As little as I post, the blog weighs heavily on my heart from day to day. I think often of the posts that I should and could be writing, but the last three years have found me incapable of seeing the process through to the end on a consistent basis. I have this overwhelming sense of potential for this place, reinforced by a nagging awareness of how cathartic writing actually always ends up being for me. I'm easily discouraged, however, and if I don't find myself spewing forth beautiful imagery with every keystroke, I wander away to other corners of the Internet that promise more immediate satisfaction. I'll leave a tab open with the two or three half-fulfilled paragraphs just waiting to be injected with life, and every time I sit down I am forced to conjure a new reason why I can't complete the entry. At this point, I feel with certainty that I would benefit greatly from lowering the bar for what's worth publishing. I have been awkwardly using social networks to do what this blog is much better equipped to do. Shorter posts will go a long way by placing less pressure on each individual entry. But enough melancholy.

At a friend's recommendation, I read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn (wiki). It's a philosophical text written in the form of the Socratic method. As it happens, the last book I read was also written in this format, so I guess I have an affinity for the style. Halfway through the book I began to realize that the author was genuinely crazy, which was a shame given how valuable a lot of his insight had been up to that point. Still, I enjoyed his perspective on culture and mythology.

Quinn's idea begins pretty simply. If we were to go back to the age when jellyfish were the most advanced organisms on the planet, and we asked them to tell their creation story, the jellyfish would say that the pinnacle of creation is the jellyfish. They would describe the earth as being made for jellyfish. Quinn then goes on to examine the words we humans use when describing our origins "then there were marsupials, then mammals, then came primates, and then, man!". It ends at humanity - not just because we can't see into the future, but because, by and large, modern culture sees man as the end product of the evolutionary process. In reality, the forces that brought us into existence are still acting, and will continue to do so long after humanity goes extinct. He uses to then describe various ways in which modern culture is violating the basic rules of sustainable engagement with the community of life. What's really interesting, however, is his integration of the Genesis story into his analysis.

While in England, one of my big turning points was reading a commentary on the book of Genesis. I'd started reading it because a new student had showed up that was very passionately resistant to evolution, and I found my lack of genuine understanding about Genesis to be inhibiting my ability to engage with her (she interpreted the Bible quite literally). I wish I could remember who the author was, but it was positively brilliant, and it was the first time I'd been exposed to the idea that Cain and Abel could be a metaphor for the conflict between farmers and nomads. Quinn takes it a step further and retells the entire story of the Garden of Eden as being a metaphor for the agricultural revolution. It's surprisingly apt. The agricultural revolution is wholly responsible for the development of technology and collaboration, and marked a significant change in lifestyle for Homo sapiens. Compared to the absurdly difficult work of farming, nomads led relatively leisurely lives. The agricultural societies were waging war on the nomadic cultures for land, and so the story the nomads passed down to their children emphasized the folly of the farmers - giving up an easy life in an attempt to take more control over their own fate. Not knowing what agriculture would eventually give rise to, early farmers really must have seemed like the worst kind of assholes.

Of course, every word Quinn writes thereafter is a snoozefest of complaints about the evils of modern society. I should have known, really, as from the first chapter he claims to have the answer to today's problems. That's always a dead giveaway that the author might be a douche. Now it's time to move on; I started on Walden, but I think I may shift gears to fiction and dive into Game of Thrones.

On the documentary end of things, I finished Ken Burn's series on the Civil War. If you've got Netflix (and 15 hours), it's a mighty fine documentary, even if it seemed to revel in its dryness at times. I've now started on a series by Ric Burns (younger brother of Ken Burns) following the development of New York City, from 1600 to the present day. I don't really have any particular interest in NYC above any other major city, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for good information presented well.

Hey, look at that. A finished post.