When I began writing this blog, I could not fathom why such a powerful medium was being squandered by so many, sharing baby pictures, documenting minutia and broadcasting idiosyncrasies. Now I have degenerated to posting photos of my own "baby", the char that I know has the power to change the world for the better. Perhaps, when the person looking down into the cradle sees their own child, miracle that they are, they see the potential that exists in them the same way I see it in the char. I gave my obligatory twenty years to raising the best children I knew how, but their baby pictures almost never got shared around and certainly were never as important as this picture. It is not that I'm not proud of my children, quite the opposite is true, but the important thing that my children were and have become is difficult to capture in images. Char is the opposite, the potential it holds is plainly visible and understandable on the "face" of it. When one looks closely at the structure of a particle of char, it is plain to see it as a condo for microscopic organisms. I only have had a handful of chances to inoculate a few hundred thousand people with ideas, but in a handful of char, with it's fourteen acres of surface area, I have the potential to encourage billions of organisms to thrive and by their very existence, they change the world.
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Now, after many years of writing, I have begun to get the feeling that it is not the fault of the medium, that the ratio of ideas to baby pictures and inspired ideas to activities of over-scheduled soccer moms is so high. This is who we have become as a people. The self seems to be more highly valued than the community in which we live. I am beginning to realize that, the resulting messages lack meaning not because of some sinister plot or device, but because so many forget that their interpretation of the world around us is their own. When a proud parent wants to share baby photos in person, the viewer rarely says, "That's one ugly baby." or "It doesn't look like you, or your husband." Although that might be exactly what they are thinking. If we look critically at the medium of blog as just an electronic scrapbook, perhaps a fair amount of self-infatuated minutia can be forgiven. Heck if it truly lasts forever, think of the trove of data some future anthropologist might uncover.
I remember being exposed to vine charcoal when I was a child. I could plainly see what it was. Children are imaginative that way. It was just grape vine, burned without air. We used it in art class to render images on paper, but when I held it in my hand, there was far more to it than that. I could understand completely that the charring that it had gone through somehow transformed it. There were few things as dirty and the material had the amazing properties of being almost as clingy as oil, yet would break and turn to dust with just a tiny bit of pressure. The ancients used the char as do modern "primitive" peoples across the planet, but we are pushing harder and harder all the time on the natural world and degrading the habitat that supports tribal people across the globe. The grapes that my family tried to import to this continent died because of microscopic organisms, invisible to the naked eye. Now, just four generations later, I can share advanced microscopy of material that they would not have given a second thought. The times have changed so greatly in just four generations that we have not only solved the problem that plagued European grape varieties, but advanced viticulture worldwide because of what we have learned about invisible organisms that had plagued our ancestors.
Instead of having to import vine charcoal from Europe, where the masters used it to make their marks, we could make it here, with grapes descended from the Old Country but adapted to have resistance to the pathogens that have lived here, perhaps for tens of thousands of years. I would like to go back to the baby pictures for a moment. It is hard to understand that, when we are proud of something or infatuated with it, even on occasions when we have just discovered it, not everyone will be as excited about it as we are. I could tell you that my daughter, realized that many of her bad decisions came from inner feelings that are best described as a lack of self worth. She turned that difficult realization into a career. She now takes amazing photographs that validate and revere her subjects in ways that show them that they are worth the best, not just what they can settle for. She has confronted her demons and that, in turn, led her to become a more fully functioning human being. Her livelihood as a photographer was nourished in the crucibel of darkness, spawned by the heat of creation and blossoms forth from the womb of creation. Each of her photographs is the result of love and compassion, intellect and sensitivity. She does not impose her sensibilities upon her work, but rather facilitates the development of something new and greater than herself with each image she captures.
This artful play and susceptibility to spirit is an inherent part of my activities as Char Czar. Perhaps when new mothers look intot he crib or bassinett, they see the "blank slate" that the young creature looking back at them holds. Perhaps they are overwhelmed at being loved so deeply. In some cases, I have seen, the new mothers have never been loved unconditionally before and I imagine that as being quite moving. However, I still don't need to see pictures of them. I would much rather discuss how we
can solve the distribution problems that starve the majority of the babies who have to live on this planet while we feed others sugar and fat instead of breast milk. I would rather discuss how to double the agricultural output of each and every acre under cultivation and turn the tide on desertification around the globe while fixing carbon in soils. The artful play I desire is more about learning to hit a moving target than inspecting a static image of a recently born individual. I could pin my hopes and dreams on their future success, but I would rahter get tot he business of changing the world in qualitative ways that will allow them to make a decent living when they have their chance at raising the next generation.
I am not immune to the proud parent phenomenon, in fact, there are a couple photos of my children included somewhere in this blog, but it is not by any stretch the focus of my writing. My pride is not because I can procreate, but what my children have done with their lives that makes me so proud and it is hard to fit that into an image or even a single story. The lives that we touch can be changed for good even without us being aware of it. The story of char is more compelling to me than I can say. I have made hundreds of gallons of beer and wine, and given most of it away. If you include the bread I used to bake, I'm sure that I have encouraged hundreds of billions of organisms to thrive. One of my favorite t-shirts says: Yeast Lord. Vintners, brewers and bakers everywhere will understand, but many forget that we are only confronted with one choice in this life. Love or hate. We either encourage life or destroy it, there can be no other option. I am proud of my children, not because they are mini-mes, but because they have taken what I could give and transformed it into more than I could have hoped for and that is not yet able to be captured by pictures. Just like I have done for them, I give my char and my readers all that I have to give ,but what happens after that is what I'm most proud of. Now, go forth and express yourself!
Now, after many years of writing, I have begun to get the feeling that it is not the fault of the medium, that the ratio of ideas to baby pictures and inspired ideas to activities of over-scheduled soccer moms is so high. This is who we have become as a people. The self seems to be more highly valued than the community in which we live. I am beginning to realize that, the resulting messages lack meaning not because of some sinister plot or device, but because so many forget that their interpretation of the world around us is their own. When a proud parent wants to share baby photos in person, the viewer rarely says, "That's one ugly baby." or "It doesn't look like you, or your husband." Although that might be exactly what they are thinking. If we look critically at the medium of blog as just an electronic scrapbook, perhaps a fair amount of self-infatuated minutia can be forgiven. Heck if it truly lasts forever, think of the trove of data some future anthropologist might uncover.
I remember being exposed to vine charcoal when I was a child. I could plainly see what it was. Children are imaginative that way. It was just grape vine, burned without air. We used it in art class to render images on paper, but when I held it in my hand, there was far more to it than that. I could understand completely that the charring that it had gone through somehow transformed it. There were few things as dirty and the material had the amazing properties of being almost as clingy as oil, yet would break and turn to dust with just a tiny bit of pressure. The ancients used the char as do modern "primitive" peoples across the planet, but we are pushing harder and harder all the time on the natural world and degrading the habitat that supports tribal people across the globe. The grapes that my family tried to import to this continent died because of microscopic organisms, invisible to the naked eye. Now, just four generations later, I can share advanced microscopy of material that they would not have given a second thought. The times have changed so greatly in just four generations that we have not only solved the problem that plagued European grape varieties, but advanced viticulture worldwide because of what we have learned about invisible organisms that had plagued our ancestors.
Instead of having to import vine charcoal from Europe, where the masters used it to make their marks, we could make it here, with grapes descended from the Old Country but adapted to have resistance to the pathogens that have lived here, perhaps for tens of thousands of years. I would like to go back to the baby pictures for a moment. It is hard to understand that, when we are proud of something or infatuated with it, even on occasions when we have just discovered it, not everyone will be as excited about it as we are. I could tell you that my daughter, realized that many of her bad decisions came from inner feelings that are best described as a lack of self worth. She turned that difficult realization into a career. She now takes amazing photographs that validate and revere her subjects in ways that show them that they are worth the best, not just what they can settle for. She has confronted her demons and that, in turn, led her to become a more fully functioning human being. Her livelihood as a photographer was nourished in the crucibel of darkness, spawned by the heat of creation and blossoms forth from the womb of creation. Each of her photographs is the result of love and compassion, intellect and sensitivity. She does not impose her sensibilities upon her work, but rather facilitates the development of something new and greater than herself with each image she captures.
This artful play and susceptibility to spirit is an inherent part of my activities as Char Czar. Perhaps when new mothers look intot he crib or bassinett, they see the "blank slate" that the young creature looking back at them holds. Perhaps they are overwhelmed at being loved so deeply. In some cases, I have seen, the new mothers have never been loved unconditionally before and I imagine that as being quite moving. However, I still don't need to see pictures of them. I would much rather discuss how we
can solve the distribution problems that starve the majority of the babies who have to live on this planet while we feed others sugar and fat instead of breast milk. I would rather discuss how to double the agricultural output of each and every acre under cultivation and turn the tide on desertification around the globe while fixing carbon in soils. The artful play I desire is more about learning to hit a moving target than inspecting a static image of a recently born individual. I could pin my hopes and dreams on their future success, but I would rahter get tot he business of changing the world in qualitative ways that will allow them to make a decent living when they have their chance at raising the next generation.
I am not immune to the proud parent phenomenon, in fact, there are a couple photos of my children included somewhere in this blog, but it is not by any stretch the focus of my writing. My pride is not because I can procreate, but what my children have done with their lives that makes me so proud and it is hard to fit that into an image or even a single story. The lives that we touch can be changed for good even without us being aware of it. The story of char is more compelling to me than I can say. I have made hundreds of gallons of beer and wine, and given most of it away. If you include the bread I used to bake, I'm sure that I have encouraged hundreds of billions of organisms to thrive. One of my favorite t-shirts says: Yeast Lord. Vintners, brewers and bakers everywhere will understand, but many forget that we are only confronted with one choice in this life. Love or hate. We either encourage life or destroy it, there can be no other option. I am proud of my children, not because they are mini-mes, but because they have taken what I could give and transformed it into more than I could have hoped for and that is not yet able to be captured by pictures. Just like I have done for them, I give my char and my readers all that I have to give ,but what happens after that is what I'm most proud of. Now, go forth and express yourself!
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