So, here we are, 2024. The dust of the first week has begun to settle, yet, new year’s greetings and good wishes are still fresh. One of the new year’s messages that I received arrived as I was embarking on what would be an unexpectedly long walk. I know it’s stating the obvious, but it’s quite something, what a long walk can do. Maybe not every time, but often. With the new year’s message I had just read on my mind, my footsteps setting the rhythm to the passing moments, a memory surfaced in the form of one word: instrument.
Yeah, just that one word. Memory can be an odd thing.
Instrument. Most likely to come to mind, for many people, is a musical instrument. Indeed, the first definition of “instrument” in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is “a device designed or used to produce musical sounds when played.” The second OED definition includes but extends beyond music: “A tool, implement, or utensil used to execute a piece of work; (now) esp. one used in delicate, precise, or skilled work, or for artistic, medical, or scientific purposes.”
To keep the blog post to a two-minute read, here is my attempt to quickly connect the dots between the word “instrument” and new year wishes, a long walk, and looking ahead to 2024:
- It was my former PhD supervisor, Heesoon Bai, who sent the new year wishes before my long walk. Hearing from her brought to mind a conversation that we had years ago – about research methods as instruments of inquiry and how the person using the research method can also be considered an instrument.
- The new year, as you know, has its way of presenting questions. Instrument, you say? My person, my self as an instrument? To what end, an instrument of what? Of inquiry, of expression? Is this instrument intact, in tune? How skilled am I with this instrument? How does it sound when I play it, what does it do when I use it? Little surprise that such thoughts led to a long walk.
- Looking ahead to 2024 and the second OED definition (above) presents its own set of questions – about each hour and day and week of the year, about the people and ideas we encounter, about the communities we live and work and play in and the bonds we form in them, about the world around us (near and far), all as delicate pieces of work, that can be understood through scientific methods or as works of art.
A long walk to start the new year can do a number on you, if you let it. Yes, well … hit it, maestro!
a few words ... from Montréal 