thinking out loud

The cathedral of the self

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:12:53 -0700

I come from a tradition of Western culture in which the ideal (my ideal) was the complex, dense and “cathedral-like” structure of the highly educated and articulate personality—a man or woman who carried inside themselves a personally constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the West.

…

But today, I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self-evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the “instantly available”. A new self that needs to contain less and less of an inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance—as we all become “pancake people”—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.

Will this produce a new kind of enlightenment or “super-consciousness”? Sometimes I am seduced by those proclaiming so—and sometimes I shrink back in horror at a world that seems to have lost the thick and multi-textured density of deeply evolved personality.

— Richard Foreman

Kind of agape at this. Adding to the horizontality and verticality files… just a placeholder for now, something more on this to come.

A Year of Ideas

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 22:38:00 -0800

This time last year (December 31st, 2011):

Aboard the M/V Ushuaia, eagerly anticipating our first sight of Antarctic land the following morning. Photo courtesy of Mike Beedell/Students on Ice.

Tonight: happily spending the evening with my family, reflecting. Many, many people and places have shaped who I am over the past twelve months, but right now, as we loop back around the sun, I’m thinking about the ideas that shook me. I have always been a reader, but this year I read more nonfiction - both paper books and articles/essays/blog posts online - than ever. This is a list of the best ones I read in 2012, excluding books. I love these pieces. They’re all on this list because I have returned to them over and over on countless lazy Sunday mornings and stressful Monday ones and continue to do so; because I’ve probably copied, by hand, thousands of words worth of quotes from these into notebooks; because they help me live better. I really think they’re worth your time. I wish everyone would read these - and if you do, there is always an open invitation on my end to talk about any of them. In no particular order:

Loving Children: A Design Problem, by David Orr: What would it mean to make a society that did in fact love all of its children? This is the central question of the essay, and I think it could be a guiding light for nearly anyone in any profession aspiring to give back to the world somehow, to make the world better somehow. This is one of the principles that most human beings would probably agree with: creating a world that is safe and nurturing for children. And yet our actions are sometimes shockingly and sadly misaligned.

This is Water, by David Foster Wallace: This is DFW’s commencement address to the 2005 class of Kenyon College. It’s my favourite commencement speech I’ve come across. DFW is concerned with the most basic question we face: how shall we live? This is about empathy, what education is for, what to worship and respect, caring about people, self-awareness, and awareness, period. It’s difficult but important to break out of the “default setting.” I’m always coming back to check myself against this piece; I have read it at least a dozen times and with each reading the speech becomes richer and richer.

The Busy Trap, Tim Kreider: I got scared when I first read Kreider’s piece, which did the rounds on Twitter and Facebook over the summer. It was this line: “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.” Ouch. Guilty. My stomach twisted when I absorbed that line; did yours? I have stopped being proud of being busy since reading this.

Busyness ≠ Importance, by Christine Boyle: This was a newsletter issue from the amazing organization Spirited Social Change based in Vancouver, and it’s geared towards anyone who justifies their busyness with the belief that the work that is making them busy is important for the world. And also if you’re like me and your heart aches at broken things and you want to do everything you possibly can to fix them. This piece is not about “work-life balance.” It’s about taking care of yourself (partly in order to better serve the world). See also: A Love Letter to the Overcommitted.

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education, by William Deresiewicz: For the university-bound, especially. I have no better words than the author’s: “[M]ost of [the students] have seemed content to color within the lines that their education had marked out for them. Only a small minority have seen their education as part of a larger intellectual journey, have approached the work of the mind with a pilgrim soul. These few have tended to feel like freaks, not least because they get so little support from the university itself. Places like Yale, as one of them put it to me, are not conducive to searchers. Places like Yale are simply not set up to help students ask the big questions.” Emphasis mine.

A Weakened World Cannot Forgive Us, An Interview with Kathleen Dean Moore, by Derrick Jensen: There is far too much wisdom in here to condense into a line or two. And not just ecological wisdom, but gems spanning philosophy, leading a moral life, connection to place and home, community, love, living deeply, and grace. My introduction to KDM; after reading this, I hunted down much more of her work. If you find yourself hungry for more afterwards, I highly recommend her talk at SFU last March which had me in tears and then this interview with her on the moral urgency of climate change in the Sun Magazine.

—

I think I might have to do a second post with a few more. For now, from me to you: best wishes for a peaceful, joyful, and inspiring 2013 and a year that is rich and full. Go chasing adventures but be gentle with yourself.

I am stunned. Whirling across the paper, the sinuous patterns...

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 12:09:06 -0800

I am stunned.

Whirling across the paper, the sinuous patterns of lines and arrows—some of which may overlap—mark relentless change as well as convey the potential for chaos and ecstasy that resides within any system. Classification and pandemonium are inseparable. It is on the porous border of this vast abyss—what is called “infinity”—that Voigt investigates the caesuras between perception and knowledge, form and dissolution. One of the guiding principles behind the drawings is the application of rigorous procedures: algorithms to decide the direction of a line or the Fibonacci sequence to determine the number of lines branching off the initial one. Chance and persistence are essential. The turbulent networks of lines transform the paper into both the artist’s imaginative space and a visual map of the movements of various elements in time.

John Yau on artist Jorinde Voight, in Into the Crucible of Meaning

We went to Palmer! climateadaptation: Open Maps and LocalWiki...

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 18:21:12 -0700

We went to Palmer!

climateadaptation:

Open Maps and LocalWiki teamed up to map Antarctica. The maps were crowd sourced by volunteers around the world. Palmer Station is among their first maps. Check it out, here.

Palmer Station is a scientific research station located on Anvers Island off the western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, operated by the US Antarctic Program.

The majority of the science research conducted at Palmer Station revolves around marine biology. The station also houses year-round monitoring equipment for global seismic, atmospheric, and UV-monitoring networks, as well as a site for the study of heliophysics.^[2] Palmer also hosts a radio receiver that studies lightning over the Western Hemisphere.

Other research is conducted from the research vessel (R/V) Laurence M. Gould. Science cruises cover physical oceanography, marine geology, and marine biology. The ship also carries field parties to sites around the Antarctic Peninsula to study glaciology, geology, and paleontology. Palmer Station also hosts an IRLP (Internet Radio Linking Project) Amateur Radio node #8838 for ham radio communications.”- Wiki

The operating area around Palmer Station includes several prominent islands, each classified under the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (Madrid Protocol). Examples include the minimally regulated Torgersen Island and the highly restricted Litchfield Island.

View map!

Kathleen Dean Moore on hope and integrity

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 17:50:00 -0700

It’s really a problem, this thing about hope. Cause it’s true…it’s true that our options are limited and that our cities are disgracefully designed when it comes to using fuel and that destructive ways of living are very skilfully linked to tangles of profit and power in the world and we don’t have very much time. Even the most conscientious person, the most hopeful person, is going to have trouble making significant change.

And Gus Speth, the former dean of Yale Law School, says, “All we have to do destroy the planet’s climate ecosystem and leave a ruined world for our children and grandchildren is to keep doing exactly what we are doing today.”

This is a problem. And here’s the problem - well, there’s lots of problems. The one I want to talk about in particular is this: that we are utilitarians. That is to say, we judge the rightness or wrongness of our acts by their consequences. When we think we cannot have good consequences to our acts, we completely abandon morality. So, we have a situation where on the one hand, you could be hopeful. But if you lose hope, you fall into this abyss which is despair, which is the abdication of moral responsibility.

What I want to point out to you is that that also is a fallacy - that’s a fallacy of false dichotomy. Because between hope and despair is this very broad landscape, and we call it integrity. Integrity. Acting in the way you believe in. Doing what’s right because you believe it’s right. Finding a way that your actions and your values integrate. And that’s, I think, what we’re called to do in these very dangerous times

…What does it mean for particulars?… We can choose to refuse to allow ourselves to allow ourselves to be used as instruments of destruction. I am not going to allow you to use me to wreck the world. I refuse to do what I don’t believe in.”

—Kathleen Dean Moore at SFU on our moral obligation to the future and to children to expend extraordinary effort reducing or reversing the harms of climate change.

"The other day I realized that “interactive” anything is the wrong word. Interactive makes you..."

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 19:01:37 -0700

“The other day I realized that “interactive” anything is the wrong word. Interactive makes you imagine people sitting with their hands on controls, some kind of gamelike thing. The right word is “unfinished.” Think of cultural products, or art works, or the people who use them even, as being unfinished. Permanently unfinished. We come from a cultural heritage that says things have a “nature,” and that this nature is fixed and describable. We find more and more that this idea is insupportable - the “nature” of something is not by any means singular, and depends on where and when you find it, and what you want it for.”

- Brian Eno (via austinkleon, via ajay)

This has to do with civic engagement, too, I think. Cities, towns, run in a way that’s interactive - that’s where the sense of something gamelike creeps in. What if cities were, on the other hand, unfinished without the public’s hand in shaping them?

See also: leaving a rough edge, and why squishy > slick.

The Harbour City

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:53:00 -0800

Students on Ice Antarctic Youth Expedition 2011, Day 3 part 1 December 28th, 2011, 5:20pm, on our Buenos Aires - Ushuaia flight

“Well, we’ve crossed into summer.”

That’s what my seatmate Arnold told me as we drifted out of sleep and into Buenos Aires, and the sunlight started to stream into the cabin as people around us lifted their window shutters. Today I have come farther South than I’ve ever travelled before. I’m in South America. Buenos Aires was a barrage on the senses. The baggage claim area opened into the exit, packed with people, and we snaked our carts piled with luggage out into the sun. The first thing I could smell was thick smoky air, and second, humidity on our skin.

I was torn between listening to our tour guide, Alicia, and looking out the window, but I found a balance staring out, observing the city, while listening to her voice in the bus - almost like an extra layer of history and richness, superimposed upon what I was seeing. Alicia had a lovely voice. it was careful but informal, leaving off the “g” in words like “being” and pronouncing the silent one in words like “high.” She told us how Buenos Aires had begun a humble, precarious city on the harbour of the Rio de la Plata (we flew over it, its width was unbelievable). There were no resources in the land to build a community, to create other jobs. It was a difficult time as the natives tried to fight for the land. Argentina is a mosaic now, its culture having been informed by many years of borrowed European traditions - many of its citizens are descendants of Italians or the Spanish. Buenos Aires was the last Spanish-founded city in all of South America.

Alicia told us that the city is home to a couple million people, with many more millions living in the outskirts of town. Argentines prefer not to drive so much, partly because they are notoriously naughty drivers - Alicia’s words, not mine. There are 40,00 taxis (they’re black, yellow and everywhere) and 10,000 local buses. Cyclists weave in and out of traffic and most Argentines walk, finding any of a hundred excuses to stop for coffee. Alicia said they can’t imagine not stopping and enjoying their meals. In the city, many of the buildings further back are residential, tall, thin and flat, with roofs shaped like Tetris puzzle pieces. Closer, on either side of the road, are the poorer areas of town. They looked like buildings constructed out of popsicle sticks and string, skeletons of the city.

Some of the more public buildings - the bank, the theatre - are ornate and formal. The early 20th century was a rich period for Argentinian architecture. We also visited La Recoleta Cemetery in the city, before heading off to a hotel to meet the American contingent and have our first proper expedition briefing.

Eva Perron’s grave (top) and stained glass (bottom) at La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, courtesy of Alisha Fredriksson

Trees line the squares - thick, leafy groves of them, and some palm trees. Surprisingly, none of those trees are native to Argentina; they’ve all been imported and planted. The only natural vegetation is the green grass. In my head, the reel turns back almost like an archive or microfilm of what it must have been like without those trees - a flat, sunny expanse of green and sky. The bottle trees are mossy green, and this is because they store vast amounts of water and eventually assume the shape of bottles - sometimes they’re called drunk trees.

Alicia said the Argentine people are fairly easy going, but as a young country having known economic hardship, it’s still finding its place. At the beginning, when we had just entered Buenos Aires, I was struck by all the graffiti, words I couldn’t understand, painted on the cement walls lining the highways. What caught my eye was that a couple minutes later I saw someone painting in this very same style under a bridge, slapping bright yellow paint on top of the grey. Was he painting his way across the city? Alicia explained later that the people were finding their voice and sometimes used graffiti as a way to express their message - it isn’t regarded as vandalism as it might be in our cities.

From my journal entry for the expedition website the morning of December 29th, at our hotel in Ushuaia:

She was talking about how it’s easy to live in Buenos Aires, as if the city itself smooths the path. An 80-year-old could go back to university now and start a new career. She said, “Perhaps that’s the magic of the city. It allows everyone to find a way.” Later, as we were pulling away from Hotel Las Americanas in downtown Buenos Aires where we had our first expedition briefing, she said that when Argentines are travelling to other places, they often tell each other to keep their mind in the place they are - “Keep your stories where your feet are touching the earth,” they say. Don’t let your mind wander anywhere else. We are part of the places where we find ourselves. Alicia was talking about the history of the city as we drove along the 9th of July avenue from the airport to the hotel, near the end of our visit, and she told us, “You’re part of its history now.”

State of the X: TEDxTalks in January

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:57:44 -0800

tedx:

TEDx events by the numbers: January

77 TEDx events happened around the world

67 cities hosted one or more TEDx events

29 countries hosted one or more TEDx events

TEDx by the numbers: All time

3190 TEDx events have happened around the world

800 cities around the world have hosted one or more TEDx event

126 countries have hosted one or more TEDx events —

And, as of January 5th, 2012 - 7 continents have hosted TEDx events!

Dusk Journey

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:20:00 -0800

Students on Ice Antarctic Youth Expedition 2011, Day 1

The first leg of our journey begun as we took off from a YVR runway and headed East into the sky.

Here the clouds stretched endlessly beneath us, white-tipped Rockies sometimes poking through at the beginning of the flight. The two other girls on my flight and I were split up, so I was catching up on the pre-trip reading material in the packages given to us by Students on Ice. Well, that, and daydreaming about where I was headed.

As we flew towards the night, we could see ghosts of cities on the surface of the Earth, shining spider webs of light. I had just finished reading a journal entry of Dan Hill’s called Of brains and cities; neuroscience and and cultures of decision-making, and I couldn’t help but notice how the lights looked like electrical synapses and neurons (or at least how I imagine them…), some kind of massive nervous system spanning miles and miles. A dozen blurry pictures later, here’s a good one of Toronto:

This is part of my journal entry for the Students on Ice blog about that night, written the morning after from a conference room at our Toronto hotel:

Vancouver disappeared really quickly yesterday under cloud cover and the sky turned to purple dusk while we were somewhere over the Prairies. We flew in over the Toronto city lights and Alisha, Kelly and I regrouped at the gate, claimed our bags and met Lacia who was waiting for us with a Students on Ice sign. Then it was off to the hotel where we met Tim from Students on Ice and grabbed a bite to eat before heading off to bed. That quiet near-midnight conversation with Tim, Lacia and the girls over the dinner table was the best part of the night – a hint of what’s to come over the next two weeks. At first we started off talking about where we come from – A, K and I from BC, Lacia from the East Coast but living in Yukon, and Tim’s lived all over, but is now in Ottawa – and what’s to come on this adventure. Then somehow the conversation turned to what we might want to do as we get older, and those personality-type tests most students take at some point in high school. Across the table we agreed we didn’t find them particularly valuable in terms of pointing you in a specific direction, but the conversations they sparked were interesting. (How do people with different planning processes work together towards an end goal? What does it actually mean to be introverted or extroverted and how do you create an environment where both can thrive?) This was the first of what I’m sure will be many more perfect moments. —

That night those of us from the West Coast didn’t sleep at all - whether because of the time difference or excitement, I’m not entirely sure!

The third picture is of Amundsen’s team, the first explorers to reach the South Pole....

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:21:43 -0800

The third picture is of Amundsen’s team, the first explorers to reach the South Pole. I love this picture because I don’t feel like there’s any sense of victory in it, no pride at having conquered one of the last great frontiers. It’s almost a scene of humility. I like the idea that these explorers, the first men to set foot and flag on the South Pole, were touched by the same awe that touched us in Antarctica.

136degrees: January 25th Ice Edge Photo

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:39:49 -0800

136degrees:

January 25th Ice Edge Photo

Atop the Koerner icecap among the Wauwermann Islands, we had a...

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:16:00 -0800

Atop the Koerner icecap among the Wauwermann Islands, we had a chance to carry on the legacy of the late glaciologist Dr. Fritz Koerner and maintain a weather station, as well as dig a snow pit to take snow density measurements.

Yosemite. I imagine Yosemite has some of those scenes intense...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:55:46 -0800

Yosemite.

I imagine Yosemite has some of those scenes intense natural beauty that fill you up with awe and happiness and smallness and wonder - we had many of those in Antarctica.

twenty1stcenturygirl: Photos taken by Morgan Clark Antartica...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:30:00 -0800

twenty1stcenturygirl:

Photos taken by Morgan Clark

Antartica 2011-2012

Most of an iceberg is hidden below the surface. The colour of the submerged parts of icebergs as seen from the surface was magical. Thanks Morgan! Miss you!

Deception on Flickr. Deception Island. We were here two weeks...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:00:00 -0800

Deception on Flickr.

Deception Island. We were here two weeks ago today.

A few trip photos. Next week I’ll start posting writing on...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:30:00 -0800

A few trip photos. Next week I’ll start posting writing on here along with lots more photos and drawings and journal pages. If you haven’t yet, check out the expedition website at studentsonice.com/antarctic2011 for pictures, videos and some of my journal entries - teasers of what’s to come. My Moleskine is bursting with memories and ideas.

HOME!

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:16:00 -0800

Antarctica is surreal, the expedition was so powerful, and I feel incredibly blessed and lucky to have shared it all with a group of beautiful and inspiring people. First order of business: sleep!

Day 1: Vancouver-Toronto

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:00:00 -0800

We flew in over the city lights, had dinner and went to bed. This morning: breakfast at the hotel, group activities, getting suited up with gear from Canada Goose. We’ll board an afternoon flight to Miami and an overnight flight to Buenos Aires from there!

T minus a few hours

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 10:12:00 -0800

I’m leaving for the airport in a bit. From then on I may or may not have any opportunity to check in on tumblr or Twitter but I will definitely be contributing to the official expedition blog. Follow our journey there, at http://www.studentsonice.com/antarctic2011/daily.html.

I am so excited that the trip is starting - it came so quickly. The challenge will be to experience it fully so it doesn’t pass by so fast, although I know it will, so I’ll settle for making lots of good memories, taking many pictures and capturing as much as I can in my journal. What are you supposed to say before starting something that you know is going to be life-changing?

It’s been one incredible year, and I could not ask for a more amazing way to round the bend and kick off 2012 than to do it in Antarctica. Before I leave, I owe many thanks to many people: thank you Mom and Dad and Raiya. Thank you Kima - you are an amazing mentor and I’m so grateful for your support, technical know-how and brainstorms. Thank you Mrs. O’Neill and my teachers - you are wonderful. Thank you to all my friends: my school and Encounters With Canada and Symposium and TEDxKids@BC families - so much love to you guys. Thanks in advance to Students on Ice, for prepping me so well and for the amazing adventure to come. Thank you Roslyn Burn for this incredible opportunity. Thank you all so, so much for your support. I’m so grateful for all the love, help, encouragement and guidance I’ve received, and I couldn’t be doing any of this without you.

Happy holidays and wishing you a wonderful break and fantastic beginning to the New Year! To my Vancouver friends, I’ll see you in a couple weeks. To the others - I’ll get in touch when I get back!

Antarctica, I’m coming.

One small thought and one long ramble

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:10:00 -0800

In the wake of all this trip madness, a few people have asked me if I want to pursue environmental studies after I graduate.

Well, no, but yes - kind of. No because I don’t know what I want to do yet. There’s so much out there and I’m interested in so many things. As much as I care about the environment, I’m not sure if I will want to study environmental science specifically. But at the same time, yes - kind of, because I think that while we obviously need people who study the Earth’s reaction to our actions and who suggest ways of reversing the damage, this sort of consideration - of our impact on the planet - shouldn’t be restricted to people who study the environment for a living. Isn’t it at the heart of the idea of sustainability that people across many fields rethink their environmental impact? Aren’t those of us part of this movement trying to build better systems and encourage widespread change?

I don’t know if I want to pursue environmental studies, but no matter what I do, I’ll do my best to approach it through the lens of sustainability.

***

Ramble

Aside from the fact that I have actually been asked that question, this post was also inspired by the architect Jeanne Gang, who’s been an inspiration of mine lately. Her designs are wonderful from an environmental perspective: they interact with elements like rain and wind rather than fight it. They make use of resources, but don’t exploit them. She talks about filtering rain runoff through to soil and plants so it replenishes water tables instead of letting it drain into the sewers - it’s not biomimicry, it’s more like she’s inserting her designs into already-existing natural processes in a way that doesn’t cause any negative impact. Not only that, her design reduces city’s impact - it’s fixing something broken.

Cities make ecological sense because we can best conserve resources in dense urban cores. These are ecosystems, and with some creativity, we can make them work much better.

-Jeanne Gang, A Big Fish in Many Ponds

And her architecture doesn’t detract from the beauty of the city where they’re built, they help people to understand it better. This in turn reminds me of an article by Craig Mod, Seeing Prime, which is a really nice reflection on seeing under the guise of a camera lens review. In it, Mod describes how photography - placing a layer between oneself and the subject - helps us understand the world better:

Curious, that. To get closer we have to stick a bunch of glass and metal and plastic between us and the world. But it works. …Thoughtfully adding layers to minimize or change our relationship with distance.

And he points to James Turrell, whose architecture reunites us with the sky and the stars by separating us from them with material. So we come full circle. Lots of food for thought about the built environment and the natural environment and the interactions between the two.