I was feeling emotionally off today and I wasn’t quite sure until I realized that the events of January 6, 2021 deeply affected me as a patriotic American. At the time, I thought it was the culmination—the last act of a power-hungry, extremist wing of our country. Donald Trump and his deliberate peddlers of lies and misinformation had incubated and unleashed this insurrectionist mob against the Capitol, against the United States.

But I was wrong. It was not the last act. It did not end. In fact, it continued to fester. One year on, as much as 21 million Americans think that Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election, and that Trump should be restored via violent means. That’s more than the population of New York state (19.3M)!

I struggle to understand what caused this, much less what the solution might be. Yes, the obvious cause was the Big Lie that Trump actually won the 2020 election. With the Republican Party constantly attacking the legitimacy of a free and fair election for months, it worked its base up into a frothy frenzy. But what caused that? Power? Maybe, but why? Why are they so hell-bent on holding onto power as to destroy our democracy?

In an effort to make sense of it all, here’s what I’ve been reading…

Jimmy Carter: I Fear for Our Democracy:

For American democracy to endure, we must demand that our leaders and candidates uphold the ideals of freedom and adhere to high standards of conduct.

Statement by President Obama on the Anniversary of the Assault on the Capitol:

Although initially rejected by many Republicans, the claims that fanned the flames of violence on January 6th have since been embraced by a sizeable portion of voters and elected officials — many of whom know better.

NPR: 6 in 10 Americans say U.S. democracy is in crisis as the ‘Big Lie’ takes root:

A new NPR/Ipsos poll finds that 64% of Americans believe U.S. democracy is “in crisis and at risk of failing.” That sentiment is felt most acutely by Republicans: Two-thirds of GOP respondents agree with the verifiably false claim that “voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the 2020 election” — a key pillar of the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Vox: January 6 should’ve moderated the GOP. It did the opposite.:

This New Right no longer believes we’re in a neutral liberal contest between competing ideas and concepts of the good. They believe the progressive left have taken over every aspect of American society and wield an authoritarian power over what, in particular, white Christians are allowed to say and think in this country; therefore this kind of libertarian consensus — which has presided in American conservatism, especially since Reagan — which prescribes a kind of private traditionalism and a public-facing liberalism, is totally insufficient for this moment.

The Atlantic: Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun:

Donald trump came closer than anyone thought he could to toppling a free election a year ago. He is preparing in plain view to do it again, and his position is growing stronger. Republican acolytes have identified the weak points in our electoral apparatus and are methodically exploiting them. They have set loose and now are driven by the animus of tens of millions of aggrieved Trump supporters who are prone to conspiracy thinking, embrace violence, and reject democratic defeat. Those supporters, Robert Pape’s “committed insurrectionists,” are armed and single-minded and will know what to do the next time Trump calls upon them to act.

Obviously, Covid-19 wreaked havoc on the world and countless lives this past year. We all know someone who caught the virus or died from it, or we were infected ourselves. We tried to do our part by staying home to limit our exposure to other people. We stayed away from our loved ones to protect them and to slow the spread. To keep ourselves occupied, many of us took up baking, cooking, knitting, or exercising. I started on what would become a yearlong path of learning about whatever interested me.

YouTube as a Gateway to Knowledge

Video site YouTube saw an explosion in traffic from people bored in lockdown. I was one of them. At first, I was simply trying to learn how to optimize my work-from-home setup. Channels such as Podcastage and Curtis Judd taught me about microphones, and I upgraded my audio setup.

Then the YouTube recommendation engine took over, and I started to encounter other channels that were audio-adjacent: photography, videography, video editing, filmmaking, visual effects, and 3D animation. From these channels, I rediscovered my love for all those things. (I’m no stranger to these mediums and crafts, but the further along in my career I got, the less I did these things day to day.) Here’s a list of those channels:

• The Art of Photography: Camera gear reviews, but more importantly—photography assignments. It’s shot beautifully and focuses on how to use photography as an expressive medium.
• DSLR Video Shooter: Mostly mirrorless camera gear reviews but he has some crazy build guides like “Full Youtube Studio on ONE SINGLE STAND!” that are fun to watch.
• Gerald Undone: I love this guy’s dry wit and general demeanor. He gets incredibly detailed and nerdy in is A/V gear reviews.
• Parker Walbeck: This channel focuses more on the techniques involved in videography, including shooting to edit, which is something they preach a lot.
• Lessons From the Screenplay and Just Write: I love these two channels because they focus on narrative storytelling. I have always been fascinated with how creators create because it inspires me, often influencing my own work, so seeing these two channels break down movie scripts is very fun.

Editing a Newsletter

By May or so, I really wanted to make something that I could share. I decided to take my obsessive reading of the news and of design articles and turn it into a newsletter called designspun. Each week I linked to notable design-related articles while trying to put some context around them. Maybe there was something bigger in the zeitgeist., or I could connect something happening in business or tech news to design. It was fun, a lot of hard work, and lasted about fifteen issues until I no longer had time for it. I appreciated being able to do it though, as it allowed me to flex my writing muscle a little.

Now in 3D

My experience with 3D software began with Adobe Dimensions (which has recently been reincarnated as something completely different), FormZ, and Electric Image in the 1990s. I eventually learned Cinema 4D at some point but only ever had the need for 3D every once in a while.

But with the run-up to the 2020 election, I picked up C4D again to make some pro-Biden art. After working on marketing campaigns and digital product design for so many years, I had forgotten how joyful it was to play in 3D space. So I decided to relearn C4D again (along with Maxon’s GPU renderer Redshift, and most recently, a particle system called X-Particles), just to be able to make some art.

It culminated this weekend with this piece, which I call “Gold #1.”

I also put it up on OpenSea as an NFT to experiment with what might happen.

Keep On Learning

My year of following my curiosity continues. While I still very much enjoy sitting back and watching a great TV series or movie, I would very much rather learn something. Who knows what will be next.

I have always liked writing. I don’t fancy myself a professional writer in any way. Still, I like having an outlet (or outlets) for my random musings as I work through understanding the world, be it design, technology, or whatever. While I have published various blogs in the past or written articles and essays on Medium, I want my content hosted on a platform I own and control. So, I’m consolidating everything here on my personal site, which may become a haphazard amalgam of subjects.

This is officially the first post on this site, but I will be bringing in posts from the various past platforms and backdating them to their original publication dates.

I will also use this site to post links to stories and articles I’m reading. It will inevitably be an assortment of design, tech, Apple, and politics.

To borrow from one of my favorite authors, Jack Kerouac: I have nothing to offer except working through my own confusion.

Thank you for the indulgence.