when i talk about my time at itp, i often tell people i’m living the dream.

i wonder: what is the dream?


is it the ability to be free from real-world constraints?

to be able to make whatever i want?

to be guided by curiosity, and curiosity alone?

is that empowering? the ability to be guided by your own curiosity — to make things that feel important to you.

to make things that you feel are important to be made.

to be surrounded by smart; curious; kind people?

to be supported?

==to feel like you’re fulfilling your creative potential? (as maslow argued)==

could this ^ be true? are all of my lower-order needs taken care of, and so i chase this higher order need; and the fact that i'm pursuing it (higher-order-need) incredibly fulfilling?


therefore if itp is a bubble, but conducive to magic; the real world is the opposite.

==but what good is something that cannot exist outside this bubble?==

^ strong argument for embedding things i make into my ‘real life’.

however, there is a caveat to all of this. my life at itp is very different from what my life outside itp is going to look like. therefore, things i make to improve my quality of life here may not improve my quality of life outside.

but that’s okay. the thesis is my conversion to a toolmaker.

gosh, this feels awfully similar to future sketches: what do the creative tools of the future look like?


i remember ling dong had made a device where you could program on the train, but i can’t find documentation for it anywhere. that’s kind of similar to cartese.