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Cursive writing and ecologies of attention – a framework for craft mastery
To examine its virtues, I apply Matthew Crawford's concept of "ecologies of attention" to cursive handwriting.
- An ecology of attention is defined as:
- A framework that guides what to pay attention to and why
- A clear progression of steps toward a finished product
- A system where points of focus interconnect meaningfully
- Cursive writing creates such an ecology through multiple scales of attention. For example:
- Micro-scale: Individual strokes, angles, hand position, muscle control
- Broad-scale: Paper selection, writing instruments, style variations
- This contrasts sharply with social media's attention ecology.
- The value of craft-based attention ecologies includes.
- Sequential, accumulative progress that builds mastery.
- Space for meaningful thought while hands remain productively occupied.
- Gradual transcendence from technical focus to deeper meaning.
- An ecology of attention is defined as:
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Kiki’s utopian counterfactual
I reflect upon the world-building in Studio Ghibli's "Kiki's Delivery Service."
- Director Hayao Miyazaki designed the film's setting as a fantasy of 20th century Europe where world wars never occurred
- The aesthetic reflects this counterfactual history:
- Preserved turn-of-the-century architecture
- Modern amenities (roughly late 1950s level)
- Complete absence of modernist buildings
- The author questions the realism of this utopian vision:
- Could these conflicts truly have been avoided?
- What technological developments might have been different?
- The essay explores what technology might look like in this alternative timeline:
- Possibly less advanced than our reality
- More artisanal and experimental in nature
- More decentralized without a military-industrial complex
- Driven by "humbler incentives" rather than arms races and security concerns
This counterfactual world invites us to imagine how technology might have developed "not out of arms races... but birthed from humbler incentives, awash in peace" - offering an alternative path for human innovation outside the pressures of global conflict.
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Could professions be fragmented concepts? Could they be messy technologies?
How might we reimagine professions for a rapidly changing world?
- The idea of "Profession" can be viewed as a concept assemblage:
- Built from multiple simpler concepts and ideas
- Their rigidity as labels potentially limits creative and organisational thinking as reality changes
- I propose breaking down these concept assemblages into fragments:
- Return to more fundamental concepts closer to current reality (less institutionalised)
- Carefully select which parts remain useful
- I describe a reimagined approach and what it might focus on:
- Committed application of skills to create meaningful societal contribution
- Alignment with personal talents, values, and potential
- Recognition that goes beyond traditional professional frameworks
- New parameters to assess expertise and value in contemporary contexts
We could create frameworks that better harness human potential and enable more diverse, innovative forms of contribution to society.
- The idea of "Profession" can be viewed as a concept assemblage:
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Technology’s path: less paths, more destinations
I explore how technologies evolve. How can we make conscious choices about which aspects of traditional processes to preserve and which to streamline?
- Technologies consistently evolve toward minimizing intermediary steps:
- Gutenberg's printing press required at least 5 complex steps per page, while modern printers reduce this to essentially 2 simple steps for multiple pages
- The "ideal" technological solution would require just one step from intention to result
- This technological evolution follows consistent patterns:
- Processes eliminate elements not directly related to the core function
- Technologies increasingly resemble "magic" in their seamless operation
- In this evolution we potentially lose some unsung benefits of older technologies, such as: tactile engagement with materials and processes, or overlapping domains of knowledge and skill (e.g., understanding ink properties connects printing to painting).
- I suggest some perspectives on this trend:
- Awareness of what's lost might inspire intentional design choices
- Creating technologies that deliberately preserve valuable aspects of longer processes
- At a macro level, simplified technologies enable new possibilities:
- As individual technologies become more streamlined, they can become components of larger, more ambitious systems
- Simplified technologies can be assembled into new complex wholes with different intermediary steps
- Technologies consistently evolve toward minimizing intermediary steps:
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The writer’s caveat dilemmas
I examine the challenges writers face in deciding how many disclaimers to include before presenting their ideas.
- The fundamental dilemma: Including too many caveats harms readability, but too few lead to misunderstandings
- Five specific caveat dilemmas writers face:
- The 'we' in collapsed contexts caveat
- When writing reaches diverse audiences beyond intended readers
- Should writers specify exactly who "we" refers to, or trust readers to determine if ideas apply to them?
- The search engine and intellectual depths caveat
- Writers may unknowingly present ideas others have developed
- Over-researching might disrupt original thinking processes
- The game of mediated identities caveat
- Online identity leaves permanent, searchable traces
- Fear of being permanently associated with developing ideas discourages intellectual exploration
- The expediency or experimentation caveat
- Sharing valuable but incomplete ideas may appear as laziness or ignorance
- Time constraints often prevent fully developing every promising thought
- Repetition and redundance caveat
- Writers must choose between exploration (developing many new ideas) or exploitation (promoting fewer ideas effectively)
- Repeatedly focusing on the same ideas isn't intellectual poverty but strategic emphasis
- The information ecosystem has far more ideas than implementations
- The 'we' in collapsed contexts caveat