Visual Thinking

Woke up early this morning and started to look at a new book I’ve bought about expressing ideas in drawings. I’m enjoying the approach and was inspired to download Autocad Sketchbook to have a play. Difficult to draw with your finger though!

Whlist I love words and language – it made my day when i discovered the Norwegian phrase koblemotor was translated by dear old Google to pairing engine – I’m definately a ‘visusal type’

I find that if I can draw something I can understand it. Maybe drawing is part of exploration and text is well … description! Or maybe this is to simplistic? Maybe if I was a better wordsmith I’d be able to explore better?

I suppose narrative is more linear in nature when a sketch can be more random and link concepts in a way words struggle to. I am of course mindful that I’m writing this not drawing it! So maybe words and text can help you draw out ideas in a way sketching can’t after all this text is as much my inner dialogue as a blog

Anyway I have resolved to draw more and get to grips with my stylus so I can do a better than finger painting.

The Older Gentleman goes online

Hello, so who is the Older Gentleman and what’s the blog about?

Well, recently I was referred to as ‘the older gentleman’ in a Facebook Firestorm, posting a shirty comment just didn’t seem the right way to respond. On reflection, I decided to ‘own’ the description.  So now I do, in both the emotional sense and really do own the URL!

I then thought about the words.

Gentleman – this is quite appropriate gentle is generally calm I am generally a calm person, so I’m happy with that.

Older – this was initially slightly troublesome but I realised it is relative.  A 10 year old is older than a 5 year old so this is ok too. But what does ‘older’ really mean?  More experience possibly, able to take a longer view, or less phased by events.  So I’ve chosen to equate older to considered and again this seems fine.

This gave me the strapline for the blog ‘Considered and Calm’

So what should I blog about – in considered and calm way?

Firstly, I’ve set myself some rules – three seemed like a good number to start with

  • Rule One – Blog about stuff that interests me and other might care to read. If I become too niche, please give me a rant.
  • Rule Two – Blog about what is happening now or might happen in the future, just because older is in the name doesn’t mean it needs to be retro. If I start to waffle on about ‘it not being like that in me day’ or how you could get 1/2lb of sherbet for a farthing then rant.
  • Rule Three – Blog in a way that hopefully gives the reader something to think about.

Secondly, what should my first real post be about?  Given the circumstances of setting up the blog I felt social media might be a good subject but perhaps a bit obvious.  However, looking at the bigger picture, this is only a symptom of how we are living in a time of transition created by the tech that surrounds us?  Perhaps we are only really exploring how to interact with it…