Reading Response #1 to Artful Design • Chapter 1: “Design Is ______”
Sami Wurm
Sept. 28th, 2022
Music 256A / CS476a, Stanford University
Reading Response: Artfully Designing Life
From this week’s reading, I’d like to respond to Artful Design Principle 1.1 on page 30, which states:
Principle 1.1: A Working Definition of Design
— “[Design is] A shaping of our world, aimed at addressing an intended purpose carried out with aesthetics and humanity within a medium.”
Thinking about this working definition, along with our etude #1 assignment to analyze the designs that we find beautiful throughout our day, I began to think of the design of my day itself. I was reminded of the quote by Annie Dillard, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” This means that the way that I design my day is the way that I am designing my life, and thus, who I am. Further, this means that we are all constantly designing our own experience of the world. Hopefully with great care and intention.
Considering this definition of design, I wonder how I myself am the medium through which my mental and spiritual design of life is expressed. After all, I do shape my world (and the world around me) each day. I would like to think that I walk through this world with an intended purpose to connect with others and to offer a bit of empathy and understanding to those I encounter. And, I would say that I have crafted certain aesthetics and integrity that define me and my humanity via my physical body and my brain (my medium).
I have always considered myself to be passionate about psychology and mindfulness. I have been going to therapy for years, meditating, exploring yoga, and generally interrogating why I do, think, feel, and say the things I do. Of course, I wonder why everyone else is the way they are too, but I have much more control over my own being than anyone else.
With this new lens of artful design, I am coming to appreciate how, on a larger scale, I am not simply interested in psychology, or fitness, or mindfulness, or growth; I am interested in how to best artfully design my days and my life to align with my values.
An example a schedule that might make up a given day for me is:
- Wake up
- Meditate
- Make breakfast
- Swim
- Class
- Therapy
- Practice voice
- Dinner with friends
- Rest
Each element placed into my day works to reflect some of my values, which include rest, health, growth, learning, friendship, community, music-making, and practicing empathy, reflection and integrity. I am interested in being my best self and reflecting that realized-self to the world.
Furthermore, considering the point in the book that artful design exists in search of “The Sublime” (page 31), I wonder how I can better design and express my life. I think the goal of experiencing ‘awe, fear, clarity, and wonder’ and ‘transcending our medium’ (in this case our physical forms) to experience a sense of ‘truth, beauty, and universal experiences that connect us all’ is a great goal to keep in mind throughout life. Personally, I believe that making music and creating new technologies are the best ways I’ve found thus far to express these concepts of ‘truth, beauty, and the universal human experience.’ I like the idea that through sound, or invention I can transcend my physical form and connect to others as if we are all the same. Because, in some ways, we are.
This concept will inform my designs throughout this course and beyond. And moreover, through this new lens, I will appreciate and think more deeply about how I design the make-up of my life, and also, how I tackle future projects to create things that I feel best align with the goal of finding The Sublime in life and expressing my own values and humanity.