Art And Craft In The Social World

I still think that many of the ideas I had during the AZI project are valuable.

In particular, I still think that the distinction between art and craft is valuable in thinking about relationships and the social world.

The idea of social craft is so troubling to me. I don't like trying to make things happen. Trying to make conversations or relationships happen in certain ways. It is really frustrating to try and socially craft like that.

I just want things to happen naturally. I don't want to try and make my social life happen.

Of course, there are times when you have to engage in some social craft. You have to know the rules of politeness that will let you have a conversation. You have to obey certain (usually implicit) technical rules about socializing.

But those are valuable only so much as they let you express yourself to other people and have genuine relationships. Is small talk valuable in itself? It might be. I'm not sure.

But I am pleased that some of my ideas from AZI are holding up over the last few months.

Also, I've decided to post the first section of the essay I'm currently working on. By getting the first part out there I hope to motivate myself a little bit to keep working on it.