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...
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?
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.
The temperatures around here have settled into a steady upward climb, the wild swings of early spring finally behind us. The dandelions have bloomed, and sent up their fluffy seeds, and their naked, rubbery stems have at last succumbed to the blades of the lawn mower. Ovaries are beginning to swell on the apple tree, the apples-to-be standing up in two and threes on their stems, wide-hipped with a crown of erstwhile sepals and stamens at the narrow end.
The robins watch the movements of the lawn mower, back and forth and around. When it has passed, and is at the far end of the lawn, they run into the newly shorn grass. There they stand, tipped up tall, watching the lawn being taken down by inches. Does the vibration of the mower charm the worms up from the ground? Or do robins simply enjoy the feel of freshly cut grass beneath their clawed feet?
My own feet revel in the openness of sandals, for all that they are as soft and tender as white roots. Exposed to the sun, and the chafing of straps against sweat-damp skin, they will eventually darken and harden. Like ripening nuts, they will form brown shells to protect them. For now, there are piles of shoes in the doorways and around my chair and beside the bed; each chafes in its own way, each lends its own respite.
I feel the promise of summer chafing at me, and I have not yet grown my shell. The threat of heat and humidity lies in my eye, in my heart. The one aches, dull and slow; the other palpitates with heat. I feel faint with expectation and nerves, a crawling light-headedness that settles in my face and caresses my goose-pimpled skin.
Soon I will be trapped in the protective vapors of conditioned air, the freckles of spring fading in summer's fluorescent light. Now, though, I will watch my skin grow tan and strong like the maple keys that litter the drive and stand up in the cracks on the deck. The keys are brittle and snap when you bend them in your fingers, but, for a brief moment, they soar and spin.
What does the place you are now smell like?
First, what does it smell like right now, as you sit here reading this post? What scents and odors can you detect, just sitting here?
Now, what does it smell like in a larger area? If you are at home, what aromas are in the air? Do they change if you move through the house? Are there some you notice immediately, others when you step outside and come back? If you are not at home, are there distinct smells nearby? What is the "scent profile" of the place you are currently?
Now... if you had to describe your place to someone using only the sense of smell, what aromas, odors, scents would come up in conversation? What are the good smells, the bad, the distinctive? What one smell, do you think, would evoke this place instantly for you? What does spring (or fall, for you southern-hemisphere folks) smell like, right now? (Feel free to comment on other season's scents, too.)
One of the things I'm exploring now is the question of place and space with regards to blogging. On the one hand, I'm interested in the idea of blogging as a way to share place with others; on the other, with the idea of blog itself as place.
More as ideas develop...
One of the responsibilities of my current job is generating topical bibliographies. Right now I'm working on one that's related to Earth Day and aesthetics. As a result, I'm getting a crash course in what has been called, variously, environmental art, natural art, earthworks, reclamation art, ecological art... In other words, a bunch of approaches to the human engagement with the non-human world through aesthetic creation.
It seems that most of the "nature art" I've been researching is, in its essence, about simplification and reductionism. The spiral combining form with raw material. The crack letting in a sliver of changing light, the holes tubular rays of sun. The sticks twisted into fantastic nest-like shapes. The repetitive fields of waste and discards and effluvia.
They do concentrate the attention, isolate elements and refine them to their barest physical essence... but it seems to me that such efforts work against one of the aspects of the world that is hardest for humans to grasp today: interconnectedness. Is there an aesthetic that can train us to see complexity, to feel, to know, the intricacies of cause and effect and relationship that link things, active things, dynamic changing things, together?
Human beings clearly want to see cause and effect, about connection, with their superstitions about karma and knocking on wood and ideas about wishful thinking and obsessions from afar. But though we have these _impulses_ do we combine this urge to know with clarity of vision? Encouraging such clarity is the job of the artist, and yet... it seems that the dominant aesthetics are not engaging with these issues of interrelation, except in obvious ways, as in the links between animals, people, food.
We need an aesthetic that helps us grasp the connections between rock and air, between bodies and toxins, between the small scale and the large. Perhaps it is the character of art to reduce and refine, and it is thus unsuited to the explication of complexity and raw, unfiltered reality.
But wouldn't it be good to try?
Christine, in the comments, wondered about the relationship between my writing and my blogging. I guess the first thing I'd say is that I've come to wonder about using the verb "blogging" to describe what I do here; no one that I know of says "I'm booking" or "I'm magazining" when they're referring to writing a manuscript or an article. On the other hand, people do talk about "journaling," so I suppose there is a precedent.
I guess, then, the question is whether the writing one does for a blog is more like the writing one does for a book, or for an article, or a journal. Certainly, it has elements of the last two. The form is short, and chronological, and the presence of the writer in the work is part of the blog's charm.
I think, over time, what this blog has been evolving toward is a collection of short essays occasionally broken up by personal entries, and that it has become more essay-like and less journal-like over time. It certainly feels like that now.
I think the reason for this is that I've been journaling "for real" at home, and I've been reminded that there's a lot of detail that gets left out when I'm blogging my life, for reasons of privacy. The problem with that is that one of the functions of a journal for me is to work out things that are puzzling or troubling me, and I don't always want or need to discuss them with someone else; another is that I sometimes need to write about things I don't want other people to know; and finally, the journal partly serves the function of capturing bits and pieces of experience that I can later mine for other writing. When the journal and the blog are the same, a lot of that detail necessarily gets left out, diminishing its usefulness as a resource.
So using the blog as a place to explore essay writing is working better for me, since this is an area of my craft that I want to pursue more aggressively, and for which feedback is useful.
The problem I'm finding, and part of the reason I stopped blogging for a while, is that writing these short pieces is so compelling that it distracts me from doing the harder, less immediately rewarding work of the book. The blog provides short-term gratification, both in the writing and in terms of audience response - the book is time-consuming, frustrating, requires multiple edits, and isn't even a sure thing, publication-wise. It's like the difference between training for a marathon and racing your brother for the front seat of the car. Both are about running, but the intent and the commitment are completely different.
So I guess the short version of how the blog relates to my writing is that, on the one hand, it encourages me to hone my ideas and technical skills, and to figure out the best ways to engage with my audience. On the other, it is an endeavor distinct from my other writerly activities, whether that be personal records, book manuscript, or random jottings in my pocket notebook and on the Neo.
Working on the blog is not unlike knitting on a sock or two in alternation with the longer term projects of sweater or hand-spun lace. The level of commitment and interest varies, but the basic process is the same.
(I perhaps ought to add that part of the risk of the blog is that it distracts me from writing that could generate income, but I haven't gotten to the point of actually being paid for my work, so that's more a theoretical point than an immediately practical one.)
Evolution is happening at this moment in my yard. The violets are being selected for their height, and the dandelions are trending towards the low-lying and the fast growing. Only those that evade the mower's blades, or can puff out and spread their seeds to the winds before the next clipping, will reproduce themselves successfully. Similarly, the birds are being reduced to those canny enough to tell small black cat from deep green shadow in the litter beneath the yew.
The grass is struggling to maintain dominance in the lawn, a task that would be impossible without human interference. Alongside the dandelions and violets grow maple seedlings, and suckers sprouting up from the roots of nearby trees. Weeds encroach at the edges, attempting to create a meadow to compliment the trees' would-be forest.
The mower moves in straight lines, the maneuverings of vegetable competition progress in patterns that are anything but straight. The neighbor's tabby cat stalks across the shorn lawn to demand a caress, a miniature lion crossing the veldt. In the neighbor's yard a man rustles in the bushes, clearing out the dead brush.
We work so hard to maintain What Is, not realizing that What Is is nothing more than change. The maple keys mingle with the petals of the crabapple on the breeze, and the moving air ruffles the cat and raises the hairs on my bare legs. Surrounded by a sea of moving air, it is briefly easy to maintain the illusion of stability amid change, of residing in the eye of a storm of change. The roar of the mower feels timeless, when, in truth, it is a machine designed to fight the growth and spontanaeity of time itself, embodied in the living flesh of plant and creature alike. The mower roars, and spins like time, arresting the growth of plants as they reach for the sun, and eternity. Even when we stand still, holding our breath, ceasing our circulating, spiraling internal wind, the earth beneath us spins, spins and rolls, carrying us through space, and through time.
The yard is finally starting to resemble the scene in my banner, above. The tulips are blowsy, petals all asplay; the daffodils have dropped their flowers entirely. The lawn is full of dandelions and violets, and the first seeds from the former's puffs are floating on the wind. The car and porch this morning were littered with fallen maple keys and frost-sered leaves. The roar of the mower is upon the land, and the song of the starling and the creak of the grackle in the air.
I am walking to work these days, taking advantage of the time between frost and palpitating humidity, between freezing winds and the stealth attacks of mosquitos. My feet are soft from months in comfortable shoes, coddling with handknit socks; I wear my sandals in rotation, building up the warm season's callouses with care. The veins in my feet and hands distend. My freckles resurge. Around me, the sap is rising, faster and faster, spurting out branches in leaves, growing, swelling, against the day of their inevitable fall. The cat is empty of kittens and full of milk. The streams burgeon with rain, the dandelions with milky sap. Under my bare feet, I can feel the plants growing and the worms stirring up the soil. I stand in the sun, the breeze ruffling my hair, and I inhale the spring.
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