heliotropic

dread

2011-08-07T12:21:00.001-04:00

I keep reading, hearing that there is a lot to be afraid of these days. As global challenges force a need for broader perspectives, nuanced compromises, sacrifice, our political, economic, social landscapes are increasingly defined by just the opposite: polarization, uncompromising ideology, principled egocentricity, and a distinct lack of nuance and appreciation for the enormity of our challenges.

The fear is more personal, though. As a child I ran fairly free, by the age of 5 my free days consisted of me hopping on a bike and heading out to wherever nearby I could reach: up and down trails, to friends houses, to little shops to spend whatever change I could steal from between couch cushions on tootsie rolls and (yes, they existed and I bought them all the time) candy cigarettes. There was never the intense fear that I face today with my child: what if someone steals him? Hits them with their car? What if he falls and no one stops to help him? What if he is scared and knocks on the wrong house?

The fear is equally felt on the other end of the spectrum. Today I took a short walk into Alexandria, Virginia. It is Sunday, the churches were letting out, and as I walked to a coffee shop just near the waterfront I came across an old man who was trying to stop people on the sidewalk. As I approached I noticed everyone was simply avoiding him, even crossing the street to avoid contact. He looked calm, but slightly desperate, his eyes were wide and he kept reaching out to people, saying "Excuse me... excuse me..." He reached out to me, and I stopped, "Hi, do you need help?"

He asked if I could simply walk him across the street to catch the bus. He was mostly blind, old, alone, and, despite what had appeared to be a calm demeanor, terrified. As we waited for the bus across the street, he relaxed and began to tell me how he has been going to church here for 40 years, but only in the past three or four has he noticed that no one helps him anymore. Worse, he explained, people have started abusing him, kicking him or knocking him aside on the street. He is not sure if it is accidental, intentional, and he didn't seem to care, he just knew that things were different and they filled him with dread. He kept grabbing my hand, "Are you still there? I am afraid. You will not let anyone try to hurt me, will you? You will make sure the bus stops for me? It usually does not stop unless you wave it down, but I can not see it coming..."

It is hard for me to really determine whether things have actually changed. I have certainly changed since I was a kid, my parents likely felt the same fear I do now (and were just better at masking it) and old, blind men likely felt just as abandoned and in fear. But I now see these things as I didn't before. I remember reading that at about age 26 males begin to associate consequences with actions, and as a result begin to see a world beyond their own immediate needs (interestingly, girls experience this much earlier, around age 13), and likely this is where my recognition of dread comes from: I am now capable of actually feeling it not just with regard to my own situation, but with regard to my environment and the people I share it with.

'the singularity'

2011-07-21T21:50:00.000-04:00

refers to a number of awe-some, awe-full, or awe-inspiring things. I tend to freeze up among the nuances of gravitational, conical, curvature, and other Hawkingesque nightmares of physics...I need good old fashioned American simplification, so I reduce the term: when the finite meets the infinite.

The 'technological singularity' is one I can at least wrap my head around, if only to grunt in protest. As access to information grows, while our ability to take in and process it does not (evolution being unable to match the speed at which technology alters our information landscape), our species will require augmentation to "keep up" with our technology.

Augmentation...technology interfaced to our biology to help us process the products of...technology. We will need help to manage the speed, scope, interconnectivity, breadth, and depth of a world increasingly saturated with complex information. A necessity borne of necessity...but it isn't. It's perceived. What bothers me isn't the notion of wiring my body and brain to something external, I'm not a Luddite, and actually can't wait until I can get something to help me actually finish an issue of The Economist, but I do wonder about priorities -- will my ability to finish that issue of The Economist make me a better person? A better spouse or parent? A better citizen?

heliotropism

2011-05-29T01:30:00.003-04:00

is the tracking of the sun, east to west, of certain plants, flowers, and leaves.

There is a man on television, some archive footage on Al Jazeera, with a well groomed beard and soft brown eyes under a furrowed brow. Very young, I imagine he is at an age I hope to be at soon - old enough to be humble, but young enough still to retain large portions of unadulterated hope. Behind him a wall of flame, unexplained, billows smoke into what appears to be an already polluted sky. The story, I learn, is about this man's death at the hands of a suicide bomber. There are other important details, but I get lost quickly. The video switches between the footage of the man speaking in front of flames and the building in which his life was taken, now just a charred frame with debris scattered out into streets. Men stand around, scratching heads, wringing hands, and then a quick shot to some pools of blood on otherwise clear concrete. And then the story ends and there is news about football.

We rely on myths to overcome, or ignore, or explain these types of things. Some rely on God, or a lack of God, and others rely on distractions. I have come to rely on the tracking of that sun, from East to West, every day, that heliotropic myth...it reminds me that new days always rise again, and we all will move. Life is. Perhaps painful, frightening, overwhelming at times, but it remains against weird odds and with a struggling glory that I can't help but admire.

And perhaps I share a desire, as so many authors before me (from which many I likely steal, consciously or otherwise), to share that admiration in some way. So this begins. Part narcissistic outlet, part genuine scratchboard for half-formed ideas, this space is by any interpretation an attempt to engage in an ongoing discussion on several distinct pieces of our American dream. I begin with this myth, heliotropism, because it frames so much of who we are, of our history and collective conscious, but also because it distinctly resonates with me: a born wanderer subjected to a sedentary life, bound by the irrationality of maturity and responsibility. My whole being is drawn to following that large orb across the planet, but what about my family...and retirement? decades away, but...oh, and my six year old, does he get enough sleep and am I saving enough for college and...so...so this is my proxy for following that orb in a more literal sense.

That man, on television (the story is replaying again, and this time I see other details: Afghanistan, some leading role in the police force, the West's last hope...), there is something to the way he died that invites thought. Something to the way people end up in the explosions that they do, the small choices we make as we chase orbs, it is hard not to feel completely helpless at times.

Ah, but the sun will rise again. It always does.