Frogs and Ravens

More Gaps

There's a whole lot of world left to explore...

A Gap

It's somewhat ironic that the states I've visited are in red, given this rather stark pattern of absence:

Expanding the Ecosystem

I am really enjoying the discussion we've been having about this new ecological, nonhierarchical mode! I hope that you will continue to leave your comments on the preceeding post - I am going to be away from the 'net for a few days, so my participation will be sporadic, but I don't want this conversation to die while I'm away.

To this end...

From Hierarchical to Ecological

Something is growing in the soil, the water, the air of our collective world.  A number of times I've been moving about the world, in virtual space and physical space, and grew aware of a growing network of linked ideas, attitudes, topics.  These moments when I suddenly can step back and see a whole where there were just parts before can take my breath away.  In the time it takes to indraw a single breath, the vast potentials can suddenly be seen.

So what is it that I have been seeing?  In Orion I read a piece by Paul Hawken about a new kind of non-movement movement.  Beth wrote about the publishing industry and the tensions between the demands of the market and large-scale publishing, and the rewards of reading  smaller, quirkier authors.  I read the articles she cites as well, about publishing, and about musicians selling directly to their fans without middlemen.  Digby wrote about pseudonymity and the complaints of mainstream journalists and pundits about "uncivil" bloggers.  Lance brought up engineers and the kind of cheap big-box concrete crap they design in a discussion of feminism.  I got into a prolonged argument about value judgements, objective truth and writerly arrogance at LibraryThing.  Melissa quotes Al Gore talking about "networked democracy."

The threads started pulling together.  What I am seeing is the rising tide of a new mode of mass interaction, one that could be called ecological and reciprocal instead of hierarchical.  People are challenging the top-down pronouncements of the powerful and the privileged, and finding that collaboration between equals is mutually beneficial. 

Some of this is do in part to the actions of the elites themselves.  Part of the point of having an elite is that it can serve as a source for the higher and better, a source for things to inspire and to which to aspire.  This is collapsing.  Paris Hilton is among the elite, because of her celebrity and her wealth.  Over-written and so-obvious-as-to-be-trite articles are churned out weekly by a wide range of very well paid pundits.  Hosts on the radio and television vomit out violence, misogyny and bigotry and are rewarded with money from advertisers who sell bland plastic junk.  We are offered impersonal cheaply made houses and apartments to live in, ugly cookie-cutter stores to shop in, chain restaurants specializing in the tame, fatty, sugary, and salty to eat in, meals filled with wheat gluten from China and corn syrup from American farms to take home and heat in the microwave. 

The power is in the hands of those behind the production of these offerings, in those who limit our choices to force our selection of these inferior options - they are our de facto elite, and what they are holding out to us is a far cry from the inspirational.  Moreover, they are defensive and aggressive about it, insisting that what they offer is what we want, when what they really want is to remain relevant and respected without having to work for it.

So individuals are learning to create their own alternatives.  They've been doing so for years, in small groups of like-minded compadres, building straw-bale houses, planting trees in Africa, digging wells, monitoring the ebb and flow of ice, forming co-ops, self-publishing, making cassette tapes in basement studios, operating ham radio and low-power stations, sewing and knitting their own clothes, canning their own vegetables...  Up to this point, these collaborations and innovations have been localized and highly personal.  In order for them to spread, they had to be co-opted by powerful voices and agents, agents with their own agendas.  Now, though... we are seeing the rise of a truly global-local ecology, as all of these smaller groups find themselves able to link up across borders and genders and ages and classes, to communicate directly without the distortion of elite filters and control. 

We see the rise of things like the Encyclopedia of Life project, of networks of organizations working together on common goals, of ordinary people like you and me developing communities we never could have dreamed of a mere two decades ago, and which we only began to realize during the last ten, with the rise of the web and the blogs. 

The sap is rising in the tree, the roots forcing their way through the soil... a new ecology is evolving.  What will be your niche, your web?

The Banal Normality of Control

As I mow the lawn, imposing my will on the would-be forest meadow that makes up my yard, I meditate on the illusion of control.  One of the things that makes lawnwork appealing to so many, I suspect, is the way that it provides immediate visual gratification that one's efforts at controlling the wild ecology around us have succeeded.  Yet, like housework, yardwork is in fact a series of repeated sallies against entropy, growth, change.  The mower leaves its smooth lines in grass, the vacuum in carpet.  The sticks are picked up, as are the clothes.  Walkways are swept, dishes are cleaned, porches and tubs are scoured... and soon enough, always too soon, the task is demanded again.

I once read a claim that life consists of nothing more than moving dirt from place to place.  Whether this was a witticism about creating order out of the nebular dust of chaos, or a simple statement that the essence of life lies in the dailiness of our repeating activities, I am not sure.  I like the ambiguity.

We have been spoiled into expectations of order, control and perfection.  When we submit dissertations for approval, someone must measure the margins, rejecting those that are even 1/8th of an inch too narrow.  When the printer jams, we are angry and annoyed, unmoved by the miracle of the other 99 sheets perfectly fed and imprinted.  Most modern cars are designed to reduce our interactions with the mechanisms that make driving possible, encouraging us to take for granted everything but seat, wheel, tires - until something breaks.  Then we react - with emotions of disappointment and betrayal (unless we drive less reliable cars, in which a sigh of unhappy expectation fulfilled results).  People plan outdoor weddings with complete confidence that it will, of course, be sunny on The Day.  Births are planned down to the hour, the mother sliced open and the infant lifted out, treated as if it were as simple as unzipping one's purse.  People remake their bodies with scalpels instead of airbrushes, pain instead of pixels or paint.  We chase perfection, and we assume - no, demand - its presence in the mundanity of an ordinary day.

I read once, on another day, about how early scientists, working in make-shift laboratories using equipment they made and designed themselves, anticipated failure and breakage as the ordinary complications of an ordinary day.  While I doubt they were as casual about their set-backs as that might imply, it does seem to me that, if you're not inured to the miracle of perfection, falling short on occasion would feel like less a betrayal.

Control and perfection - these expectations are not limited to the world of technology.  The dandelion stem rises again in the mower's wake.  People slip, and stumble, forgive each other and go on.  Failure to achieve perfection is not sin; assuming that perfect control is anything other than a miracle is hubris.  We are all dandelions standing up in the fresh-mown grass, waiting to send our seeds into the world.  We are not failures, nor are the dandelions, the broken cars, the jammed printers, the unwashed dishes.  We simply are.

Moving Crunch

I like the results of moving, but not the process.  D's term is up this June, as is our lease.  Between now and then there seem to be a million things to do - and, in crazy fashion, I will be home for only three days from the last week of May through the first two weeks of June.  Thus, practically speaking, we've only three full weeks for dealing with it all (not counting house-hunting travel).

On the short list of things to do, in no particular order: prepare a talk; arrange for lodging and transportation during the housing search; find housing that will accept a cat; take said cat (a stray) to the vet; back up the computer; get the cars tuned up; arrange for movers; weed and sort my stuff; take unwanted stuff to Goodwill or the Humane Society; mail my brother's very late birthday present; pack up and clean a three-bedroom house with basement, a house that acquired major appliances, yard tools, and new furniture since we last moved. 

One step at a time, one step at a time.

Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life project looks deeply cool.  I hope that they are able to pull it off!

This is its goal:

Ultimately, the Encyclopedia will serve as an online reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on this planet, as well as all those later discovered and described.

Think about it...  The whole concept just makes me hug myself with glee!

Thinking Blogger

I'm really flattered.  Two people have named me a Thinking Blogger this week!

Thank you, Jill and Christine!

Now, one of the things you have to do if nominated is list five bloggers who you consider "thinking bloggers," or, put another way, thoughtful bloggers who make you think.

Here are some that came to mind, in no particular order:

Beth of Cassandra Pages

Chris Clarke of Creek Running North

jo(e) of writing as jo(e)

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville (There are a lot of other great bloggers sharing this group blog with Melissa, btw.)

Lance Mannion of Lance Mannion

Twisty Faster of I Blame the Patriarchy

(Whoops.  That's six.  Oh well!)

Updated to add:  Christine made the very good point that, being nominated twice, I ought to be able to nominate 10 people, so I'm in fact four short.  So...

digby of Hullabaloo

butuki of Laughing Knees (he doesn't write frequently, but always well)

Nancy of Nancy Nall. com

Orion (this isn't a blog, or a blogger - but the writing and production values of this publication are so uniformly excellent that I can't recommend it highly enough)

Number 11:  who would YOU nominate, if you had the chance?  Feel free to add your own nominations in the comments!

(Thinking Blogger participation rules below the fold.)

Brain Profile

This is surprisingly accurate.

Your Brain Usage Profile:Auditory : 43%
Visual : 56%
Left : 42%
Right : 57%

Get yours at: http://mindmedia.com/brainworks/profiler

From the Far Side

Almost every weekday I don't walk to work I park my car in the same lot.  I park at the far end; usually the spaces fill up from the other.  Yet, I have found, the "far" end is only far if you think in terms of established paths.  On the end where most people park, a series of steps and walks curve between bushes, up hill and around the buildings.  On the end where I park is instead a low grassy hill, shaded by maples and oaks.  If one is willing to walk on grass rather than pavement, to climb up a slope rather than up stairs, the "far" end is, in fact, closer to my destination.  So I prefer to park there, in the shade of a sheltering red oak, wheels crunching over last fall's acorns.

Later this year I will be attending a conference at which I will be part of a discussion panel.  In preparation for it, I am looking over a sampling of related literature.  Notably, I am looking at this book by Lawrence Buell.  What is interesting is that much of what he's examining I have encountered elsewhere - the familiar names, the familiar titles, the faces on the book jackets - but it's viewed through a much different perspective.  It can be easy to assume that disciplinary boundaries are more virtual than real, even when you're someone like me who made almost a fetish of crossing them in my mad search for knowledge.  Still, I have always had my home ground, my own disciplinary training to act as a firm base among the shifting patterns.  Now, I am preparing to step off that stable ground and move into other territory.  The terrain looks different when viewed from Buell's home ground, and I hope that I will find a welcome there.  I am hoping that my path there, from the far side of the lot, will come out in the same place, that I am not lost among the maples and oaks.