IM'ing the day away

I downloaded Trillian today which allows me to combine my AIM, MSN, ICQ, and Yahoo screen names and buddy lists in one place for instant messaging through one interface.

Up until this point, I’ve been a lax IM user… it’s on, but I usually end up calling people I need to talk to rather than IM’ing them… so I don’t get the bazillion instant messages every day that most people get.

That changes now:

MSN:redacted

AIM: redacted
Yahoo: redacted

Feel free to chat with me at any time… I’ll try to put up a decent “I’m Away” message when I can’t talk.So I bring this up because Erick and I were chatting on and off all day (but I was effectively multitasking, because of all the overwhelming amount of work I need to do). Unwittingly, he prompted me to dive into (i.e. “obsess over”) another bit of the Project that has been stagnating in my brain for a while…

Sort of the beginning of the endgame for the Project; in other words, I haven’t really been thinking too much about WHY I’m working on these silly robot and computer and art projects… I KNOW why, but I haven’t really stopped to ask myself if the activites I stay up late to complete are moving me closer to the final product… the final deliverable…

Robot shows and personal knowledge software and art gallaries are pieces of the final puzzle, but not the end result by themselves. Chip and Jon have heard other pieces of the final puzzle… the engineer commune… but again, that’s not really the total picture.

I want to create an entity that supports the ongoing creation of art, technology, design, music, and invention… it has to feed itself… it has to grow… and it has to dramatically transform the world.

So, unwittingly, as we were complaining about some of the more mundane aspects of our jobs, we started talking about the balance between making a paycheck and doing what you love. You strive for both, but you settle on paychecks.

I love what I’m doing now. I’m helping people… helping kids…. helping Austin… making connections.

I’m also hurting for it: sometimes the work itself isn’t all that invigorating… telemarketing calls or endless logistics… and I question whether or not I’m flexing my creative juices like I need to be or whether I’m so entrenched in the routine that I can’t be innovative. Not to mention the paycheck isn’t all that great, either.

So Erick and I were talking about alternate jobs and I briefly mentioned Tesseract. I didn’t call it that. I don’t think I ever have spoken about Tesseract with anyone, actually.

But the gist is: create a studio that builds useful or interesting stuff.

That’s broad. That’s very broad…. and intentially so. Create an environment which is conducive to creativity and production. Get the hands dirty with making stuff.

When I spoke to Erick, Tesseract disguised itself as a shop creating geek-related furniture… desks geared towards the geek user (with embedded electronics, etc, etc) at a more realistic pricepoint for average, employed engineer.

However, Tesseract is the ultimate springboard… the meta-dimension that pulls together the resources and infrastructure to create: attractive and useful for artists and engineers alike… let’s be creative and build cool and amazing stuff… not for enterprise solutions… not for desktop consumers and Wal-Mart… but just because… to, in the words of Jon Lebkowsky, “Delight with Technology.”

Flow forth enormous volumes of work: robot shows, furniture, toys, software, artwork and invention… most of it garbage, but some of it gold.. and those nuggets make it self-sustaining. Yes, I think the robot shows are a nugget… as are the furniture… but there must be dozens and dozens of them… and Tesseract just has to find one of them to work.

Be broad in scope and open to new direction and it grows.

Apply the innovations or challenge peoples’ perspectives and you change the world.

Change the world and realize your potential.

That’s the endgame… that’s the vision.

And that’s what gets me worked up.