Cosmos Café: Less Time, More Space, & Hebrew Letter Gestures [1/23]

Thanks for the micro summary of Young and Gebser. I actually bought the latter and was ready to dive in with you all back in the day but missed the boat. Stan also frequently referenced Young as one of his great influences. I shall have to absorb them at some point to make sure I stay true to these streams of wisdom. Cheers Ed, so much more to say. I look forward to more … much appreciation to you.

3 Likes

@madrush:
In my loose research from the references found in the Posthumanity thread, I came across The Poetics of DNA by Judith Roof. Though less on the mathematical, it has some connections to our CCafe discussion. Chapter 2 “Genesis” and Chapter 3 “Flesh Made Word” do not have any further references to biblical codes, but interesting connections nonetheless. The book is a study behind the current culture’s use of language and metaphors to place DNA as the new ‘code.’

Book, Chapter 2-3 Summary by author (with 2-3 highlighted)

This book examines how modes of identifying and describing
the DNA gene function in contemporary culture to allay fears about
changes in order and the logics of systems and to rewrite the truth of
humanity in safe and conservative terms. There are two basic arguments.
First, the ways we think of DNA and genes are themselves the logical
product of centuries of thought. DNA isn’t what it is because that is
what it is. Rather, the emphasis on structure and function attached to
our understandings of DNA are the capping response to several centuries
of reductionism and dialecticism. Second, the analogies derived
from DNA’s position as a structural answer to questions of life and
deployed to describe and explain DNA genes are also metaphors that
import particular compensations or remedies for the cultural fears excited
by the discovery of DNA and other systemic ways of thinking.
The ways we conceived of DNA and genes in the second half of the
twentieth century are not only an effect of a history of thought that
ends up with the idea of structure as an answer in itself, they also perpetuated
this notion of structure at the very moment they imported
alternative ideas of system and complexity.

The following chapters trace and analyze the sets of ideas that
have come into play in attempts to present DNA genes to the general
public, demonstrating how apparently simple analogies convey complex
sets of ideas that respond to contemporary anxieties and interests. The
second chapter, “Genesis,” traces the conceptual family tree of the DNA

gene, showing how the gene is the “natural” heir to a mid-twentiethcentury
convergence of structuralism and reductionism. Following several
trails of thought from the Greek philosophers to the more recent
inventors of cybernetics, psychoanalysis, and systems theory, the second
chapter suggests that if there hadn’t been such a thing as a DNA gene, we
would have contrived it anyway, since the DNA gene is the point at which
many long-lived ideas about the order of the universe converge. It argues
that our conceptions of the DNA gene as the secret of life are already
conditioned by our ideas about language and binary modes of organizing
knowledge. It also argues that the forms our understandings of DNA
take are themselves already the defensive and compensatory adoption of
the more familiar forms of structuralism such as a code or language in
the face of the more threatening epistemologies of the equally contemporaneous
(but much less conventional) systems theory, which might have
provided a more accurate and less exploitable set of genetic concepts.

Chapter 3, “Flesh Made Word,” examines the uses and effects of
textual metaphors such as the book of life, the code, the blueprint, alphabet,
or recipe employed to describe DNA, suggesting that these textual
metaphors produce a continued sense of human control and agency over
genetic processes and provide the conceptual basis for turning genes into
property via patents. They also enable structural fantasies that override
far more complex ideas of system, complexity, chaos, and other ways to
understand the interrelation of phenomena.

Thanks @achronon for another stimulating session and for allowing me to attempt to cruise at your pace…like a toddler triking behind his father’s car as he leaves for work…:grin:

3 Likes

Thanks ever so much for the pointers and links.

When DNA and the unraveling of the human genome were becoming all the rage, the curmudgeon in me (I know, I know, whoda thunk?) was wondering just what all the hype was about. One of the things the bothered me most deeply was the loud assumption that we had discovered the (physical) secret of life. In the long tradition of human hubris, we were finding genes for everything from alcoholism to cancer susceptibility … the materialist technophiles were once again on the verge of saving us from ourselves.

What only slowly came to light was that what had been identified or decoded or whatever it is you want to call it, made up only 2% of human DNA. The other 98% was called junk, because it was non-coding DNA, and it is still severely neglected because our structuralist-reductionist mentality doesn’t allow for such inefficiencies. They may not be inefficiencies, but the particular view of science and knowledge that declares is “junk” has no way of dealing with it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking knowing anything about the 2%, but in other contexts, such as the species relationship between say humans and chimpanzees, where the DNA difference is roughly 2% but the real difference between chimpanzees and humans is more in the realm of orders of magnitude, well, we end up with another little puzzle that simply doesn’t get the attention it needs.

What results from all this uncertainty, of course, is fear, I suppose, because that notion plays a big role in Ms Roof’s apparent discussion of the subject. We, as humans, as a downright, talkative (I hesitate to use the term “communicative” because that’s what we probably do least well) species, deal with the notion of language a lot. We’re always trying to figure out what we’re trying to say or not say or proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that we’re really not saying anything anyway (my phrasal encapsulation of my understanding of post-modernism). I would almost suspect that the chapter headings were chosen as a scholar’s attempt to set the real record straight on how we got here and what we’re all about. The Bible, regardless of the central role it plays in making sense of the world – mostly indirectly via literature (and a whole lot of other textual influences) – needs to be proven wrong. It is common wisdom that the Bible and science are simply incompatible. (I really hope I’m not doing Ms. Roof an injustice … I’ll apologize profusely if I am.) But, there is – as we have seen in our two little CCafe sessions – most likely a stronger and deeper relationship between the two than we would like to admit.

One of the things that Stan Tenen has written is about the relationship between scientists and wordsmiths, and I couldn’t but help think about that when reading your post, the linked post, and as much of the book online as a non-subscribing individual can see (related to the chapters in question, of course). You might find it interesting as well. (BTW, just about every reference I make to the Alphabet in Genesis text can be found somewhere on the Meru website; I’m merely referencing the printed version.)

One of my own personal take-aways from all this engagement with the Meru material is that we need to re-think a whole lot that we have simply taken for granted up until now. The mere fact that the first verse of Genesis may be factually as well as literally true is a really hard notion to wrap one’s head around.

As you will see if you continue your endeavor to injest Gebser, he brings lots of examples in Part II which he feels are indicative of the integral structure of consciousness, and as we touched on in the CCafe session, his notions of systasis, synairesis and eteology are not as easy to grasp and identify as most philosophical concepts. Gebser is talking about something actually new. But, if I have ever run across statements and texts that meet the criteria that Gebser has set out for this consciousness structure that we may be mutating to, they are Stan’s.

Of course, as I noted, yesterday, if Stan is right about Gen 1:1, that is the clearest example of a eteologeme, a statement of being-in-truth, that we could hope for. Whether we can “ware” that is, of course, another issue. I keep trying, but I’m not sure that I often succeed. Of course, as the Beatles noted, “with a little help from my friends …”, who knows?

It would be rude, as well, not to at least thank you for the compliment … as undeserved as I think it is … because I get the distinct impression you’ve got a motor built into that trike that I can’t see out the rearview mirror. Could that be? :open_mouth:

3 Likes

I deeply regret I missed your presentation yesterday, but I look forward to viewing the video when it comes out. Today, I got The Mereon Matrix and The Alphabet That Changed the World, Both books look really interesting, and way over my head, but I will come to you, Ed, for help. I do hope we can continue in this direction. Has anyone made a decision about what happens at the next Cafe?

2 Likes

…only smart enough at this stage of my development to tie a rope to your fender and enjoy the ride :red_car: :heavy_minus_sign: :bike: :rofl: I was about to provide a worthy response to your first few paragraphs…then realized I was being taken on another ride into the Ma"hood"…dangerous ideas lurk there…as I zoomed into the later words!

Speaking of Genesis: I would like to know others’ thoughts about LibraryGenesis (see too their letter of solidarity)…I have been very hesitant to use this site for ethical reasons, though it seems to fall into the legitimate and legal realm…I can imagine it as a necessary library, one open to the less fortunate of location, financial stature, access (I personally cannot afford 1/10 of the items mentioned here, let alone the thousands of other books I’d like to purchase)…and I can imagine it as ruining creativity, something that is the antithesis to the creative work we are starting here.
I dont want to get us off topic or create another mess of a conversation… I think this could be a separate thread/seed question. just wanted to hear other’s thoughts and experience with such matters.

(I mention this because Roof's book is available there)

A personal thought: I am not necessarily interested in purchasing the book. But I thought a few here would be interested…this may lead to one of you purchasing the book. Though I do not intend on reading the book nor purchasing it…I now have a copy. I have deleted it, as I only wanted to extract a little information and provide a couple chapter summaries. I may have just helped out Roof’s sales by “promoting it here” …by making it known…and I may have just stolen the book. Or It can be seen as checking a book out at the library…do you see the challenging thoughts around this?

2 Likes

There is considerable evidence that biology and culture co-specify. Language and culture as well as math and logic are correlated and metaphor shapes our experience profoundly. There is lots of discussion about how trance states allow for deep integration of slower and faster dynamics in our nervous system. The parasympathetic needs to slow down to recover and the use of metaphor and story can actually can induce this relaxation response. We have 90 minute cycles of rest and activity ( ultradian rhythms) that occur spontaneously, which our manic mono-phasic culture distorts by hyper arousal, with devastating effects. The first thing we need to do is throw away alarm clocks and allow power naps for everyone. Productivity would go through the roof!

3 Likes

We certainly missed your wit and charm, John, but anytime you want to kick anything around, John, you know where to find me. I’m always ready and willing to get the cobwebs out of my own thinking and be made aware of possibilities in material that I have not seen (or am incapable of seeing).

As you will see on the recording … we just fell into the rabbit hole and called it quits (benevolently) at the 2-hour mark.

I know that a paper from Democracy.Earth has come up as a possibility for the next go-around, but nothing concrete as far as I know as of this writing.

2 Likes

YES! And I hope by productivity we could interpret it in the most productive manner…and not just to earn an extra buck or push someone aside as we step ahead in line.

Stan and, in the discussion @achronon and @madrush, touch on this. Waiting to hear your insightful responses from this CCafe video once you have a chance to watch it. Perhaps a John-video response could be spliced into the conversation to make it feel like you were there.

2 Likes

Anyone who has ever written a word in hopes of seeing it in print somewhere someday has wrestled with the “intellectual property” issue.

While I personally see no reason to have anything copyrighted more than it was in the old days (17 years, and the possibility of a 15-year renewal, or something like that), I’m opposed to the current formulations. In contrast to what many others think, I only think that literature (traditionally conceived: novellas, novels, poetry, etc.) are the only texts that should be copyrightable anyway.

Worldwide, real research is publicly funded – either through outright government grants and similar programs; hence, the public paid for it, the public deserves access. When private interests pay for research it is most often because they want specific, if not private, results. It’s more often tainted before it even gets started. Consequently, I don’t think they deserve any protection at all. You want to use public resources, give the public access. (I find private universities both oxymoronic and unethical, but that’s just me.)

In other words, I fully understand your qualms of conscience, but we also have to understand that just because something is declared illegal that doesn’t make it wrong. There was not a Jew sent to the gas chambers illegally. There certainly is such a thing as unjust laws. Having said that, we always have to be aware that any choice we make in life has consequences and we have to be aware of them and be able to live with them.

There is more than once that I’ve had access to texts when perhaps I shouldn’t have. I have read them and in many cases I have subsequently acquired them by usual, socially-acceptable means. When the ideas come up then in discussions I can take the text from my shelf and give it to another to read without any qualms of conscience, qualms I must have if I even let someone read a text on my Kindle in the cafe (read the license agreement!).

So, you now know where I stand on this.

2 Likes

I think we should have at least two hours of each day devoted to something that has nothing to do with making money. If you can update me on how to do zoom talks and record them we could perhaps schedule a response. I can certainly ask you some clean questions about your views on our human potentials. I saw the video on the puffer fish. Mind boggling!

3 Likes

Thanks for the reference, Doug. I was mostly out of the loop today because of car trouble: a ~$300 bill. I may be making use of Library Genesis, as needed. If my little rowboat takes on another few lifetimes of karma (could the penalties be so stiff?), so be it. But I do feel you on the question, and it’s something I’ve given some thought to, on platform as well as personal levels. Are you familiar with Creative Commons?

https://creativecommons.org

I believe we should integrate this (and other regenerative, ethical licensing systems) more explicitly into our whole platform. Right now, it’s only in the fine print—and most of the fine print hasn’t been written yet. Of course, this is open to discussion, and there are various schools of thinking on this among P2P, FOSS, and Commons oriented networks—but just to say, we should keep it on our radar.

Are you familiar with the story of Aaron Swartz?

Another fork…

I do try to respect a living individual writer or artist’s wishes w/r/t copyright. As with most things, there is a balance to be struck. On the one hand, culture “wants to be free” (we could debate this of course, but go with me here)—on the other, the livelihoods of “culture creators” need to be sustained (less to debate on this one). Why can’t we do both, as much as possible?

Back to our talk. I did a poor job with the details of the movie Arrival. The lead character, “Louise Banks,” is not a physicist but a linguist. Her counterpart is a physicist. There are other salient details—e.g., the aliens are called “heptapods” because they have 7 limbs—to suggest that @achronon would have a field day with this film. (If you watch it, Ed, let me know and I’ll re-watch it too and we can do a special ‘A/V club’ episode of the Café.)

One stray thought: If anyone would like to suggest a more appropos title AFTER a café talk, or better description for our YouTube summary, let’s add that into the mix of what gets discussed or simply directly done. Often, I write something up quickly, but its from my own slant and may leave out important themes or details. I would like participants to feel free not just to contribute to content of our thought, but also to the meta-data, which will make everything more indexable and findable in the future. Did we talk much about time and space (more time than space, via Gebser, actually?) in this talk?

Last note: I have also been having machine transcripts made of our talks. They are raw, errorful, and do not distinguish between speakers—but my dream would be 1) that these get better, until we get accurate, time-coded transcriptions via AI, and/or 2) that future Infinite Conversationalists who wish to can do this work in exchange for LitCoin.

As we have more conversations, on more diverse topics, I think it will be important that we can easily refer back to previous conversations, as well as laterally to talks we may not have been a part of, but which may be related. This is another fork, of course. Speaking of which, I’ll put a fork in this post now; it’s done.

2 Likes

Thank you for the background knowledge. Great documentary on Swartz that I will need to finish one day.

another personal aside

This noodle has “loosely” noodled with this stuff (P2P, CC, ‘pirating’, etc.) in the same manner it has loosely noodled with Genesis/Bible…to continue with the little kid Doug image: I suppose I am like a carefree lost child, content to roam about the city asking others if they know the right way to go; if not, I will continue on my search with what little knowledge I have; if they know the right way, I will follow them until I fork off onto a new path or I may just join their family, knowing that some families are better, truer than others and that I am free to go off again on my own playful search at anytime…if a family demands that I pay rent, sit a certain way, leave some books untouched on the shelf…I will sneak out from under their thumb (probably with a few books and extra food in my sack) and seek about once again. I used to call myself the Passive Nomadic…still a Nomad…not so much on the passive any longer…

One doable thing, that I may be willing to do, is to leave the video reference points, similar to the bullet points here. When re watching Cafe videos or listening to some YouTube videos/podcasts, I will sometimes take note of each speakers entrance into the conversation and the general summary (probably the same notes that @madrush is writing up quickly, with his own “slant”) . I am not reliable, as many are listened to while driving, so maybe others take notes in similar fashion and could contribute. @Geoffreyjen_Edwards seems to be knowledgeable about indexing/keywording; I am personally interested in being more meta-efficient! I do think mentioning direct links to Stan Tenen’s work,directly in the YouTube Blurb would be helpful…can we not simply cut and paste the CCafe’s overview, seed questions, inputs/backstory, references…then edit to fit what was actually discussed? I see that you, Marco, edited out an unexamined question and added the Arrival movie basics. Can there be some sort of workspace to group edit, maybe one of the “channels” under Cosmos-Co-op, such as the “Coworking Space,” to do this group editing before placing the description online? Again…this process would probably be unreliable, as we are all about the world with all sorts of personal life stuff, but it wouldn;t hurt to try.

2 Likes

My advice – for what it’s worth: keep wandering and wondering. (I spent most of my youth sneaking out, I can assure you.)

Your comments remind me of something @Geoffreyjen_Edwards said in another thread: we’re trying to do wiki things with a conference tool (or something to that effect). The base pages we have for our CCafés are editable, so what Marco did is an excellent way of merging the visual and the written into a more coherent whole.

What you are suggesting is going a step farther and may spring the limits of what we can do here technically, but I think the suggestions are excellent and well worth thinking about. Maybe they need to be somewhere else related (in something like a wiki-based archive that is obviously reachable but not necessarily co-located with InfConv itself.)

We obviously have to keep noodling about this too.

2 Likes

My experience has been that you can make deals with Mephistopheles whenever you want, but Karma … talk about being hard over. :grimacing:

I certainly have not problem with editing titles after the fact, especially if it better captures the essence of what it is that we actually talked about. We’re widely known for not necessarily sticking to the announced subject. If you’ve got something in mind as far as this session is concerned, go for it. We did spend more time on Gebser and Meru this time, and Tenen does refer to his work as a science of consciousness that maybe that’s the direction to go with the one-liner describing the ensuing fray. Nothing is bowling me over right now but we were doing a kind of comparative consciousness studies I guess.

Also: I owe you an answer (or a second example to a question you posed), so I’ll dig that out and put it down here in the thread.

Finally: I’m even more intriqued about the movie Arrival. I will definitely be watching it, and I will certainly let you – and anyone else who is interested – know, and a follow-up Café would be fun for sure. I’ll keep you posted.

2 Likes

While reviewing the recording, I misspoke at one point; one thought occurred to me in relation to something Doug asked early on, and I remembered the other example I wanted to give Marco.

Erratum:
@ 41:00 (or thereabouts) I was pointing out that each of the Abrahamic religions – in Meru’s Model of Continuous Creation – plays a primary role. I said Islam was about learning. What I meant was Judaism is about Learning (Lamed), Christianity is about Love (or lovingkindness, compassion), and Islam, as the word says, is Submission (to G-d’s will). That is the three-in-one, so to speak, of wholeness depicted by the model.

@Douggins @49:00 or thereabouts
You had asked about some of the technical Gebserian terms that were being bantered about but you also were wondering how do we transmit knowledge intergenerationally?

That was an excellent question that didn’t get enough attention. You are correct, we can’t just “transmit” integral consciousness on to our children. For one, because most of us don’t have it (and the more I look around my world these days, the less chance I see that we’re going to get it). Your analogy to prayer was a good one and it already has the answer implicit in it.

Pylogeny replicates ontogeny … a lot of folks discredit the maxim, but there’s something to it: the individual instance of a species replicates the development of species itself. Kerri Welch’s interview (and her dissertation) showed that there is a parallel between brain-wave states and times of day: delta - archaic; theta - magical; alpha - mythical; beta - mental; (and with a lot of qualifications and reservations) gamma - integral. The developmental stages of an individual (and Feuerstein touches on this more in his book on Gebser) show parallels as well: babies - archaic; toddlers - magical; adolescents - mythical; adults - mental; grown-ups - (could be, but most of us aren’t) integral. At least that’s one way to look at it.

Since the magical structure can’t grok the mythical, there is no advantage in dealing with an individual who is operating magically, let us say, in mental terms. If their own consciousness is unfolding, you could certainly introduce mythical elements (but not too many too quickly) to help them along the path they are traversing anyway. It is an time-proven adage of education that you have to pick students up where they are, period. Having said that, it is important that what we know as adults, for example, not be forgotten. That is the historical problem you identified. The Torah has been there since the beginning of what became Judaism, but not everybody got it. Why? Because it’s hard to get. It takes a lot of work, and not everyone can, or is willing to, invest the effort. Once we realize, however, that there is something “more” there, it is our obligation to do what we can to promote and perpetuate what we can for those who come after.

At the same time, I’m tend to think that when things get really bleak “down here”, someone shows up and rejuvenates the search, just like certain key individuals made momentous breakthroughs (e.g., Petrarch, in Gebser’s account) who help us along. This might be build into the process, but I don’t know enough about the process to say for sure. For example, I’m reminded of the story of Hillel who was asked to explain the Torah while standing on one foot. He said (standing on one foot), “Love G-d, and don’t do anything to others you wouldn’t want them doing to you. The rest is commentary, go study.” Much later one Jesus of Nazareth “issued” two Great Commandments: Love G-d, and love your neighbor as yourself." Repeat at a time it was probably needed. Both, according to Tenen, are in traditions who have access to the code, even if they don’t know it. But once you do … ?

@madrush @58:00 or thereabouts
The topic being discussed was “access to origin” … how is it “ever-present”? I mentioned the one Kabbalistic teaching about the creation being regenerated in every instant (which ties in directly, of course, to the name Tenen gave to one of his primary models: the Model of Continuous Creation). The other story I wanted to tell is this:

There is a Kabbalistic teaching that the Hebrew Letters pre-existed creation as we know it for G-d used these letters as the (as we are seeing and Tenen is also saying) building blocks of creation. There is another teaching that tells us that the Torah we have is the one we have because that is how the events involved played out. If other things had happened (G-d makes mammals before flying things or fish, for example) then the letters would have appeared in a different order; if G-d hadn’t put a particular tree in the middle of particular garden, there would be a different order of letters and we would have a different Torah.

So what? you might be asking. Well, if in fact we have the Torah we have, and if the rabbis and sages and the people have been reading (and studying) and re-reading (and re-studying) this particular text day-after-day, year-after-year, century-after-century, then we are constantly (and here I refer back to the opening exchange we had on hermeneuticism and reading texts) regenerating the text. We are constantly, or perhaps continually is a better word, bringing that text into the present. We enliven texts when we read them, so it would seem that since the text is about Origin (to use the Gebserian term), then we are re-engaging Origin every time we read it, especially when we read it “deeply”. Tenen has now come along and said that we don’t just have to suck in the squigglies through our eyes, we can gesture them, and, oh, by the way, it turns out that could have a more profound impact on your consciousness than “mere” reading.

That’s all I was going to add, but I forgot. It’s hell getting old; I have to learn to take more and better notes when we’re in these sessions.

2 Likes

This is one area that I hope to address in my wild, coffee fueled revelations (received an “AeroPress” espresso contraption :crazy_face: as a gift) that I have had after/while reading @annroberts dissertation. I told her I would have a response by this week, but this is turning into a fairly large project (hence driving me away from Meru…"little by little"a wise one said). My “thesis,” if it can be called as such, is that ‘sponsoring’ our elders (both in Adulthood II (roughly retirement -80) and beyond (80+) is what will save (American) society. After reading Sacred Economics and a few other related titles…I am jumping all over the place…as I am now, and as you did in the video. Thank you for giving the question more attention. I am also tying in Welch as well!

2 Likes

Obviously, I’m quite a bit of a jumper myself … although I’m going to weasel on the video and say I was merely reacting to questions being posed by jumpers :roll_eyes: (as if that were any kind of defense).

Being caffeine-immune, I don’t know what an AeroPress contraption to do to a person, but I’m told drinking espresso is better for you than “regular” coffee because (a) it comes in smaller doses and (b) it contains less caffeine per quantity than regular coffee anyway. (The reasoning goes: caffeine is water-soluable hence the longer the coffee is exposed to water the more caffeine gets extracted into the, well, coffee; since espresso is made by forcing steam through the grounds, it is exposed to water for less time than by “normal” brewing (an interesting notion, as my grandmother and great-grandfather both told me you had to boil the water in the stove-top perculator for seven (go figure) minutes if you wanted a decent cup of coffee. The spoon might stand up in it, but it was “decent”. I never tested the spoon theory as I drink my coffee (and my espresso) black, straight off the bean.) I don’t know if that’s true, but I like to pass it along anyway.

Still, I wish you the best in your endeavors … all of them. I couldn’t agree more that “elders” regardless of how you define the term deserve more attention and to be paid more attention to. As my anecdote above indicates, I learned a lot from mine. I think it goes without saying (which will certainly not prevent me from saying it anyway) that I think you’ve bitten off quite a big bite to chew. I think American society, especially, is beyond saving because they went over the youth-deep-end in my youth. European societies, in general still have more respect for elders, but as they become more and more infected with American media (especially TV and film) this is declining noticeably.

Personally, I blame the old folks (to whom I count myself). It is up to us to fight for our due. After all, it was we who raised all those youth-blinded and fawning youth-idolaters. We have no one to blame but ourselves. So in your developing model, who’s doing the sponsoring? Just curious … I think it’s a fascinating project (and have downloaded Ann’s thesis, but haven’t got around to reading it yet … I’m not as fast as I used to be … just as sloppy, but not as fast.

3 Likes

I reach the same conclusion as you above, that you elder-snappers need to fight for your rights to be seen and heard. If you say it like you mean it, we will all be listening. The question of how is a behemoth of a question. All our American elders have built an ark and sailed from this land in one manner or another, setting up shop upon the tops of hills or setting course for distant lands of promise. Rather than re-genesis, a regeneration of a solid generation, our elder gods will be playing their Sega Genesis’s and Nintendo’s games, reflecting on the good old days, sitting inside watching screens rather than watching families from the porch (And forgot about any of em getting up off their keisters). My writing will be a hopeful clarion call to this image, a sounding out to all generations to listen to and discover their inner elder. Whether believable (or readable) is another question.

3 Likes

Ask @johnnydavis54, he’s been in the thick of it more than me, but when young, we had to fight for the right to be heard, for the rights of others, for a more just society, to think differently than everyone else; now we’re old, and we have to fight to be seen and heard. At some point you start asking yourself if there maybe isn’t something to life other than fighting. :thinking:

But, I suppose as long as the follow-on generation recognizes that lending a hand in the fight might be helpful, well, then I’m all for it. :relieved:

2 Likes

I have much to say about this Shang-ri-la fantasy of old age, the nursing home. The nicest nursing homes, hugely expensive, are all hell holes. We imprison the poor for private gain, and we do the same with our elders.

2 Likes