Posts tagged ‘2009’

On a rainy afternoon in 1995, during one of my regular runs from Shadyside, up and over to Squirrel Hill (in Pittsburgh) I stopped to scribble down a few things I felt were characteristics of that time. You know, subjective, pretentious drivel. Later that evening I typed it up and put it on a personal web page now long gone.

So for whatever reason I was thinking about that stuff recently and spent some time digging around the web. Unsurprisingly no luck, and no Wayback luv either although I’m sure there is a paper copy boxed away somewhere.

Anyway, it seems like it’s time for another ’snapshot’, this time scribbled out on a somewhat higher ‘hill’ in the Sierras and posted on a somewhat more memorious Internet. So, here’s the 2009 version:

Avoidance is still possible.

Intent is still private.

Items can still be lost.

Earth is still a nurturing home to humans.

Experience is still linear.

Thought is still singular.

Ignorance is still considered an adaptive strategy.

Altruism is as rare as diamonds, that is to say, artificially so.

People are accustomed to gaps between bureaucratic edict and enforcement.

Authoritarian cults still rule the world and confine the spirit.

We often regard time as an entity, akin to the aether of the 19th century.

Technology is still considered to be different from biology,
and biology is still considered to be a prerequisite for mind.

The songs of plants are not yet visible to all.

Most animals are not human-engineered.

We rely on a lot of inanimate objects.

We are close enough to the unrecorded Lost Past to not notice the closing of that epoch.

We still have to explain ourselves.

Novelty is still seen as a characteristic of human thought.

The 1995 version rambled on for a couple of pages, but I live a more terse life these days so I’ll stop now ;-()

Posted on April 11, 2009 at 8:42 pm under life.
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