Do 2: Imaginary interlocutor
“Do” is a new series on Fridays. Elsewhere in my Friday posts, I focus on ways of trying to stay creative and focused in a distracting world. “Do” is practical interventions for specific tasks. Today's “Do” is about my imaginary interlocutor, Jim.
With apologies to the real people I know who are named Jim, this is the story of my imaginary interlocutor, Jim, who I've been occasionally writing dialogues with since around 2011.
When I'm trying to think through writing, I often find myself overwhelmed by the feeling that I need to couch every statement I make in relevant evidence. Because academic writing is the kind of writing I'm used to, I find it difficult to write from things I know, without providing the evidence to back them up, even when the writing I'm doing is preliminary. That's where Jim comes in. Jim lets me write as if I'm having a conversation with a friend, a context in which I'm used to not needing to immediately provide a citation to back up a statement or feeling. Jim lets me put ideas that I know are floating around into a useful human analogue. I can hash things out with Jim, before eventually moving on to the more scholarly style of writing.
I like Jim, but we argue a lot. Jim would marry his 3D printer if he could. He loves that damn machine more than anything. That's mostly what we argue about. He thinks digital fabrication is the future. He genuinely believes that his desktop 3D printer, currently capable of making little plastic thingies, is a sign of a way more exciting future to come. He believes that one day, we'll have everything we need, on demand, at our fingertips, without big factories or Made in China, or shipping. Jim is a techno-utopian. Though he started as someone to discuss issues around digital fabrication with, these days, he also likes agential AI.
Jim's about the same age as me. We know each other from around. We share a lot of interests, really, but we just happen to slot those interests into different belief systems. He's an active member of his local hackerspace, but the digital fabrication stuff isn't what he does for a living. Maybe he wants it to be – I don't know – but it doesn't happen to be at the moment. I do like Jim, honestly, even if it may seem like we're incapable of agreeing about most things. The best way I can put it is that it seems like someone gave us the same building blocks, but rounded off the corners on one set so that the two just never seem quite right together.
