Planning

Day 4 meta-structure

How do we plan for the future?

Today we do statistical modeling, forecasting, scenario planning, simulations.

In the past (and today) we consulted the runes, the entrails of animals, smoke, tea leaves, tarot cards, astrology.

A few years ago I engaged in a conversation at Transmediale on the archaeology of prediction. The connection was bad and I think I was only there for a small fraction of the conversation.

But I still think about this, how much is the quest of knowledge or information a fools quest for prediction -for knowing the future.

Yarrow?

The top image are I Ching sticks made from yarrow (the second image). The I Ching is an ancient chinese divinatory practice. Yarrow is very common in New York where I live. It would grow wild in east river park, and I just planted some in the garden where I am pandemicing with my kids. It was a sacred plant for divination, which is why it was used.

John Cage also used to it create musical compositions.

Composition and Planning

Right now I am going through life without an agenda, with out a strategy, without a plan. How ever this does not mean that I like direction, orientation, or a project.

It is difficult for me to articulate what it means to operate without an agenda but with a direction. Imagine you are in the forest and you are on a path. You have decided you are going to follow this path. You are not entirely sure where it is going to lead, but it feels right to follow the path and by following it you cannot help but ending up SOMEWHERE. At every moment in walking down the path you look at the trees, the bramble, the wildflowers, maybe some insects, a butterfly, a bee, a mosquito, you hear birds overhead in the leafy canopy - when the path has a leafy canopy. You feel the hot sun, where there is no leafy canopy, or maybe the cold rain, or a dusting of snow, or a frosted eyelashes. You can always decide to follow a different path, or to follow an animal into the forest, or to turn back, or to climb a tree, float down a river, these options are all open to you… to me. We can make these decisions as they arise in the moment since we don’t have a strategy of how to get to our destination

This is a way of beings I am still feeling out, however it feels calm.

Composition is sort of like having a project with out a strategy. I suppose one can have a strategy. Maybe you want to produce some sort of affect like the doctrine of Affects (Affektenlehre). I am not sure if that is a project or a strategy… however propaganda and advertising both to me fall under strategic endeavors.

The I Ching mode of composition in a systems theory way of creating. Of setting up constraints and conditions to progress down a path.

Cleaning up the tabs

I have been playing minecraft with the kids and am obsessed with making chemical elements in minecraft. I was terrible at chemistry in high school - but this is super fun. I am reading up on chemical compounds to make.

I also happened on this random website by a Harvard prof who posted a book a day during the summer as sort of a world map / journey of literature. I looks good - I am a huge fan of Farid ud-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds .

xo

Meredith