I loved reading the first part of this post -- the story of you and your sister keeping your memories to yourselves was especially poignant. I wonder if you could do some intensive body work to access those memories. Surely, the body knows and remembers.
>>"We decided that this time we’d keep our precious memories, our selves, to ourselves."
I think this is maybe one of those quiet, unshowy decisions or skills that has a lot to do with unlocking empathic curiosity. When you have successfully cordoned off an inner part of yourself and kept it distanced from your outward-facing personas, and when you've done it not out of shame or fear but out of love for an idea or a moment or a feeling, maybe that makes you more interested in other people's inner worlds. Because you know they can be fun things, not awful things. Whereas perhaps, if what you're holding back is something really negative, that makes you less eager to know about what other people are keeping to themselves because you assume it's as awful as yours is?
This may be one of those explanations that looks neat and tidy and has no bearing on how real people work.
Or maybe it's just as simple as the folk who cultivate their inner worlds in great detail from an early age have a tendency to be curious about others. Maybe (ironically) it's an introvert's thing? It's hard to be self-righteous and domineering and all-conquering when you've spent a lot of time in other people's heads by reading the words they wrote...
Maybe all foreign diplomats should be assessed on their foreign-literary competence as much as their political experience.
We want, we crave, we get, we reset, and then we go and want some more. It's such a damaging cycle and so hard to break. It's even worse when that cycle is being perpetuated by the asshats who "started" this country.
On personal responsibility -- it is serpentine and sometimes Gordian. Radical material responsibility can take the form of minimizing one's footprint in such a way as to meet all one's needs with local materials, with what one or one's community can produce from the land. Kind of like the Amish. Often what you've pared away has been produced by unsustainable means or in an exploitative way. Question: what happens to those coffee growers when everyone from somewhere else stops buying their coffee? We're interconnected at this point and unraveling the system we've built without harming people is more than a conundrum. Land is such a huge issue -- declaring a real land jubilee puts a lot of people off their homes and livelihood. How do we resolve this with justice yet without creating more suffering? Back to the material -- it's hard to justify return to absolute sustainability without creating more suffering by abandoning scientific and medical advances that are highly beneficial. I don't think we want that but where is the balance?
At arm's-length from me is a printout of the manuscript of Peter Stark's next book, "Tecumseh's Promise." It's a good one (his book "Astoria" is a favorite of mine). It's roughly about the Shawnee leader Tecumseh pitted against William Henry Harrison. There is a section in the book where Harrison is exchanging letters with Thomas Jefferson in which they discuss their plan to steal land by making it look like they are providing for small farmers, etc., all very hush hush, "no one must know we are discussing this!" stuff. When I think of these assholes we revere so much from the early history of this country, I'm reminded of this bomb Cora Munro drops on Maj. Duncan Heyward in the (1993) film version of The Last of the Mohicans:
"Duncan, you are a man with a few admirable qualities, but taken as a whole, I was wrong to have thought so highly of you."
They badly wanted to chuck over feudalism but only because it would benefit their land speculations.“
They simply wanted to be the new feudal lords , with land being a non renewable resource, it’s ownership is the ultimate means of control . Especially given the lack of investment into infrastructure, the land near the 20 or so major US metro centers is particularly non renewable (this ties in with the post you wrote recently about folks trying to go off and build new utopias ). While one can go purchase land , it’s quite undesirable / “unlivable” for probably 90% of the USA landmass .
Have you followed the public land owner movement at all? I am glad that awareness is slowly increasing on the importance of not letting more land head into private ownership.
Wonderful column (as always) and thanks for the history lesson from the book you are reading and that crazy Supreme Court ruling. Wow, I had no idea! And loved the photos, and your thoughts/feelings behind them. And I had no idea about Survey Stones as well. I still recall when I first saw some of the original Oregon Trail tracks (in Wyoming) and the thoughts they evoked in me. Take care...
I loved reading the first part of this post -- the story of you and your sister keeping your memories to yourselves was especially poignant. I wonder if you could do some intensive body work to access those memories. Surely, the body knows and remembers.
>>"We decided that this time we’d keep our precious memories, our selves, to ourselves."
I think this is maybe one of those quiet, unshowy decisions or skills that has a lot to do with unlocking empathic curiosity. When you have successfully cordoned off an inner part of yourself and kept it distanced from your outward-facing personas, and when you've done it not out of shame or fear but out of love for an idea or a moment or a feeling, maybe that makes you more interested in other people's inner worlds. Because you know they can be fun things, not awful things. Whereas perhaps, if what you're holding back is something really negative, that makes you less eager to know about what other people are keeping to themselves because you assume it's as awful as yours is?
This may be one of those explanations that looks neat and tidy and has no bearing on how real people work.
Or maybe it's just as simple as the folk who cultivate their inner worlds in great detail from an early age have a tendency to be curious about others. Maybe (ironically) it's an introvert's thing? It's hard to be self-righteous and domineering and all-conquering when you've spent a lot of time in other people's heads by reading the words they wrote...
Maybe all foreign diplomats should be assessed on their foreign-literary competence as much as their political experience.
There are times when I look back at our clarity as children and am alarmed by how much we understood about the world without realizing it.
We want, we crave, we get, we reset, and then we go and want some more. It's such a damaging cycle and so hard to break. It's even worse when that cycle is being perpetuated by the asshats who "started" this country.
On personal responsibility -- it is serpentine and sometimes Gordian. Radical material responsibility can take the form of minimizing one's footprint in such a way as to meet all one's needs with local materials, with what one or one's community can produce from the land. Kind of like the Amish. Often what you've pared away has been produced by unsustainable means or in an exploitative way. Question: what happens to those coffee growers when everyone from somewhere else stops buying their coffee? We're interconnected at this point and unraveling the system we've built without harming people is more than a conundrum. Land is such a huge issue -- declaring a real land jubilee puts a lot of people off their homes and livelihood. How do we resolve this with justice yet without creating more suffering? Back to the material -- it's hard to justify return to absolute sustainability without creating more suffering by abandoning scientific and medical advances that are highly beneficial. I don't think we want that but where is the balance?
Re survey markers https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/physics/historical-speed-of-light-measurements-in-southern-california/the-mount-wilson-mount-san-antonio-measurements-1922-1926/
At arm's-length from me is a printout of the manuscript of Peter Stark's next book, "Tecumseh's Promise." It's a good one (his book "Astoria" is a favorite of mine). It's roughly about the Shawnee leader Tecumseh pitted against William Henry Harrison. There is a section in the book where Harrison is exchanging letters with Thomas Jefferson in which they discuss their plan to steal land by making it look like they are providing for small farmers, etc., all very hush hush, "no one must know we are discussing this!" stuff. When I think of these assholes we revere so much from the early history of this country, I'm reminded of this bomb Cora Munro drops on Maj. Duncan Heyward in the (1993) film version of The Last of the Mohicans:
"Duncan, you are a man with a few admirable qualities, but taken as a whole, I was wrong to have thought so highly of you."
“
They badly wanted to chuck over feudalism but only because it would benefit their land speculations.“
They simply wanted to be the new feudal lords , with land being a non renewable resource, it’s ownership is the ultimate means of control . Especially given the lack of investment into infrastructure, the land near the 20 or so major US metro centers is particularly non renewable (this ties in with the post you wrote recently about folks trying to go off and build new utopias ). While one can go purchase land , it’s quite undesirable / “unlivable” for probably 90% of the USA landmass .
Have you followed the public land owner movement at all? I am glad that awareness is slowly increasing on the importance of not letting more land head into private ownership.
Wonderful column (as always) and thanks for the history lesson from the book you are reading and that crazy Supreme Court ruling. Wow, I had no idea! And loved the photos, and your thoughts/feelings behind them. And I had no idea about Survey Stones as well. I still recall when I first saw some of the original Oregon Trail tracks (in Wyoming) and the thoughts they evoked in me. Take care...