Thanks, Raemon, this is inspiring. It reflects my experience learning to draw as an undergraduate, many years ago. I have not drawn much since college, but I do recall vividly the experience of, “Holy crap, is that what a person really looks like?!?” upon first producing a half-decent quick figure drawing. I eventually developed a pretty decent drawing ability, which has atrophied quite severely in the intervening years. The experience definitely influenced my overall thinking though—I’m very aware that my brain is not telling me the actual shapes and relations that correspond to the light hitting my eyeballs, unless I take the trouble to consciously examine that first-order sensory input. And taking that idea to the meta-level, realizing that my mental models of other things might be wrong in hard-to-notice ways, and taking the trouble to at least try to notice them, has been a valuable skill. (Even if not always applied rigorously.) So I think this is absolutely a valuable sequence; and it’s prompted me to try drawing again, too.
Thanks, Raemon, this is inspiring. It reflects my experience learning to draw as an undergraduate, many years ago. I have not drawn much since college, but I do recall vividly the experience of, “Holy crap, is that what a person really looks like?!?” upon first producing a half-decent quick figure drawing. I eventually developed a pretty decent drawing ability, which has atrophied quite severely in the intervening years. The experience definitely influenced my overall thinking though—I’m very aware that my brain is not telling me the actual shapes and relations that correspond to the light hitting my eyeballs, unless I take the trouble to consciously examine that first-order sensory input. And taking that idea to the meta-level, realizing that my mental models of other things might be wrong in hard-to-notice ways, and taking the trouble to at least try to notice them, has been a valuable skill. (Even if not always applied rigorously.) So I think this is absolutely a valuable sequence; and it’s prompted me to try drawing again, too.