Wow- the photos in Thomas' blog are SPECTACULAR.
Out of a museum exhibit or something. Amazing pictures, amazing colors, and fascinating stories. A picture counts for a thousand words, and he has thousands of beautiful pictures.
Enough gushing. I admit I'm slightly jealous. Slightly upset that my tenacity in academia has cut me down a dimension or two. My interests are as varied and deep as his many photographs, but running a marathon leaves little time for smelling roses, and I'm right in the middle of mile 25. For inspiration then here is a two axis!! tourbillon cage from Jaeger LeCoultre:
A list of non-academic things I want to do:
-Build a working double three legged gravity escapement timepiece, as whimsical and delightful as the sculptures of Arthur Ganson, as well engineered and creative as Harrison's chronometers.
-Become practiced enough at sketching to capture the essence of face and figure.
-Improve my French to the point of being able to hold intelligible conversations.
-Learn enough Latin to read Huygen's original treatise on pendulum clocks.
-Sing in a choral group.
-Re-learn keyboard from the ground up (as my mother has done), in parallel with the development of a solid understanding of music theory, (i.e., scales, keys, tuning schemes, etc).
How exciting! Anticipation is a wonderful thing, (perhaps the only thing), and so here I indulge in plans for the future. Impediments abound, but I will overcome!!, principly my misconception that breadth and depth are irreconcilable, that these spoiled children are at opposite ends of an inflexible see-saw. On a (sub?) conscious level I'm petrified by any suggestion of departure from the intense all consuming devotion to my work that has defined my last five years. I imagine disaster and ruin. And yet, in the pleasant aftermath of a hard party I make leaps and bounds in research that would simply be impossible if all I did was read books for hours on end... Time-spending is NOT a zero sum game. Productivity and pleasure obey no conservation law. And so I resolve to spend an hour every day on the things I really enjoy.
Out of a museum exhibit or something. Amazing pictures, amazing colors, and fascinating stories. A picture counts for a thousand words, and he has thousands of beautiful pictures.
Enough gushing. I admit I'm slightly jealous. Slightly upset that my tenacity in academia has cut me down a dimension or two. My interests are as varied and deep as his many photographs, but running a marathon leaves little time for smelling roses, and I'm right in the middle of mile 25. For inspiration then here is a two axis!! tourbillon cage from Jaeger LeCoultre:
A list of non-academic things I want to do:
-Build a working double three legged gravity escapement timepiece, as whimsical and delightful as the sculptures of Arthur Ganson, as well engineered and creative as Harrison's chronometers.
-Become practiced enough at sketching to capture the essence of face and figure.
-Improve my French to the point of being able to hold intelligible conversations.
-Learn enough Latin to read Huygen's original treatise on pendulum clocks.
-Sing in a choral group.
-Re-learn keyboard from the ground up (as my mother has done), in parallel with the development of a solid understanding of music theory, (i.e., scales, keys, tuning schemes, etc).
How exciting! Anticipation is a wonderful thing, (perhaps the only thing), and so here I indulge in plans for the future. Impediments abound, but I will overcome!!, principly my misconception that breadth and depth are irreconcilable, that these spoiled children are at opposite ends of an inflexible see-saw. On a (sub?) conscious level I'm petrified by any suggestion of departure from the intense all consuming devotion to my work that has defined my last five years. I imagine disaster and ruin. And yet, in the pleasant aftermath of a hard party I make leaps and bounds in research that would simply be impossible if all I did was read books for hours on end... Time-spending is NOT a zero sum game. Productivity and pleasure obey no conservation law. And so I resolve to spend an hour every day on the things I really enjoy.
posted by watchwrk at 10:31 PM
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