Finding fulfillment in research

Hello, dear friend, from the highest height of summer. It was my birthday last week. A butterfly landed on my finger for the first time ever. Is this a good omen? Not without the juxtaposition of a human reality, of course: we were also experiencing extremely hazardous air quality here from the Canada forest fires. Maybe the butterfly needed some connection, and a nice place to rest.

Despite the fire in the air, my days of this July have been full of the heart-blessing that is abundant friendship. Between my best friend visiting from London to the many people within reach in my immediate life who I hold dear and feel held dearly by, I haven’t written in a few weeks because I have been, quite literally, wrapped up… in the arms of my friends. I am so full of gratitude.

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Speaking of friends, one of my favorite thing about mailing out the field note* is how many real life friends have subscribed. What a delight! I do not take this for granted, and am psyched to design, print, and send mail to you, no matter our level of relationship. This is where I come to life. Upgrade your subscription to receive the field note welcome packet first, and then the next issue and delivery in your mailbox come the equinox in September… for which I am conducting creative research.

By my own experiential definition, creative research is when I conduct research about art-making. This is for the purposes of my own practice, but also for sharing and teaching about subjects and methods. I have noticed that when I am really interested in something, I yearn in my heart to know it inside and out. Something I know about knowing… is that knowledge is not a one way thread or only an intellectual pursuit, but a living process made of different experiences and multiple exposures.

I especially like to research about the cultural history and the material science of what I am doing, sharing, and experiences I am facilitating. For the next field note zine, I am researching a particular activity (I need to be vague here, the field note is always a surprise) that touches me in multiple ways. The more I learn, the more surprised and inspired I am. That is what has me thinking about this.

I am not a research expert, but I am a passionate learner. The below is only from my own experience of different ways to gain skills, knowledge and context that feel real.

Before I go further into what (I think) is research, I want to talk about what (I think) is not research.

I am resisting gathering information through AI prompts because it is not how I want to learn.

I was in middle school when a school librarian corralled us to the computer lab for a special 15 minutes to share with us an advanced new feature of the internet called Google. We could type in a question and it would bring up links to articles and websites. It was new! I remember the aura of the situation, the librarians and teachers with stars in their eyes, us youths feeling like we were participating in a revolutionary moment in technological history on big, beige, breathing computer monitors…

Fast forward to now: we not only have the normalcy of a massive catalog search tool our fingertips can barely opt out of, but AI integrated in, which is conversational and tailored to the questions we ask. We can ask google-laced-with-gemini a specific question and it will pull up a summary. The summary is often narrow disguised as broad, incomplete disguised as complete, and honestly… strangely uninteresting. Something is always missing. But (!) this inspires us to ask more questions as a response to the summary, possibly making us feel like we are going down a special rabbit hole of our own curated nuance and wisdom, as we create a domino lineup of cause and effect through our inquiries that feel (but maybe aren’t?) personal and unique. It gives us the illusion that we are conducting research. The AI makes us feel like special little geniuses too, with its little affirmations and compliments. (Run).

When conducting creative research, it can be tempting to google something, read an AI summary, and feel like we learned something very efficiently! But wait, since when does learning need to be efficient? I want my learning to be long and drawn out. I want to never feel like I know it all. I want each piece to set me right back onto the edge of my seat wondering what comes next now. Efficient is much less fulfilling. When I look closely, the search results seem to be an amalgam generated by chance or convenience, with pieces pulled apart from original sources (people) and put together in a conglomerate (un)whole that might make just enough sense to pass as an answer we might consider trusting, but can we really trust with certainty, this?

You know what is most beautiful? Trust that is undeniable. Where does that kind of trust come from? Sincere personal efforts.

There isn’t anything wrong with the act of finding and cataloging information. I just don’t feel that when I am googling or asking AI that I am doing research. I want to be careful, for the sake of preserving creativity and the brilliance of human effort. There is a kind of fulfillment that true time and energy put into the work can offer, and I want what I am learning to have the best chance for actual integration in my memory and mind. Is integration becoming a lost art? Why am I compelled to write about this?

Something I find helpful to make a distinction: The word for using Google or AI to learn about something is not “research”, it’s just… ”search”. What you get from a search is a selection of existent information. No problem if that is you need! But consider what you might get from research. You know, other things. New connections. True connections. Your own embodied understanding. Insights that feel real to you.

What feels real to you?

To me, true research feels present, electric, and alive, conducted through my whole human body-spirit spectrum, in relationship with the world around it.

So, of AI ain’t it, what are some reminders about what constitutes creative research?

Direct observation can be formative and informative. The initial spark for the topic I am researching for the next field note is something I observed first-hand. If I am not ready, or don’t have the means, skills, or cultural transmission to do something myself, a better first step and first spark can be observation. Seeing with our own eyes can give us a glimpse of what it might feel like in our own bodies, or in our own physical context. And/or maybe it simply lights something up or dispels a mystery and we become even more curious. I like to observe. Physical real life observation is supreme! Videos or teachings on zoom can sometimes be a stand-in, but I don’t like to get carried away or replace real life with it.

The very most fulfilling kind of research is practice. All of the things I love in life are they way they are because of this. Learning through my own trials and errors is what makes me feel like a living being! It’s not always easy, and that’s often what makes it worth it. Practice builds a foundation inside myself to offer from. The material I am most confident in is the material I have had direct contact with. Whenever I am researching methods, the more I can move to trying things myself, the better I learn. Nothing beats a hands-on experience.

Practice can be done alone, but is it always enough? Research feels even more meaningful if there are relationships involved. Relationships encourage fulfilling research, and can be with people you learn from, or people you learn with, or both. I love having people in my life that I can call on for their expertise, and I love being someone who others can ask questions to. Experiment together. Share insights. Take a class to learn a new skill in connection with a teacher or facilitator, and with the other members of a class. Learning 1:1 from someone is a rare boon too!

I like a book with one author, telling their story of their experience, qualified to share about it, written by them with lots of support and relationships.

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This is what I am thinking about at the moment, as I navigate the many different ways there are to learn about something. I am thinking about how I get what I put in. I can put in a quick prompt, or I can put in my whole being, my body, my time, slowness, curiosity, and connection.

What do you think?

♡ Kristen