Hello Its Me

Todd Rundgren said it so well, so long ago. I think they called him Runt back then. Now, he's old, like me. When one bursts on the scene, or attempts to command their image, as opposed to letting others make their own images up about them, it may seem pretentious. In saying this, I am, on the one hand throwing a bone to those who will shout "narcissist", but also trying to peel back some of the layers of problems we have developed by simply making our minds up about what the world is, without getting to know it. Finding that "me" inside us is fraught with challenges. Who has not, at some point, heard Thomas Hobbes' theory that "Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."? Nearly four hundred year old ideas, survive in our culture, whether they are adaptive or not. My point is that each of us has more to offer the world than any privileged white guy who has been dead for hundreds of years! We can distract ourselves with history, or we can use it to help open our minds. Just as Hobbes could not fathom the supreme privilege that he was provided, or how it shaped his thinking, Charles Darwin could not either. If he had, perhaps the popular saying about his theory would be "survival of the luckiest".  I touch on this misconception periodically only because it is so important to remember.
The net of words we get to use for conceptualizing the world is only possible because we more or less agree on the meanings of those words and accept them as adequate labels and parameters for observable fact as well as the occasional thought experiment for those who may be particularly ingenious. What I am trying to represent is beyond words, but so much a part of who we are, it almost defies our ability to define it. Another popular cultural concept is described by the German word schadenfreude. It is the joy and sense of  delight experienced at the bad luck, failure or injury of another. In describing "me", there would need to be a word for the opposition of that and as far as I know, my language can't convey that concept. All good teachers can tell you the feeling is real, although it might be difficult finding even a dozen words to pull out the concept. When a child learns, there is a pulling back of the curtain moment and they are in awe at the grand design. Teachers get a thrill from seeing that opening, the integration of new mental territory and knowing that by just that one person being turned on to learning in that one moment there is hope for all of us. Everyone could be better off if there were more of this. My utter delight and supreme joy arise from making the world better for everyone.

WI-08

To find myself, I went back as far as I could in my own life, piecing together, putting things in their place; their order and progression, like how and why I turned out left-handed. I remember the afternoon and the way the light fell where I sat, across form my father who was bound and determined to teach me to tie my own shoes. I looked at hundreds of old photos, thought back to the day they were taken, where we were, who went with, what I learned. I took the time to revisit my memories of the colorful art on my nursery wall, how the light fell across that room in the early afternoon, the music that accompanied different events in my life. I took the time to re-live my feelings of excitement when I got my first hammer, how proud I how I felt when my sister came home from the hospital making me a big brother and how I learned what I knew of the black sheep in our family and other often overlooked experiences that, in total shaped me, informed my "reality" and guided my actions and beliefs.

Understanding who we are, eventually requires us to take a long look into humanity and the collective traces those who came before us have left behind. Much of what we are taught, or know about exist outside ourselves, but seeing ourselves in relation to that larger world also helps define what we can know about who we are. The history of us, the strange race called homo sapiens is in large part who I am. Ontogeny repeats phylogeny. I have spoken of a concept before, in an earlier post, that was shared with me by a trained spy. Imagine this image: Two pairs of cones, one larger diameter and one smaller, nested into one another. The other pair the same, and the apexes of all four, touching at a single point. That point is now. The small cones represent limited knowledge of history on the one side of "now" and limited possibilities (opportunities) on the other. Limited choices caused your blind spot that developed because of limited knowledge and awareness. The larger cones represent a more full knowledge of history, on one side that opens to more, diverse and greater possibilities (opportunities) in the future, more possible correct paths, more choices, perhaps far better options than one would have with a limited or truncated scope and world view. I reflect on this often, especially when in my studies feel boring. It helps inspire me to keep learning and growing so that more and better choices will be possible.

This "Me" that I would like to display has changed little since I was age seven. I think I was fully aware of these things before that, but was not yet self aware. The person I would like to display to the world was the field dependent child who sucked up information like it was going out of style. This becomes more interesting when you understand that in many ways, it actually was. While I was growing up, I moved more often than I had birthdays and my best friend through all of it was the Colliers Encyclopedia. Now, with more information in the palm of most of our hands, than there was at the libraries at Alexandria, we seem to make our decisions based on the whale song of social media and clamoring hearsay. I was the child who as soon as I got permission to play at the other end of the block, where "Fat Mary" lived, I went down there and got the attention of all the kids on the block, yelling to get their attention, I said, calling Mary fat is mean. She was mean and I had a strong feeling that she was mean because she was abused and neglected. As a small child, I'm not sure I would have had the words to say all that, but I definitely felt it. Mary's response chilled me to my core. It confused me, it angered me and I actually felt pathetic for thinking that I could improve the world for others. She said, "Why shouldn't they call me Fat Mary? My Mom and Dad do!" Then, everyone went back to playing as if nothing had happened and I went home. I cried a little bit along the way. I think I told my mom that I didn't want to play down there any more. I remember having a mother that understood that it was important for me to process that sort of thing. She talked to me for a while about the experience. That is when I began to learn that we don't all share the same reality. I may have been four. I ended up going back, at Mom's urging and trying to make friends several more times, but nothing ever went well at that end of the block. One kid I thought was my friend drank gasoline. If I had not run to his mother, they said he could have died. Even as a very young child, it seemed like the rest of the world was set for self-destruct.

Little things never seemed to bother me, perhaps I was too busy struggling with bigger issues.
That is a large part of why I have paid particular attention to the history of biochar.
Going back nine thousand years, understanding that what language we shared had not been written down yet, knowing that people were teaching one another this valuable skill, a mixture of art and science, a six step process that took at least six weeks, really makes one appreciate who we all are as a species. Knowing that human beings, much like us were cooperating to change the quality of soil, so they could all enjoy a better life amazes me as much as the benefits of using it. Biochar sequesters carbon and doubles crop production. It protected both ground and surface water quality back then, just as it does today. I'm also positive that even today, making soil healthier and better gives meaning to the entire human species. We have had this as our common human heritage for 360 generations. Building soil may be the most significant human activity we can participate in. I know that it puts me in a state of meditative and sublime bliss bordering on ecstasy. All six steps require a prayerful emptying of our selves of expectation and it allows you to touch geologic time when you do it well, so that's pretty exciting too!