(`. Avida Dollars .`)
Against the wall of one side of my living room stand two large bookcaseses with stacks upon stacks of huge tomes upon their shelves. The average thickness of each tome is a good three inches plus. There are four other bookcases in my living room, each with as many, if not more, books upon their shelves; many are equal in size to those just mentioned.
Nearly all the books in the first bookcase mentioned are now useless: the information they contain is totally out of date. The books in the other three bookcases are not--even though most are much older.
The first bookcase contains the dozens of books on computing, programming and related technologies that I have purchased over the years. Most are now nothing but convenient door-stops. The other bookcases contain tomes on art, philosophy, psychology, history, literature, mythology, science, religion--an accruement of mankinds knowledge (?) and achievements since the dawn of time; knowledge, some of which may outlive us all. (Well, okay, the sciences have been going through an upheaval since the turn of the centaury, and psychology has always been a bit dodgy, but bare with me will ya.)
And yet, the content of that first bookcase probably cost me ten times as much as all the books on the other bookcases put together. But in return they have made me more money than Plato, Shakespeare or Picasso ever did; Im sorry to say that, but despite long since switching my full-time professional interest to fine and graphic art and design, I can still earn with a few days programming much more than Ive ever yet sold a painting for (I still live in hope!). The situation has me caught somewhere between bemusement and bewilderment: art and aesthetics and has never been even a close relative of financial success despite what some people may think--unless, of course, your name is Avida Dollars! Those tomes of digital know-how may now be disposable, but the cover of each may as well have been made of gold.
Still, I would rather be reading Sartre or Homer than Databases for the Terminally Nerdy any day. Am I missing the point? Probably: so, whats new? But when a fifteen year old nephew asks what he should go on to study what would you say?
~~~~ How to Navigate My Journal ~~~~
Against the wall of one side of my living room stand two large bookcaseses with stacks upon stacks of huge tomes upon their shelves. The average thickness of each tome is a good three inches plus. There are four other bookcases in my living room, each with as many, if not more, books upon their shelves; many are equal in size to those just mentioned.
Nearly all the books in the first bookcase mentioned are now useless: the information they contain is totally out of date. The books in the other three bookcases are not--even though most are much older.
The first bookcase contains the dozens of books on computing, programming and related technologies that I have purchased over the years. Most are now nothing but convenient door-stops. The other bookcases contain tomes on art, philosophy, psychology, history, literature, mythology, science, religion--an accruement of mankinds knowledge (?) and achievements since the dawn of time; knowledge, some of which may outlive us all. (Well, okay, the sciences have been going through an upheaval since the turn of the centaury, and psychology has always been a bit dodgy, but bare with me will ya.)
And yet, the content of that first bookcase probably cost me ten times as much as all the books on the other bookcases put together. But in return they have made me more money than Plato, Shakespeare or Picasso ever did; Im sorry to say that, but despite long since switching my full-time professional interest to fine and graphic art and design, I can still earn with a few days programming much more than Ive ever yet sold a painting for (I still live in hope!). The situation has me caught somewhere between bemusement and bewilderment: art and aesthetics and has never been even a close relative of financial success despite what some people may think--unless, of course, your name is Avida Dollars! Those tomes of digital know-how may now be disposable, but the cover of each may as well have been made of gold.
Still, I would rather be reading Sartre or Homer than Databases for the Terminally Nerdy any day. Am I missing the point? Probably: so, whats new? But when a fifteen year old nephew asks what he should go on to study what would you say?
~~~~ How to Navigate My Journal ~~~~