Analysis Bingeing

I've read a great deal on a number of blogs the last couple of days about some blithering idiot named Dennis Perrin who wrote some very unkind words about James Lileks' blog The Bleat." One of the things Perrin criticized Lileks for was his frequent mentions of his daughter, Gnat. I like The Bleat. It is one of the blogs I look forward to reading and one I know I will enjoy reading every time I go there. That is what qualified it for the Recommended Reading list on the right side of this page. In fact that is what it takes to make the list. I am very slow in adding new names - because I insist on doing it manually and I hate editing the templates- and because I only ad a site if it has proven to be a consistently anticipated read. There are a number sites I'm getting very close to adding. I probably could have added one or two when I made over to mu.nu, but I was more interested in getting the template done and the new site running so it was just easier to copy the list from the old site.

The Bleat was an easy ad. I became a Lileks fan rather quickly, possibly because one of the first Bleats I read was the famous Salman Pax post. I am not in the least offended by his stories of Gnat, even though one of the first rules I made for myself when I started blogging was that I would not, beyond the most generic passing reference, blog about my family. I do however write about myself often enough. Not the day to day trials and tribulations of life in suburban Connecticut, but the more intricate and distorted workings of my own mind. What my friend Ted at Rocket Jones once called an analysis binge.

Today's binge springs from a moment that would break rule number one, as well as cross over into the insignificant details of daily living. So without telling you how I got there, I'll tell you that I spent a good deal of time today thinking about how I think.

Essentially, I have two modes of mental operation, with surprisingly little grey area between them. To elaborate lest you assume I mean grey matter, the distinction between the two modes is sharp. I am either in or the other with not much more than one small point of being in a little both. Being in two places at one time is difficult and it takes a strong effort of will to stay there long. But even at that, they are not mutually exclusive. Which ever mode I happen to be operating in on a conscious level, the other is always there as a background process.

The best way to explain the two modes is by starting with the old saying "Can't see the forest for the trees," and adding a corollary "Can't see the trees for the forest." A lot of this distinction in thought process comes from working for 12 years as a graphic designer and art director.

This is a pretty clear violation of my blog rule #2 - Don't blog about work. I love my work, but if my blog becomes about design, then it just becomes about work. I'm granting myself an exception because I am going nowhere near clause B of rule #2 Never blog about where you work.

With every design project, you have to be able to see the forest. You have to understand what the design needs to accomplish and see how to get that done within the limits of the medium. You need to see how to communicate concepts like quality and dependability in either a 12 page glossy brochure or on a business card. That is the forest. You also need to be able to see the trees. To focus on the details. Because no matter how magnificent your vision of the forest if the work is rife with errors and omissions it fails. Design also requires the ability to switch quickly and effortlessly from one mode to the other.

While most people probably share these two points of focus, I suspect that a majority of the population mentally inhabits some point on a sliding scale between the two extremes. And it is only in response to some event that they approach either end of the spectrum. I think a lot of the reason why politicians are so successful at buying votes with tax dollars via programs like the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan is that when it comes to politics and policy most people tend to focus more on the details and less on the big picture. It takes something like 9/11 to shift our national focus into large scale.

Where I occasionally run into difficulty with the rest of the world is when the shifting of mental gears doesn't happen. (As opposed to the mixing of mental metaphors) When the world around me is calling for a narrow focus on the details of the moment but my mind is locked in big picture mode, I appear as absent minded and forgetful. And in truth things do get forgotten. My wife refers to this mental state as "Planet Steve." I go there a lot when I'm driving which is why I glad the detail half of my brain is always there in the background, otherwise I'd be a real danger on the highway. I have been known to drive by an exit now and then - even the exit I take to get to work every day. And there have been a number of disturbing instances in which I suddenly shift focus to the details of the moment and it takes me a moment to figure out where I am on a very familiar stretch of road.

Then there are the times, like this week, when I can get so locked in on the details that I resist any attempt to move my focus beyond what I am doing now. When this happens I can appear to be impatient and uncaring. This week a particularly nasty stomach virus wreaked havoc on my family as it traveled from individual to individual. This put me into mental survival mode - full detail of the moment focus. What had to happen tomorrow was virtually irrelevant. All that mattered was making it through the next hour. Any attempt to move beyond survival mode was dismissed. The result was to unintentionally offend. I am sure my wife has several names for this state of mind but in general I try to avoid profanity on this site.

So the question remaining is, why go through this exercise of public introspection. Because in part I think the blog made it possible or at the very least helped the process along. A good deal of the thought process was done in the form of mentally writing this post. Did I learn anything along the way - I think so. I think I learned that (to ad yet another metaphore) sometimes my mind cannot be left on autofocus. Will I know when those times are before it's too late? That remains to be seen.

Then again it could all just be an excuse to put up a bunch of links to Rocket Jones.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 05:10 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment