the ferocity of material covered this semester has been one of the greatest challenges of my life, especially added to the bank of knowledge that i try really hard to keep fresh. it has become even more apparent to me that design is basically the study of everything: people, technology, art, engineering, psychology, material science, geography, climate... it goes on and on, and notice that all of these subjects are entire fields of study in their own right. i love this about design. i have come to realize that i am a generalist, and i want to know as much as i can about as many things as i can. probably to my eventual demise, i could never pigeon-hole myself into 1 field... except, of course, design... because it is not one field. it goes in any and every direction. but as anyone can tell, design can be a great burden because no one can learn or know everything. nevertheless, we try... or we should try because design is for people. we are people, and we should care about each other. my first love was anthropology because it too is an all-encompassing field with its phalanges in sociology, biology, geography, history, religion... but anthropology is, again, just one of the many fields that inform design.
sometimes i feel like i'm carrying a too-small backpack along this long and winding path i've chosen to take. i keep picking up things that i need for the rest of journey. all of the goods that go into the bag are equally important, so i can't get rid of anything to make room for the new stuff. inevitably, things occasionally fall out anyway. in times of great time restraint, i'm often saying that i could use a clone. that way, we could carry two packs. there would be more room for the stuff i keep losing, the stuff i have to remember to back track to find and dig up out of the the depths of the dense earth that my brain has become. my clone and i could experience, learn, and create in double time! but if i actually had a clone, besides the extremely creepy factor, she and i would both end up being short-changed. even though i could ask her something that i missed to get a quick answer, i would have still missed the experience of learning it. i'm too much of a busybody and a know-it-all for that.
the truth is, i enjoy the learning part the most. we don't take the long and winding roads because of the destination (i still don't know exactly what the destination is), we take it to enjoy the view, the variety, and the somethings new we catch along the way. unfortunately we will never catch every detail that we wish we could, but the little drops of enlightenment that we are lucky enough to catch are enough to light our paths as we enjoy the rest of the journey. we'll be better for it once we reach some destination... or maybe... if we're lucky... the journey continues forever.
