To what extent can we design our lives?

I guess we can design our lives through modern chemistry and high technology, but that does not mean we’ll be any better, happier, or brighter than before.

Health is still an issue. As they say, without it we got nothing. What’s more, even with it, to truly design our lives we need money.

For all the opportunities to create aliases and avatars online, in the physical world, we are stuck with the genes and the looks that were hardwired at the factory.

Nature trumps nurture (or design) every time.

Monday, January 3 at 10:25am

This question brings to mind 20th century optimistic progressivism and with it notable 20th century designers’ utopian visions.

The extent to which we can design our lives is the same limit of our humanity. For example, we could create social structures to mitigate greed but cannot eradicate the ego. Design does offer a lot of potential for our lives, but designs made by humans will bear their creators’ limits.

Tuesday, January 4 at 1:05pm

I don’t think anything changes our lives.The agglomeraton of so called mediocrity, Wendy’s (with its newly reinvented fry), Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts all have the quality of an incantation–as if we were all eternally being dispossessed by some viral lego set. Even in the little footnote of my life, I have seen so called design utopias come and go and I’m sure post modernist pimps and their whores will suffer the same fate as the drugs disappearing down the toilet in Trainspotting. The three S’s are still the keynote of design,shave,shit and shower. You get up, you drink
your vile mug of brew (preferably black), you carve your hunk of bread (preferably rye),therein experiencing the modern analogue of transsubstantiation. This is where design,genomic andd otherwise,begins.

Tuesday, January 4 at 2:13pm

Most of what design has done is the conditioning of our external world, but has delved little into the conditioning of our internal world. In fact, the designing of our internal world is a subject many designers try to avoid. So with design mostly involved in the conditioning of our external world, the extent that we can design our lives to make it better will always be limited.

Thursday, January 6 at 5:46am

I agree with you, Mali, that most design is the conditioning of our external world. Which reminds me of two small things, perhaps rather going off the technology target, Adam, sorry…
1. A fringe benefit of becoming a parent has been making friends from a wider social/professional background. I’m amazed at how conventional most people’s home interiors are – I’m more used to a bohemian-junk-shop-dumpster approach to living – so I do feel that environment (design) has a huge effect on how people live their lives. I was in Scotland recently where guests arriving at a house were either invited to enter by the “front” door, or by the kitchen door, and where tea was served in the little-used “front room”. I always feel uncomfortable in the front room. I guess my small tangental thought is that re-designing one’s environment has an impact on one’s internal world – but this is nothing new and has nothing to do with technology.
2. As someone who is obsessed with typography and graphic design I am profoundly affected by what I see and encounter – but that’s my problem, maybe there’s medication I can take for this syndrome.

Thursday, January 6 at 6:57am

Yes, our physical environment plays a role in the conditioning of our internal world.

Not all but some designs are created with the intention for a better; hence, happier life. However, happiness is a state of mind. Will our physical manifestations alone make us happy? Or can we also design the practices in our lives to work with the mind so that we can be happy? Can technology be part of this?

Thursday, January 6 at 7:58am

Thanks everyone for your contributions so far. This is a thought provoking conversation.

There seems to be theme running through most of these comments. It centers around the tension between technological development and human limitation. Steve frames this question in terms of health and the body. Jake, in his initial post, makes the point that sophisticated technological tools do not necessarily enhance the talent pool. This is an example of another constraint — we still need the innate creativity and ingenuity of the human brain. This strikes me as an echo of Steve’s point that nature trumps design.

Mali, I think you make a really fascinating point when you wonder about the next potential step — ie designing our internal world. I don’t know enough about design R&D right now, but my instinct is that this is the route some people will be taking. But Jake, I don’t think your next points are off the mark at all — the external world does have an effect on our internal world. Interior designers and architects, among others, know this. Is this about aesthetics or can design go deeper and probe the essential aspects of the human condition — ie emotions? I don’t know.

Various mind practices, such as Zen Buddhism, seem, in my limited understanding, to attempt to powerfully alter the internal cognitive functioning of the brain in order to bring about changes in how we perceive and react to the world. Is this design by another name?

I do think, however, there is a hope (perhaps false) that design can change our lives. I happened to see an ad in the NYTimes on Tuesday for a Nambe Cradle Serving Bowl for $200. The tag line in the ad was “Design Your Life”.

Thursday, January 6 at 11:00am

Putting on a little makeup, altering biochemistry, clearing one’s mind through some practice, surrounding oneself with friends, choosing a cute avatar, and structuring one’s environment to be soothing and supportive can enhance a life. Lennon and Ono said, “Our life is our art.” Maybe God gives us the raw materials as a challenge — and we are in charge of taking the medium that is “us” in any direction we choose. Perhaps aligning with our divine design — like a sculptor who chisels away at the marble block to release the form calling out from within– is a way to look at it. We definitely design our lives.

Friday, January 7 at 11:16am

As a performer, I am floored by the endless possibilities I have now with the advent of the internet to design my career- record companies couldn’t give artists that. I can have multiple virtual personas. That said, designing ones life really comes down to backbone- the best design, now or a millennia ago took willingness to go up against competition, adversity, ones fears. So, as was mentioned here- we first still start with the raw God-given material. However, we need less sheer strength than we did before. We have beautiful tools if there is a shortage in any department. The availability and ease of use of the technology we have acts as a constant push to maximize on ones talents.

Friday, January 7 at 8:05pm