Tag: visual

Why digital cleanup is no fun

I like order, structure, organization. Giving things a place brings me joy. Sparks joy I guess in organizer-guru-speak. And sure, whenever I moved there were always moments of anguish and hopelessness whenever I needed to pack stuff and take it all out. The moment you have lost all of your energy and the physical stuff is all around you on the ground. Been there, done that.

However, for the organized person I am, my own digital archive is not that well-structured at all. At work, I thrive when deciding on a file naming system or cleaning up folders and putting them together. When I look at my own collection of videos, photos and (important?) documents I want to cry.

It is of course a grand paradox that because we now have seemingly infinite space to store stuff, this makes us more careless about how much stuff we create. And of course visuals take up a large part of this ‘overcreation’. Everyone probably has at least one thing that they constantly record, and mine is mostly sports.

I think many sports are some combination of techniques and visuals. And it is great that we have so much visuals to learn from and improve with, but it can also be impeding. I record myself dutifully every session, but I do not tend to look back at it too much. I know I will be focusing on a bent leg or flexed foot. Did that flow got interrupted because of the buffering or is it my movement? It simply does not spark joy for the most part.

Moreover, there is not only the stuff I film myself, I have external platforms that I check or neglect to check. There is a constant feeling of having too much and not making use of its potential. It is the opposite end of the subscription scheme. There is too much stuff we do not own, and too much of the stuff that we do own. Balance is lost.

Instead of limiting ourselves to saving the things we find very important, we are being ruled by the amount of digital space available. Enticed to pay for increased space, which just means a brief respite to look away ant not at all of the stuff that we record. I am only limited by my unwillingness to pay for things, which results in brief outbursts of downloading, deleting and quickly putting things together in one folder so everything else seems to be in order. Eventually I will look at it. Probably not.

A picture says more than 1.000 words

It is no secret that most Asians like to take photos. Like a lot. Like an awful lot. Of everything.

Personally, it’s not that I dislike taking pictures, but mainly a case of laziness. I mostly find things either not important enough to take photos of, or I would rather experience the thing with my own eyes. Very millennial-appropriate in a certain sense I guess.

Not so in China. Since I do a sport that is very visually attractive (aerial silks), many people’s first reason to do one of the moves is to take a picture. That is fine, honestly, if it gets you motivated to do it that is good. However, sometimes these people also try out more difficult tricks and poses just because they look good. Obviously not fine.

Equally annoying are people who never come to class, but take tons of photos the one time they come. A friend who dances at a studio sometimes complains of the girls who cannot dance very well, but are always in front taking photos of them ‘in action’, even blocking others.

Truth be told, this behavior is probably not unique to China. At the same time, just like watching videos on your phone without earphones, it seems a lot more common in China.

Chinese people are also pretty competitive, what does it mean to do sports but nobody knows or sees it? Plus, if you have got the right clothing and your body looks nice in the big mirror, that is an opportunity to good to it pass by.

So if you are fit and active, there is only one way to show it. Just as well, if you are out of breath because of the sports anyway.