Daniel O'Sullivan, Associate Professor

Daniel O'Sullivan is the founding Associate Dean of the Emerging Media Institute at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU and teaches Creative Computing and researches image generating machine learning networks as social networks.

APOSSIBLE™ is a non-profit bringing psychologists, technologists, artists and creatives together to explore how technology can better support creativity and human fulfillment. In this ongoing interview series we’re discovering what people value, what makes their lives fulfilling, and what kinds of relationships to technology they already cherish.

1. What is a ritual, practice, or routine in your life that is important for your psychological wellbeing and/or fulfillment? Why?

The second most important practice for my psychological wellbeing is priming my thoughts and trying to seed the topic for my mind wandering before setting off on a mindless physical task. For instance before going in the shower or going out to work in the yard, I might take a whack at a coding or interface challenge, or find a quick philosophical or conceptual medium post to read. This means an aggravating email does not have the most momentum as my thoughts start to wander.

I used to think that my bike ride home from work could somehow burn off aggravation but instead I find that problems I am thinking about in the middle of the bridge back to Manhattan (the most steep incline) gets lodged as a lasting hang up for me. Perhaps those thoughts are getting associated with my elevated heart rate and further registering as things I should be angry about. Now I am more careful as I get on the bridge to queue up happy thoughts for my body to associate with the arousal of that physical exertion. It might be better just to be present so just the conscious perception of my body is appropriately associated with that arousal but I have crossed that bridge too many times for it to keep my attention.

Actually the most important routine for my psychological wellbeing is meditation. Having a tool for noticing when I am lost in, often dreadful, thought and then waking up is a great release from unnecessary suffering. I did not lead with this routine because it is so widely known but I guess I should state that it is the most important practice for me.

2. What is a human-made creation that brings out the best in you? Why?

I have an electric wheelbarrow. You might think this as silly and robbing me of the physical benefits of yard work. But it has allowed me to take on tasks of much larger overall exertion. By allowing me to conceive of ever greater earth moving ideas it somehow gives me a small feeling of being connected to the enormous achievements of human civilization (pretty grand for a wheelbarrow). Similarly, while I don’t use electric bicycles myself, I do recommend them for people who don’t ride at all. Better to be moving more and to be able to conceive of greater physical control over the city.

At ITP the most important skill is navigating what “level” to insert your effort. Should you pursue the reach of power assisting libraries and scripting languages vs the control and understanding of down to the metal coding?

3. When do you cherish the slow or hard way of doing something? Why?

Almost always. A game where you always win is not fun. Good judgment comes from bad experiences. Keeping a task engaging requires finding a more challenging way to do it but not so challenging that you are turned off from doing it at all. I am a DIY person who resists hiring people to, for instance, putting in an HVAC system or a huge fence, even though, given the cost of my time, it would be more economical to hire someone. Keeping life in a sweet spot of difficulty is an important art.

Knowing this, you should try to make your children’s lives more difficult for their sake. And sometimes it does appear that highly successful people often had difficult childhoods. Torturing my children is not something I have mastered yet, but I am working at it.

4. What is something you appreciate or long for from the past? Why?

I remember having four opportunities to get news, with the morning newspaper, the afternoon newspaper, and in the evening, the local TV news followed by a half hour of national news. Now whenever I hit a sticky part in my coding, or just have to wait for a model to load, I feel a twitch to go check the news sites. I don’t think this compulsion makes me a better citizen but it makes me a less productive coder and probably an angrier person. I feel better when I can find some preemptive control of that twitch to check the news.