Thursday, October 17, 2019
Mine
A belief system can quickly go from describing some sort of truth to simply being a declaration of "this is mine." It takes work, limited time and energy, and social resources to make visible and bring a belief system into circulation, whether through publications, media and cultural outputs and practices, or simple labor and leisure practices themselves, as governed by various political, economic, and legal organizations at many different levels of scale. Many times social benefits accrue to fortunate souls who are merely perceived to produce or even preside over these beliefs. Getting at a belief system, especially for the incumbent, may go from an exercise in truth-finding and clarification to a struggle over "what is mine."
Our Golden Age Shall Be Eternal
It is amusing to watch the various bursts and explosions of certain types of wildlife as their numbers peak and disperse at various times during the seasons.
In the summer, suddenly these huge ants were everywhere, feverishly scouting, working, and rummaging in every direction, and then just as suddenly they vanished. There were a proliferation of garter snakes in the garden, and during the day they could be seen just everywhere, sunning themselves. The gnats would come and go in swirling clouds.
Migratory birds would suddenly descend in droves, making rackets and building nests and collecting worms, and then disappear again. Huge banana slugs could be seen collecting early morning dew, and then the first frosts came and they vanished.
Earwigs could be seen proliferating everywhere, and when one turned on a water spigot outside they would tumble out of it, looking almost sheepish, and then scrambling into the depths of the grass and on to the next adventure.
And suddenly a proliferation of a type of plant occurs on available soil, and then it all blooms and goes to seed, and then blackens and melts away, and the scattered seeds go dormant.
There are of course local species - and more persistent and larger populations like local trees for example - which move on slower wavelengths, though at the proper timescale they too may be seen to be exploding and then melting away.
And then say on a people scale, a sudden profound spiritual insight comes with a developed set of mechanisms, rituals, and symbols to reproduce that insight and spread that insight further along sympathetic subjectivities, individuals say, who have had similar experiences and are similarly receptive. And those insights sublimate into something else - or calcify - and are transformed and then pass away in their original form.
And I can laugh at myself too: my, these thoughts seem deep and big, and wow the work I'm doing seems to be pretty interesting and important. And soon it will all be dust!
In the summer, suddenly these huge ants were everywhere, feverishly scouting, working, and rummaging in every direction, and then just as suddenly they vanished. There were a proliferation of garter snakes in the garden, and during the day they could be seen just everywhere, sunning themselves. The gnats would come and go in swirling clouds.
Migratory birds would suddenly descend in droves, making rackets and building nests and collecting worms, and then disappear again. Huge banana slugs could be seen collecting early morning dew, and then the first frosts came and they vanished.
Earwigs could be seen proliferating everywhere, and when one turned on a water spigot outside they would tumble out of it, looking almost sheepish, and then scrambling into the depths of the grass and on to the next adventure.
And suddenly a proliferation of a type of plant occurs on available soil, and then it all blooms and goes to seed, and then blackens and melts away, and the scattered seeds go dormant.
There are of course local species - and more persistent and larger populations like local trees for example - which move on slower wavelengths, though at the proper timescale they too may be seen to be exploding and then melting away.
And then say on a people scale, a sudden profound spiritual insight comes with a developed set of mechanisms, rituals, and symbols to reproduce that insight and spread that insight further along sympathetic subjectivities, individuals say, who have had similar experiences and are similarly receptive. And those insights sublimate into something else - or calcify - and are transformed and then pass away in their original form.
And I can laugh at myself too: my, these thoughts seem deep and big, and wow the work I'm doing seems to be pretty interesting and important. And soon it will all be dust!
Trails
Wild trails may be easy enough to follow for some time: one just continues in the direction that is passable without tromping through thickets, crushing delicate plantlife, scrambling over slopes, and submerging oneself in water or mud.
But you do have to pay attention. These trails are always changing, in accordance with the principle of least resistance. Stream courses are always changing. Rocks are rolling off of hills and resettling. Slopes are eroding. Trees are falling over. Rapid plant growth in the spring and summer, and die-off in the fall and winter may affect lines of travel.
The humans - and even the animals - that regularly use the trails, and maintain them by compacting them, may decide scrambling over a new set of fallen logs, erosions, or plant growth is just not worth the effort, and may redirect their path through a better course, subtly altering the trail in turn. And then the trail has changed.
But you do have to pay attention. These trails are always changing, in accordance with the principle of least resistance. Stream courses are always changing. Rocks are rolling off of hills and resettling. Slopes are eroding. Trees are falling over. Rapid plant growth in the spring and summer, and die-off in the fall and winter may affect lines of travel.
The humans - and even the animals - that regularly use the trails, and maintain them by compacting them, may decide scrambling over a new set of fallen logs, erosions, or plant growth is just not worth the effort, and may redirect their path through a better course, subtly altering the trail in turn. And then the trail has changed.
Certainty in the Wild
What the wilderness demonstrates - namely for someone not accustomed to wilderness spaces - is the centrality of certainty as a state of mind to action and activity. This demonstration occurs through a contrast between the familiar and unfamiliar.
If one is unfamiliar with the terrain, and unfamiliar with subsisting in the terrain, a given stretch of land travel can seem like an eternity. This is because in modern human environments, one becomes accustomed to setting symbolic ends and judging abstract quantities. How long will this take? How many miles of travel is it and how fast is one moving? By habituating oneself to these measurements and actions, one becomes comfortable with how long something will take and how much travel is required, and if one knows what one is doing, or is with someone who knows what they are doing, then the mind is at rest or at least certain.
This is due in part to the nature of modern transportation, which has become highly regularized, systematized, and organized, which allows the attention to drift to abstract and objectified quantities like time and and distance. Even this is changing of course, and there are regular exceptions; uncertainty in the built environment is a very interesting topic of its own, but for now I'd like to continue on to the wilderness.
These measurements and timeframes can break down in the wild, as navigating the wild is not the same as navigating a built environment, especially if one is not traveling with someone with the knowledge and experience of navigating a given region of wilderness. Learning how to navigate can take more time, and so this muddies the symbolic picture, and the subjective experience of that picture.
Even a mile of travel in uncertain terrain can become daunting. Is one going in the right direction? Every step one takes without catching sight of a readily identifiable landmark or destination begins to raise doubt and consternation.
This doubt and consternation can quickly build into fear and panic, especially if one is actually lost, which greatly lowers the efficiency and effectiveness of one's navigation. Restoring certainty here takes the redirection of one's attention from definite and measurable quantities of time and distance - though some of this can be mediated with a map and compass - and towards the learning of navigational skills and the development of sensory faculties of navigation, and the placing of one's trust in those subjective experiences, for starters.
If one is unfamiliar with the terrain, and unfamiliar with subsisting in the terrain, a given stretch of land travel can seem like an eternity. This is because in modern human environments, one becomes accustomed to setting symbolic ends and judging abstract quantities. How long will this take? How many miles of travel is it and how fast is one moving? By habituating oneself to these measurements and actions, one becomes comfortable with how long something will take and how much travel is required, and if one knows what one is doing, or is with someone who knows what they are doing, then the mind is at rest or at least certain.
This is due in part to the nature of modern transportation, which has become highly regularized, systematized, and organized, which allows the attention to drift to abstract and objectified quantities like time and and distance. Even this is changing of course, and there are regular exceptions; uncertainty in the built environment is a very interesting topic of its own, but for now I'd like to continue on to the wilderness.
These measurements and timeframes can break down in the wild, as navigating the wild is not the same as navigating a built environment, especially if one is not traveling with someone with the knowledge and experience of navigating a given region of wilderness. Learning how to navigate can take more time, and so this muddies the symbolic picture, and the subjective experience of that picture.
Even a mile of travel in uncertain terrain can become daunting. Is one going in the right direction? Every step one takes without catching sight of a readily identifiable landmark or destination begins to raise doubt and consternation.
This doubt and consternation can quickly build into fear and panic, especially if one is actually lost, which greatly lowers the efficiency and effectiveness of one's navigation. Restoring certainty here takes the redirection of one's attention from definite and measurable quantities of time and distance - though some of this can be mediated with a map and compass - and towards the learning of navigational skills and the development of sensory faculties of navigation, and the placing of one's trust in those subjective experiences, for starters.
Tuesday, October 08, 2019
Potential
The thing about the mass dysfunction of an existing ideology and way of life is that it makes everything else possible. After the deluge (or even right before it) you're just asking, "well why not?" Because this way of life that was supposed to be functional and supposedly the only way to go about things has just worked out so well, and now it is on its way out. What to replace it?
Of course everything that is possible eventually gets winnowed down by necessity, competition, and the emergence of new victors which anchor and deepen their newfound power. But hey.
Of course everything that is possible eventually gets winnowed down by necessity, competition, and the emergence of new victors which anchor and deepen their newfound power. But hey.
Apres Moi
Right: Le Deluge. Some beautiful phrasing, which due to its popularity and corresponding overuse, has detracted from its beauty a bit. But the phrase and its corresponding imagery - and history - does have some prescient content, which may account a good deal for peaking usage. That and its cool and sophisticated to throw around old French sayings. But I'll go ahead and stop nitpicking.
The "deluge" part is usually what takes up the most space in the collective imagination. But I think just as interesting is the relationship between the run-up to the deluge, the deluge itself, and the aftermath of the deluge, and so on in a historical progression of interrelated parts.
The metaphorical - or literal - flood is never really a permanent end. It is a transitory - and let's be clear, significant - event that indicates the breaking apart of a given order, which allows for other orders to be ushered in. The problem with this though is the chaos and strife in the interim.
When things break apart violently and traumatically, those living and surviving through the process tend to be shaped dramatically by those experiences. And bare survival amidst violent and catastrophic upheaval tends to encourage the eventual concentration of power, and the eventual perpetuation of that concentrated power, lest the individuals within that process wish themselves and their heirs to experience the same things again.
Which, let's be clear, is not true everywhere. Chaotic and tumultuous phases of history are often responsible for some of the greatest spiritual insights, which foster peaceful and humble living, among other things. But it only takes successful power accumulation somewhere, and then it encourages all of the others around it to do the same. Those great spiritual insights do eventually find their way into encapsulation within corresponding great religions, replete with their walled kingdoms and loot-filled cathedrals, after all. It's complicated. Yes.
It is the concentration of power that eventually leads to a situation in which that power needs to be dispersed violently once again, in the "deluge." So the long-form problem is the chop: that historical relation in which a wave begets a valley which begets a wave and so on.
It is hard to get off the teeter-totter when it is constantly rocking, so you eventually just have to fall off, which makes no guarantee of where you'll end up. So you fall and others fall, and perhaps the teeter-totter falls apart altogether, and the sum of that activity contains the essence of that falling, so then another teeter-totter emerges, merrily rocking away after the momentum of that falling. On and on and on. It's as if the teeter-totter has to fall apart so completely that there is no possibility for one to emerge in quite the same way again. At least, for anything to really, totally change.
The "deluge" part is usually what takes up the most space in the collective imagination. But I think just as interesting is the relationship between the run-up to the deluge, the deluge itself, and the aftermath of the deluge, and so on in a historical progression of interrelated parts.
The metaphorical - or literal - flood is never really a permanent end. It is a transitory - and let's be clear, significant - event that indicates the breaking apart of a given order, which allows for other orders to be ushered in. The problem with this though is the chaos and strife in the interim.
When things break apart violently and traumatically, those living and surviving through the process tend to be shaped dramatically by those experiences. And bare survival amidst violent and catastrophic upheaval tends to encourage the eventual concentration of power, and the eventual perpetuation of that concentrated power, lest the individuals within that process wish themselves and their heirs to experience the same things again.
Which, let's be clear, is not true everywhere. Chaotic and tumultuous phases of history are often responsible for some of the greatest spiritual insights, which foster peaceful and humble living, among other things. But it only takes successful power accumulation somewhere, and then it encourages all of the others around it to do the same. Those great spiritual insights do eventually find their way into encapsulation within corresponding great religions, replete with their walled kingdoms and loot-filled cathedrals, after all. It's complicated. Yes.
It is the concentration of power that eventually leads to a situation in which that power needs to be dispersed violently once again, in the "deluge." So the long-form problem is the chop: that historical relation in which a wave begets a valley which begets a wave and so on.
It is hard to get off the teeter-totter when it is constantly rocking, so you eventually just have to fall off, which makes no guarantee of where you'll end up. So you fall and others fall, and perhaps the teeter-totter falls apart altogether, and the sum of that activity contains the essence of that falling, so then another teeter-totter emerges, merrily rocking away after the momentum of that falling. On and on and on. It's as if the teeter-totter has to fall apart so completely that there is no possibility for one to emerge in quite the same way again. At least, for anything to really, totally change.
Inverted Trash
Conversely, when an environment is built out enough that human artifice becomes the dominant feature, such that even natural features take place there as features cultivated by human deliberation, then the nature of "trash," or what is "out of place" changes in turn. Tree branches and other plant sheddings that are cast aside no longer appear as natural, to degrade on their own terms like on the forest floor. They too appear out of place and as trash - though something perceived as quaint like fallen leaves can stay, at least for a limited amount of time - and must be swept up and disposed of somewhere else.
But other forms of trash, like cut lumber which "belong" in built environments still become trash when they degrade and become "out of place" when they are no longer useful and/or attractive. The more widespread the built environment becomes, the more energy must be expended to put things where they belong and move them elsewhere when they no longer belong. Less and less can simply be left alone to do what it shall.
But other forms of trash, like cut lumber which "belong" in built environments still become trash when they degrade and become "out of place" when they are no longer useful and/or attractive. The more widespread the built environment becomes, the more energy must be expended to put things where they belong and move them elsewhere when they no longer belong. Less and less can simply be left alone to do what it shall.
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