Active Procrastination
Leonardo da Vinci was a serial, heroic procrastinator, actively pursuing what he felt interested in enough to remain driven at any given time. Fueled by an endless sense of curiosity, he was a self-proclaimed, but ambitious, imperfectionist. Da Vinci understood, and preached, that we “couldn’t reach the face of God, but we could come close.” Because of da Vinci’s personal struggle, our culture has been left with remains of imperfect, but certain, artistic beauty. In this beauty, we’ve been left with the work of a true genius.
The reason I write is because it allows me to flush out my most prominent, interesting, on-the-fly ideas, while allowing the rest of my life to stand still. In a sense, the relevancy of active procrastination pulls me from what I’m “supposed” to be doing, to work passionately on what I want to be thinking about at any given time. It’s a cheap, shameless attempt at replicating the “mind always at work” mantra of da Vinci. It’s my constant push towards an unknown horizon of artistic freedom.
It is a push, because as a student, I’m more or less under the direction to fill requirements for other people. My daily agenda is swarmed with classes and tasks that do not directly push my personal goals. At one point they did, but I’ve reached the freedom threshold. Although writing tangents are seldom, a personal goal of mine is to develop a point where it’s my job, my craft, to procrastinate, where I can work on whatever is most interesting or important to me at any given time.
I understand this goal needs a loose outline, so I stated below a list of extremely general questions in no particular order (with built in assumptions and follow-ups) that surround problems that interest me. These questions match up unsurprisingly well with my Delicious feed, and with the jobs of people that I consider “Influencers” on the sidebar of my blog.
The questions have built in opinions, and don’t require an answer. In the most basic sense, they are merely representations of what I’m thinking about most of the time.
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Will the education sector embrace open-source design and internet media as main sources of academic material? When will the Kindle, or any e-book reader, emerge as the only textbook students carry? When will education become more focused on the personal, creative goals of the student, rather than predetermined outlines by their university?
How and when will the general dislocation in the music industry shift towards a freemium service, with monetary streams pulled from “experience” merchandise? What will be the most prominent “experience” merchandise, besides concerts? Will a digital concert industry emerge?
What are the short-term (10- years) and long-term (10+ years) metrics of the cost-benefit relationship between green technology and environmental sustainability? What are the technological barriers that have limited clean tech from paying off currently? Is green, architectural sustainability in commercial and residential buildings a priority for the builders?
What are the fallacies of the social media landscape? Will the obsession of building pseudo-followers, with intentions of self-promotion, fall or rise as social media becomes more mainstream? Are “social trolls” a trend, or are they a duplication of like-minded people in the “real-world”? Will the internet world ever be the “real-world”?
How long will Hollywood’s ignorance towards technology and general internet usability last? Will their shift of mind come with less focus on margins, or more of focus on niche, content distribution? Are both possible? When will independent films emerge as a major internet media source?
Will straight-forward, commercial advertising die as it proves to be less cost-efficient than sponsorships, product-placements and niche-focused campaigns? Will our culture begin to embrace advertising as it becomes more relevant to our interests? Will this “acceptance” be more of a danger to consumers, or to the advertisers?
What are the systematic pros and cons of being digitally connected at all times? Is it possible for us to become more connected than simply having internet devices in our pocket? When will we be connected digitally by physical means?
Will venture capital exist as the costs of starting information technology businesses sink lower and lower? At which point will technology investments stop duplicating each other? Is there such a thing as non-profit, social venture capital?
Will declining global GDP turn around as we shift from a “push” to a “pull” consumer culture? Will short-term greed and excess purchasing remain as catalysts for social happiness as the manufacturing and production model change?
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The problems that interest me have allowed me to embrace the art of beautiful procrastination. What are your problems?
