Driving is good therapy, it always has been. If I were an over-the-road trucker it might not seem so but then I am not a trucker. With my tiny teardrop camper in tow and the pickup configured for a month long adventure it took eight days (3,500 miles) to end up back in my driveway. Two days of high winds and below freezing nights in the high desert were made worse by a generator that would not gen. With no suitable options I opted for three more days of Interstate Therapy (driving home). I don’t want to labor over the weather but I suspect something about being both old and cold with nothing to take the edge off of either.
I usually write while on the road but this time it was long hours behind the wheel and little else. So getting back into (Journal) mode will keep me busy today. On January 6, I posted a piece that would be Part 1, It Doesn’t Have To Be True. It addresses the Human Condition, just a glimpse of a much bigger picture but I’m not well organized enough to frame the larger one. Imagine, a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces are short written works. Each one may stand on its own legs or require the support of adjacent pieces. But all together there is a story there. I think this effort is like so much of what I do; it doesn’t need to be read necessarily but it does need to be written. An appropriate title for the whole story would be, ‘Big Picture’.
When asked about his writing process Leonard Cohen alluded to a conversation he had with Bob Dylan. Cohen asked how long it took for Dylan to write a particular hit song. The reply was quick, “About fifteen minutes" he said, "in a the back of a taxicab.” Then Dylan returned the compliment asking how long it had taken for Cohen to write his classic, Hallelujah. After a short pause he replied, “Eight years.” I get it. It can take a very long time and ever so many rewrites.
Big Picture Part 2 - Evolution. Here is a great example of Harari’s observation; It doesn’t have to be true, it just has to work. Our culture tends to frame everything in terms that fit neatly into a human lifetime or better yet, the time it took to grow up, (a blink in evolutionary time). This is true for both individuals and for the culture at large. In isolation polygamy can work for some individuals but in the greater community it does not. It tells me that individual behaviors and group dynamics are very different animals but there is an unspoken sense that people are people are people, by the pound or by the masses. The ancient Greeks figured it out 2,500 years ago. “The truth is whatever we agree upon.” Believing makes it so.
From an evolutionary stand point there is only one concern with changing environment, genetic or behavioral adaptations. Everything else is a distraction. That one thing would be, does the adaptation favor (proved some reproductive advantage for individuals that have the adaptation)? After all, it will be their DNA that survives and is passed on to sustain the species. Individuals without the good gene will ultimately be culled out of the breeding population by simple mathematics.
We do not adapt in order to meet a need. We discover what we already have that makes us different. If that becomes an advantage in the reproduction game, we reap the benefit. Those who had been the best suited as breeders (before the the environment changed and the better gene came to fore) lose that advantage and may over several (many) generations disappear altogether. An example might by a slight difference in how well water is stored in tissue during dry climate change. Most students do just enough to make the grade they want and this kind of environmental overview doesn’t mate very well with test questions. Who besides me and the few others like me who keep coming back to the thorny questions, who cares?
Myth is still a driver in human culture. It provides a plausible explanation when imagination is all we have to draw from. We believe in stories that make us feel good in the moment, not wanting to hear the caveat. It satisfies in the moment and that is our truth. I am old already and I don’t have much to lose. But our descendants from the future will suffer the consequence of our narrow and near sighted nature. Evolution does not have a plan. It only takes the cards it gets and plays them all. In that scenario the real game is not about the high cards in the deal but what has survived the discarded. Sometimes three kings lose and other times all it takes to win are two tens.
I usually write while on the road but this time it was long hours behind the wheel and little else. So getting back into (Journal) mode will keep me busy today. On January 6, I posted a piece that would be Part 1, It Doesn’t Have To Be True. It addresses the Human Condition, just a glimpse of a much bigger picture but I’m not well organized enough to frame the larger one. Imagine, a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces are short written works. Each one may stand on its own legs or require the support of adjacent pieces. But all together there is a story there. I think this effort is like so much of what I do; it doesn’t need to be read necessarily but it does need to be written. An appropriate title for the whole story would be, ‘Big Picture’.
When asked about his writing process Leonard Cohen alluded to a conversation he had with Bob Dylan. Cohen asked how long it took for Dylan to write a particular hit song. The reply was quick, “About fifteen minutes" he said, "in a the back of a taxicab.” Then Dylan returned the compliment asking how long it had taken for Cohen to write his classic, Hallelujah. After a short pause he replied, “Eight years.” I get it. It can take a very long time and ever so many rewrites.
Big Picture Part 2 - Evolution. Here is a great example of Harari’s observation; It doesn’t have to be true, it just has to work. Our culture tends to frame everything in terms that fit neatly into a human lifetime or better yet, the time it took to grow up, (a blink in evolutionary time). This is true for both individuals and for the culture at large. In isolation polygamy can work for some individuals but in the greater community it does not. It tells me that individual behaviors and group dynamics are very different animals but there is an unspoken sense that people are people are people, by the pound or by the masses. The ancient Greeks figured it out 2,500 years ago. “The truth is whatever we agree upon.” Believing makes it so.
From an evolutionary stand point there is only one concern with changing environment, genetic or behavioral adaptations. Everything else is a distraction. That one thing would be, does the adaptation favor (proved some reproductive advantage for individuals that have the adaptation)? After all, it will be their DNA that survives and is passed on to sustain the species. Individuals without the good gene will ultimately be culled out of the breeding population by simple mathematics.
We do not adapt in order to meet a need. We discover what we already have that makes us different. If that becomes an advantage in the reproduction game, we reap the benefit. Those who had been the best suited as breeders (before the the environment changed and the better gene came to fore) lose that advantage and may over several (many) generations disappear altogether. An example might by a slight difference in how well water is stored in tissue during dry climate change. Most students do just enough to make the grade they want and this kind of environmental overview doesn’t mate very well with test questions. Who besides me and the few others like me who keep coming back to the thorny questions, who cares?
Myth is still a driver in human culture. It provides a plausible explanation when imagination is all we have to draw from. We believe in stories that make us feel good in the moment, not wanting to hear the caveat. It satisfies in the moment and that is our truth. I am old already and I don’t have much to lose. But our descendants from the future will suffer the consequence of our narrow and near sighted nature. Evolution does not have a plan. It only takes the cards it gets and plays them all. In that scenario the real game is not about the high cards in the deal but what has survived the discarded. Sometimes three kings lose and other times all it takes to win are two tens.
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