Concrete Analysis

This daily note will be an attempt to synthesize some recent discoveries, epiphanies, and overlaps that relate to my career. In so doing, I will attempt to make my recent (meager and abstract) blogs more concrete, for they serve as breadcrumbs leading to the present moment.

Yesterday, I read L.M. Sacasas write about what motivates the tech critic. For the sake of this conversation, “tech critic” will be interchangeable with “anyone who writes about technology.” Sacasas removes the teeth from our idea of “critic” in lieu of love. Literally, the point of the article is that anyone who writes about technology loves something that technology effects — be it liberty, ecology, human flourishing — over and against the technology itself. (In the same way that a music critic loves music over and against the mechanics of a flute or trumpet.)

This was altogether encouraging for me as I consistently wrestle with the question, “Why technology?” It’s not like I’ve always been immersed in tech. I was not baptized by the early internet like some, nor was I much of a gamer. Much of the tech core from the 90’s and early 2000’s leaves me on the sidelines, which seems to be a defining aesthetic of many voices in the space.

I’ll have you know that I was blessed by reading Sacasas’ “What Motivates the Critic of Technology?” after I begrudgingly shipped, Why write about technology? The piece was abstract, aimless, and took way too much time. Writing is thinking. The next morning, by way of Sacasas, I was given a concrete answer to my question.

So, is there any material change that comes from this? Yes — I don’t lack what’s required to write about technology, or to be a “tech critic” for that matter, because of my love for… blank.

And that blank is exactly what I want to press into.

There are things that I love the sound of, like human flourishing, human autonomy, diversity of thought and experience. But substantially, they are ideas. Furthermore, there are organizations and individuals that represent a slice of this idealistic pie — Cosmos Institute represents philosophical depth, relevance, influence, and academic rigor, The Convinial Society possesses similar academic rigor but leans more pastoral and practical for everyday readers, and leans Christian. There are other influences, like Aaron M. Renn, Praxis, and Reggie James that have influenced me in niche ways at different times… some more than others… but as it relates to where I invest my heart, mind, soul, and strength in this next chapter of my vocation? I only have fractions of comparables. That is until I remembered Steven Garber.

In the quest for good books, every now and then, a good book finds you. Steven Garber’s book Hints of Hope - Making Peace with the Proximate found me earlier this year and it changed my life. But I had forgotten about it. Looking back, I can tell it meant something to me because I wrote not one, but two blog posts in response and they were not half bad? See: A Telos for Vocation - Implicated for Love’s Sake and Loving Our Way to Vocation. Remembering Garber and Hints of Hope was more of a feeling than a coherent idea, but it carried one additional word with it: proximity.

Proximity is practical, and I think it has some practical implications for me. Before I unpack that, I want to link my recent blog post to my working question of, “What do you love, that informs how you write about technology?”

Yesterday I wrote about those who create from passion and those that create from mastery. Passion is derived from experience and rooted in love, and mastery is derived from mechanical precision of a craft. More or less, I’m thinking of those that have formal training in journalism or creative writing. They have been given the structure to read, learn, and practice mastery in literature; perhaps they had a curriculum, a teacher, and fellow students. That makes a difference. Mastery is not exclusive to passion — often those who are passionate about something pursue formal training — but sometimes the egg comes before the chicken. Mastery may be lacking, but the drive to create is there. I fall into this category. Yet again, with all the ambition in the world, the love question rises to the surface: what is it that you love so much you are willing to haphazardly write about it? For most people writing about technology, it is not a traumatic or existential experience like I suggest is common among exceptional artists. But maybe it has to do with proximity. By that, I mean real life. Real people. Real experiences. Not just ideas, but messy, complex, reality.

I just moved to Atlanta with my wife. This is our first real week in the city. Today is Wednesday. It’s easy for me to get stuck on the computer, thinking that I can engineer my way through a complex situation— social engineer, software engineer, spiritual engineer (?) — but I think the next step has something to do with proximity, and proximity has to do with people. More to come.