task-based

during chess rendering


























was thinking about the nature of different activities, and how we define them. bob and bob used to set up rodeo rodeo, i read in a book. little plastic action figures, a rodeo, when they were living in i think beverly hills, rodeo drive. daily. matthew and i used to make lists. when i visited new zealand maybe two years ago, we would make up a list in the morning, and cross the things off during the day. maybe this will be something we're both keen about. sixty-nine tasks, something we need to do at each stop on the kisokaido. observe the sun for a minute, or pick up all the litter we see for five minutes, or do six thirty-second sketches - don't want to speculate about the nature of the activity, but defining an activity, to be performed together, as a ritual maybe is one way to think of it, which will work towards developing a piece of art which we can create and share, might be something we're both keen on.

then i saw the shadow people.



























this isn't photoshopped, the sun was hitting buildings beyond the reservoir while joggers ran by closer to me down below. we can all become as flat as we want, completely shallow, two-dimensional. if we want. or we can choose a different way, fill up ourselves, our lives, expand. find new dimensions. shadow people became shallow people. and i thought matthew and i are really going to want to make this trip meaningful. all this planning, training, feels fairly ambitious, what are we going to learn? i think it will be deepening no flattening no matter what. but a bit of thought and effort and the degree could increase. so variable. i don't want to be flat. i'm afraid of being defined by tasks, but i don't know how else to create something. maybe definition, which is limiting, is a precondition to further freethinking, which is enlightening. paradox. limits = freedom. we will do x, which will occasionally prevent us from doing y or z, but which will teach us about q and k, which we otherwise would never have considered. and years from now, we'll still benefit from the lessons of q and k. maybe someone else will as well. that's the hope of today.