I built a visualization of an ant walking through four dimensions. Or, more accurately, Claude did, in about 5 minutes.
I remember back in 2006, browsing the web. I used StumbleUpon. Every click was the potential to discover a new treasure, something incredibly unique and special on the web that someone had put a lot of time and effort into, something I couldn’t imagine making myself, but that I loved and I experienced and I bookmarked.
This is most certainly nostalgia, yearning for a time when I was young, I lacked responsibilities, and I was more readily inspired to awe.
Today I’d describe my feeling as embarrassed. I can create these web toys for myself, in just a few minutes. For the ant visualization, I asked Claude if we could build some generative art pieces using p5.js, and then suggested the ant in 4D. I chose p5.js based on the advice of Perplexity.
I feel embarrassed because it no longer feels like a treasure. I thought about showing it to my mom. But why should I subject her to my slop creation? Why should I subject you to it? If I had taken the time to build it, to learn how, to think about it, if any human had, it would be something. It would be valuable. But since no one did, it feels trivial and unimportant. Even though it’s the same kind of thing I would have loved when I was that 14 year old exploring the internet.
I’m also embarrassed because that makes me feel sad, and I don’t think it should. This is exactly what I should expect to happen when something stops being scarce and starts being abundant. Now cool little web toys like this can be built by anyone in no time at all. Surely that’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? And yet I feel sad, as if I’m mourning the loss of something, perhaps the loss of the value and wonder that the scarcity itself created.
Finally, I’m embarrassed because it implies a question I’d rather not ask. Has the world lost things to wonder at? Or have I become less willing to wonder? Have I become so jaded along with the rest of the world that I can’t look past how something was made and appreciate it for what it is?
Maybe I have.