2007 Holiday Season in Review

The holidays are over, and masses of people have new toys to play with. Some which they were long hoping for, and where the holiday's finally provided the excuse or the means to pay for them, some which are different because we already have everything else we can think off, some which are curious new things but without long-term appeal, some which feed short-term addiction to have new and cool stuff, and some which are things we really don't care about.

There was a very interesting story on NPR the other day, in an interview with Tim Harford - The Undercover economist - during the holiday's we waste an enormous amount of money by spending more on gifts than the the people we give attribute to. I believe the quote was that for every $100 in actual gift purchases the recipients only average about $60-$70 in actual attributed value. On the surface it seems like this wasted economic power should be used to make the world a better place - helping some less fortunate people. But then, that's maybe exactly what we're doing by spending this money rather than saving it - helping companies pay for more R&D in the latest consumer electronic gizmo, employing millions of Chinese to manufacture all these gifts, and growing all the shipping and transportation companies that move it first across the ocean, and then overnight to our doorstep. In the end our holiday extravaganza (long removed from its religious origins) is really a more capitalistic way of implementing economic aid rather than doing it through the United Nations the old way. Though it does primarily benefit the countries willing and able to take on the opportunity, rather than the countries that most need it. It's the same divide as between the opportunities in the US vs. the social safety nets of the Old Europe, and such we're staying true to the American Way of Life.

Well, I joined the masses and embarked on two new dimensions, exploring a creative element in me that was never very strong: I've upgraded my digital camera to a SLR and started learning how to take better pictures (very good book on that subject: Understanding Exposure). So far I've taken some 500 pictures, and put some of these learning's to good use. Using Picasa (yes, Google enters yet another part of my life), I'm sharing some of the better shots. I'm still a private person (maybe a bit of an oxymoron, since I'm blogging about this), so I'm not sharing all my family photos publicly.

I started on a musical adventure - I've never learned an instrument, something which I always regretted, but never found the patience and time to correct. But in a pre-holiday shopping trip, warming up at a store while waiting for the power to be restored after Seattle's freak wind storm, I came across a cool piece of music software. No, not one of those home music software, but actually professional music software. It appeals to my more mathematical and engineering mindset, as I can either take existing scores and put them together in new and interesting sounding ways, or can compose new scores on a variety of instruments on musical staff without having to actually play the instrument. Synthesizers have fascinated me since I was a kid. In fact synthesizers were one of the reasons I became hooked on electronics, and later computers and software. With this software, I can enjoy exploring the parts of music which I enjoy with much less of the frustration that comes with being stuck at beginner parts for months before being able to graduate to real music. I've spent hours putting new twists on Pachelbel's Canon in D, the Venetian Boat Song from Mendelssohn, and others. My son is most excited that I used the software to record both his new little keyboard and his voice and mixed it into a song that shows up on his iPod with his name as the artist. It made his day.

And as I explore both of these dimensions, I find it amazing how complex our world has become. 200 years ago, a premium education involved learning everything about the world that was known. It was actually a manageable amount of knowledge, that a single person could absorb and comprehend. But since then our knowledge has grown exponentially. With it has the selective specialization, as it is no longer possible to even canvas just the highlevel detail of each subject area. Just doing some reading and online browsing of websites on these two new topic areas uncovers a wealth of information, resources, experts in the area which publish magazines, maintain websites, etc. Is one of the elements of globalization that we actually need the entire world population to maintain this body of knowledge, as it has outgrown not only the individual person, but also the size of entire small countries?

So far both of my explorations of my creative side have been fun, entertaining, and have expanded both my view and skill set, even though I have still have ways to go. But I think both are here to stay. So in summary it was a good holiday season, and at least for me, I've bucked the economist concern, the value I attribute to the things I spent money on actually exceeds their real price tag.