I don’t know where im going with you at the moment. I want you to be too many things i think m trying to stuff you with too many features, feature-creep some would say. I know i have the tendancy to try to solve the worlds problems with my projects, in small doses, but i can’t do that with you, i have to leabr to be patient with you. I haven’t been working on you enough to be honest with you, haven’t been giving you the time you deserve, am not letting you grow. Im working on you in this abstract way, being too cerebral with you, i need to see you as a piece of rock that i have to sculpt bit by bit. I don’t have that much time left with you and this scares me, will i be able to achieve what i want with you?
What do i want by he way? How do i want to change the world with this? I want to design objects which people will cherish because they use the natural physical interactions of that shape to have an effect on it AND on the virtual content they are handling as well. Inversely i would like the virtual interactions to influence how this is displayed on a physical level. I am seeking for the holy graal of interaction design, convergence between the physical world and the virtual content, the marriage of both for better or for worse. Can i achieve this?
I wrote a paper as an undergrad about _Beowulf_. _Beowulf_ is a work which was very clearly at the cusp of the transition between the oral and literary tradition. As a result, _Beowulf_ has characteristics of the oral tradition (repeating things because people were listening to a storyteller) in what we consider in the present as a modern form: a book. It’s a jarring sensation, because something’s not quite right about the book. And that’s because it’s not a book, really. Not in the modern sense of a book.
Central to _Beowulf_ is the idea of storytelling, both because it was how the story originally survived (existing solely in the minds of the storytellers) and because the characters in the story have an amazing memory for the history of objects. Objects are seen to be almost living creatures, and time and again form the links between generations. “This was the sword that so and so’s father used to do X, and which he who holds it now does Y.”
In fact, my paper focused on the invisible character in the story: the blacksmith. Although never mentioned, the blacksmith created the objects which linked people, just as he created the many links forming the chain mail they wore (yes yes, it’s rather clever).
Anyways, the point I’m getting at is the idea of storytelling as an ancient means of communication and finding meaning. It’s not a world-changing idea in itself: it’s a venerable tradition. So perhaps think of your work as continuing a time-tested tradition which is already invested with meaning and value.