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5 subjects
Comment on this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate with you. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given. As provided by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
buhrger.
Encryption
I have at best an amateur's appreciation for it. The very first thing I found out about it at work is that encrypting things is easy. Managing encryption keys is hard. Encrypting them is easy for much the same reason that programming is easy but writing programs is hard. A lot of smart people have done the heavy lifting for me. Then they hand over the tools and I'm free to make amazingly destructive and asinine mistakes.
The most recent thing I've learned is that we (meaning security folks for the most part) do not know what people actually do with the information they handle every day. And once you learn what they do, it doesn't tell you why. Adding encryption into that mix in order to control access to information or at least prevent it from leaking out means having to learn why in a lot of cases. Managing people using encryption is also hard.
Peter Watts
Over beer at a con in 2007, Peter described a premise for (I'm going to make up a term here) a generative device. I say "generative" rather than "literary" because it wasn't clear as the discussion progressed that he was talking about a novel or even a narrative per se. He had several thoughts for how the premise might expand, change, progress, or be experienced by the audience.
He's posted snippets of text in his blog that refer to this idea and they're definitely enticing. I mention this simply because I can imagine this premise in several different media and I wouldn't mind experiencing it in any of them. In a sense it's too bad he couldn't produce something in all of those media formats. And I only say "too bad" because I can't imagine such a broad swathe of people understanding what they were looking at and going, "Oh, yes, please."
Vague enough for you?
Poetry, Piano, Aikido
Yeah, I'm combining all 3 of these. The point of commonality I'm going to hitch them to is "art". Weirdly enough, I don't mind saying that I have some handle on making "art". I may not be any good at these arts, but I have felt and directed consciously the outcomes of some of my efforts in them (whether the results were any good is pretty dubious). This is my preface for a comment about what could laughingly be called my path for "art".
I've been fiddling with poetry longer than I've been playing piano, and doing both of those for longer than I've played around in martial arts. Much longer than I've been learning aikido. But I'm going to start from aikido because I think that's where I learned my first steps towards treating it like an art.
If you troll back through some of my first postings on LJ (don't do it!), there are comments about the role of intention in my training. This is the biggest thing for me and it was my first realization about training. I want to do what I intend. Prior to understanding this, most of my efforts were focused around technical skill and a reactive process. I would feel my partner move a certain way or anticipate the movement and react to this with an appropriate technique.
Whenbuhrger gave me these 5 topics with the challenge to combine some of them, it occured to me that this starting point of intention was something that had also been developing in my poetry and music. From the very beginning, playing piano was not about technique for me, but about bringing out the music I felt or sometimes heard inside. To a lesser extent my early writing was the same. This isn't any kind of unique experience. What's the point of angsty teenage poetry in the first place? To bring out feelings, images, and an expression of oneself in words. But, again, the process is inherently reactive; it occurs in response to the feelings that prompt expression. So, I'm not saying how I approached it was special, but that doing what I intend in music or writing is really just the same creative process that many people go through.
Where I've moved somewhat in my aikido is in the shaping and control of my intention. I don't feel I'm at the point where that happens regularly or even consistently. It's certainly easier in some exercises than others. Previously, for example, I'd have said it didn't matter which way I moved to avoid an attack; there would be an appropriate technique to do from my new position. Now, I'm starting to feel like there may be a particular outcome or expression of intent that should be present in my movement. This will mean I must move to a particular place or even that I actively work to create the situation that allows that movement. It isn't enough to intend to avoid the attack.
This is something that I'm not sure I have in my writing. It may be the thing that is missing (and there must be something missing). Similarly, I'm not sure that I have this ability with the music I've made. But I think I understand what has to be done in order to begin learning it there. I can feel where I need to stretch myself. Truthfully, I feel less and less like someone with any artistic sense these days, so it's not like I'm regularly and honestly developing myself. Makes the whole discussion above feel horribly pretentious. But I tied the topics together anyway.
buhrger.Encryption
I have at best an amateur's appreciation for it. The very first thing I found out about it at work is that encrypting things is easy. Managing encryption keys is hard. Encrypting them is easy for much the same reason that programming is easy but writing programs is hard. A lot of smart people have done the heavy lifting for me. Then they hand over the tools and I'm free to make amazingly destructive and asinine mistakes.
The most recent thing I've learned is that we (meaning security folks for the most part) do not know what people actually do with the information they handle every day. And once you learn what they do, it doesn't tell you why. Adding encryption into that mix in order to control access to information or at least prevent it from leaking out means having to learn why in a lot of cases. Managing people using encryption is also hard.
Peter Watts
Over beer at a con in 2007, Peter described a premise for (I'm going to make up a term here) a generative device. I say "generative" rather than "literary" because it wasn't clear as the discussion progressed that he was talking about a novel or even a narrative per se. He had several thoughts for how the premise might expand, change, progress, or be experienced by the audience.
He's posted snippets of text in his blog that refer to this idea and they're definitely enticing. I mention this simply because I can imagine this premise in several different media and I wouldn't mind experiencing it in any of them. In a sense it's too bad he couldn't produce something in all of those media formats. And I only say "too bad" because I can't imagine such a broad swathe of people understanding what they were looking at and going, "Oh, yes, please."
Vague enough for you?
Poetry, Piano, Aikido
Yeah, I'm combining all 3 of these. The point of commonality I'm going to hitch them to is "art". Weirdly enough, I don't mind saying that I have some handle on making "art". I may not be any good at these arts, but I have felt and directed consciously the outcomes of some of my efforts in them (whether the results were any good is pretty dubious). This is my preface for a comment about what could laughingly be called my path for "art".
I've been fiddling with poetry longer than I've been playing piano, and doing both of those for longer than I've played around in martial arts. Much longer than I've been learning aikido. But I'm going to start from aikido because I think that's where I learned my first steps towards treating it like an art.
If you troll back through some of my first postings on LJ (don't do it!), there are comments about the role of intention in my training. This is the biggest thing for me and it was my first realization about training. I want to do what I intend. Prior to understanding this, most of my efforts were focused around technical skill and a reactive process. I would feel my partner move a certain way or anticipate the movement and react to this with an appropriate technique.
When
buhrger gave me these 5 topics with the challenge to combine some of them, it occured to me that this starting point of intention was something that had also been developing in my poetry and music. From the very beginning, playing piano was not about technique for me, but about bringing out the music I felt or sometimes heard inside. To a lesser extent my early writing was the same. This isn't any kind of unique experience. What's the point of angsty teenage poetry in the first place? To bring out feelings, images, and an expression of oneself in words. But, again, the process is inherently reactive; it occurs in response to the feelings that prompt expression. So, I'm not saying how I approached it was special, but that doing what I intend in music or writing is really just the same creative process that many people go through.Where I've moved somewhat in my aikido is in the shaping and control of my intention. I don't feel I'm at the point where that happens regularly or even consistently. It's certainly easier in some exercises than others. Previously, for example, I'd have said it didn't matter which way I moved to avoid an attack; there would be an appropriate technique to do from my new position. Now, I'm starting to feel like there may be a particular outcome or expression of intent that should be present in my movement. This will mean I must move to a particular place or even that I actively work to create the situation that allows that movement. It isn't enough to intend to avoid the attack.
This is something that I'm not sure I have in my writing. It may be the thing that is missing (and there must be something missing). Similarly, I'm not sure that I have this ability with the music I've made. But I think I understand what has to be done in order to begin learning it there. I can feel where I need to stretch myself. Truthfully, I feel less and less like someone with any artistic sense these days, so it's not like I'm regularly and honestly developing myself. Makes the whole discussion above feel horribly pretentious. But I tied the topics together anyway.