I'm learning Python. Most people are. 'Learn to code', they said. So here we are. What I didn't expect is how learning a digital language would help me wield the analog ones.
As Stephen King explained in his 2000 partial autobiography 'On Writing', putting words on the page amounts to "telepathy, of course." You take an abstract thought or emotion in your head, you express it using words and syntax. You then offer these words to others for them to use to reconstruct that thought or emotion in their own heads. Do it right, and telepathy it is. More importantly, it is also coding.
When you code, you learn to define things in the right order so that the computer will not be confused. You learn to build your code in modules that connect together, to link sections of your code to others so that they may effect recall, influence each other and work together to deliver the experience that you are aiming for. Much of this is also true in fiction.
What coding really helps you do as a writer is structure your story, down to the sentences. When you write with coding in mind, you keep things clear for your audience. This makes sure to avoid what Alfred Hitchcock defined as "one of the fatal things (...) to have a mind that is confused. Otherwise the audience won’t emote." Coding connects you to emotions. How about that?
Another thing that coding forces you to do is to take the big picture into account. You can't just start writing code and discover your program as you go, which is how a lot of fiction is written. I believe this takes tremendous time and effort, which could be spent more productively on planning and structure. Coding must be planned from beginning to end in order to function properly. If you plan your story in the same way, taking into account how each portion of it, or scene, connects to the others, in the right order, in the right way, then I believe your story will improve drastically. Big picture before details, and pennies will take care of themselves.
Now, everyone has their own technique that works for them. This must be respected. However, one can also consider alternatives along the way. By being open to new solutions, you might just find an aspect of the craft that eluded you thus far. And when you do, it will make you a better writer.
Coding is a language. Learning to code is learning to speak to a computer. Since computers are starting to become intelligent, shouldn't we all consider how coding can help us communicate better with each other?
Feel free to comment on this at your leisure. I look forward to your thoughts.
Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Thursday, 14 March 2019
Writing for your audience
Too often, we start writing by thinking of what we want to say. That is only part of the equation. Ask any married couple if they communicate better when they adapt to their partner and you will immediately see what I mean.
Whenever we produce written content, we are writing for someone: our audience of readers. It is therefore important to write from their perspective. This means taking into account what they are looking for, what they want to hear, what they like. It means tailoring the message to make sure that our ideas are heard.
That is what makes good communication cement relationships and create emotional attachments. It also applies to any kind of written content.
An idea or argument that we want to communicate must have hooks. These are elements for the audience to relate to, something that makes them put their guard down. When you write, you are fishing and hunting at the same time. You plant words to attract your audience's attention and you are also going after a specific type of person by using a targeted platform for your message. Either way, you need game.
Humour works well, but is hard to do right. The best way is to smuggle your idea or argument within another, less disruptive proposition. This often leads to a form of entertainment because, when we are entertained, we open up.
Entertaining content doesn't need to be dumbed down or simplified. It needs to make you feel good when you read. It needs to make you want to read more. You're entertained when you forget the rest and focus on what is entertaining you. That's why the funny guy always seduces the girl.
From a fiction story to a newsletter, keeping the audience in mind and entertained is the key to successfully putting a message across. What we want to say matters less than how we say it. If we truly want to be heard, to be understood, we need to shape our words for others to embrace.
Let the games begin.
Whenever we produce written content, we are writing for someone: our audience of readers. It is therefore important to write from their perspective. This means taking into account what they are looking for, what they want to hear, what they like. It means tailoring the message to make sure that our ideas are heard.
That is what makes good communication cement relationships and create emotional attachments. It also applies to any kind of written content.
An idea or argument that we want to communicate must have hooks. These are elements for the audience to relate to, something that makes them put their guard down. When you write, you are fishing and hunting at the same time. You plant words to attract your audience's attention and you are also going after a specific type of person by using a targeted platform for your message. Either way, you need game.
Humour works well, but is hard to do right. The best way is to smuggle your idea or argument within another, less disruptive proposition. This often leads to a form of entertainment because, when we are entertained, we open up.
Entertaining content doesn't need to be dumbed down or simplified. It needs to make you feel good when you read. It needs to make you want to read more. You're entertained when you forget the rest and focus on what is entertaining you. That's why the funny guy always seduces the girl.
From a fiction story to a newsletter, keeping the audience in mind and entertained is the key to successfully putting a message across. What we want to say matters less than how we say it. If we truly want to be heard, to be understood, we need to shape our words for others to embrace.
Let the games begin.
Monday, 3 July 2017
Teaching as constructive virus
The French chemist Antoine Lavoisier once said: "In nature nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes." This has proven to be true in physics, chemistry and many other scientific fields. Energy is transferred as it is used, changing from friction to heat, from light to electricity and more. Money is transformed into goods and services, with value-added turning back into money in the process. Time is converted into ideas, practice into value, money into wealth, which in turn provides time. The process appears to be universal and self-contained.
However, it seems that teaching is the exception.
When you teach, you share a piece of knowledge with someone. You are not left poorer by the experience. In other words, you have not lost anything in the process, merely invested a little time. However, in that time, other people have gained knowledge, which they in turn can spread further and farther in an exponential fashion. It becomes a viral experience.
When you acquire new knowledge, your brain rewires itself to accommodate this knowledge within its intellectual grasp. Much like a hard drive reconfigures its bits of zeroes and ones to go from an empty formatted disk to one full of data, the brain changes its neuronal maps as it learns. It does not weigh more, like the hard disk, but it contains more.
However, unlike the hard disk, the change is not merely a rearrangement of its physical self, but an evolution. Knowledge impacts not just what you know, but how you think. Therefore, teaching something to someone changes who they are, both intellectually and physically. Their brain is left physiologically altered by the experience. No matter how much they forget, they will forever be transformed by this learning experience. And it is highly likely that they will affect others in turn.
Teaching therefore proves to be an exception to Lavoisier's rule. Whereas a digital copy of an original file merely reconfigures a drive's bits without actually changing it, a teacher who delivers a lectures creates a new version of her students, who then go on to affect change and to create other versions of people with whom they share this knowledge.
In some way, teaching is a form of magic, a violation of nature's rule in the most beautiful sense.
Go out and teach. Share what you know. Create.
Be the exception that spreads.
However, it seems that teaching is the exception.
When you teach, you share a piece of knowledge with someone. You are not left poorer by the experience. In other words, you have not lost anything in the process, merely invested a little time. However, in that time, other people have gained knowledge, which they in turn can spread further and farther in an exponential fashion. It becomes a viral experience.
When you acquire new knowledge, your brain rewires itself to accommodate this knowledge within its intellectual grasp. Much like a hard drive reconfigures its bits of zeroes and ones to go from an empty formatted disk to one full of data, the brain changes its neuronal maps as it learns. It does not weigh more, like the hard disk, but it contains more.
However, unlike the hard disk, the change is not merely a rearrangement of its physical self, but an evolution. Knowledge impacts not just what you know, but how you think. Therefore, teaching something to someone changes who they are, both intellectually and physically. Their brain is left physiologically altered by the experience. No matter how much they forget, they will forever be transformed by this learning experience. And it is highly likely that they will affect others in turn.
Teaching therefore proves to be an exception to Lavoisier's rule. Whereas a digital copy of an original file merely reconfigures a drive's bits without actually changing it, a teacher who delivers a lectures creates a new version of her students, who then go on to affect change and to create other versions of people with whom they share this knowledge.
In some way, teaching is a form of magic, a violation of nature's rule in the most beautiful sense.
Go out and teach. Share what you know. Create.
Be the exception that spreads.
Tuesday, 4 October 2016
WESTWORLD and the robotic gene
Watching the pilot episode of the incredible HBO series WESTWORLD yesterday made me ponder our relationship with machines. It's complex, deep and interdependent. In many ways, it is human. In many others, it's artificial. But artificial and real can co-exist.
My latest novel BLUE GENE explores the internal conflict that springs from having a randomly occurring synthetic gene alter a teenager's brain and morph it into a biosynthetic blend of man and machine. It's hard to trust something that you don't understand, but when that something is inside your head, well, you don't have many places to turn to.
Trust and faith are interconnected in that sense. Trust ends where faith begins. You choose to believe in something that you don't necessarily trust, since you can't fully comprehend its ramifications. You develop faith as a need to trust something that implicitly doesn't provide any evidence to do so. You believe, because you choose to. Others may choose differently. Machines are no different.
In WESTWORLD, the machines are the ones we empathise with due to the treatment they suffer at the hands of us humans. In BLUE GENE, I tried to inject a sense of doubt about whom to feel deepest empathy for. A young boy finds himself turned into a half-breed, a combination of organic and synthetic brain tissue that gives him abilities that he doesn't want and attention that he doesn't seek. A highly advanced android offers to help him reach his full potential while covertly coveting his hybrid cortex, eager to become human himself. Who is right? Are we still the dominant species if we are no longer the most powerful one?
There are already products and solutions available to merge your body with machine appendages and enhancements. This postulates that our definition of humanity lies not in our body but in our mind, and most importantly in the seat of our consciousness. This means that a synthetic robot with a human brain would still be human. Robocop is no longer a fantasy, more like a long term plan.
Could we fall in love with a machine? I believe so since, when we are feeling vulnerable, we remain so eager to believe that the faked emotional response we see in others is true, despite all evidence to the contrary. Finding this response in a robot would surely let us develop feelings for the things, and behave accordingly. Some people love cats, don't they? Same thing.
I believe in machines. I believe that they will pull us forward, away from the Middle Ages, the Industrial Age and the Information Age, into the Intelligence Age. We will focus on intellectual pursuits, striving to outdo and outrun artificial thought. Our physical activity will be delegated to machines, leaving us free to explore virtual realms. We will push our consciousness farther than ever before. We will learn from machines as they learn from us. We will compare creative achievements with them, seeing them as artistic voices akin to our own. We will forge this path together.
And it will be... synthetically beautiful.
My latest novel BLUE GENE explores the internal conflict that springs from having a randomly occurring synthetic gene alter a teenager's brain and morph it into a biosynthetic blend of man and machine. It's hard to trust something that you don't understand, but when that something is inside your head, well, you don't have many places to turn to.
Trust and faith are interconnected in that sense. Trust ends where faith begins. You choose to believe in something that you don't necessarily trust, since you can't fully comprehend its ramifications. You develop faith as a need to trust something that implicitly doesn't provide any evidence to do so. You believe, because you choose to. Others may choose differently. Machines are no different.
In WESTWORLD, the machines are the ones we empathise with due to the treatment they suffer at the hands of us humans. In BLUE GENE, I tried to inject a sense of doubt about whom to feel deepest empathy for. A young boy finds himself turned into a half-breed, a combination of organic and synthetic brain tissue that gives him abilities that he doesn't want and attention that he doesn't seek. A highly advanced android offers to help him reach his full potential while covertly coveting his hybrid cortex, eager to become human himself. Who is right? Are we still the dominant species if we are no longer the most powerful one?
There are already products and solutions available to merge your body with machine appendages and enhancements. This postulates that our definition of humanity lies not in our body but in our mind, and most importantly in the seat of our consciousness. This means that a synthetic robot with a human brain would still be human. Robocop is no longer a fantasy, more like a long term plan.
Could we fall in love with a machine? I believe so since, when we are feeling vulnerable, we remain so eager to believe that the faked emotional response we see in others is true, despite all evidence to the contrary. Finding this response in a robot would surely let us develop feelings for the things, and behave accordingly. Some people love cats, don't they? Same thing.
I believe in machines. I believe that they will pull us forward, away from the Middle Ages, the Industrial Age and the Information Age, into the Intelligence Age. We will focus on intellectual pursuits, striving to outdo and outrun artificial thought. Our physical activity will be delegated to machines, leaving us free to explore virtual realms. We will push our consciousness farther than ever before. We will learn from machines as they learn from us. We will compare creative achievements with them, seeing them as artistic voices akin to our own. We will forge this path together.
And it will be... synthetically beautiful.
Sunday, 4 September 2016
Reading when writing
It's very tempting to read when you write. It provides motivation, a sounding board, a distraction for those who like to procrastinate (something Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin calls 'thinking'). It also feels like a reassuring proof that stories do find an audience, that they do reach readers. That they matter.
It's dangerous to read when you write. Very often, another writer's style will creep into your own, invading your words with their signature quips and tags. It's a natural thing to let that happen. It can even be a crutch. However, I advise against it, however comfortable it might seem.
Writing is an intense affair, at least in my case. I try to write as quickly as possible, ideally at the same speed as the average person reads so that I can have a sense of how the story will flow from their point of view. It's challenging, to say the least, but I find that I'm more of a sprinter when it comes to words on the page. If I read at the same time, my mind blends everything into one single thread that I find hard to unravel. That means the book I'm reading becomes the book I'm writing. It's not plagiarism but it definitely borders on the incestuous.
Reading in the same genre as the one you're writing in can be a double edged sword. It can guide you a little in terms of atmosphere and pace. It can serve as a reference or as inspiration, sparking the right idea at the right time. However, it can also exert undue influence on your story direction and on your narrative choices. You might accelerate a chapter that you had intended to be simmering and contemplative, just because you read a faster sequence in the other book. You might be tempted to replicate something your read just because it's easy. Don't.
And ideally, don't read when you write.
The only way I found to read without impeding on my writing is to either read in a different language, or in a completely different genre, ideally non-fiction. This approach lets you separate your work clearly from that of the author you're reading. It also lets you have that little reading reward after a day of hard writing, without getting in the way of your own words.
I'm reading READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline right now, and I'm doing that while I'm still writing my own sci-fi novel BLUE GENE. It's messing with my head, mainly due to Cline's incredible sense of depth and detail, something I tend to let go in favour of pace and dialogue. I just have to accept that I'm writing a different way. It's hard to keep faith though, and I just pray and hope that the story I'm telling stands up to scrutiny.
Only time will tell.
I'm just going to read a few pages now. Just a few. Then I'll write a few of my own.
Just a few.
It's dangerous to read when you write. Very often, another writer's style will creep into your own, invading your words with their signature quips and tags. It's a natural thing to let that happen. It can even be a crutch. However, I advise against it, however comfortable it might seem.
Writing is an intense affair, at least in my case. I try to write as quickly as possible, ideally at the same speed as the average person reads so that I can have a sense of how the story will flow from their point of view. It's challenging, to say the least, but I find that I'm more of a sprinter when it comes to words on the page. If I read at the same time, my mind blends everything into one single thread that I find hard to unravel. That means the book I'm reading becomes the book I'm writing. It's not plagiarism but it definitely borders on the incestuous.
Reading in the same genre as the one you're writing in can be a double edged sword. It can guide you a little in terms of atmosphere and pace. It can serve as a reference or as inspiration, sparking the right idea at the right time. However, it can also exert undue influence on your story direction and on your narrative choices. You might accelerate a chapter that you had intended to be simmering and contemplative, just because you read a faster sequence in the other book. You might be tempted to replicate something your read just because it's easy. Don't.
And ideally, don't read when you write.
The only way I found to read without impeding on my writing is to either read in a different language, or in a completely different genre, ideally non-fiction. This approach lets you separate your work clearly from that of the author you're reading. It also lets you have that little reading reward after a day of hard writing, without getting in the way of your own words.
I'm reading READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline right now, and I'm doing that while I'm still writing my own sci-fi novel BLUE GENE. It's messing with my head, mainly due to Cline's incredible sense of depth and detail, something I tend to let go in favour of pace and dialogue. I just have to accept that I'm writing a different way. It's hard to keep faith though, and I just pray and hope that the story I'm telling stands up to scrutiny.
Only time will tell.
I'm just going to read a few pages now. Just a few. Then I'll write a few of my own.
Just a few.
Saturday, 27 August 2016
Shape The Story - a new initiative
Authors usually want to control everything, particularly what happens on the page. As they should, since that is the very essence of writing stories for others to read. However, there are areas where such a proprietary approach might be limiting.
Consider the possibility of taking someone else's story and pilfering it for content to feed your own narrative, even using some of their characters and taking them in an entirely different direction. Plagiarism? Some might call it inspiration. Others, merely research. The author of the original story will most likely call it outright theft and will promptly take you to court. Consider, therefore, what would happen if that original author did... absolutely nothing.
Well, the first thing would be that the author would have suggestions, in the form of a new story, of where to take their own characters next. The author might find yet more characters in the new work that they might like to bring into their own story universe. There might be ingenious story arcs in this new work that the original author had never thought of, new paths for his or her original characters to explore. The original author might well find all sorts of new and exciting avenues to experiment with.
What about the readers? Those who might have read the original author's work would most likely be intrigued by this new story. They might find a different tone that lets them see the original author's work in a new light. Most importantly, some readers will discover the original author only once they have read the new author's story. In essence, letting go of their work lets the original author embrace a broader audience and a wider story world.
There is, of course, the case of remuneration. The original author might want to protect his or her copyright of their story and everything it contains. But how does someone else taking the story in a fresh and new direction, using the same characters, harm the author's revenue stream? Some would argue it actually increases it, since it allows new readers to discover the author's work. What really matters here is who is doing the writing. The original author did not write the new story, just as the new author did not write the original story. Everyone receives the revenue that matches the work they put in. So in fact, people make more money as a whole with this approach, and readers have more variety of content at their disposal.
Encouraged by this positive conclusion (which many people may hate me for, and I respect their opinion along with their compulsion to tear me a new orifice somewhere unpleasant and probably painful), I have designed a new writing platform, aimed at teenagers, which follows this very concept.
The platform will have a soft launch in October 2017 and will be called 'Shape The Story'.
There will be much to discuss once this launch happens, and I look forward to the many interesting conversations that are sure to take place once this project takes off.
Every idea comes from another idea. We just need to make peace with this notion in order to open up a whole new world of creative possibilities.
Consider the possibility of taking someone else's story and pilfering it for content to feed your own narrative, even using some of their characters and taking them in an entirely different direction. Plagiarism? Some might call it inspiration. Others, merely research. The author of the original story will most likely call it outright theft and will promptly take you to court. Consider, therefore, what would happen if that original author did... absolutely nothing.
Well, the first thing would be that the author would have suggestions, in the form of a new story, of where to take their own characters next. The author might find yet more characters in the new work that they might like to bring into their own story universe. There might be ingenious story arcs in this new work that the original author had never thought of, new paths for his or her original characters to explore. The original author might well find all sorts of new and exciting avenues to experiment with.
What about the readers? Those who might have read the original author's work would most likely be intrigued by this new story. They might find a different tone that lets them see the original author's work in a new light. Most importantly, some readers will discover the original author only once they have read the new author's story. In essence, letting go of their work lets the original author embrace a broader audience and a wider story world.
There is, of course, the case of remuneration. The original author might want to protect his or her copyright of their story and everything it contains. But how does someone else taking the story in a fresh and new direction, using the same characters, harm the author's revenue stream? Some would argue it actually increases it, since it allows new readers to discover the author's work. What really matters here is who is doing the writing. The original author did not write the new story, just as the new author did not write the original story. Everyone receives the revenue that matches the work they put in. So in fact, people make more money as a whole with this approach, and readers have more variety of content at their disposal.
Encouraged by this positive conclusion (which many people may hate me for, and I respect their opinion along with their compulsion to tear me a new orifice somewhere unpleasant and probably painful), I have designed a new writing platform, aimed at teenagers, which follows this very concept.
The platform will have a soft launch in October 2017 and will be called 'Shape The Story'.
There will be much to discuss once this launch happens, and I look forward to the many interesting conversations that are sure to take place once this project takes off.
Every idea comes from another idea. We just need to make peace with this notion in order to open up a whole new world of creative possibilities.
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
A celebration of the physical
In a world that turns more digital with every breath, I have found a haven of celebration for all things physical.
In Dubai, somewhere on the outskirts of the city where the desert works hard to reclaim its lost terrain, a large pale pink warehouse of a mall stands proud: DragonMart, home of four thousand stalls and shops selling everything from screws by the kilo to wholesale toys, garden furniture to mountain bikes and strips of LED lights.
Walking through this mall is a very unique experience. Most of the shopkeepers are of Chinese descent of course, not much of a surprise for a destination that bears the name of a mythical creature from China's rich cultural past. Structured as a series of diamond shaped halls, the mall as seen from the sky forms the shape of a dragon, its halls staggered to mimic the flowing spine of the legendary creature. Which, in essence, means you get lost in it faster than a child in a thick dark forest.
And what a forest this is...
Most people in Dubai think of DragonMart as the island of cheap in a sea of dear. They dismiss its contents as nothing more than poorly put together asian hardware, full of lead paint and flimsy screws.
Not so.
DragonMart is Ali Baba's cave of wonders.
You can find anything there, and by that I mean, quite literally, anything. You could build an entire house using nothing but supplies from this amazing place. Quality is not the primary concern here, but the predictable nature of this lack of interest for the reliable leaves the customer comfortable to plan ahead. You don't come here to buy quality. You come here to buy what others are not selling.
Price is a key component of anyone's visit here. The place is structured to take your money at every turn, aggressively transparent in its mission to bleed you dry. It's like the IKEA marketplace on steroids. You walk in there wanting to buy a tube of glue and you walk out with a three seater sofa, a replica of the Eiffel tower barely smaller than the original and enough garden lights to kill every corner of darkness in Versailles. And you know you need to come back for the glue.
DragonMart is a slice of hobbyist heaven. You can purchase every kind of screw, bolt or rivet under the sun, and you'll pay by weight for simplicity's sake. You can acquire every conceivable screwdriver, drillbit or wire cutter, buy an impossible bike and the gear to go with it. It's like Black & Decker threw up in there, the birthplace of Radio Shack and Home Depot's deformed lovechild. The place is a mess, and this mess offers opportunities like nowhere else.
Most people don't realise how much they can do in there. We have come to accept that our primary interface with the world is a screen of some kind, touch based or not. We don't immediately think of the myriad of objects, things, that we can pick up and turn into something else. And each one of those things is in DragonMart.
The key to all this is that everything in there is dirt cheap. This lets you experiment. You can try your hand at some DIY with a fancy drill, a truckload of wood and a mighty spinning saw, all for the price of a DVD player and a smile (of which there are surprisingly few here. Smiles, not DVD players. Those are available by the kilo too). You can decide to piece together a lifesize sculpture of a deer made entirely of tealights and soap, all bought for the equivalent of a SuperSize meal. You can venture out and buy yourself all sorts of trials and errors. That also buys you experience, physical experience in the real world, with real things that you can touch, that have uneven coatings, gritty surfaces and imperfect finishing. I walked into a plumbing supply stall in there the other day and felt a wave of goosebumps wash over me as I took in the rows of brass connectors and chrome fittings available. And I haven't the first idea about plumbing, but I felt it anyway. The physical world was begging me to give it a try.
That's DragonMart.
Next time you find yourself staring at a set of cheap objects, think what you could do with that. Think how you could hack those cheap simple things into life experience. There's nothing like the present.
It might be cheap, but it's priceless.
In Dubai, somewhere on the outskirts of the city where the desert works hard to reclaim its lost terrain, a large pale pink warehouse of a mall stands proud: DragonMart, home of four thousand stalls and shops selling everything from screws by the kilo to wholesale toys, garden furniture to mountain bikes and strips of LED lights.
Walking through this mall is a very unique experience. Most of the shopkeepers are of Chinese descent of course, not much of a surprise for a destination that bears the name of a mythical creature from China's rich cultural past. Structured as a series of diamond shaped halls, the mall as seen from the sky forms the shape of a dragon, its halls staggered to mimic the flowing spine of the legendary creature. Which, in essence, means you get lost in it faster than a child in a thick dark forest.
And what a forest this is...
Most people in Dubai think of DragonMart as the island of cheap in a sea of dear. They dismiss its contents as nothing more than poorly put together asian hardware, full of lead paint and flimsy screws.
Not so.
DragonMart is Ali Baba's cave of wonders.
You can find anything there, and by that I mean, quite literally, anything. You could build an entire house using nothing but supplies from this amazing place. Quality is not the primary concern here, but the predictable nature of this lack of interest for the reliable leaves the customer comfortable to plan ahead. You don't come here to buy quality. You come here to buy what others are not selling.
Price is a key component of anyone's visit here. The place is structured to take your money at every turn, aggressively transparent in its mission to bleed you dry. It's like the IKEA marketplace on steroids. You walk in there wanting to buy a tube of glue and you walk out with a three seater sofa, a replica of the Eiffel tower barely smaller than the original and enough garden lights to kill every corner of darkness in Versailles. And you know you need to come back for the glue.
DragonMart is a slice of hobbyist heaven. You can purchase every kind of screw, bolt or rivet under the sun, and you'll pay by weight for simplicity's sake. You can acquire every conceivable screwdriver, drillbit or wire cutter, buy an impossible bike and the gear to go with it. It's like Black & Decker threw up in there, the birthplace of Radio Shack and Home Depot's deformed lovechild. The place is a mess, and this mess offers opportunities like nowhere else.
Most people don't realise how much they can do in there. We have come to accept that our primary interface with the world is a screen of some kind, touch based or not. We don't immediately think of the myriad of objects, things, that we can pick up and turn into something else. And each one of those things is in DragonMart.
The key to all this is that everything in there is dirt cheap. This lets you experiment. You can try your hand at some DIY with a fancy drill, a truckload of wood and a mighty spinning saw, all for the price of a DVD player and a smile (of which there are surprisingly few here. Smiles, not DVD players. Those are available by the kilo too). You can decide to piece together a lifesize sculpture of a deer made entirely of tealights and soap, all bought for the equivalent of a SuperSize meal. You can venture out and buy yourself all sorts of trials and errors. That also buys you experience, physical experience in the real world, with real things that you can touch, that have uneven coatings, gritty surfaces and imperfect finishing. I walked into a plumbing supply stall in there the other day and felt a wave of goosebumps wash over me as I took in the rows of brass connectors and chrome fittings available. And I haven't the first idea about plumbing, but I felt it anyway. The physical world was begging me to give it a try.
That's DragonMart.
Next time you find yourself staring at a set of cheap objects, think what you could do with that. Think how you could hack those cheap simple things into life experience. There's nothing like the present.
It might be cheap, but it's priceless.
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