The Burdens of Expertise

   People tend to think that being an expert is something to be desired, and I am even inclined to say that it's essential to acquire a deep knowledge in one's chosen subject areas. It may not be something one has to do, but deeper learning tends to ground a person in something, much like what we see when we observe someone learning a certain trade, such as baking bread. Sometimes, it's not the skill itself that matters so much as the acquisition of a certain grounded relationship to the world, where a person needs to carefully examine different options in resolving problems in the field.
  This having been said, I sometimes wonder if the notion of being grounded in a subject has been gradually supplanted by a competitive orientation toward expertise. It's as though only one person can be an expert, and this creates a kind of elitism around having knowledge to share. In fact, this 'cult' of knowing has the effect, it seems, of mystifying the knower, rather than serving to clarify who knows, and what. More so, such a cult of expertise can sometimes lead to the insecure fear that someone will come along who has even greater expert knowledge than you do--as though this were a death knell to one's status or power!
   What would knowledge authorities think or feel if they could reflect that it is not necessary for them to be 'perfectly knowing' as a means of holding onto their position in the community? I think this less burdened space might help them realize that they can be both learners and knowers, in equal parts, within different contexts. There would also be a diminished fear around being found out as not necessarily knowing all the answers. In my tutoring of ESL learners, I have lately noticed the sense of shame I felt in not knowing how to interpret a quote from a Shakespeare play, only to find that my student became more engaged when I was able to admit to my sense of loss. It is as though, in abdicating my sense of authority in knowing, I was able to provide a space where I could co-discover with my learner, and this seemed to make the learner much more engaged.

Serendipity

While I was working on my video project tonight as one of the last assignments for my Media/Evangelism course, I felt initially frustrated. Something about the story arc that I composed for this piece felt really weighted down and cumbersome. But it no longer seemed like I could start the whole project from scratch. Not only did I seem to run out of new ideas on where to go with it, but I also felt so frustrated with the process that I saw myself disengaging from the pain of frustration.
   It was that moment that I decided to take a rest and start looking at some potential music pieces that I could add as a soundtrack for the video. I experimented with a few of the songs by playing them alongside the video to 'try them on' as it were. Again, I wasn't too thrilled about the choices at first--and there was one particular piece called "Sad Day" which seemed simple yet effective enough to carry my story along. The funny thing is that Sad Day was only 2 minutes 28 seconds long, while my video project was over 3 minutes!...so I knew I had to cut things here and there if I wanted to use this song without looping it indefinitely. But what I didn't realize at the time was that the very moment when the song ended, I realized that this point is exactly where the video needs to be cut. In fact, the accidental aspect of this discovery (also called "serendipity") sent a chill down my spine...it is as though the accident itself knew better than I did about where the video needs to be cut!
   Sometimes..well, I would have to say that in many unacknowledged cases, serendipity can serve to move people along when they have run out of solutions or new ways of looking at problems. Without the ability to entertain accidents and even see their potential to add unexpected good things to what a person is doing, there may not even be so many things completed as they are. It is certainly as though there is an intelligence in the universe that works through people, rather than leaving it up to people to decide or determine things through their own intellect.
  

The Journey of Redoing

Today, I had to redo the fonts and formatting for my blog assignment pages, due to discrepancies in the fonts sizes and colors. I felt a lot of frustration in having to redo the whole page, but in another sense, the opportunity to redo something often yields a better result than if one simply tries a touch-up here and there. I think one of the interesting aspects of having to repeat something is that it allows a person to revisit something with much less frivolity. The repeated project tends to gloss over the unnecessary details and offers a more sleek version of the original.
   Another good thing is that I didn't have to do everything 'from scratch', since the text of my blog was intact. Here again is another opportunity to look at things from a spiritual lens; that is, is there ever any point where we are ever doing something 'from scratch'? Or is what we do the result of previous conditions?
  With vows, it's a similar principle: I know that I have to 'redo' life in some format or another, and death is an inevitable part of that process. However, there is a continuity across those existences which relates to what one sets out to do in each lifetime. If one limits their scope to 'this onw life' , they will grow very despondent if their goals are not reached by the end of it. But if one's focus is on the way the mind is cultivated across a given life, then nothing is truly wasted under that view. Redoing always carries the residuals of the previous doings.

On Creating Videos

   Yesterday, I went to a nature trail on Leslie and Sheppard and took some pictures and videos of the area. I intend to use these in my section in the blog about Wisdom. I am not quite sure what the idea will be, but I started to reflect on how knowledge is similar to a 'tree', while wisdom is similar to water. One tends to be unyielding and branching outward , while the other tends to be flowing and continually yielding to elements around it.
   I am developing much more confidence in making videos and even being able to create a story around images. Somehow, I think that working with multiple media can really push a person to create a three dimensional experience for others, rather than just state something literally or discursively. I am also noticing that when I see an advertisement on television at my mom's home (as I don't own one myself), I find myself seeing how the images come together to form a total message. I think actually assembling a video oneself increases the overall appreciation for the process that happens as well as the complicated choices made when creating videos.

youtube creations

  I found that the prospect of making YouTube videos goes through many different phases. The first emotion I had upon realizing that I am required to design YouTube videos for my course is one of 'shock' and horror. "Me", I think..." I hardly even know how to use a TV remote, let alone upload a file to YouTube". But once I forced myself to go through the process, I realized how strangely easy it is to upload videos on YouTube. The fact of the matter is that there is only one click of a button needed to upload videos, and then there it is, in a matter of two or three minutes.
   Of course, what happens next is the 'honeymoon phase', where I start to believe that any and everything I publish on YouTube has some magic in it. This is similar to the time when I received an electric typewriter when I was 16 years old, and marvelled at how the lovely font on the typewriter made everything I wrote look like a 'classic'. I suppose that the handsome font on the typewriter made up for my many years of poor penmanship, but nonetheless, I think I took my enthusiasm much too far.
   Now, I am starting to develop a bit more discernment, realizing that what I am doing is rather amateur compared to the wonderful stories and narratives that are out there in the YouTube world. This period of 'comparison' seems to follow any honeymoon phase. Think about the married couple who tries to compare the color of their curtains with those of their neighbours across the street. Is there any need to compare, for that matter? But such seems to be a natural tendency: as soon as a person gets over the fear of not having the capability to create something useful or meaningful using a certain medium, they no sooner start to evaluate themselves based on how they perceive others are doing! It seems like human beings just love to make themselves suffer, no matter what kinds of fortune besets them.
    What will be my future feeling with YouTube? Well, to be honest, I do believe that this medium has opened up a door for me, because I am suddenly realizing the implications of it. Not only am I capable of taking pictures and making videos, but now I have the ability to combine them and upload the result to one site. This encourages me to be a bit like a storyteller, who takes whatever he can find in the way of sound and images to create narratives. I think it's for sure very exciting, but I have to wonder for how long I will be able to creatively endure, considering the time that is consumed in making a video. I suppose time will tell how far I will go into this new creative venture.

Wiki Woes

In spite of the snowstorm, today felt like a very productive one for me. I was able to work on the "Diligence" page for three hours straight (perhaps an example of my best rendition of diligence!), although part of the time involved experimenting with different kinds of wikis to try to create a collective 'vow' sharing page. Finally, alas, I have figured out an application for wikis which might work well with the blog. I also managed to complete a video for "Patience" using images of the snowstorm in Toronto as my visual 'poem'. Over time, I am also learning a few more features about the Movie Maker software, including how to set timing and music volume to a desired level. One thing I haven't figured out yet is how to make the captions fly in and out, as in a powerpoint.
   There were three kinds of wikis I had tried to experiment with today, with varying degrees of success.  It all revealed limitations on my part. I for one am not familiar enough with HTML language to really figure out how to make the wiki attractive. The other limitation is that many of the wikis cost money to maintain. I wondered today whether it is really worth it for me to maintain a wiki, when some of its features could just as well be accessed via google.docs. Wiki is also something that needs support from a group of people to be really worthwhile. Unless many people are committed to adding and updating a wiki, it might be a bit too costly to maintain overall.
    I still have hopes for the wiki, but I think I am going to wait until I have all my desired content posted before I can really play around with it.

A Blog 'To Do' List

 Now that I am focussing on developing the content of my six pages, I haven't had too much time in the interim to play around with blogger and its various fonts and formats. I am thinking about developing a checklist which will help to make the blog more attractive and user friendly. Among some of the ideas I am developing recently are:




1. How to keep a "welcome" blog as the top post, so that visitors to the blog are greeted with a warm welcome
2. some picture to the side of the blog, to make it more colorful and enticing
3. Link the "Diligence" page of the blog to a wiki in which people can share their vows on a single space. (I wonder if wiki allows anyone to share?)
4. Is there a way to arrange the technology journal in reverse chronological order, so that I am able to keep the blog entries in the order in which it was written?

Getting "Into" Embedded Video

 I completed my second video on "Morality" today, as well as two thirds of my writing and exercises for the morality module. I have to say that I am much happier with the pacing and the voiceover for this Morality video than I am with the Generosity video, mainly because I am now familiar with the proper distance between microphone and mouth...as well as the ability to adjust the timing for individual frames of the video (which is a real blessing).
 
I have to say that posting the videos on YouTube has been a real source of pride for me--and I never realized how much value I had subconsciously placed on people who do create videos and publish them. I think the video is always a very 'alive' medium, even if it really consists of flashing pictures and words. I have also somewhat enjoyed the production process of moviemaker, and find it easy to use, even compared with Animoto..

A Fast Approaching Slowness

   I was learning a bit about copyright today, and whether or not it is possible to embed a you tube video without permission from the author. It turns out that it's normally not so straightforward to do, and a lot of the legal terminology didn't seem so clear to me. I decided to opt out of embedding any videos except for the ones which I create myself, using my own pictures, voice over, etc. I figure that it's better if I try to avoid using any copyrighted information from other sources, unless simply as a link or a reference.
    I have had my share of frustrations in trying to convert movies to formats that are easy to upload to blogger. Blogger seems to take quite a while to upload videos, and it seems that the only way to do so easily and quickly is by uploading the video to YouTube first and then adding the YouTube link or reference number to the blogger post.
    I am more or less working on the text part of "Generosity". In general, I am happy with the content, even though the process itself is quite time consuming. I am enjoying in particular the idea of creating something. That is, I have been mostly taking the role of a note-taker when it comes to learning Buddhist teachings (if anything, a kind of passive spectator). With the exception of a few volunteer stints in workshops, I haven't been actively involved in this kind of tangible, visual creation making in Buddhist contexts, and I can see why people get excited about creating their own YouTube videos.
    I believe that an entire thesis can be written from the perspective of how YouTube video making is framed as an act of creation--even if it relies heavily on borrowing and sampling from others. I wonder if part of the excitement is to know what we can innovate or 'riff' off existing designs, thus adding to what is already considered valuable to many viewers. The downside of it, however, is that one can spend literally hours trying to produce a 'tangible' video, and I can see how the act of creation can potentially become a kind of obsession.

Emerging Narratives

I have already added 5 of the six paramitas as separate blog entries, as well as a photo I took and an accompanying poetic narrative which reflects key themes. For some reason, as I was configuring the 5 entries, a narrative structure seemed to spontaneously emerge between them: something about the seasons in particular, and how one needs to travel the four seasons to see that they are really faces of the same world. I wonder: why would the mind naturally impose a kind of narrative onto these 6 concepts? Perhaps there is a comfort in fathoming that this is about a journey of discovery.

I also notice that format plays a big part in determining the story I am going to tell on this blog. Yesterday, I was able to play around with gadgets on the blog, so that I was able to place the six paramitas on separate pages, while keeping the blog for my daily technology journal. I found that doing so gives me two different voices. One voice is the one that tries to present a coherent or artistic vision of the Six Paramitas (my official ‘subject matter’ for the blog). One could call this my “Pages” voice. The other voice is this diary voice, where I can more informally and honestly share some of the challenges I am encountering while creating this blog.

I managed to change the format of my blog to a design called “watermark”, and also changed the background color from dark brown to a light shade of blue. I found this particular background to have a Zen Buddhist feel to it: minimal, not too busy in appearance, and reflective of a theme of ‘navigation’ using maps in the background of the main screen. I have a sense that with Buddhist themed blogs, less is better, and conveying too much may sometimes weaken the sense of a single mind that is able to pick and choose what is needed rather than being overwhelmed by too many sensory details. Could one of my visions be to transform digital media from a ‘hot’ to a ‘cool’ one?

One more thing I wanted to mention: I had tried to design another blog on Wordpress featuring the same basic content as with blogger.com. However, I find that for some reason, I don’t have as much affinity with WordPress as I do with blogger.com. I am not too sure what the reason is, but I have a sense that WordPress templates are more oriented toward marketing, and so they come across as quite large and intimidating. The fonts in blogger.com, on the contrary, seem crisper and thinner to me, thus leaving more room to explore and manipulate content. The balance between style and content is hard to sustain, but I find that I want to lean toward quality content rather than bombarding my viewers with the latest layout styles.

New Beginnings

I created my blog “paramitasproject” on blogger. Initially I tried wordpress, but the format seemed rather complicated for me. I am interested in exploring how I go with this blog and exactly where I go.

I chose a background today—not too ‘busy’, not too “Buddhist” in flavor, but with a specific idea of an audience in mind. The audience I am thinking of in designing this blog might be interested in Buddhist teachings, but may also be stressed professionals who want to relax. But how do I symbolically connect the meditative appreciation of picture with the more nuts and bolts teachings of Buddhism that I wish to impart? Here are some questions for the future.

Finally, what’s the difference between a “Post” and a “Page”?