Missing Mediums

 

When I broke my elbow about ten years ago I was wearing a cast for six weeks. One thing that I missed that I didn't think I would miss was holding a camera. I thought I would miss playing my instruments more, but it wasn't the case.

If I haven't held a guitar for a couple days I really start to miss it, and I don't miss the camera so much. If I'm photographing something it's usually with a smartphone; I don't always take out my SLR. [SLRs tend to have a deeper tactility because of the way it is held, and differ greatly from holding a phone--something we are always doing, so it has no distinction from function to function].

In creativity, if you diversify the things that you do you can replace certain mediums that you can no longer do. Writing is something that you always can do, and if you can dictate then you can always express your thoughts.

As people get older and they can't perform as well on musical instruments, it's something that they might miss, but it can always be replaced with another medium.

If the Metaverse ever evolves into something useful, it will be a form of "sensory substitution". But I wonder if muscles have a memory that can't be virtualized. They have phantoms within them. 

[11/18/2024: Sometimes you can do mental practicing, but it still doesn't improve your playing without using muscles and tendons. It can be mind-over-matter sometimes, but it's only a temporary condition. Will only goes so far. Entropy always rules the day. Similarly, relying on AI to make you an artist is also a temporary condition. You are not the performer in any way, and just barely a writer if AI is churning it out].