For a while I’ve been trying to spend all my free evenings at my drawing desk, trying to improve my draftsmanship. Like most people who love drawing but are not doing it professionally or studying art full time, I have found the habit of drawing everyday to be a difficult one to foster.

But recently I seem to have managed to do just that. It is now what I automatically do after I have my dinner instead of surfing randomly online, watching TV, or washing the dishes.

Even though my primary objective is to enjoy the process of learning and ultimately use it to relax, I’m the kind of guy that gets most satisfaction out of taking things quite seriously. So when I’m drawing, I’m working hard on my weaknesses. Right now, I’m spending most my time studying human anatomy.

Professionally, I make websites and my primary interest is in the user interface. At one end of the scale, this is quite a formal – almost scientific – pursuit. But at the other end it is about making things look nice. So add design to my interest in drawing.

What I wanted to do with Finding Form was split my professional interest in user-interface design into two categories – usability and aesthetics – and study aesthetics separately. The ultimate dream is to create beautiful computer interfaces that are extremely usable, but Finding Form has a tighter goal. Although I believe you always interact with an image in some way, and although I believe most images contain some kind of meaning, the focus here is on the aesthetics of the image. What makes imagery appeal to the senses?

As much as possible then, I want to stick to talking about subjects such as light, contrast, line, colour, balance, texture, shape and how these are used to create something that is beautiful or emotionally captivating in some way.

I would like mentions of creating websites to be seldom. As I focus in on the Finding Form project, the plan is to keep it as some kind of cross between design and fine art. However, if you are interested in my wider goal Jason Santa Maria’s presentation on web design demonstrates a similar goal to mine (see below).

A website for Finding Form will follow, but for now I am starting with a Twitter account.

Here is that video…

SVA Dot Dot Dot Lectures: Jason Santa Maria from MFA Interaction Design on Vimeo.

I keep finding things on YouTube that would be really cool if they were real. Then it turns out they are real and I’ve underestimated the human race again.

Then I think of something cooler, and the human race seems suitably rubbish again.

For example, real thing:

What I’d like: Ability to water jet over land and make everyone really wet (especially those wearing suits).

Real thing:

What I’d like: Indoor skydiving in a really big hollow skyscraper.

A TED talk by Alex Tabarrok.

I’ve come to most of the same conclusions independently. I’m always slightly wary of predictions, but these do feel like strong trends. But only the future knows for sure.

So.

I feel like a complete idiot.

But perhaps others can learn from my mistake.

If you ever arrange a meeting with a myth, make sure you have the right personification. Else you may end up talking to a priest.

Around halfway through last week (it may have been Wednesday/may have been Thursday) I was checking my calendar and it suddenly dawned on me that we are in mid-April already.

My first thought was to dismiss this as a simple consequence of my general busyness and over-enjoyment of the fine weather. But then I thought, if anything, I’ve been less busy over the past few months. And the weather has only been good for a few days. And you know, even if I had been flat-out busy-in-the-sun all this year, mid-April is a ridiculous date to be at so soon. In fact, I’m looking at the date now and it says LATE April.

What the hell!

Anyway, I decided I need to get to the bottom of this, so on Friday I made a few phone calls, called in a favour and tomorrow I have a lunch meeting with old Father Time.

I know! I can hardly believe it either.

The annoying thing is that he insisted on this really expensive restaurant and I think he’s expecting me to pay. I guess Time don’t come cheap.

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins recognises that children readily adopt the religious beliefs of their parents. Children tend to believe what they are told by their parents without doubting the validity of what they are told. This is why, for a long time, I believed clicking the switch on a certain electrical outlet in my bedroom turned the world upside down. Adults sometimes like to have fun and lie to children.

Dawkins is not worried about lies, but rather beliefs that are not true. Namely religious beliefs. Particularly, the labelling of a child as Christian, Muslim or whatever faith.

When organisations take over the role of parents and deliver beliefs to children, this is a scary thing. But it is only scary if parents are not there to balance those views (hence school are not dangerous). When the opposite happens and parents isolate their children from views they dislike (e.g. pulling them from classes) it may be unhealthy, but it is not dangerous unless the parents are themselves dangerous.

So what if a child’s parents are wrong? What if a child grows up with a set of beliefs which are incorrect and never finds the time to question them? Won’t that harm the individual in some way?

The answer is yes, but the extent depends on the belief. If you’re brought up as a racist, society is there to sort you out. As a criminal, and the cops are there to sort you out. As a greedy capitalist then you will get rewarded or die. As a religious person, then… well there is a whole different argument about what that may or may not do.

What we are doing when we allow parents to teach their kids what they want is to create non-exact clones of themselves. Unless you want to do some Soviet style mind control then that’s what we have to work with and we shouldn’t worry about it. We may think it is a shame that a misinformed parent creates another human with the same incorrect beliefs, but actually it is safer that they do. By creating clones we are forced to convince an adult of out of their incorrect beliefs and into the truth. If we didn’t, our ‘truths’ would not get properly tested. A child’s sponge brain is incapable of doing so adequately.

Let them soak up the knowledge first, then worry about wringing it out later.

As I continue to read about Abraham Lincoln, I’m finding traits in him which I’ve previously pinpointed as being interesting characteristics of success.

Today’s insight has been timing.

As I read, Lincoln is making himself known as presidential material by appearing in debate after debate around the country in support of the Republican cause. And yet he has not yet declared that he intends to put himself forward for the nomination.

His strategy is brilliant. He campaigns and makes his name known and yet the other candidates are not yet taking him as a serious candidate; his competition, therefore, is lighter.

But there is something else he seems to be doing that is even more impressive. He is timing his attitude to match the nations. He is taking a moderate position on slavery. While others are talking about abolishment, he is focusing on stopping the spread of slavery into the free states. It is a far less radical view and so is encouraging less severe opposition. At this time, the people are not ready for the more radical viewpoint.

I shall be paying close attention to see how he adapts his views over time. I only have a vague knowledge of what happens after he becomes president, so I have the benefit of a mystery to keep me interested.

Back to the book I go.

There are subjects which are so engrained in society that I think I should know them reasonably well before studying them. Time and time again I am surprised to find how little I know.

Soviet Russia has been one of those subjects. I have just finished a biography of Joseph Stalin (Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montifiore). I had no idea just how crazy the guy was, nor the extent of his terror. I’m left feeling somewhat less comfortable with the proximity of his time to the present.

I have obviously learnt only a small piece about Soviet Russia from this book, but it is now much clearer to me where there are gaps in my knowledge and I at least have a mental hook into the time now. But elsewhere in history I am sure there are huge gaps I am still not really aware of. Being a newcomer to history (other than study at school) I’m finding quite a few surprises as I begin to fill my brain with new knowledge. I’m not sure how I’ve managed to neglect this subject for so long.

History is now a category on this blog.

Today I listened to the British Budget with great interest like I do every year. And just like every year, I’ve come away having no idea if it makes sense or not. I know it makes little sense to me.

I can obviously judge whether this is good or bad for me personally, but am stumped when I wonder about whether it is a good budget for the country.

The problem is that no matter how much time I have spent studying politics and economics, it is not something I can give enough time to fully understand. The same goes for all policies. I sit on the fence on so much of politics because I see it as one giant experiment where nobody really knows the answers. Just a basket of informed opinions.

Instead, I have begun to judge politics more in terms of the personality of the politicians. What is their past performance like? Do they make convincing arguments? Do they spin the truth? Are they too radical? Are they prepared to backtrack on policies that haven’t worked out? Do they criticise others who do the same? How good are they at getting things done? How switched on are they to the modern world? And perhaps most importantly, how well are they able to answer questions on their proposals for policy change?

Whenever I’m on the fence about an issue, this is a helpful filter to help me decide whose policies I would like to back.

Unfortunately at the moment, nobody gives me confidence they know what they are doing with the economy, which is perhaps another reason the budget makes even less sense to me this year.

During the debates leading up to the Republican presidential nomination, Abraham Lincoln…

…avowed that he had “no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races.” He had never been in favor “of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry.” He acknowledged “a physical difference between the two” that would “probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality.”

from Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

It should have been obvious to me that in a country where slavery was legal there would have been such racism, but it still surprised me that even the most enlightened leaders of antislavery did not escape racial ignorance. It is difficult to know exactly how progressive Lincoln was, for if he did believe in ‘perfect equality’ admitting it would have been political suicide. Whatever the case, Goodwin makes clear that there was a deep rooted racism in the entire nation. Those that took the lead against slavery were simply the most progressive of a nation (perhaps world) where racism was firmly embedded in the entire culture. Goodwin reminds us to take the views of these antislavery leaders within that context.

Last year I read a biography of Andrew Carnegie who worked primarily in the period immediately following the death of Lincoln. Carnegie believed wholeheartedly in capitalism as a moral good where any man had the opportunity to work his way up the social ladder. In line with this view, he built libraries so that his workers could educate themselves, then forced them to work 12 hour days seven-days-per-week so that they never had the chance. Carnegie’s beliefs were very convenient for him, but when compared to the then recent history of slavery it is perhaps easier to see how he could believe in his moral capitalism without feeling deluded. Workers had a hard time during Carnegie’s time, but at least they had the opportunity to fight for their rights.

The course of the 20th century has very much been the story of the fight for equality. Social, racial, gender and sexuality are all prominent equality battles that have been progressing ever forward. I find this gradual progression fascinating. It sure has been anything but a gentle curve (most notably it included the rise of communism and fascism), but as a race we do seem to be making progress.

If we are progressing towards a greater moral equality, that gives me great hope that we will achieve such lofty dreams as an end to world poverty. I’m not sure we really tried until a few decades ago (unless you count the building of empires).

I also wonder why exactly it is happening. My instinct would suggest it is through the accumulation of knowledge enabled by the freedom to fight for it. The rise of democracy and the rise of equality have progressed hand-in-hand. Whatever the answer, the question is certainly worthy of further consideration so that we can make sure it continues.