Towards a Philosophy of Cosmology, Or Slicing the Universal Salami

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I don't know if I was born near-sighted. I assume I was. But when you are two, or three, or four years old, there is no great harm, and perhaps some benefit, in being so inclined. I remember being able to see things that enchant a lad so young with great clarity; the veins in a leaf, the trails of ants and the paths of raindrops on a window. School, however, valued more formal skills. I remember making a fist over my eye, thumb against my cheek and my little finger creating a tiny opening through which I could peek. When I pointed my little "fist-scope" at the chalkboard in the front of the room, the fuzzy letters on it became discernibly clearer.  No doubt my teachers observed my antics and mentioned them to my parents. Not long after, I must have acquired my first pair of glasses. They have been with me, in one form or another, ever since.

I mentioned the possibility of near-sightedness be a benefit. Let me explain. The "uncorrected" near-sighted eye focuses much like a microscope. I have always been able to see things a mere inch or two in front of me with great clarity. So all my life I have been naturally in the presence of a focused reality that those with "normal" vision can observe only with the aid of some artificial - and usually awkward - magnification device. Of course, I needed glasses to see the world as others saw it, but those were common enough - as was, perhaps, the world they revealed.

The point, I guess, is that all my life I have been immersed in a world in which "focus" shifted often, and often radically. Which leads, naturally, to the Large Hadron Collider and the questions the work there raises regarding the nature of the universe, truth and reality.

I have often admitted to being a "physics and cosmology groupie." I read every tidbit I can find about new particles, or black holes, or multiverses, or gravitational waves with the same delight with which fans greeted the latest revelations at Hogwarts or among the nobles of Westeros and Essos. But lately something has been bothering me, and it has to do with that whole issue of focus.  It all came to a head when I stumbled across the 2013 documentary Particle Fever the other night - I think it popped up on PBS. Anyhow, the film chronicles the pursuit at CERN to use the LHC to search for, and ultimately detect the illusive Higgs boson. The film ends with the victorious detection of the Higgs, and yet our physicist-protagonists seemingly genuinely caught between the elation that naturally accompanied the discovery and a fear that there was enough wiggle room in the data that they might not have gotten it exactly right, leaving the standard model of physics that rests on these various particles somehow flawed.    

It is an axiom in science that, in addition to any answers provided by a particular experiment, new questions are also produced. So one would expect this to be the case with the "Higgs at CERN" experiment. But, at least as portrayed in this film, there was a greater level of "post-results anxiety” than one might expect. It was almost as if the scientists felt that their results didn’t so much reflect the nature of the universe, as determine it. It is an understandable warping of reality. When you spend an incredible amount of time and money peering at existence at a particular “focal length” it is easy to believe that what you see at that focal length is “truth.” 

It strikes me that we have probably already captured all the particles. "The problem, dear Brutus, is not in the particles, but in ourselves."  We need to stop racking the lenses, stop concentrating as CERN seems to have done, on a rather narrow range of reactions that would reveal the Higgs particle. [I date myself with that analogy. Back in the early days of television, there were no zoom lenses. Instead there was a turret on the front of the camera that had four fixed-focus lenses. So if you want to go from a close-up to a wide angle shot, you would tell the camera operator to “rack the lenses” to whatever focal length was required for the next shot. And the operator would rotate the turret so that the desired fixed-focus lens snapped into position. It was called "racking the lens.”]

If, instead of racking through a set of lenses, one examines a specific moment with the equivalent of zoom lens, slowly observing the moment at every possible focal length, then every particle will eventually come into focus when the particle and our field of observation match. It seems to the layman that most theories of particle physics assert that the all particles, even those quite rare, have passed through our various collectors. The recurring problem, apparently, is that the event needs to occur within the depth of field of a "racked" lens and we needed to have our collector's eyes open at that unique moment. Hence the need for the common "racked lens" process described above. But if we could use a zoom lens model, every event that has been captured by the collector will eventually slide into focus and confirm or redirect our perception of reality.

But, - and this is the point that I keep coming back to - whatever we discover through those various observational  processes will not “unmake" the universe. The universe is what it is, what it is, what it is. Or as, somewhat ironically, the doxology asserts, "It is now, and ever shall be, world without end." Defining what the "it" is, is of course, the fierce focus that drives physicists and cosmologists. They, seemingly more than theologists, are turning themselves in knots trying to throw a rope around just what the “it” is, that is now and ever has been. “It” is obviously, more than just our little globe. But is “it" more than just our little universe? And the question drives bigger and bigger colliders and telescopes.  And I read about them with great interest.

Still, my concern is that the intensity of the question of what it is has drawn our attention away from the equally, if not more important, question of what does it mean? If form and function are inherently interwoven, what does the form of the universe mean for the function of the individual in the universe? What the LHC and similar undertakings teach us about the nature of the universe will not change the nature of the universe, but those insights do have the potential to change our understanding of ourselves. The danger is that if the investigations continue to use fixed focus lenses, we could just slide past meaning. 

And the consideration of that danger bounces us back to The Art Institute of Chicago and A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges-Pierre Seurat.  It is a huge painting, about 10’ by 7’, and when you look at it from across the room it appears a softly dated painting of exactly what title indicates - gentry enjoying a bucolic afternoon on an island park. And that is what it is - sort of. But it also one of the finest extant examples of pointillism, the process - later brought to its current pinnacle in HDTV - of creating an image from thousands of tiny dots of color. If you get close enough to A Sunday Afternoon to make the guards nervous, the little dots of paint are clearly visible, and seemingly bear no resemblance or relationship to the scene we glimpsed from across the salon. It is only when we step away from the painting and re-adjust our focus that the meaning of the painting becomes clear. Is it so absurd to assume that the same might well be true of the universe? Might concentrating on the tiny dots cause us to miss the meaning that is better understood at a different focal length? Or through a perusal of existence simultaneously through a variety of focal lengths, as is possible in a “light field camera”?

Forgive me, but yet another analogy for both a light field camera and the universe.  Imagine that you are slicing a salami. The salami is, oh say, a foot long and 3 inches in diameter. Your slices are an eighth of an inch thick. So, depending on your knife skills, you end up with 90 some slices of salami.  The whole salami is analogous to the universe, and each slice of the salami is analogous to an observation of the universe made at a particular focal length through a specific collector.  You pull out a particular slice and look at it. The pattern of light and dark captured in that slice paints a picture of the universal salami observed at a particular focal length - a “rack-focus image”, if you will.  Cosmology, to date, seems to be dominated by the “single slice” model. The particle folks at CERN and elsewhere, the quantum mechanics aficionados, fans of super massive blackholes and gravitational waves, all seem to fall in love with their particular slice of the universal salami; and, as is true with any obsession, the object of our obsession often blinds us to everything else: we cannot see the salami for the slice. 

A light-field camera presents us with a different model. A light-field camera gathers optical information from all the space in front of the lens, simultaneously exposing all the slices of the salami, if you will.  This allows us to see the whole universal salami at one time.  Your observations are not artificially restricted to one, or a few slices, of the universal salami. Rather, we can examine the whole thing. And, it is, I believe, the patterns discernible in such an all encompassing view of the universe that stands the best chance of yielding information relevant to assertions regarding what the universe means. 

Which returns us to the notion of form follows function. If we can discern the whole salami, then we come to know the form of the whole universe, and if form and function are inherently linked, then knowledge of one allows us to explore some assumptions about the other.

It is highly unlikely that any physicist started out to be a one slice scientist. Physicists, and philosophers, tend to be “big picture” people. However, it is often their intellectual journey; the results in the lab, the view from the telescope, the data from the collector, the idea of absolute truth, or the dimensions of beauty that can trap them in a one-slice obsession. But those who avoid that slippery slope are able to maintain their focus on the idea of the whole salami, or, as both physicists and philosophers are more inclined to call it, a theory of everything.

The theory of everything that I find most satisfying as a tool in grasping both what the universe is, and what it means is String Theory or M-Theory.  An in-depth explanation of the theory would make this already incredibly long post even longer.  Let me point you to a couple of references.  Brian Greene’s book The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, is an excellent work for the serious layperson. My own work, The God Chord: String Theory in the Landscape of the Heart, is a further distillation of string theory that also expands the theory to consider the link between string theory and human thought and behavior.  It has the additional attraction of being free at Feedbooks.com :-)

For this post let us only consider the very kernel of string theory: Everything in the universe, from the inconceivably immense “Large Quasar Group” to the equally mid-boggling tiny string itself, is made up of indivisible vibrating units call strings. The physical nature of the universe then is dictated by the relationships among vibrating strings. In English we call uniquely vibrating strings notes, clusters of notes become chords, chords in sequence become music. String theory then asserts that we, and everything else in the universe and, yes, the universe itself is made of music. So as we consider the universal salami, and how each slice informs the whole, we would be well advised to consider harmony and discord as the core of both a universal physical and existential discussion.

String theory provides the physical facet to accompany an existential mandate which, together, define a transcendent theory of everything.  And that mandate is Harmony.  If the mandate were discord, the universe would not have formed after the Big Bang. The micro-second of inflation that formed the cosmos would, in a discord dominated event, have continued an uncontrolled expansion, spewing the nascent universe out of existence. Harmony, the inclination to gather notes into chords and chords into compositions, pulled the strings together and began the composition of the universe. And as I follow the findings of both theoretical and experimental physicists, their results appear - on a variety of levels - to constantly point ultimately towards harmony and away from discord.

So I am willing to assert that harmonic unity is the form of the universe. What then is its function?  First, as we obviously move more clearly into the realm of philosophy, I suppose it is possible to imagine a discordant, meaningless universe. Notes without melody, sound without music. That is a deeply dark perspective and one that is, for me, disproved by simply being, and being mindful of the world that surrounds my being.  In a discordant world my behavior would have no impact, no meaning.  While we all certainly have brushes with such despondency, we also realize that simple actions can increase the harmony that is the universe. And yes, I am talking about little things. Things like acts of “undeserved kindness”; letting the person who is driving with their horn take the parking place, letting your partner choose what to watch on TV, cleaning up the kitchen when it isn’t "your turn." These seem tiny things when compared to the "super-massive black hole gravitational waves" slice of the universal salami, but when compared to the tiny strings themselves, these are world-altering events. It is by such little acts that we - as unique individuals on an unassuming planet in a minor galaxy - assist in the harmonic construction of the universe. To broaden a currently popular meme: all lives matter, all actions matter. 

So our harmonic acts demonstrate how sentience is manifested in existence.  And if the universe is itself an overwhelming manifestation of harmony, do we not have to at least consider the notion that the universe is itself sentient? Yes, we do. But not right now.

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Insistent Shreds of Poetry

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It used to take less effort 

To hold poetic observations at bay.

A quick breath, and a stern internal, 

"Quiet. Lie Down."

And they would circle a few times,

And flop down, but with ears

Still pitched forward and twitching.

Now they seem to be getting

Rather more than out of hand.

In the midst of a serious meeting

"Heads nodding like frantic hens

Winnowing cracked corn before 

The first freezing gusts of winter."

Just leaps out onto the table.

"So moved." Says someone.

"Second." All in favor. Aye.

Opposed? Nay. The ayes have it.

Did any of that happen out loud?

Did we pass an allotment for corn?

You see now, given the least encouragement,

These dialogues just pop out.

As I work my way to the first significant

Transition in an introductory lecture

I am captured by the syncopation

Of dozens of pens dancing across paper

"Scratch, scratch, scratch."

An entire violin section backed by

A sneezing of cellos

And maybe the cough of a double bass.

At faculty meeting I glance up,

My sketch not yet complete,

As voices are raised, and then

Settle back,  receding waves

"It seems to me. . . "

"I thought the Dean said.  .  ."

"But from Foucault's perspective . . "

As my colleagues sing their refrain

and then resume, steady gazing,

Mews subsiding, as they curl into

Lazy attention, as sunning cats upon a sill.

I pull out of the parking lot,

Hitting home on the GPS 

Freeing those now useless neurons.

Traffic dances a swishing samba

Across rain swept streets.

Head lights, and tail, streak

Impressionist moments across

The black and shiny canvas.

“When possible, make a legal U-turn."

Yeah, right. Possible? Legal U-turn?
Don’t even get me started .  .  .   

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Schrag Wall: If I Ran the Lab

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As I was leaving the building yesterday the Dean stopped me and said: "I learned something about you that I never knew."

"What is that?" I asked, a bit hesitantly as this is not something one often hears from your Dean.

"You have a personal, signed Cat in the Hat note from Dr. Suess." 

"I do, yes, I do." 

It all started about 10 years ago - maybe longer when in a strange fit I penned the following homage to the classic Suess work "If I Ran the Zoo."  I sent it off to him and he replied with the attached "Thank you note."  What a classy man. 

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If I Ran the Lab

By

Robert L. Schrag

“It’s a pretty good lab,” said weird Harold McNab,

“Though the egghead who runs it is really a crab.

And the work that they turn out’s not quality work,

‘Cause the Project Director’s a bit of a jerk.

But if I ran the lab, said weird Harold McNab,

I’d splice up some genes not halfway so drab

As the genes they’ve been splicing ‘round here up ‘til now.

When it comes to strange genotypes, I’d show them how!!

First I’d change the lab’s name from ‘Ace Genes and Research’

To ‘Home of the Weirdest New Gene Types on Earth 

And the Strangest New Creatures in this Universe.’

As a name with a grab, that’s not really bad.

And each creature’s rear, when released from my lab

Would carry this label: New Genes by McNab. 

There’d be no starting small with bacteriumasis,

I’d jump right on in with a creature colossus

A beastie that started life out as a fungus,

Now stretches from Pittsburg to southwest Columbus.

I’ll call this new creature a Fermi-o-fump

‘Cause we’ll use it on Tuesdays for a nuclear dump.

And the glow that it gives for the rest of the week,

Reduces the oil we now buy from the Shiek.

I’d move on to grain the following morn,

And I’d whip up a Superdee-Popper-d’Corn,

A version that passes an elephant’s eye

And tops out in August at forty feet high!

With self-popping kernels of one pound or two,

And cobs, that when carved, make a nifty canoe,

The shucking’s made simple with an easy pull tab,

That grows on this nifty new corn by McNab!

And the Superdee-Popper-d’Corn’s not alone,

There’s another new corn-type that begs to be grown.

I’ll call it The Ultimate Cornflake Created

‘Cause the leaf on this monocot corn is mutated

To form cereal bowls for all those who’ve waited

For ready-made breakfasts, organic, prefab,

And grown from those fabulous genes by McNab.

They say rice is nice and easy to breed,

And here at McNab’s lab we’ll make what you need.

No domestic rice, all tamed down and mild,

Here in my lab I will start with rice wild.

Then we’ll splice in some genes from a hot chili pepper,

Add tomatoes, add onions, bring garlic you schlepper!

And when this new rice in the free open air grows,

You’ll smell why we named it McNab Rice Rancheros!

And wheat is quite neat, but it too is too bland.

So here at McNab lab we’ll all lend a hand

And whip up a wheat strain a touch more exciting 

Than wheats that are currently palates delighting.

First, amber wheat’s nice and is fabled in song,

But to leave it just amber is certainly wrong.

We need purple wheat and blue wheat, don’t y’know?

We will whip up a strain called Wheat Eau d’Rainbow!

Just think of the bread you could bake with this stuff!

Why MOMA’s main hall will not be big enough

To display all the wares that will end baked goods drab,

Another triumph for New Genes by McNab!

The next thing we folks at McNab’s lab will dare

Is to clone a whole forest from Grandma’s best chair.

We’ll not talk about copies or facsimiles,

But the very same genes from those very old trees,

The trees that were old when Abe Lincoln was young,

Good wood from the days when the country’d begun.

But don’t worry my Earth Friends, no logging’s in store

When a chair from New Genes by McNab hits the floor.

There’s been no clear cutting or practices grim,

We pick all our chairs from the end of a limb.

They grow right out there, in patterns quite fab,

All thanks to those coded New Genes by McNab. 

But it’s time to quit dealing with things vege-table,

Let’s move to the animal kingdom while able.

I’m sure there’re some beasties just waiting for life

To spring from McNab lab’s new gene splicing knife.

For example, the Porker d’Piggy His Nibs,

Engineered for the South, made completely of ribs,

And his littermate, Porker d’Piggy Foo Foo,

Who grows into two tons of pulled Bar BQ!

These swiney, so finey, are just the first stab,

At creating great beasts with New Genes by McNab.

But while pork is quite nice, and Pig Foo Foo’s divine,

For the kosher food market we will take a bovine,

And splice in the genes of the sea swimming salmon.

And the creature we get will be perfect, dear madam,

To serve at Bar Mitzvahs and Sisterhood talks

For where else could you find a nice brisket of lox?

And then when we manage to pull this one off,

You will hear a great cheer – ‘To McNab! Mazel Tov!’

In addition to ethnic food one must, these days,

Meet the market demand for the holiday craze,

When dishes traditional must grace the table,

Whether or not the poor sous chef is able.

Thanksgiving’s a day that is tied to a feast,

But the cook in the kitchen just slaves like a beast!

There’s turkey and hams, mashed potatoes and yams,

For guests that your family hauled home in four trams!

And pies without number, pumpkin and mincemeat,

Put the finishing touch on this holiday treat.

But while the stuffed-full relatives roll out the door

The cooked-out old cook slowly slumps to the floor.

That’s how it once was, but McNab says, ‘No more!’

McNab’s new research has made such a break-through,

That a holiday meal is no task you must ache through.

By blending the genes of one fowl and two grains,

Add a couple of fruits, save the best from each strain,

We’ve created a creature that looks quite beserky,

It’s the Eight-Legged, Four-Breasted Self-Stuffing Turkey!

And it nests in the oven to save you more steps,

Laying eggs that taste just like fresh vegetable crepes.

So the main course and side dishes now hit the slab

In one beast, from those folks at New Genes by McNab!

But we won’t stop there with dessert to be made.

To ignore the last course fails to service the trade.

So we’ll whip up a plant called The-Pie-In-the-Sky

That grows out the window, six feet or so high.

And the pies that it grows have already been baked,

Boasting crusts upon which reputations are staked.

Plus, it’s crossed with a grasshopper so it is able

To walk cross the floor and hop up on the table.

There it’s served, like the rest of the meal, upon dishes

That are grown on the back of rare deep-diving fishes.

These dishes are cloned from some sweet English custard,

And are eaten at meal’s end with fine Spanish mustard.

When the last bite’s been eaten, Cook declares from a chair,

As well-fed descendants lounge ‘bout everywhere,

While a feeling of gratitude fills up the room,

‘Mid the lingering traces of dinner’s perfume,

‘Before all you kids start your games and your pranks,

To the Lord – and the folks at McNab’s – let’s give thanks.’

But the holidays come, at the most, once a year.

To make business sense it soon becomes clear

That McNab’s lab needs products so new and so strong

That the market demand remains high all year long.

So we’ll whip up more beasts with awesome new traits

That will leave all the other gene labs at the gate

When we introduce in our Fall catalog

Critters to set the whole country agog!

There’s the Grid-Lock-Reducer, a sort of a mammal,

A new type of gene type, an urban type camel

With legs well-designed to stride over the autos

That tie the world up in mechanical knotos!

It’s a creature that sees by both day and by night,

And in really tight places can even take flight,

Thanks to the genes of the Humbird Gigantus

That we dredged from the mud of mighty Atlantis!

And the Fast-Food-o’Fetcher’s a wonderful beast

With forty-eight Kangaroo pouches, at least,

To keep hot food hot, and to keep cold food cold,

That feature alone’s worth the beast’s weight in gold.

But we didn’t stop there, though we could have stopped, brudder,

Instead, in each pouch we designed a small udder

With spigots for ketchup and mustard and mayo

And an optional tap for the sauce of the day-o!

We think it’s a beast that you’ll find is ideal

To send out to fetch you a fine fast food meal!

For sub-urban folks we’ve designed a new steed,

That we modestly think is the best of the breed

For yard work and gardens that need some up-keeping

This beast the whole countryside soon will be sweeping.

It’s an Ovis-d’Bunny-cum-Elephantatus,

And wait ‘til you see what this creature has brought us!

Part sheep, it keeps lawns and curbsides neatly trimmed,

The bunny gene’s spliced upside down on a whim,

That causes the critter in vegetable beds,

To avoid eating veggies – it plants them instead!

And our garden consultant assures us it’s wiser

To use, in the place of some chem fertilizer,

An organic source of good food for the plants,

Hence, all of the genes from those huge elephants.”

“Soooooo. It’s a pretty good lab,” said weird Harold McNab.

“Though the stuff that they turn out is still far too drab.

I would sprinkle the world with some creatures quite fab.

Ah, I certainly would – if I ran the lab.”

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Etude for Memory

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Recently, the notes of this particular composition increasingly vie for my attention. They are as seeming real as these keys beneath my fingers. But when viewed in the cold light of day, to quote Billy the Bard [we are very close] "they have melted into air, into thin air .  .  .  and leave not a rack behind."

For example, my wife and I went to Colonial Williamsburg over Thanksgiving and - as always - attended a concert in the Capitol. The room is large but not huge. and lit only by candles. We sat in the back row where we could see the hands of the harpsichordist, whom - over the years - we have come to love. About midway through the concert I noticed a woman sitting in the front row catty-corner from us. The mannerisms were unmistakeable. The glances at her partner. The profile. What’s it been? 15 years? But there she was. Or was she? My eyes are not what they used to be, and the candlelight was deceptive. But still. Maybe. It could be a woman who had bewitched me for more than a little while. Approach? Acknowledge? However, the bard again, "that way madness lies." So I returned my attention the harpsichordist who, sadly, had told us that he would retire after the holidays, and deserved my full focus. After the concert the woman and her companion left with nary a glance in my direction. Obviously not her, right?

Still, add to that a few weeks before, I had stopped at the pizza place across from the office for a quick lunch.  From the booth behind me two voices became clear - two guys with whom I had gone to high school. The nuances were unmistakable, the references plausible, the laughter was spot on. These had been good friends. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind. But a couple of problems: Ken had sort of disappeared after graduation. No one really knew where he went and no one had been in touch with him. Facebook drew a blank. And yet there he was deep in conversation with Alan whose fate was known. Alan, as the narrator in Dickens’s, A Christmas Carol informs us, was, like Marley, "dead as a doornail.” When they rose to leave the illusion was shattered. Both were alive and the ethnicity was wrong.

Finally, recently, as my wife and I were walking along the Miracle Mile in downtown Chicago, I paused at a crosswalk. A young woman turned around and looked at me. No more than three feet away. It was Julie, my first “serious” girlfriend from high school. She stared straight at me, smiled, and slowly turned away. She had not changed at all in 50 years. It took me a moment or two to realize that, unless she had spent the last half decade hanging out with Peter Pan in Neverland, this was simply not who it appeared to be.

Why, suddenly, are these people showing up around the seams of my reality? I’m not at all sure, but I have a hypotheses. It takes us back to the first tenet of Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony. (If you are, understandably, a bit fuzzy on the ins and outs of Distilled Harmony, I'm not going to do all the physics here, but you can catch up at www.distilledharmony.com.) The underlying notion is that there are people who are literally, physically, harmonic or discordant with us.  Their DNA is comprised of strings that are either harmonic with or discordant with ours. The result can be "love at first sight" or "instant creepiness." You have probably experienced one or both phenomena.

I am thinking that previous powerful experiences apparently have broadened my sensitivity to certain "genres" of individuals. Were any of those individuals who I thought they were? Maybe. But, perhaps, and more likely, the mannerisms of the woman at the concert, the voices in the cafe (certainly the one of my friend who is dead as a door nail) and the facial features of the young woman on the street were "close enough" to fool my memory. They were chords so similar to ones with which I had been closely, powerfully, associated, that the concert master in my mind nudged "close enough" right over into "the same as."

Good? Bad? Depends. If the previously associated chord is discordant, we just shake our heads: "Whoa. I'm pretty sure he's dead. Can't be him."  And we walk away. However, if the associated chord was harmonious, the experience is largely positive. Perhaps we literally "re-call" them to "re-animate" them for a little while. In our minds, we take their hands again, free from whatever complexities might have bedeviled or terminated our real life relationships, and wander down a path comprised of purely pleasant memories. Beneath the gentle parasol of peaceful forgiveness, like that which dreaming often brings, we can smile, and say a quiet thanks for another moment that fosters, and maximizes, the harmony in our life. 

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Break-Up in Dreamland

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A mysterious woman deserted me last night.

But not before I had chased her

Through a fanciful city -

Part modern urban metropolis,

Part post-war, Vienna, Austria,

Hazy hometown for a couple years 

During my impressionable youth.

I often find myself there

Tracking down some imagined 

Or remembered waif of my dreams.

She rises as our streetcar slows to a stop.

Definitely Vienna now.

"You will be back won't you?" I ask.

"Maybe," she replies,

Her face still averted,

Identity familiar, yet

Still maddeningly vague.

"In the spring, 

Or perhaps the following year."

I might have kept her from leaving,

But somehow I got trapped

There, in that tiny landing,

Where the stairs meet the door - 

Past the line upon the floor

Beyond which you are not supposed to stand.

A stack of coats had appeared in my arms.

And for some quite important, 

But now forgotten, reason

I had to put them all on before 

Pushing past the collapsing doors.

Finally free upon the pavement, 

I looked around and saw she was

Well and truly gone.

As was the streetcar,

And the street, for that matter.

My breath slowed,

And I turned my pillow,

Seeking that cool side

Which always, somehow, slips away.

I smiled, listening to

My wife breathing quietly

Across the landscape of 

sheets and comforters.

"There!" I thought, looking for a spot

To place the final period.

A few more rounds of shadow boxing,

Here just beyond dreamland,

And it may make a decent poem.

It owes me that

Considering the slumber

It has cost me.

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We'll Always Have Paris

The opposite of love is not hate. It is fear.  

Millennia ago our ancestors saw the darkness of winter devour the sun's time in the sky. As each day grew shorter, their fear increased; a fear that one day the sun would descend into darkness and fail to rise again. 

Against this fear they brought light. The warmth of the hearth. The joyfulness of song. Faith that the sun would return again. Faith that light would always drive away darkness. Faith that love would ultimately conquer fear. And it was from this faith, that the world's great Faiths evolved, and we came to understand our varied faiths through prayer and philosophy. 

As we sought to deepen that understanding, we turned our intellect and our curiosity the the waxing and waning of the light, and Faith's studious twin, Science, affirmed the permanence of the return of the sun, affirmed the resilience of light, and life, and love.  

Alas, we have not yet found the ultimate antidote to fear. There are still those who fear that they will awake one day to final darkness. And from the foul soil of that fear, springs hatred. Such hatred is self-affirming. To live in hatred is to live in darkness. By hating, one chains oneself to the darkness that spawns the fear. Such is the incestuous intertwining between fear and its child, hatred. 

Terrorism, by definition, seeks to instill fear. The recent attacks in Paris affirm that terror stems from those chained in darkness. In Paris it was the tool of those who would cloak themselves in language of Islam, one of the great faiths of light in order to terrorize the innocent and bring once more the darkness of their own fear into the world. Terrorism is the language of fear and hatred. Its use is cowardice. 

The four tenets of Distilled Harmony are: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity and Oppose Harm. By assaulting harmony and actively destroying beauty, terrorism calls forth the fourth tenet. The first three tenets allow for disagreement, discussion, debate. Those activities move wisdom forward. But they are internalized. Interactions that allow for the meeting of minds. 

The cowardly murders wrought by terrorism are the ultimate public, external expressions of fear, devolved into hated - and that must be opposed.  At its core, an individual violent attack on an anonymous, innocent stranger is often the result of the panic brought on by unreasoning fear of “the other,” and as such is the result of an individual pathology. However, what we witnessed in Paris, the religious/political motivations asserted by the perpetrators notwithstanding, was the manifestation of a societal pathology, not unlike that that presaged the rise of Nazi Germany. The leaders of global terror hijack a twisted version of a religion, in the case of ISIS, Islam - Hitler chose a strange occult interpretation of Christianity - and weaponize it. Germany at least, to its eventual shame and disastrous result, owned its hatred, paraded its fear in the streets, and led a nation to disaster. The terrorist leaders of weaponized Islam, hide in the shadows of the Internet, or erupt like a cancer in the midst of a host nation, and claim ownership of a portion thereof. 

And that touches on a central issue, and, perhaps an eventual solution. Let us call it "painting the bullseye."  Traditional warfare pits individual nation states, or competing alliances of the same, against each other. In the past that has allowed warring parties to say "the bad guys live there." We "paint the bullseye" on that piece of real estate, and we can "win" the war by destroying the territory that is synonymous with "the enemy."  

When a group weaponizes an ideology that cannot be geographically defined, it becomes impossible to "paint a bullseye on the enemy," and no matter how sophisticated one's weapons, you cannot hit a bullseye that is not there. That does not keep us from trying, from raining devastation upon the places where we believe the enemy to be, or where the enemy claims to be.  But the tortured history of the Middle East, from the Renaissance to the present, seems a continual affirmation that the “solution” to the problems of the Middle East must be home grown. Despite the allure of the treasures of that region, all attempts to militarily impose an external logic on its deep-seated antagonisms have ended in frustration and failure. So we should stop trying. 

In the wake of the attacks in Paris, we are already hearing calls for “boots on the ground,” for banning Syrian immigrants - or only Muslim Syrian immigrants - depending on the source.  So, in effect, we are painting a bullseye where the wielders of weaponized Islam are telling us we should. No doubt they are delighted. Our hasty reactions will allow them to claim “Look! We have been right all along. The Americans and their lackeys are not fighting a war on terror. They are fighting a war on Islam!” That dynamic should be obvious, yet still, we seem poised to blunder in again where the Crusaders, the British, the French, the Russians, and our own military have bogged down in the swirling sands and vendettas of tribal cultures.  I would ask again, is this really our job? 

The arena in which a larger “victory" is possible is defined by the first two tenets of Distilled Harmony: Foster Harmony and Enable Beauty.  Those who fear us, who have come to hate us, who would destroy us, assert that we are “infidels” estranged from all that is good and beautiful in life.  In the long run we can best frustrate the fear-strickened weaponized terrorist by demonstrating the falsehood in that claim.  We can turn inward, not in a rejection of our global identity, but in a re-evaluation of that identity. In the face of external claims that we are a coarse and violent people, we must demonstrate with a new vitality that we hold true to the establishing document of our nation, The Declaration of Independence, in which we assert that: 

  

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, [and further that we] institute a new Government, laying at its foundation such principles .  .  . [that] seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” [My text in the parenthesis to smooth transitions.] 

The point is that we already have a government founded on the principles best suited to allow for the fostering of harmony and the enabling of beauty.  And we have grown ever better as Americans, native and foreign-born who accept and advocate those principles, knit together a culture more complex and engaging than the ones that we, or our ancestors, left behind in search of a better life.  Perhaps it is time that we exerted a more public and unified effort to manifest those unique principles. I often rail against the idea of a “hyphenated American.” African-American, Irish-American, Swiss-German-American, Japanese-Italian-Columbian-American. I find it irritating that, no doubt observing some arcane rule of grammar, American gets tacked on at the end.  The reality is that without the establishment of those uniquely American principles I cited above, no one would have left those other countries to come here - for a life better than the one they left behind. 

Only a fool would argue that we have completed the creation the state envisioned by the signers of the Declaration of Independence. We have myriad issues that still vex us.  The central notion of equality, a more unfettered route to the pursuit of happiness, safety - all provide ample challenges. But, like the challenges that face the Middle East, these are our internal challenges. Ones that we can address by placing them at the forefront of our national agenda. There is much domestic work to be done in order to complete the challenges set forth in the Declaration of Independence. Our schools are in desperate need of direction and resources, children still go to bed hungry - most likely in your own city, pockets of our great cities remain shopping centers for drugs and violence, our police and those they are sworn to protect appear to speak completely different languages, our highways and bridges crumble, the Great Lakes are threatened by invasive species. Pick your own pressing concern - the one you encounter as you look out the window or drive to work. 

This is where we need to paint the bullseye. And it should designate a target of construction not destruction. 

No doubt, in light of the recent Paris attacks, the media will continue to subject us to a great wringing of hands as politicians and pundits paint bullseyes all across the globe and propose strategies to smite them with our might and righteous indignation.  And yet again, is that our job? We have plenty to do here to Foster Harmony and Enable Beauty, to actualize the dreams of all those who have come here, in this generation or in generations past, seeking a better life. Perhaps if the continual development of that better American life becomes patiently obvious to the world beyond our borders, the words of those who fear us, who then come to hate us, who would do us harm, will fall on increasingly deaf ears. 

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A Cautious Welcome to an Old Friend

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An illness steals a lot. What was reality yesterday is no longer. You change. And learning to deal with those losses and changes is a big part of moving on. "I can't do that anymore? OK, let me find something else to fill that niche in my identity." You learn not to look back, or at least not very often or for very long. You learn to see old aspects of yourself as trappings that have had their day. You remain thankful for those experiences, but you move on - finding new paths to joy and harmony. It is not terribly different from simply growing older.  Watch a baby crawl around, casually sucking on its toes, bending its body into knots that would make a yoga instructor blanch. When was the last time anyone over 3 or 4 months old could do that? A teenager collapses on the floor to check her phone, unconsciously executing a full lotus with a half-twist, and then pops up again to check the fridge for Greek yogurt. Ouch. Can we party til the wee hours and hop up and go to work at 7 AM? Would we even want to? Those moments pass us by. We grow older and life changes.

But the plundering that illness brings is different. It often steals precious things with which we are not ready to part. This is not the normal transition of youth into maturity, the gentle pace of lush summer into russet autumn.  It is often harsh, and always feels unfair. But it is what it is; so you seek that new path to harmony, putting the past aside. Which is why it is all the more disorienting when one of those dear old former friends unexpectedly shows up at your door. When a loss, to which you have adjusted, seems to return, you have a hard time trusting that reunion - it's like the lyrics of an old "hurtin' country love song," 

"Hey there, darlin', If I let you in the door,

Will you turn around, and walk back out,

And break my heart once more?"

You see, my illness stole my voice. Oh, no, I could still talk just fine. Maybe my voice would be a bit tired after a long lecture. But it was still my voice, I still sounded like me. But I couldn't sing anymore. I used to sing all the time. Well, usually not where others could hear me. But in the house, in the shower, in the car. All through high school and as an undergraduate I was going to be god's gift to the American musical theater - and I was pretty good, just not that good. Still, the people to whom, and for whom, I sang seemed to enjoy it. Or they faked it well. 

Point is, I loved it. There is something truly magical about hearing a note in your head, and when you open your mouth, out it comes. You can actually taste the sound, it rolls around in your mouth like honey. So, long after I disappointed Broadway with my career choice, I kept singing. All the time, and in all those places. And then I got sick, and it stopped. I say "it stopped" because even though the voice stopped, for a while, I didn't. I would hear a note in my head and open my mouth, but what came out bore little resemblance to the note in my head. It rolled around in my mouth like vinegar. Harsh and disappointing. So eventually I stopped trying to bring back the voice. I have been without that part of my voice for years now. I moved on and became a more attentive listener to the voices of others. I listen to all kinds of voices. Professional voices. Lovely and enchanting voices. And that has been OK. Sort of.

Then a few weeks ago an envelope arrived in the office mail; a big one, 8 X 12. The return address was a media production company, and I was about to toss it when I noticed that the address was handwritten. So I opened it.  Inside was a letter from a former student and a CD. It was a demo for a radio show. More than a demo really. It was a whole program - about ten and a half hours of "the 150 best selling country music singles of all time." The student, who had taken the nom de radio of Winston Hall - the campus building in which our department is located - has really done a delightful job. The various songs are separated by fascinating bits of history about the country music industry, the genre, and the performers. There are slight pauses where the commercials would go, but, delightfully for me, those elements had been omitted from my copy. It was wall-to-wall music and commentary.  I popped the disk into the CD player in my car, and the tunes have been following me around ever since.  I am amazed at how many of them I know; lyrics, tunes, the whole Megillah.

And then, one day somewhere in the midst of the "countdown" the strangest thing happened. I don't even remember what the song was, but suddenly a solo became a duet. I knew the second voice, but it took me a moment to place it - it was mine, filling the car, rolling around again, honey in my mouth. I tried not to think about it and just let it glide along, terrified that if I thought about it, it would "turn around, and walk back out, and break my heart once more." I pulled into the driveway. And just sat there quietly for a bit, more than a little shaky. I am not used to the illness giving anything back.

I'm still testing it, but the voice seems to be sticking around, at least for the time being. I don't let it out of the car yet, let alone try trotting it out in public. Strangely, it seems shaded more towards tenor than my former baritone, and flows more smoothly on the drive home, when I am tired. But all those little details can wait.  Right now I'm just cautiously welcoming it back; shyly exploring where it might lead. It's sort of like a first date. We'll see what develops. 

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Smoothing The Canvas of Your Mind

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There are a number of medical conditions that require a “rescue inhaler.”  Something goes wrong and you whip out your inhaler, take a deep breath and, hopefully, the world gets solid again.  We don’t usually think of a rescue inhaler of playing a role in our meditation routine.  After all, meditation is usually long and slow, gentle and planned.  But anxiety doesn’t always give you time to gently and calmly slip into your quiet place, clear your mind, and so on.  So the options available when stress blindsides you and you need a little emergency transcendence, seem to be limited to going a little crazy for a while or, certainly in 21st century America, popping a pill.

I have been playing with an alternative - maybe “a meditation rescue enhancer?”  Basically it’s an exercise you can do when you feel the pitter patter of anxiety sneaking up on you, and you really can’t just go home and chill out. Here is how it works.

First, if at all possible, get out of the space that is stressing you.  Fake a phone call. Walk outside. Go into another room.  If that isn’t possible, close your eyes or just “defocus” your gaze into the middle distance.  It will look like you are still “there” but the idea is not to be.  Also get your appendages into a relaxed position - one that takes no energy to maintain.  If you are seated, get your feet flat on the floor and rest your hands in your lap or on your thighs. If you have to stand up, try to find a wall to lean against. Consciously slow your breathing. Slow, complete exhalations.

Once you have physically and emotionally removed yourself, as much as possible, from the stressful environment, reach inside yourself and pull up your most soothing visual and olfactory stimuli.  Obviously it is great if you can actually put yourself in the presence of those stimuli, but that is usually a luxury reserved for “planned meditation.”  In rescue mode, we imagine them as intensely as possible.  My smells are lilac and pine trees. Sounds - rain and thunder or crickets. The object of these two steps - getting away from the stressing environment and mentally immersing yourself in a couple of primary calming spaces - is to create a space from which tranquility can emerge.  Once these steps have allowed your heart rate to come down and your breathing to slow, we move into the visualization stage.

In the visualization stage you literally smooth the canvas of your mind. Envision a smooth white space that completely fills your visual field.  You are going to paint on it.  Wait, wait. I know. You can’t paint. Well, neither can I - in the “real world." But this is the canvas of your mind.  Here you are a genius. Think any scene, any form, and Ta Da! There it is! Just the way you imagined it - here, in your mind.  Don’t like it? Smooth the out canvas to pure white again, or just fade out the portion you do not like. It is your space you can make it do whatever you please. Relax a little further and begin again.

So where do you reach for these images?  Research tells us that the songs of our youth - those we encountered  twixt twelve and twenty - are the ones that remain emotionally powerful for us throughout our lives.  I find that, for me, in this visual stage, a step back it time is also beneficial. The objective is comfort, and to get there it is incredibly helpful to put away our adult armor, and draw upon the gentleness of childhood memories. 

So as you draw, don’t be shy about playing with those images from long ago or far away.  I find it easiest to focus on images from nature. You may have a greater affinity for rooms, buildings, cityscapes, whatever. The idea is to go to the "comfort food" of your childhood images. The earliest images I can recall are the illustration from a series of books by Thornton Burgess collectively called the Old Mother West Wind Stories featuring Peter Rabbit aka Peter Cottontail, Jimmy Skunk, Sammy Jay, Bobby Raccoon, Little Joe Otter, Grandfather Frog, Billy Mink, Jerry Muskrat, Spotty the Turtle, Old Mother West Wind, and her Merry Little Breezes.   Written in the early 19-teens, they were contemporaries of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 classic Wind in The Willows, with Mr. Toad, Mole, Ratty and Badger.  And, of course, A. A. Milne’s timeless stories of Winnie-the-Pooh from the 1920s. There are several version of both Wind in the Willows and Winnie-thePooh. Not surprisingly, I remember the drawings for each work done by the wonderfully insightful illustrator, E.H. Shepard. If you were not introduced to these works in your own childhood, go take a look now - at the original versions with the original illustrations. That exploration alone will lower your blood pressure.  [If you have children who have been raised primarily on Pixar and latter-day Disney - do share these ancestral works with them.] And naturally, I was exposed to all the original Disney animated works, Snow White, Dumbo, Bambi, etc., with the incredibly detailed animation of the various creatures of the forest; unmatched in my mind until Avatar.  And Avatar’s jungle, while quite beautiful, is not one I would suggest for the kiddies.

OK. So we have this wonderful smooth white expanse rolling out inside our head.  Our favorite smells tickle our nostrils, accompanied by our most calming sounds. Do a calm, "breath in, breath out," and reach out in your mind and let the images unfold.

An example.  Last week I came out of class completely knackered. I had tried to put too much content into one 75 minute lecture. I have always told my public speaking students that the amount of energy you put into a presentation determines the amount of energy your audience will give back to you. So if your aren't exhausted at the end of a presentation, you aren't doing it right.  This must have been a fairly good lecture, because I was completely wiped out. Fortunately, my office has a couch onto which I lowered myself. Big stretch. Still, even after lying there for a few minutes, I still had the shakes. So I called up my lilacs and some rain on the roof. And gradually, after a few more minutes I was able to smooth the canvas in my head and begin to draw.

I’m not sure why - maybe because the AC in my office has been flirting with frigid lately - but I decided to go with a winter scene.  So I traded the lilacs for a deep pine scent; the kind you find in a clearing in a cold forest. Maybe not Alaska cold, but certainly Wisconsin cold - the kind of cold that freezes your nose when you breath in. The rain sound faded out as the wind sifted through the pines, rattling the branches with tiny pellets of sleet that shifted to a soft snowfall. One nice thing about painting on the canvas of your mind is that your can do still lifes and video simultaneously.

So now I have a soft snowfall sifting through a frosty winter clearing.  I bring a small ridge into the side of the clearing. Long grass, weighted down by the falling snow, droops down across the openings of burrows that now become visible in the bank below the ridge. A pink nose wrinkles in the cold air, and a snowshoe rabbit, hops cautiously out into the moonlit clearing. That is another wonderful thing about painting on the canvas,of your mind - the natural incongruity of having moonlight illuminating a snowfall is no problem at all.  

Soon a cluster of kits bounce out from behind their mother, and begin to explore the clearing, eventually tumbling down the side of the bank, more like otters on a river bank, than bunnies in a snow filled hollow. But, it is still the canvas of your mind, where you determine what is normal.  I decide to take a final stab at an incongruity of nature by inviting two great snowy owls to the party. They glide in on huge and silent wide white wings, the perfect predators for the Artic north woods, who settle comfortably and congenially among their preferred prey.  The kits frolic about them, stumbling over the carefully sheathed talons, as snow continues to fall heavily from a clear and moonlit sky. The wind still sings softly through the pines. And there it is, a peaceable kingdom made delightfully possible here on the cool smooth canvas of my mind.

I let my eye roam over the clearing where the quiet play of the kits soothes the eye. A kit seeking a nap, snuggles into a hollow provided by furry folds or a feathered niche. The breeze sighs a lullaby as the snow pulls a fluffy blanket over the moonlit scene.

Not surprisingly, I find myself calm and at peace, now able to return to the obligations of what some choose to call "the real world." Or I can continue my explorations here. Smooth the canvas, pick up my mental pen, and see what lies around the bend in the road. The little horse and sleigh stand ready to take me over the bridge that crosses the stream that I have sketched at the bottom of the hill .  .  .  .

PS. No animals or natural environments were harmed or disturbed in the creation of this fantasy. 

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Michelangelo, Emily Dickinson, and the iPhone 6

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He felt as if he had been suspended here forever. At least a full year for every letter in his truly impressive name: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.  And he would gladly sell all the vowels for a just a few minutes to stretch his back. Well, his back and legs. And his arms. God, yes, to get his arms below his shoulders, and let them dangle. Ah, now that would be a prayer, well worth the answering.  A dozen candles, maybe later tonight when he could finally clamber down.  And what was he doing here anyhow, flat on his back, high above the floor of the Sistine Chapel, arm and brush reaching awkwardly toward the ceiling? He was a sculptor for god's sake.

Muffled but familiar footsteps echo on the marble floor far below and remind him of the answer: His Holiness Pope Julius II walks in and cranes his neck to peer up into the gloom. "Hey, Mikey!," he hollers, "Mikey! Hold everything! I've got this new gizmo - you're gonna love it. It's called an air brush. "

Fast forward three and a half centuries, and hop the ocean to Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily Dickinson is, as usual, holed up in her bedroom in the family home. She gazes out the window at the snow-draped countryside.  The soft white glove on her right hand lacks most of the thumb and the first two fingers. They have been trimmed away to give Emily a better grip on her well-worn pen. The rest of the glove is liberally spotted with ink.  She dips the nib of her pen into the inkwell, scratches out a word on the page before her and deftly inserts another. She stares at the page for a moment or two, then sits back and returns her gaze to the white world beyond the frosty pane. Her mother, also named Emily, but so unlike her daughter, slips quietly in and glances with resignation at the evidence of yet another sacrificed pair of gloves.  "Maybe," she thinks briefly, "she could wear some of the left-handed ones backwards." But then she gives her head a shake and crosses to where her somber daughter continues her inspection of the cotton-cloaked world outside. Emily the Elder is carrying a large, heavy box in her arms, which she rests gently on the edge of the young poet's desk. 

"Emmy dear," she murmurs. "I know you love your ink and paper and pens. But you might want to give this a try. They call it a typewriter."

I, for one, am hugely grateful that these scenes have played out only in my imagination. I've been fighting a cold - maybe it was the NyQuil. Still, I wonder what would have occurred had Mikey had an airbrush? If Emmy had had a Remington or an Underwood? I'm afraid we would have gotten more art, faster, and of questionable quality. And I am also afraid that there is a cultural dynamic alive and well in the 21st century that is nudging us down that slippery slope.  I refer, of course, to the iPhone6. Well, not really to just that phone, but rather to the narrative constructed in the tv commercial for the phone. [I'll put the YouTube link at the bottom of this post.] The commercial, which begins with the tongue in cheek assertion that nothing much has changed with the new phone, gradually unrolls a staggering list of new capabilities and features. The commercial ends with a bevy of youngsters who appear to be about the age of my university students - except for those who seem to be in middle school - holding their phones skyward, awe etched on their faces as the voice over intones something like, "Nothing has changed in the iPhone 6 - except everything!"

Hey Mikey! Want an airbrush? Want to try the new Remington, Emmy?

It is that forced change in a dominant medium that most concerns me.  We have all experienced the phenomenon to a certain degree when a piece of software that we use daily decides to change.  It can be something as pervasive as a operating system, or something as specific as the user interface on your email.  The effect is the same; suddenly something that was second nature now has to be relearned. One's attention is forced away from the task the tool performs and must be refocused on learning how to tame the tool so we can once again have it do our bidding.

For artists the transition can be tragic. The task of any artist is the liberation of an internal perception. Taking that which is inside and somehow recreating it in the outside world so that others may, to a certain degree, share the perception. Central to that process is becoming adept with a series of tools; be they pens, brushes, chisels, keyboards, a specific musical instrument, whatever. Step one for any fledgling artist is to learn the craft necessary to their preferred form of expression. Truly insightful art lovers enjoy nothing better than observing that process of maturation, seeing a young savant round into a mature, creative artist.  Mathematics seems to be the only field in which practitioners do their best work when young. Far more common is the gradual growth of the creative talent whose external expressions become deeper and richer as the artist's mastery of his or her tools keeps pace with a deepening internal vision.

So, the tragedy for the artist can be that moment when "everything changes." The tool with which they were intimately familiar becomes a stranger, and an entirely new creative courtship must begin. I am, at best, a part time artist. But I have become quite adept with Photoshop at a moderate level. Still, if someone asks me "How do you do this or that in Photoshop?" I cannot "tell" them. I have to show them. I have to sit down in front of my graphics tablet, take my stylus in my hand, balance the keyboard on my knee, and let muscle memory take over. My fingers find the right key combinations, the stylus knows the where it needs to go to perform the tasks my head envisions. It is an intimate partnership. When "everything changes" the partnership is dissolved.  The primary task is no longer making the internal visible, the mandatory new task - and often one that is months long and tedious - is re-establishing that intimate relationship with the tool. Only then can the primary task of making the internal perception external be once again addressed.

The problem, however, goes beyond this contention that changing an artist's tools can retard their expressive development in their chosen medium. The problem extends to the very different and competing agendas held by artists and the companies who, increasingly, provide their tools. The objective of the artist is, again, making an internal perception accessible to others. The objective of a company is to make money. And Apple is very, very good at making money. Furthermore, a staggering portion of that revenue, between 60 and 70 percent, comes from the iPhone. Apple needs to keep selling iPhones. They do that in large part by introducing new features - by changing the tool. They keep old customers and hope to attract new ones by "changing everything." The attraction for the customer is to the expanded capabilities of the tool, to how the tool is new and different. That is not an intimate relationship. That is speed dating. 

And Apple is certainly not alone. Everyone in the digital marketplace is playing the same game. Adobe, the company that makes Photoshop, follows suit with new features for the high-end graphic artist segment of the marketplace by increasing the power of both Photoshop and Illustrator. Those changes are the major reason that I stay in the shallow end of that particular pool.  Video recording, editing, and distribution software like After Effects and Mediasite, Learning Management Companies like Moodle and Blackboard, "information management" companies like Evernote, even old stand-bys like Word; they are all "changing everything." The corporate marketing focus becomes a radical increase in power of the tool, not the logical, gradual development of the artist.

My concern? As I said before, I worry that we will simply get more art, faster, and of questionable quality. But I do not think it is an irreconcilable divide. Perhaps it is simply a question of emphasis. Japan has a designation of "national living treasure." The high honor of that title is bestowed upon someone who has spent a lifetime mastering a craft or an art form. It is encouraging that Japan, home of Hello Kitty and often the epicenter of the quick and the kitch, still manages to designate as "living treasures" these artists who have spent a lifetime mastering their tools and using those tools to make their internal perceptions accessible to us all. It is not an “either-or” mindset, it is more a “both-and” view of the world.

We can do that too. After all we are the country that can share a simultaneous fascination with stalking the McRib at McDonalds restaurants across the landscape, while also embracing the slow food movement and supporting all things organic and vegan and gluten free. Given that cultural flexibility, one would think that our tech companies could see both a cultural and a monetary advantage to building “both-and" creative products. Software that can “change everything”  but can also "default to the original version.” Applications that can still "change everything" without destroying and failing to support the old.  Seems like a fairly easy coding exercise. After all, the old code is all still there. Why throw the baby, that some customers still love and some artists depend upon, out with the bath water? 

And there is, after all, some risk attached to "changing everything." 

Remember New Coke?

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Link to iPhone ad:

 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBYWGjIzvyw)

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