we're to reveal.

For some this is a bigger issue than for others. The great discomfort is manifested with reactions like, "Why would anyone want to know I'm at the grocery store?" Or, "I think that work doesn't appreciate him posting his run times over lunch."  But the underlying issue lies in the discomfort over the revealing of things that are not normally revealed to a given audience. This may be the reason behind why a lot of people labeled 'laggards' resist as much as they do. You may not think twice about telling a friend you shop at a certain discount store but, do you want your boss and colleagues to know?  

I say all this as someone who has decided, after much angst, to be out there as much as I comfortably can, which is pretty open by many standards. By nature, I tend to see progress as an unfolding of the inevitable and generally speaking I like to explore the possibilities and make of things what I can. But it doesn't mean I don't empathize with those who resist, regardless of whether or not I think the decision is the best or most prudent one.  

However, the rub for us all is that its becoming more difficult not to be a full participating member of your community(ies) if you're not out there. Now much of the human connection and conversation that is hardwired into who we are occurs in this hybrid format, in the cloud and on Terra firma, in the moment and over time. The blending of online and offline space and time necessitates a very necessary and very human shift in our understanding of who we are and how we're to act in a given circumstance.  

 

In a previous post I talked about the interplay between the characters in the stories that make up our lives. But there is much more that goes into the crafting of our stories and the shaping of our quality of life. There is the environment is which our narrative takes place. Like the other actors in our story the environment is also constantly changing, both in the physical sense as we move about the world and also in the perceptive sense. For example, the neighborhoods were we grew up most certainly appear changed when we return to them as adults. Neighbors pass on or move away. A neighborhood's fortunes may rise or fall depending on circumstance. Things are not how we remember them to be. There is a disconnect on how are memories tell us things should be and how they actually are in the present.

I differentiate between the environment and technology, which I will write about next, in this way: I see the environment as the space we occupy at a given point in time while technologies are the devices we use to manipulate and extend that space. These distinctions are not absolute. There are times where part of the environment can serve as a technology and vice-versa. I am referring to their dominant, or natural state, for the purpose of this discussion.

The environments where we reside serve as the stage for us to create our stories. Just as the other actors whose paths we cross are not neutral in shaping events, neither is our environment. While they change over time there are several environments that play a key role in our story.

An example from myself would be my childhood bedroom. For many of us this is the first experience of having a place that we consciously think of as our own. It serves as a haven; the stage where we are the primary owner and player. My bedroom was the attic of our house in Northeast Philadelphia. I don't know that I've ever felt more comfortable in any other space. I kept everything of meaning there. There I invented worlds of my own and explored the world outside through library books. My bedroom was where I first developed the character that I'd try out on the rest of the world, in the neighborhood and school yard. And it was there I'd regroup from the experience.

Our environment makes things possible by its limitations. The physical space sets the boundaries from which we play off. The shape and size of a room, where the windows are located, how the light enters throughout the day are just a few of hundreds of environmental factors that shape our perception, mood, and outlook. I knew the house I wanted to live in the moment I walked through the door because of how I instantly felt being in that space. I've spoken with many others who say the same thing.  

We in turn alter and enhance our environment through props. Most commonly it how we decorate a given space. The things we choose from paint color, to curtains, rugs, art work, and furniture are all a play off of the environment in an attempt to enhance the feeling the space evokes in us. Sometimes we completely tear down a room, altering its physical structure, in order to make it something more in line with us. That's why aesthetics are so critical in the weaving of our narrative. Without saying a word, aesthetics create the mood, set the expectations and the possibilities by how they make us feel about ourselves and what they say about us to others when they enter our space. 

The life we live is the story we tell.

 We play many roles when on stage. We are children, sons and daughters, friends, cousins, aunts and uncles, adults, professionals at work, serious at play, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. We grow. We age. We move on. To often blind to things until it's to late.

Storytelling is essential to our humanness yet, we often take for granted that the act of living is the weaving of our own narrative. Our very quality of life is largely dependent on the character we play and much goes into the making of that character. For we are not only actors but we're also the writers, directors, producers, stage hands, props and wardrobe personnel behind the scenes and we're the marketing and promotion department marching in front of it all.

We trying to control as much as we can in a space where we our influence is limited. You see our story is only a bit part in a world of interweaving stories. People close to us and people we'll never know are impacting our story simply by writing their own. Sometimes the influence is deliberate oftentimes, perhaps most, it's not. It is the nature of things.That's life.

The irony, of course, is that whether or not we are successful at crafting our part is ultimately judged by others. For most of us this judgment occurs during our lifetime and, for a very few, posterity may offer a new opinion based on changing circumstance. To be judged as 'good,' 'right', 'just', 'true', or 'kind' means we must be an empathetic character in the eye of the audience. They must like us or at least understand where we're coming from.

Our interpretation of how things are going gets funneled back into our character. We use our experience and the resulting outcomes and responses of others to refine who we are. This isn't to say it's all deterministic, or fatalistic. Our environment pushes us and we, in turn push back. We influence the story of others by writing our own.

There are two programs on the History Channel that I really wanted to like. They are Pawn Stars and American Pickers. For the unfamiliar, Pawn Stars is about the family run Pawn Shop in Las Vegas and American Pickers is about two guys from Iowa who travel the mid-west looking for trash that they can turn into treasure.

I was interested in both shows for the same reason I dig Antiques Road Show. I wanted to see what hidden gems were unearthed, whether of historical, cultural, personal, or political in value. But unlike Antiques Road Show, I ended up hating Pawn Stars and American Pickers. Here's why: I cannot identify with the lead players in the show.

At their heart both Stars and Pickers are about maximizing the benefit that can be extracted from someone else in a less fortunate situation. In Pawn Stars people are selling things out of a need for cash and the goal of the family running the shop is to pay as little as possible, most certainly under the true worth of the item, in order to maximize the profit on re-sale. I'm not against making a profit. What I find unsavory is the callous attitude demonstrated toward the seller. Generally speaking, you're not selling items of value at a Pawn Shop from a position of strength. And I guess I don't care for the way the shop owners leverage this weakness in order to maximize their gain.

The guys in American Pickers operate on much the same principle but, in lieu of taking advantage of a person in a weaker financial situation they seem to ply their trade off  of the ignorance of others. What is so compelling about sifting through someone's belongings and offering them $50 for a bicycle you know is worth at least five times that? I'm making that example up but that is the premise of the show. 

Maybe it's because I identify more with those being taken advantage of that I loathe these shows as much as I do. I'm more likely to be in or know someone in their position than I am the supposed protagonists of these shows. What appeals tome about the Road Show, which is essentially the same plot line, is that I'm rooting for the people who bring their stuff to be appraised and I get the sense that those who work on the show are as well. There's a sense that we're all in it together on the Road Show that I do not find in Stars or Pickers. In those shows there are winners and losers in a game whose outcome is known before it begins and that turns me off.