My eyes float the treeline,
proving Nietzsche a liar.
My legs burn the incline,
lifting tubing and tires.
My lungs hum the sunlight
pumping air on the fires.
But on the hill's horizon,
a broken form dirsturbs my peace.
I pump the gears towards the mess of a rodent and hold my breath.
I swerve - awkward.
My breathing hisses through clenched teeth and my eyes clamp
down on his blood.
My only prayer is that he doen't move-
He doesn't.
My eyes float the treeline...
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Train Ride
On the train from Dresden to Prague. We follow the Elbe between ridges speckled with high-peaked homes. Two sheep barely notice me pass, but I will remember their calm meditation at the base of a river-tree; maybe forever. They do not know the beauty of this place, they are it.
Roof tiles darken and plaster crumbs float away with the wind. Roots reclaim foundations as the old fisherman's cottage sighs its concession and stops waiting for his return. He has long since returned to the water and soil.
The antiquity here is startling. It forces an awareness of one's legacy. What will I leave? What will wait for my return? What will curse my having come at all? In a place where the lives of the long past are the very bones of daily life, it is harder to maintain the illusion of transience.
Roof tiles darken and plaster crumbs float away with the wind. Roots reclaim foundations as the old fisherman's cottage sighs its concession and stops waiting for his return. He has long since returned to the water and soil.
The antiquity here is startling. It forces an awareness of one's legacy. What will I leave? What will wait for my return? What will curse my having come at all? In a place where the lives of the long past are the very bones of daily life, it is harder to maintain the illusion of transience.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Meaning vs. Utility
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 at 10:36am
The last morning of my college years, she gazed in disappointment at the minivans and SUVs from a mound of discarded office furniture and broken televisions. Useless symbols of a life left behind.
On the seventh of Mr. Harris' thirteen trips from his daughter's dorm to his Caravan, he heard the tones of her silent lament echoing his own pain. He rushed to the heap of useless items and lifted out the bust I had made in sculpture 101. He knocked on five doors before he found me.
“Did you make this?”
“Oh.... yeah. Do you want it?”
“Why did you throw it out?”
“I don't know, I don't have any use for it... What are you going to do with it?”
“...”
He packed her carefully among his daughter's possessions; the god of meaning amidst the merely useful.
Wildflower witness
Monday, March 29, 2010 at 9:43am
And then I break through the line, but the unfiltered sunlight catches me short. Four steps to stillness. I crouch low to the ground and watch as the geese play in the canal. A bird is singing above me. My eyes catch up with my ears. She is a little robin, calling for spring. I move towards the water and sit on the slope. To my left, a tangle of thorny vines form an imperfect cage. To my right, a burst of wild flowers strut their yellow to defy the chill in the air.
I have seen such cages and such defiance before. I live between them. But there is something important about the relationship between the two in this place. I think about how much time I spend planning and strategizing and researching the cages in my world. I want theories and understanding. I want to figure out which vine to cut first. But these flowers just grow in their midst.
The Tortoise and the Hare.
Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 12:12pm
On the other side, his polished road bike hummed as he passed me, a blur of spandex capped with a red shell. I cruised down the hill, avoiding pedestrians on the footpath, leaning back in the sun, passing him as he waited at the red light. I smile through my aviators.
Further down the hill, his polished road bike hummed as he passed me, a blur of spandex capped with a red shell. I began to enjoy this. I came to see myself as the tortoise. Not so much slow and steady, but eccentric and free. Not dressed for a race, not equipped for a competition, not stopping at red lights; just going home. I ride to get somewhere, and I enjoy it. I wonder why he rides. He can have no destination in those tights.
I passed him one last time before turning onto the canal trail, where my tires kicked mud all over my jeans. I smile as a little splashes on my face.
The Evolution of Isolation.
Throughout human history, our species has evolved a series of dependences on external items. We developed the use of weapons and became more efficient hunters with them. But without our weapons, we have become less efficient hunters than our ancestors who hunted bare-handed. We developed clothes and became more hardy with them. We developed vehicles and became more mobile. I believe that as these technologies and dependencies developed, it has become the “natural” state of humankind to be clothed, equipped, and mounted. And I know no one who laments the loss of our old efficiency at bare-handed hunting, our old hairy-backed hardiness, or our old ability to migrate on foot over great distances.
Most recently, we have developed digital technology and become more efficient communicators, researchers, and consumers. A student with wikipedia at his fingertips is more knowledgeable than any single human being living before 1985. When stripped of this tool, he may not be able to use a dictionary, or have the attention span required to read a book, but with it he can produce instantly any information he needs on almost any subject. However, in a way unlike the developments of his ancestors, we lament the loss of his old faculties. We do not want to say that it has become the “natural” state of humanity to be plugged in. Why is this?
It may be that our objections to his loss of the old capacities of learning and discipline are merely because the loss is so new, and because we ourselves have invested a lot of time and effort into developing these capacities. I am quite sure the first homo erectus whose younger brother used a flint knife criticized him for missing out on something important by not tearing flesh with his incisors. But I sense in this latest loss a danger of an entirely different type than the shortening of teeth.
Our latest tool is a machine so vast and shallow, that it cannot be grasped or kept by any one person, family, or society. It is a series of connections so open-ended that it cannot be tied to any thing solid. It requires of its users no investment of personhood; no commitment of identity or accountability. It is fueled only by marketability. It is the first tool that is larger than humanity.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 8:37pm
Its creators dreamed of the connections it could forge between communities - of the communications it could facilitate between feuding peoples. And it has facilitated these things. It has opened up to its users the opportunity for reconciliation and connection. But it has not born these fruits. This vision was based upon a kind of utopian optimism which proposed that, given unlimited resources, human beings would share freely and live in peace. But this is not the case.
The internet has given people nearly unlimited intellectual and communicative resources. But it has done so without the kind of community or family-based accountability that has always regulated human nature. With a few exceptions, the internet is used to specialize, categorize, and isolate. Whatever your biases, whatever your fears, you can find them expressed with confidence on the internet. Whatever your hatred, whomever your enemy, you can find it portrayed poorly on the internet. And to do so is infinitely more gratifying to the fallen human soul than to challenge yourself and grow towards reconciliation.
Human beings work to come together not because it is in our nature to do so, but because we must. The internet has removed the must imposed upon us by our communities. We lament and fear the loss of our intellectual capacities when stripped of the internet because we have begun to see the terrible efficiency of our isolating activity when plugged in.
I am not against technology. I am aware of the irony of sharing this note on the internet. I do not even believe we can do anything to stop or regulate this trend. I just see that it is, and I lament it.
Most recently, we have developed digital technology and become more efficient communicators, researchers, and consumers. A student with wikipedia at his fingertips is more knowledgeable than any single human being living before 1985. When stripped of this tool, he may not be able to use a dictionary, or have the attention span required to read a book, but with it he can produce instantly any information he needs on almost any subject. However, in a way unlike the developments of his ancestors, we lament the loss of his old faculties. We do not want to say that it has become the “natural” state of humanity to be plugged in. Why is this?
It may be that our objections to his loss of the old capacities of learning and discipline are merely because the loss is so new, and because we ourselves have invested a lot of time and effort into developing these capacities. I am quite sure the first homo erectus whose younger brother used a flint knife criticized him for missing out on something important by not tearing flesh with his incisors. But I sense in this latest loss a danger of an entirely different type than the shortening of teeth.
Our latest tool is a machine so vast and shallow, that it cannot be grasped or kept by any one person, family, or society. It is a series of connections so open-ended that it cannot be tied to any thing solid. It requires of its users no investment of personhood; no commitment of identity or accountability. It is fueled only by marketability. It is the first tool that is larger than humanity.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 8:37pm
Its creators dreamed of the connections it could forge between communities - of the communications it could facilitate between feuding peoples. And it has facilitated these things. It has opened up to its users the opportunity for reconciliation and connection. But it has not born these fruits. This vision was based upon a kind of utopian optimism which proposed that, given unlimited resources, human beings would share freely and live in peace. But this is not the case.
The internet has given people nearly unlimited intellectual and communicative resources. But it has done so without the kind of community or family-based accountability that has always regulated human nature. With a few exceptions, the internet is used to specialize, categorize, and isolate. Whatever your biases, whatever your fears, you can find them expressed with confidence on the internet. Whatever your hatred, whomever your enemy, you can find it portrayed poorly on the internet. And to do so is infinitely more gratifying to the fallen human soul than to challenge yourself and grow towards reconciliation.
Human beings work to come together not because it is in our nature to do so, but because we must. The internet has removed the must imposed upon us by our communities. We lament and fear the loss of our intellectual capacities when stripped of the internet because we have begun to see the terrible efficiency of our isolating activity when plugged in.
I am not against technology. I am aware of the irony of sharing this note on the internet. I do not even believe we can do anything to stop or regulate this trend. I just see that it is, and I lament it.
A lost balloon
Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 3:07pm
The sun shines through the lenses of my sunglasses, warming my eyes to sleep. I put down my book – Otto's The Idea of the Holy- and drift up through the branches, across a jet-stream-cloud representing someone's return home, and someone's leaving. A single red balloon rises from the distant trees. I wonder at the circumstances of its flight. Did an unexpected gust tug it from the grip of a tiny hand? Did she cry as it rose out of reach?
Or was it a wish? Did she, much older, much sadder, remember the lost balloon of her youth, and send this one up to meet it? As these questions form, I look across the cloud, a line through the blue. I drift back towards the red balloon, but it has slipped from my grip as well.
Or was it a wish? Did she, much older, much sadder, remember the lost balloon of her youth, and send this one up to meet it? As these questions form, I look across the cloud, a line through the blue. I drift back towards the red balloon, but it has slipped from my grip as well.
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