To Rob, Ken and others
'Passion' is what students of design seem to lack today - whether you
translate that as curiosity (not 'mere', but the 'I simply have to find
out' kind) or innovation (I want to do something different, but how?) or
creativity (the finger-itching, mind-buzzing kind) - these are all
manifestations of the agency/structure dance of life (or should be).
Perhaps Terry should travel 60km to buy a small something on more
occasions, perhaps we should follow 'a whim' more often in
Wittgenstein's sense of trying to identify landmarks in the fog that at
first surrounds as as we search for something new and innovative that
can also inspire us as human beings.
Passion can be outlandishly and operatically loud and still be creative,
or it could be very quite and not be noticed until something triggers
it, as in this story of the fish soup:
http://www.clusterflock.org/2009/01/a-meal-in-venice-1978.html
This is perhaps what Ken had in mind with 'appropriate passion'? - in
this example something that simply drives you, at that moment, to do
either better than before, or to do something you have never before
attempted, because 'in the moment' you realise you do not have to do it
alone - agency and structure comes alive as one fluid and unfolding
movement.
Rob writes: 'I intuitively think that these type of personalities are
born with the potential capacity to transform though they probably also
require nurturing environments.' Even those not 'born with' these
passionate natures can be nurtured in design education to care more -
that is happening to our product design students as if by nature and not
nuture. Expose them to systemic and holistic design thinking and varying
degrees of 'passion' start to emerge. They WANT to change things for the
better ... their 'passion' begins with becoming more involved with those
(underserved-by-design/disadvantaged) they can design for.
Johann
Johann van der Merwe
HOD: Research, History & Theory of Design
Faculty of Informatics and Design
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
South Africa
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