Honestly, this project was kind of difficult for me, as I had trouble finding something that made me specifically curious I guess. I went a handful of days trying to find something and was coming up dry, until I was driving home and listening to the radio, as per usual, and then I started thinking about the radio itself.
I guess I hadn't really thought about the radio before, but technically, in order for it to work, the air around us has to be constantly filled with various different frequencies, so there's invisible songs and words constantly streaming about our heads every day as we go about our business, completely unaware until we tune in.
It's neat to say the least, and something that I had never really taken into much consideration before.
So I attempted to draw a picture based around that idea, and the idea that Beth offered up in class, where the illustration was actually everything drawn around the subject. I attempted to draw a silhouette of a person and then surrounded him with words and music.
I would upload it here but for some reason my scanner is not wanting to cooperate, so I'll show it off in class.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Class Take Away 5
This week in class there was really one thing that stuck with me: while we were showing off our projects, I showed off my little collage thing, and Beth complimented it, saying that she thought the rough edges were fit quite well with the theme of the whole piece. I brushed it off and replied that it was less a purposeful decision on my part and more of a testament to how I didn't have the ability to cut in a straight line.
At which point, Beth reprimanded me, for lack of a better word, and said that I shouldn't be so quick to judge myself so harshly, and rather to accept the project that I had created for what it was, rather than what I thought it should be, or what I thought others would want. Instead of bemoaning the fact that I couldn't cut in a straight line and pointing it out constantly, I should accept the fact that the project had rough edges and just allow it to be.
I guess that's hard for me, not exactly because I'm a perfectionist or anything, but because I am pretty harsh about the work I turn in. I always think that it could have been better, I could have changed something, or whatever. I have trouble just allowing the work to speak for itself, and I have trouble just being happy with whatever I have created.
It's something I need to work on and I'm glad Beth pointed it out to me.
Also, having class outside is something that needs to happen more often.
At which point, Beth reprimanded me, for lack of a better word, and said that I shouldn't be so quick to judge myself so harshly, and rather to accept the project that I had created for what it was, rather than what I thought it should be, or what I thought others would want. Instead of bemoaning the fact that I couldn't cut in a straight line and pointing it out constantly, I should accept the fact that the project had rough edges and just allow it to be.
I guess that's hard for me, not exactly because I'm a perfectionist or anything, but because I am pretty harsh about the work I turn in. I always think that it could have been better, I could have changed something, or whatever. I have trouble just allowing the work to speak for itself, and I have trouble just being happy with whatever I have created.
It's something I need to work on and I'm glad Beth pointed it out to me.
Also, having class outside is something that needs to happen more often.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Altered Book
Well, I think I found it, the one project I disliked, and the one where I felt like I ran into a brick wall of sorts. I had a lot of trouble coming up with what to do, so I tried to do some sort of book carving ... which failed miserably. The glue may not have been dry, also my cutting wasn't straight, so all in all it turned into a giant mess of a thing so I had to go back to the drawing board.
For a long time, I couldn't figure out what other thing to do.
I had different ideas, but none of them seemed to be outside of my comfort zone, so I decided to make a sort of collage using a phone book. Why a collage? Well, a couple of reasons, firstly because I am awful at traditional art, I can hardly draw human forms, I can't do shading, and painting is right out. Also, as mentioned before, cutting in a straight line is a problem for me. So I said "to hell with it" and began collaging.
I butchered a phone book with scissors, tried to do straight lines, failed, and was okay with it, and I ended up with something that I'm actually reasonably proud of. I mean, yeah, it's not the nicest looking thing I've ever done, but it's different and I think it gets across the point I was trying to make.
What was the point?
Well, I should describe the thing, it's a picture of a person, hands in his pockets, thinking. Surrounding him are ads from the phone book, and in his thought bubble, he's not thinking about anything. The reason I did this is because there's a song I listen to that says, "So many ads telling us what to do, who to be, what to say, that we don't even have to think anymore." I tried to recreate that lyric with pictures.
For a long time, I couldn't figure out what other thing to do.
I had different ideas, but none of them seemed to be outside of my comfort zone, so I decided to make a sort of collage using a phone book. Why a collage? Well, a couple of reasons, firstly because I am awful at traditional art, I can hardly draw human forms, I can't do shading, and painting is right out. Also, as mentioned before, cutting in a straight line is a problem for me. So I said "to hell with it" and began collaging.
I butchered a phone book with scissors, tried to do straight lines, failed, and was okay with it, and I ended up with something that I'm actually reasonably proud of. I mean, yeah, it's not the nicest looking thing I've ever done, but it's different and I think it gets across the point I was trying to make.
What was the point?
Well, I should describe the thing, it's a picture of a person, hands in his pockets, thinking. Surrounding him are ads from the phone book, and in his thought bubble, he's not thinking about anything. The reason I did this is because there's a song I listen to that says, "So many ads telling us what to do, who to be, what to say, that we don't even have to think anymore." I tried to recreate that lyric with pictures.
Class Takeaway 4
This past class wasn't terribly long, and we mainly focused on talking about our altered book and what we had done with it so far. There weren't really any new concepts introduced for the most part.
However, I think it was one of the most useful classes we've had just because of a simple line that was said at the end of class by Beth, as we were trying to figure out what to tell Steven Malander to work on. A couple of us tossed out some ideas that mostly consisted of destroying the object, a can of walnuts, in the most violent way possible, at which point, Beth admonished us a little, saying we were thinking too much along what we were used to, rather than seeing sideways and attempting to try something new.
Which made me realize how much I had been doing that this class. I mean, sure, I guess my ideas were somewhat original, it involved me working on board games based on odd concepts, but at the end of the day, it was something within my comfort zone: board games. Rather than trying something completely new, or at least something I wasn't so experienced in, I stuck with the things I was used to, I stuck with what was easiest, instead of trying something new.
Why? Probably because I was afraid of failing miserably.
But now, I know that there's a problem, and I'm trying to fix it. I mean, if there has ever been a class where I"m allowed to mess up, it's this one. So I decided to go off the wall a little for my book project. I mean, I guess it's not that crazy, but it is certainly different for me, but there will be more on that next post.
Oh, in the meantime, found an interesting comic that reminded me of Seeing Sideways, so here's that.
However, I think it was one of the most useful classes we've had just because of a simple line that was said at the end of class by Beth, as we were trying to figure out what to tell Steven Malander to work on. A couple of us tossed out some ideas that mostly consisted of destroying the object, a can of walnuts, in the most violent way possible, at which point, Beth admonished us a little, saying we were thinking too much along what we were used to, rather than seeing sideways and attempting to try something new.
Which made me realize how much I had been doing that this class. I mean, sure, I guess my ideas were somewhat original, it involved me working on board games based on odd concepts, but at the end of the day, it was something within my comfort zone: board games. Rather than trying something completely new, or at least something I wasn't so experienced in, I stuck with the things I was used to, I stuck with what was easiest, instead of trying something new.
Why? Probably because I was afraid of failing miserably.
But now, I know that there's a problem, and I'm trying to fix it. I mean, if there has ever been a class where I"m allowed to mess up, it's this one. So I decided to go off the wall a little for my book project. I mean, I guess it's not that crazy, but it is certainly different for me, but there will be more on that next post.
Oh, in the meantime, found an interesting comic that reminded me of Seeing Sideways, so here's that.
Monday, September 16, 2013
How to "Read" a Book
When I first saw this assignment, I was like, "Really Beth..?" Then I sighed and got down to it. It was fun.
Take your book and point to a random page:
I pointed to a page full of notes about math with an image of a robot arm that I drew in the margins. There are three p's which I used as variables in various math problems. As for the robot arm, it's full of straight lines, something like 30-32 of them (I can't tell if some of them are lines or if I meant to erase them and they still exist)
Use your other senses, explain what it feels like:
It's somewhat rough, I mean not terribly so, but there is definitely a texture of sorts to it. The cover is Red and hard, and also textured, it says "Spiral Bound 70 pages" on it. Colors don't feel different with my eyes closed, mainly because besides the cover, there are no colors. Paper is college ruled, there's one piece that was cut incorrectly, so it's a bit longer than the rest of the book and was folded over when the book was made.
How is the book constructed?
It's spiral bound, so they cut multiple holes in the pages and then thread a wire through it holding it together. It is designed to hold the paper in pretty well, while still allowing tear outs easily enough. The signature, which I guess isn't exactly a signature, is 70 pages, the complete contents of the notebook.
Look at the end papers:
There is writing in the book, it is mine. On the last page, it's an old piece of poetry I wrote in ten minutes while I was waiting for a concert that I was filming to start. The poem got published in the campus magazine Genesis. I hate it, but here it is:
Take your book and point to a random page:
I pointed to a page full of notes about math with an image of a robot arm that I drew in the margins. There are three p's which I used as variables in various math problems. As for the robot arm, it's full of straight lines, something like 30-32 of them (I can't tell if some of them are lines or if I meant to erase them and they still exist)
Use your other senses, explain what it feels like:
It's somewhat rough, I mean not terribly so, but there is definitely a texture of sorts to it. The cover is Red and hard, and also textured, it says "Spiral Bound 70 pages" on it. Colors don't feel different with my eyes closed, mainly because besides the cover, there are no colors. Paper is college ruled, there's one piece that was cut incorrectly, so it's a bit longer than the rest of the book and was folded over when the book was made.
How is the book constructed?
It's spiral bound, so they cut multiple holes in the pages and then thread a wire through it holding it together. It is designed to hold the paper in pretty well, while still allowing tear outs easily enough. The signature, which I guess isn't exactly a signature, is 70 pages, the complete contents of the notebook.
Look at the end papers:
There is writing in the book, it is mine. On the last page, it's an old piece of poetry I wrote in ten minutes while I was waiting for a concert that I was filming to start. The poem got published in the campus magazine Genesis. I hate it, but here it is:
"Cheap
laughter, cheap cigarettes, cheap booze
A house
so full, people so empty
Personalities
thinner than skin
A
dozen a dime these ones.
But then
there's you
Across
the room
Bright
and beautiful
Priceless.
Nothing
like the busted mannequins
Littering
every room.
If only
I had the guts, the gall
If only
I knew the words, the moves
Call me
a coward
Coward.
Call me
a damned fool
Damned
fool.
But both
escape me.
So I sit
and scrawl
Hoping
you will read this
And know
it was meant for you."
Examine the book more:
There's a couple stains throughout the pages, some I think are from me touching it with grubby fingers while I was writing and eating or something. There's what I think may be a blood stain in there, I'm assuming from one of my many chronic nosebleeds, but I can't be entirely sure. It may just be another generic stain and not blood at all.
Look at the pages of the book:
The pages are pretty much white, I mean I guess it's a bit of an off-white, like eggshell or something, but I've never been terribly good at those ... weird colors. (I mean, a white is a white is a white, but whatever.) There's also the blue and pink lines there as well.
History of the book:
I think I'm the only one who has used it, maybe my roommate might have borrowed some paper once or twice but I doubt even that. If someone tried to read it, they would be rather confused I think, it is a horrible amalgamation of five different sets of class notes written in my chicken scratch, so even if they could read it (which I doubt), they wouldn't get anything out of it, I don't think.
Flip through the pages of the book:
It's kind of difficult to flip them as they almost seem stuck together in a way. It's odd to say the least. When they flip it sounds kind of like a breeze through a maple tree ... or whatever tree has those helicopter seeds, it reminds me of that sound. You can feel a breeze, but the only thing I could get to move with it was a piece of paper, and even that was a little bit of a struggle.
Drop the book on the floor:
It hit with a splat, I couldn't feel any vibrations from it. I don't think it's heavy enough to cause them.
Hold the book and close your eyes:
I wouldn't say the book is cold, more like its lukewarm. I mean, it's very much room temperature and the room is like 70 degrees, so the book is about that, and 70 degrees certainly isn't cold or even hardly cool. However I did notice that my heat transferred into it and the book was warmer after a minute. I never really thought about heat transfer into the book, I mean, I think I always knew in the back of my mind that it was happening, I just never noticed it.
Smell the book:
The book smell reminds me of crushed leaves and cinnamon. Which is odd to say the least.
Read the first page:
The book is called "Spiral Bound 70 page", the first page of the book has notes about English and sentence structure. I'm not sure if the two are related.
Class Take Away 3 (As Well as an Update on my Book Project)
Today we once again covered what everyone's (or mostly everyone, as it was whoever wanted to talk) projects. Overall I thought that everyone's project was pretty well done and interesting, particularly the video about slightly illegal/frowned upon activities. (Although, granted, it could have been rather bad for the filmmaker...) I have to say though that I was pretty impressed with the various ways people broke rules.
After that we took some time to talk about book covers/repurposing books to make art/first impressions. I have to say, that even though the adage "Don't judge a book by its cover" exists, I've purchased the vast majority of books that I own based almost entirely off the cover. (Whoops) Call me superficial, but I don't care how well written the book is, if the cover looks like it was designed by a 3 year old, I don't care, I probably won't buy it unless I've already read a decent portion/know I like the author. The inverse is also true: if the book has a kickass cover, I'll be more likely to purchase it, even if it reads like it was written by a three year old.
First impressions are extremely important and cover design is very important. Cover design can also be moved into other realms, like website/homepage design, opening scene of a movie/trailer, etc. I've always been told that in person, you have approximately 60 seconds to impress someone when you first meet them, and if you fail to do so, it takes a lot more effort to fix the problem later and impress the person. I think the same is true with any sort of media.
Now as for the repurposing book part and the update on that, I'm going to have to dump some back story to explain what I'm doing. Second semester of my freshman year, I almost failed out of college. Long story short, it's taken me awhile to get back into good standing with the university. Anyway, I still have my notebook from that second semester filled with various class notes (or lack thereof) and doodles, and I'm going to be cutting them up and turning them into one of my favorite quotes which I think is relevant to my situation (and also happens to be from one of my favorite books, so I thought it fit):
“The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes. But there is wonder in the attempt, knowing we are all destined to fall short, but forgoing reason and fear time and time again so deliberately.” - Joe Meno
After that we took some time to talk about book covers/repurposing books to make art/first impressions. I have to say, that even though the adage "Don't judge a book by its cover" exists, I've purchased the vast majority of books that I own based almost entirely off the cover. (Whoops) Call me superficial, but I don't care how well written the book is, if the cover looks like it was designed by a 3 year old, I don't care, I probably won't buy it unless I've already read a decent portion/know I like the author. The inverse is also true: if the book has a kickass cover, I'll be more likely to purchase it, even if it reads like it was written by a three year old.
First impressions are extremely important and cover design is very important. Cover design can also be moved into other realms, like website/homepage design, opening scene of a movie/trailer, etc. I've always been told that in person, you have approximately 60 seconds to impress someone when you first meet them, and if you fail to do so, it takes a lot more effort to fix the problem later and impress the person. I think the same is true with any sort of media.
Now as for the repurposing book part and the update on that, I'm going to have to dump some back story to explain what I'm doing. Second semester of my freshman year, I almost failed out of college. Long story short, it's taken me awhile to get back into good standing with the university. Anyway, I still have my notebook from that second semester filled with various class notes (or lack thereof) and doodles, and I'm going to be cutting them up and turning them into one of my favorite quotes which I think is relevant to my situation (and also happens to be from one of my favorite books, so I thought it fit):
“The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes. But there is wonder in the attempt, knowing we are all destined to fall short, but forgoing reason and fear time and time again so deliberately.” - Joe Meno
Monday, September 9, 2013
Rules
So, I'm going to be completely honest here and say that what my original thought was for this project was to just turn nothing in at all and call it a day. However I figured that you've probably had a million students do that over the years and so it would probably be tiresome, plus it wouldn't really do anything to help me at all, so I decided to actually do a real project.
My first thoughts were once again to do some sort of board game, because when you think about it, board games are the easiest way to watch people and rules communicate. Essentially people read the rule book, follow it, and try to have fun following these rules set before them. What I thought I'd do was try to make a game where the players can actively change the rules as part of the game.
Of course, I decided to do a little research to see if this had already been done before, and sure enough it has been. Twice. The first one is a game called "Nomic" which was created by a philosopher in the 80s, it's very intellectual, very complicated, but also it's supposedly one of the most thought-provoking and satisfying games out there. The second game is a card game called Fluxx, which in order to win, you have to play cards that change the rules, win conditions, etc. I've played this game once and it's incredibly fun though it's extremely random and limited in how you change the rules, since you can only change the rules in a way that the cards let you.
Now the game I created is kind of a happy medium between the two. It's not as complex as Nomic and not quite as simple as Fluxx. I don't have a name for it yet, so we'll just call it "The Rules Game" to make it easier. The components are simple, you just need a pen/marker and a handful of post-it notes/notecards.
You start with five notecards already written out with five rules. These rules are as follows:
0. All players must play by the rules.
1. Rule 0 must not be changed or removed.
2. All rules must have their own unique number. When proposing a rule, you must include the number. All rules must be initialed by the player who created them.
3. All players must agree to all rules, changes to existing rules, the addition of rules, and the removal of all rules.
4. No rule change can have any sort of retro-active effect.
5. Play proceeds counter-clockwise.
6. On a player's turn they are allowed to do one of the following:
- Propose a new rule
- Propose a change to an existing rule
- Propose to remove a rule.
7. Oldest person playing goes first.
So that's pretty much it. It's extremely fun with a group of three-four people. It never ends well though. If you're paying attention, you'll notice that if you manage to change rule 1, you can then change rule 0 which makes things ... interesting to say the least. (It happened to us)
Now then I'm going to turn this in through Oncourse and also email it to you, because you explicitly told us not to email you any assignments and that's just the kind of guy I am. Cheers.
My first thoughts were once again to do some sort of board game, because when you think about it, board games are the easiest way to watch people and rules communicate. Essentially people read the rule book, follow it, and try to have fun following these rules set before them. What I thought I'd do was try to make a game where the players can actively change the rules as part of the game.
Of course, I decided to do a little research to see if this had already been done before, and sure enough it has been. Twice. The first one is a game called "Nomic" which was created by a philosopher in the 80s, it's very intellectual, very complicated, but also it's supposedly one of the most thought-provoking and satisfying games out there. The second game is a card game called Fluxx, which in order to win, you have to play cards that change the rules, win conditions, etc. I've played this game once and it's incredibly fun though it's extremely random and limited in how you change the rules, since you can only change the rules in a way that the cards let you.
Now the game I created is kind of a happy medium between the two. It's not as complex as Nomic and not quite as simple as Fluxx. I don't have a name for it yet, so we'll just call it "The Rules Game" to make it easier. The components are simple, you just need a pen/marker and a handful of post-it notes/notecards.
You start with five notecards already written out with five rules. These rules are as follows:
0. All players must play by the rules.
1. Rule 0 must not be changed or removed.
2. All rules must have their own unique number. When proposing a rule, you must include the number. All rules must be initialed by the player who created them.
3. All players must agree to all rules, changes to existing rules, the addition of rules, and the removal of all rules.
4. No rule change can have any sort of retro-active effect.
5. Play proceeds counter-clockwise.
6. On a player's turn they are allowed to do one of the following:
- Propose a new rule
- Propose a change to an existing rule
- Propose to remove a rule.
7. Oldest person playing goes first.
So that's pretty much it. It's extremely fun with a group of three-four people. It never ends well though. If you're paying attention, you'll notice that if you manage to change rule 1, you can then change rule 0 which makes things ... interesting to say the least. (It happened to us)
Now then I'm going to turn this in through Oncourse and also email it to you, because you explicitly told us not to email you any assignments and that's just the kind of guy I am. Cheers.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Class Take Away 2
This past week (or rather two weeks as I'm getting to this rather late) we looked at everyone's egg project and saw what interesting things people had done with their eggs. It was interesting to see where people went with it, as I went straight to the idea of a board game almost without a second thought, and it seemed that some people had similar reactions, but in completely different areas.
I think the two that interested me the most were the two based around music: the egg rap and the song made entirely out of sounds an egg can make. These interested me the most I think because, I don't have a single musical bone in my body, so it always impresses the heck out of me when someone has that talent, and they also seemed like extremely "sideways" ideas''.
Of course after that we talked about rules and why they existed and if they were a hindrance or help to people. Personally, even though I don't really like them, I have to think that they fall into both categories. On the one hand, they can be extremely stifling, and on the other, they can be quite helpful by giving you some sort of outline to work with.
To explain more on the first point, I particularly hate some rules, especially if I can't see the logic behind them. For instance, in class we talked about how all papers had to be 12 point font, double spaced, with 1" margins. I've never understood that, particularly the whole idea of "double spacing" especially now in this day and age. Seeing as how everything is turned in online anyway, the whole reason for double spacing a paper is now moot, since it used to be used for the professor to fit comments on the page, now they don't comment hardly at all, and if they do it's not directly on the digital copy, so what's the point?
They are just there for tradition and quite frankly it's stupid. I type quickly and I absolutely abhor having to stop typing and yank the scroll bar down every few minutes so I can fill up another blank page. Not to mention the whole double spaced thing isn't really pleasing to my eyes, but whatever, that's a small thing.
However it still bugs me.
Perhaps it's partially because I grew up religiously listening to every punk rock group I could get my hands on, but I've always had some problems with the "establishment" (for lack of a better term) and tradition. I mean tradition is there and it's usually there for a purpose, but I hate it when the tradition prevents someone from doing what they want to do. It seems that a lot of times people cling to tradition because "that's the way it's always been done" and they're afraid of stepping out into new waters. I do understand the hesitation with that, as I sometimes have trouble adjusting to new situations as well, but at the same time, tradition is like a suit of plate armor, sure it might protect you, but at the same time, it also prevents full movement.
(Maybe that analogy wasn't the best ever but I think it works)
I grew up in a small town in southern Indiana that was far too focused on tradition. (Part of the reason I turned to punk rock.) In that town there were certain things that were just expected, unspoken rules, if you will. For instance, there were certain last names that if you had them there was no way you'd ever be in trouble and it earned you essentially a free pass through high school. (If you've ever been in a small town, you understand) On the other hand, if you had another last name, things were going to be harder for you, that's just the way it was and the way it always had been, so there was no deviation from that.
Don't even get me started on what it was like if you happened to deviate at all from being a white heterosexual extrovert. You'd essentially be crucified.
So I guess, when it really comes down to it, I don't really mind rules in general, but rather rules that only exist as part of a tradition.
I also do think that rules are somewhat important. When I was younger, I was reading a book, which I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, that, although the book itself was rather lackluster, certain passages really stuck with me. The passage that applies in this instance is when the character in the book is going through an existential crisis of sorts and he's trying to peace things together. He says that he wants to be free of all the bullshit, so he is transported to a realm where he has absolute freedom.
Of course, in this realm of absolute freedom, there is nothing, just void essentially, and the main character just drifts along, doing nothing, because there is nothing he can do. Noticing this, he decides to create, so he creates the concept of the ground and gravity. Suddenly he can do things, he can walk around, he can jump and so forth, but at the same time he has gotten rid of a chunk of his freedom in order to do so.
It really stuck with me because I personally have trouble making decisions, and I need to have some sort of structure in order to make them (haha signed up for the wrong class, didn't I?). Total freedom scares me a little bit honestly, it almost paralyzes me, so I could really understand where the author of the passage was coming from.
We need something out there to limit us a bit so we can succeed in a way.
Anyway, that little ramble is what I think about rules, and what class made me think about.
I think the two that interested me the most were the two based around music: the egg rap and the song made entirely out of sounds an egg can make. These interested me the most I think because, I don't have a single musical bone in my body, so it always impresses the heck out of me when someone has that talent, and they also seemed like extremely "sideways" ideas''.
Of course after that we talked about rules and why they existed and if they were a hindrance or help to people. Personally, even though I don't really like them, I have to think that they fall into both categories. On the one hand, they can be extremely stifling, and on the other, they can be quite helpful by giving you some sort of outline to work with.
To explain more on the first point, I particularly hate some rules, especially if I can't see the logic behind them. For instance, in class we talked about how all papers had to be 12 point font, double spaced, with 1" margins. I've never understood that, particularly the whole idea of "double spacing" especially now in this day and age. Seeing as how everything is turned in online anyway, the whole reason for double spacing a paper is now moot, since it used to be used for the professor to fit comments on the page, now they don't comment hardly at all, and if they do it's not directly on the digital copy, so what's the point?
They are just there for tradition and quite frankly it's stupid. I type quickly and I absolutely abhor having to stop typing and yank the scroll bar down every few minutes so I can fill up another blank page. Not to mention the whole double spaced thing isn't really pleasing to my eyes, but whatever, that's a small thing.
However it still bugs me.
Perhaps it's partially because I grew up religiously listening to every punk rock group I could get my hands on, but I've always had some problems with the "establishment" (for lack of a better term) and tradition. I mean tradition is there and it's usually there for a purpose, but I hate it when the tradition prevents someone from doing what they want to do. It seems that a lot of times people cling to tradition because "that's the way it's always been done" and they're afraid of stepping out into new waters. I do understand the hesitation with that, as I sometimes have trouble adjusting to new situations as well, but at the same time, tradition is like a suit of plate armor, sure it might protect you, but at the same time, it also prevents full movement.
(Maybe that analogy wasn't the best ever but I think it works)
I grew up in a small town in southern Indiana that was far too focused on tradition. (Part of the reason I turned to punk rock.) In that town there were certain things that were just expected, unspoken rules, if you will. For instance, there were certain last names that if you had them there was no way you'd ever be in trouble and it earned you essentially a free pass through high school. (If you've ever been in a small town, you understand) On the other hand, if you had another last name, things were going to be harder for you, that's just the way it was and the way it always had been, so there was no deviation from that.
Don't even get me started on what it was like if you happened to deviate at all from being a white heterosexual extrovert. You'd essentially be crucified.
So I guess, when it really comes down to it, I don't really mind rules in general, but rather rules that only exist as part of a tradition.
I also do think that rules are somewhat important. When I was younger, I was reading a book, which I can't for the life of me remember what it was called, that, although the book itself was rather lackluster, certain passages really stuck with me. The passage that applies in this instance is when the character in the book is going through an existential crisis of sorts and he's trying to peace things together. He says that he wants to be free of all the bullshit, so he is transported to a realm where he has absolute freedom.
Of course, in this realm of absolute freedom, there is nothing, just void essentially, and the main character just drifts along, doing nothing, because there is nothing he can do. Noticing this, he decides to create, so he creates the concept of the ground and gravity. Suddenly he can do things, he can walk around, he can jump and so forth, but at the same time he has gotten rid of a chunk of his freedom in order to do so.
It really stuck with me because I personally have trouble making decisions, and I need to have some sort of structure in order to make them (haha signed up for the wrong class, didn't I?). Total freedom scares me a little bit honestly, it almost paralyzes me, so I could really understand where the author of the passage was coming from.
We need something out there to limit us a bit so we can succeed in a way.
Anyway, that little ramble is what I think about rules, and what class made me think about.
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