What happened?! My last post was months ago and since then the world has become a different place entirely. New President, new Economy, new Job, new Year. Let’s take those in order: I’m hopeful, but not too much. I’m grateful I have a job and thinking about what positive experiences I can have in a down economy. I’m excited about it and looking forward to working hard. New year’s are much like the ones before them, except I’m older.
I’m back at the Capitol working in the Speaker’s Office as a legislative consultant for the Democratic Caucus. I’m also been appointed to a city commission here in Davis. The Historical Resources Commission reviews the historical assets of the city and reviews petitions to change and alter them before they go to the city council. This is the first time I’ve actively pursued civic duty and it’ll be interesting to see how the city’s commissions work and interact with the city council and community.
As I have the time I’ll be making some changes to the site, updating the various sections in an attempt to give the site a more centralized theme and purpose. Since my interests are so eclectic, you can still expect to see peculiar posts here at times. Don’t get your expectations up, this is going to happen slowly. I’m pretty busy with work and living my life. Anyway on to the actual reason for this post: Dilettantism!
I’ve commented multiple times over on Gamestooge about music rhythm games, Wii Music, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band, and how they don’t help people learn how to play or appreciate music more. If anything introducing these games to children and young adults will distract them from learning the skills necessary to play music and/or turn them off to the difficulty inherent in the task as the games will difficult are easy enough to master and memorize while learning piano, guitar, drums, any instrument really is a difficult endeavor. I’ve been having trouble putting these thoughts into words but I’ve found a great article by Rob Horning about the very same topic that is worth the read. The problem as he sees it and the one that I completely missed is that in our consumerist world is that we’ve largely replaced mastering of a topic or area with collecting stuff regarding it! We’ve replaced personal accomplishment with personal collections. Instead of learning the ins and outs of music, we just collect music. Instead of absorbing and mastering philosophy, or history, or calligraphy, or anything, we buy things that are about them and then point to these collections of stuff as a sign of our mastery/expertise without ever having to invest the time and energy that is necessary to actually master them.
Just a thought. What do you think? Are these just games? Or indicators of a decline in our culture’s ability to commit? What things in your own life have you found yourself taking the easy route by collecting stuff instead of time and energy? For me it’s been writing and illustration. I’ve collected piles of stuff that should be used to better my craft but have still yet to put the effort into it.
