Logic Can Be Limiting.

This is a problem I deal with in my everyday life. I was in high school when I realized my dilemma with the concept of logic.

Let me begin by defining logic in terms of this exposition. Logic is the a system of arranging elements (thoughts, objects, etc.) as to perform a specified task. These tasks vary in type and content, from Liberal Arts to Visual Communications I, from writing an essay to writing on the blog.

Let me also assert that I have another blinding 'problem'. Depending on situational conventions, I assume either a highly educated audience (who is in 'the know') or the exact opposite (those who are out of the know or incompetent altogether). A majority of the time, I assume the first type of audience.

In high school, I was on the Debate team. Because of my previous experiences of discussing Debate with random groups of people, I am going to assume you are uneducated in the inner-workings of high school Debate. I took this class to better my public speaking skills as well as my research and writing skills (smart move on my part). To understand Debate on a simplistic base level, I will format the following in a list:

1. In Debate, you have a partner. In the time when you are not actually Debating, you are preparing to Debate. This entails

a. Researching the year's topic (generally a social problem) or

b. Writing your Affirmative paper

2. The Affirmative paper is a 5 - 6 page collection of research that communicates your opinion on the topic of the year as well as your solution to the part of the topic you focused on.

3. In a tournament, you only have 8 minutes to read your Affirmative paper.

a. There are several rounds in a Debate tournament. Two teams of partners take on the role of Affirmative and Negative. The Negative Team's goal is to find holes in the Affirmative team's statement.

4. After the Affirmative statement is read (by one partner), one member of the Negative team asks questions of the person who read the statement. While this goes on, the remaining members are writing their own speeches and doing their own research.

5. In total, there are 8 rounds, 4 rounds of speaking for each team, going in a back and forth matter.

6. The final round is the 'final statement' - the most important part of winning the debate. You point out faults and logical fallacies, etc. in 8 minutes. Mind you, the only part of a debate you ever prepare is the initial Affirmative paper. So, you have to come up with the remaining speeches, basically, off the top of your head.

This is where my little 'problem' came about. I very rarely could ever fill those eight minutes of the final round speech because I simply could not bring myself to repeat the same idea in multiple ways. To me, it was purely illogical. Yes, I summarized all the points we had addressed previously, but I made them no more clear (just more persuasive) than they had been previously made.

Why? Why couldn't I reiterate the same sentence more than one time?

It was because I assumed an intelligent audience (meaning the Judge of the round). Of course, the Judge didn't know our opinions on the matter before hand, but over time, we educated him to our points of view. Thus, I did not feel compelled to drill it into his head any more, simply refresh what he already knew.

Now that I have bored you with Debate (most people find it horrendously boring), you are probably wondering how this ties into anything Graphic Design related.

As you know, I struggle with my blog. It is because I find it illogical to tell you (the teacher) what you already know about. I understand you want it as a documentation of everything... but isn't that boring to read? It's boring for me to write. I write it in my notebook, to keep for myself. I enjoy posting the images and loosely describing how I feel about them, but I really despise 'reiterating' exposition that everyone already knows.

It's simply boring (like Debate).

The most boring part of it is physically seeing what everyone already knows (and has already written down) in writing.

I do understand your motive in making us perform the repetitive ritual, which is why I am not proposing abandonment. Rather, I'm proposing moving in a different direction with my digital process documentation.