A few things floating around in my head recently seem related. Not sure quite how to articulate it all yet, but for now:

1)  Something I ran into last year in the Oxford Dictionary of Aphorisms:

"All we really want is otherness, tossing from side to side, greeting each toss with shouts of welcome, and contempt for the previous toss."
-Bernard Berenson, 1954

 

2) A tweet I made the other day: 
Screen_shot_2011-02-05_at_1

"Was thinking ab trends so drew a quick sketch; not sure yet what it means, & the proportions are off #rapidprototyping"

 

(This came to mind after a comment my coworker Dan had made about the adoption of reality-diminishing things like Hipstamatic/Instagram, not too long after the trend towards reality/purism in artistic expression. The entire history of art is a similar story, obviously.) 

3) And something a fellow PSFKer Scott passed onto me yesterday:

[an aside: In the background I've been working on the framework I started building around 'value' (and have since abandoned for another one - rapid prototyping!). It's taking quite awhile to write it all out, since there are many interconnected sections; so for now a snapshot below. I bring it up now because it's essentially a number of categories of value, and the supporting research - I didn't originally think to consider "reactionary" as a category, but I do now.]