Today Wolfgang Weingart came to see me at MIT. He's in his sixties and continues to be a powerhouse of ideas and inspirational educator qualities. I think I spoke of him before ... oh yes, about the point. Weingart is my original inspiration for launching our online Digital Information Design Summer Camp. We officially closed our registration date on Monday of this week and are currently processing admissions.
It is important to me that Weingart should appear at this important moment. When I had once lost all interest in teaching some years ago, I was visiting Weingart in Maine to give a lecture for his then regular summer course. I marveled at Weingart's ability to give the exact same introductory lecture each year. I thought to myself, "Doesn't he get bored?" Saying the same thing over and over has no value in my mind. Yet it was on maybe the third visit that I realized that although Weingart was saying the exact same thing, he was saying it simpler each time he said it. Through focusing on the basics of basics, he was able to reduce everything that he knew to the essence of what he wished to convey. This brings me to the Ninth Law of simplicity:
Sometimes we are fortunate to achieve subconscious compression through the arduous passage of time like Master Weingart. However the exigencies of a capitalistic economy demand that things happen now versus later. The short span of now defeats the ability to age. Perhaps that is why living in "the moment" makes one feel young?
Posted by maeda at May 18, 2005 07:56 PM