Going All Meta

I was reading Rolf Zwaan's blog this morning on Klaus Fielder's recent presentation.  I haven't yet had a chance to watch the presentation, but an interesting bit of debate has cropped up around the edges of the talk about validity: the notion that science should get weird.

Not to allude to a pop song, or Jon Hughes film from the 80's or anything so remarkably cool (yes, Weird Science, Anthony Micheal Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, and Kelly LeBrock were awesome and I too wondered if I strapped a bra to my head and spent enough time at my Apple II+ complete with CAPS I could create a hot android out of whole cloth), but maybe more esoteric.  Weirdness is the inescapable truth of science.  At one point, all major discoveries were considered by the mainstream as incredibly weird, even (and especially) the notion of evolution, which should be particularly obvious considered the current of cultural revitalization that is such a part of modern American life.

But what I found most interesting about this specific post was a suggestion made in the comments by practiCal fMRI on knowing one's methods and how so often an attention to the details of the tools one has often drives creativity.  In my last post, I discussed what it was like to build guitars, but what I didn't share was how I went about it, and why that process I followed made the struggle not only worth it, but invigorating.  In the same way that the first Star Wars movie was the best of the lot from George Lucas (if we disagree here, I don't want to hear about it) the third guitar I ever built was my favorite.

It may not make much sense, but at the time I was crippled by monetary woes.  Attendant to the needs and desires of the individual I was building it for (for free) I had to become resourceful rather than merely directing the resources required.  It encouraged an intimate knowledge of the materials I had on hand.  The focus was more about making the best of what the situation offered rather than using the best materials available on the market.

What I produced was inspiring, at least to me, and not just because of the limits imposed by my financial resources at the time.  The care with which every action was taken was, I think, the determining factor, including a slightly adversarial process.  The focus was merely giving my client what he wanted but in a way that would more than surprise him.  I literally used scrap materials, experimented with binding materials that were exceptionally difficult to produce a product that was both one of a kind, and elegant.  The only actual tonewood per se I'd used was the Engelmann Spruce top, a run off that took particular care to create the best reverberation that it was capable of.

The point I'm trying to make here is that not just knowing, but intimately knowing one's processes, one's tools, created the advantage, and the outcome that was desired in a way that the availability of resources never could.  The situation offered the ability to produce a top-quality product out of less than ideal conditions.  I never learned as much building any other guitar, and perhaps that's what's missing.

Opportunities to be resourceful.  Rigid conditions that promote intimate knowledge of processes.  Quasi-rational idealism.  You know, weirdness.