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Not-Separateness

24 Tuesday Aug 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

beauty, Design, ecology, GreenNewDeal, HCI, IBM, peace, TNOO, UI, usability, UX

Not-Separateness

It seems odd to specify a property of natural order in terms of what it is not. On the other hand, I cannot come up with a positive alternative that doesn’t bring other connotations with it. I think it’s related to “unified” or “integral” or “belonging” or “inter-related” but none of those seem quite so on the mark as does “Not-Separateness.” 

Christopher Alexander’s degree from MIT was in architecture. Part of the reason he may have chosen this particular term is in reaction to some examples of architecture in which the architect seems to be in the business of constructing a building whose primary purpose is to make them famous regardless of what that building does to the neighborhood or the occupants. 

Photo by BROTE studio on Pexels.com

Imagine Mr. Bigg designs a house that is a perfect black cube set on on vertex. In effect, this design says to me: “I am BIG. I am Mr. Bigg! I am a genius! You would have never been brilliant enough to design a house that is a cube on its vertex! You would have wasted your time and done something mundane like placed the cube on the ground on one of its faces. Anyone could think of that! But I put it on a vertex!” Indeed, we may easily imagine that he says words to this effect when his interview is reported on in the (mythical) architectural journal, Things that look different! 

“Mr. Bigg, you made the Bigg House out of black steel and black glass. Some critics have argued that this doesn’t fit with the existing neighborhood of stone cottages with thatched roofs.”

“Of course, little minds will always criticize Bigg ideas.” 

“Yes, yes. It also means that the construction costs of the house were quite high. And, the estimated costs of heating and cooling are much higher as well.”

“Nothing that a worthwhile (i.e., wealthy) client can’t afford.” 

“Some have also argued that it is inconvenient for the occupants who have to walk up and down at a steep angle and that furniture such as dressers, tables, chairs, and beds do not accommodate well to the tilted walls.” 

“Let me ask you aquestion. Would you have ever thought of putting a cube on its corner? No. I didn’t think so!” 

Of course, this is exaggeration. But not much. 

We would hope that User Experience designers take into account the users, their tasks, their contexts, and the way in which their designs interact with other related artifacts, people and processes. We would hope that applications and artifacts and services are all designed with the property of “Not-Separateness.” 

In the early 1980’s, I worked in the IBM Office of the Chief Scientist. My main assignment was to get IBM to pay more attention to the usability of its products. As part of that process, I visited quite a few IBM development labs around the world and spoke to many development teams. On many of these visits, I was accompanied by the Chief Scientist, a brilliant physicist, who “got” usability. 

On one occasion, we watched a new printing technology. Instead of printing out black printing on a white sheet of paper sized 8.5” x 11” or A4, this printout was of no standard size. The printing was black on a shiny silver sheet that curled severely. The Chief Scientist asked the head of the development team how they envisioned this being used. 

Chief Scientist: “Once someone printed this out, what would they do with it?”

Answer: “Oh, anything they liked.” 

Chief Scientist: “I mean, would people tape this into a notebook or paste it? Or would you imagine notebooks that would bind such paper?” 

Answer: “It’s not up to me to decide how people would use it. Doesn’t it look cool?” 

Another type of answer we heard more than once to the question, “How would this be used?” 

— “Oh, it’s a (replacement/upgrade) for this other IBM product.” 


“But who would use it and for what?” 


“It has three main components. Would you like a description of the components?” 

Photo by Andru00e9 Ulyssesdesalis on Pexels.com

Of course, there is a place for “playing around” with technology and thereby discovering things which someone else may find a use for. But in design and development of a product or service, having a clear notion of context of use and the users and tasks is fundamental. Of course, other users may appropriate a product or service for purposes beyond those envisioned by the original designers. That’s cool. 

What’s not cool is designing a device that is to be used in the bright outdoor sunlight and then testing the display in a typical office environment. Have you ever run across something like that? I have.

A more subtle lack of contextualization in design occurs when the design team fails to realize how many interruptions happen to the user while they are trying to accomplish a single task with the new application. If you “test” the application while the user is in a quiet “usability lab” and can give your tasks their undivided attention, then necessitating them to remember the invisible internal state of “Insert” versus “Edit” mode may not be a big deal at all. They will simply remember. But in their office environment, they may be interrupted by a phone call, a message, or their boss entering their office and asking a series of detailed questions. If they now go back to the task at hand, there is about a 50-50 chance that they will correctly guess whether they are in “Edit” mode or “Insert” mode. 

A design which shows the property of Not-Separateness is the natural result of a process which shows not-separateness. Here are a few common ways to help ensure the design process grows organically from the users and their goals & contexts. 

* Put people on the design team who are familiar with the users, and/or their tasks, and/or their contexts. 


* People on the design team observe people engaging in the relevant processes, whenever possible, not — or not only — in a “Usability Lab” but in the actual work environment. 

  • Jointly develop a product or service with the group who will use the product or service. 
  • Observe people actually using product P (or service S), version N so that version N+1 will be better attuned to the needs of the users. 
  • Gather and understand feedback from service calls and help desks and customer complaints in order to improve over time. 

There will be benefits to a company who takes such approaches beyond initial sales. If you’ve done any gardening, you will appreciate that the quality of the tomatoes you enjoy eating is related to the quality of the soil and the quality of the care you give the tomatoes. Similarly, a product or service that has the quality of Not-Separateness will not only be useful — users will fight to keep your product or service. It becomes integrated with the environment. To change the brand means that they will have to change the way they work; possibly even with whom they work. Not-Separateness is likely a path to what business people like to call a “Cash Cow.” 

If you’ve ever walked through a neighborhood after a hurricane, you’ve likely seen many uprooted trees. When you look at the roots of an uprooted tree, what do you see? Of course, you see roots. But what else? You see rocks and soil all around and embedded into the roots. They are Not-Separate. In a hurricane, there are typically not only high winds. There is also a lot of rain. The trees are hit with a double whammy. The wind pushes the tree but the rain weakens the solid soil in which the tree is embedded. It is the combination that makes it very difficult for the tree to “hold on” and keep from falling over. 

Living things, just like us, have a 4.5 billion year history of living. The living things adapt over time to their environment and they mold the environment to their needs. They are not separate. Flowers appeal to the insects who pollinate them. The insects who pollinate them are adapted to the characteristics of the flower. A horse adapts to their rider and the rider adapts to their horse. A product or service must have a design that serves the needs of its stakeholders. For a product or service to have maximum beauty, utility, and longevity, it must also have a way to adapt to the changing needs of the users and other stakeholders. At the same time, if the users and their organizations adapt to the product or service, then true Not-Separateness is achieved. 

If you want to skimp on designing your product or service, you can make it more separate, more divorced from its context, its users, and its tasks. Of course, if you do that, you also make much easier for your users to abandon your product and switch to a new one. 

Another way to think about this in terms of systems theory is where you draw the boundary. If you draw a sharp boundary around your product, you may find that, over time, your product becomes ever more peripheral to the community you’re trying to support and your product is ever more fungible with others in its class. On the other hand, if you draw the boundary around the product or service and the people and organizations who provide the product or service then, you are on the path of ever tighter interconnect. 

Not-Separateness is not only a quality of good design in terms of not overly separating the context and users from the product or service. It is also a good quality for the organization that produces products & services. Of course, some people today must manage a giant amorphous “organization” of tens of thousands of people so they set up divisions, and departments, and groups, and teams, and positions etc. There may indeed be a “UX Department” and a “Software Department” and a “Hardware Department.” That’s all fine. But it is counter-productive if the UX Department sees itself as separate from the rest of the company. To a great extent the success of the UX Department depends on the success of the Hardware and Software Departments. The Sales Department’s success will, of course, depend partly on the skills of the Sales Department. But it will also depend on the success of the UX Department, HW, SW and Services. 

Have you ever had a paper cut? It isn’t just the skin on a quarter inch of the inside of your ring finger that’s cut. You’re cut! It isn’t just that the finger feels pain. You feel pain! That causes you to take steps to ameliorate the pain and to try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That’s why empathy in leadership is important. A leader must feel empathy for all, or the organization will disintegrate from lack of Not-Separateness. At some point, a raccoon may chew off its own arm in order to escape a trap. 

But it isn’t the first thing that occurs to them every time they experience a thorn in the paw! 

The raccoon doesn’t say to itself:  — “that paw is giving me pain! I’m going to chew it off! Then, it won’t hurt any more.”

Photo by anne sch on Pexels.com

Evolution did not evolve a raccoon that acts that way. Self-mutilation exists but it is typically a last resort.

But not for corporations. It is the first thing they think of:

“Our (you name it) Department is not performing well. Let’s lay them off and outsource it.”

What does that say to every thinking employee in the entire corporation? It says:

“You know what? All this talk about teamwork and pulling together is a total bunch of bull$hit. You cannot trust management to do what’s best for everyone. You can only trust them to do what’s best for them.” 

Living forms in nature are living forms. Their parts have severe Not-Separateness with the other parts of that form. Often, as in well-functioning families or teams, that extends to all members of the group. 

Not-Separateness is essentially deep cooperation. I give to the larger community by becoming a part of it and doing my part in it. I lend strength to the community. In return, I gain strength from that community. It is not a zero sum game, of course. The community, if it is functional, is much stronger than the sum of the individuals in that community. 

This is so deeply embedded in 4.5 billion years of evolution that it does not surprise me that we recognize beauty as being even more beautiful if it is not separate. Not-Separate enhances beauty because, like all the other properties, it is essential to life. 

Eventually, if humanity is to survive, we will realize that Not-Separateness applies to all of us. We are not there yet. But that doesn’t mean we cannot appreciate and design Not Separateness in our products, in our services, and our lives. 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

—————-

The Declaration of Interdependence

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Roar, Ocean, Roar

Imagine all the people

Ripples

Author Page on Amazon

Thomas, J.C. and Kellogg, W.A. (1989). Minimizing ecological gaps in interface design, IEEE Software, January 1989.

Thomas, J. C. (2012).   Patterns for emergent global intelligence.   In Creativity and Rationale: Enhancing Human Experience By Design J. Carroll (Ed.), New York: Springer.

Thomas, J. C. (2001). An HCI Agenda for the Next Millennium: Emergent Global Intelligence. In R. Earnshaw, R. Guedj, A. van Dam, and J. Vince (Eds.), Frontiers of human-centered computing, online communities, and virtual environments. London: Springer-Verlag.

Thomas, J.C. (1985). Human factors in IBM. IBM Research Report. RC-11267.  Yorktown Heights, NY: IBM Corporation.

The Anti-Bystander Effect

06 Sunday Jun 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

activism, bystander, collective, dance, ecology, GreenNewDeal, leadership, psychology

You may or may not have heard of the so-called “bystander effect.” It refers to the observation that, in some circumstances, any particular person is less likely to help someone else when there are many others who could help. It’s also of some interest that most people believe that they will make their own decision independently of what others do. 

In some ways, the feeling that, after all, you are only one person, and so what you do cannot possibly impact climate change much, might be a close cousin. It’s true that if everything else in the world stays the same and you stop driving your car 10 miles to work every day and instead decide to ride your bike, it won’t have a huge impact on global climate change, but it will have some. Your actions may not save a million lives, but they could save one. 

More importantly, why did your mind skip right by that premise I snuck in there? “If everything else in the world stays the same…” Why would it stay the same? When you think about it, it’s fairly well impossible that everything else would stay the same. For one thing, you would be fitter because of riding the bike. For another thing, you’d likely be in a better mood. People at work would notice that you’re riding a bike and you would end up in conversations about it. These conversations could lead to others. You’d be having people wonder why you did that. Some of them might try too. 

Those are just a few of the predictable consequences. Of course, you’d be impacting the world differently all the time. There’s no way to predict all the “Butterfly Effects” you’d be causing without your knowledge. In general, however, if your actions are kinder to the ecosystem, the ecosystem will be nicer to you. 

When I was transitioning from 4th to 5th grade, our family moved to an area of new development and our little neighborhood was surrounded by acres of woods and fields. In the woods immediately behind our house, mayapples blanketed the rich forest floor beneath the tall canopy of oaks, ashes, and cherry trees, all overhung by wild grape vines. I loved the forest! But as an eleven-year old, it also seemed that my friend Wilbur and I would be required to destroy our “enemies” (i.e., the Mayapples) with our wooden “swords” (i.e., broken branches with the bark stripped off). And destroy them we did. 

The next year, the mayapples were “replaced” with thorn bushes — mainly blackberry and black raspberry but there were some wild roses and cat briers in the mix. Coincidence? Perhaps. We continued to fight these hardier “enemy warriors” and every year, unlike the mayapples, they kept coming back for more, though these berry bushes never bore any fruit. 

Consider “The Golden Rule” — “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You.” It’s the right thing to do. But it’s also a very practical thing to do. If you are nice to people, then by and large, they are more likely to be nice back to you. Why wouldn’t it be the same with other species on the whole? I’m not suggesting that it’s true in every case. No matter how nice you are to the mosquitoes that bite you, they are unlikely to throw a party for you even if you let them suck you dry!

I’m happy to say that I soon outgrew that pre-teen phase of cutting down vegetation for the sheer “joy” of it. So, I don’t have many stories that illustrate how being intentionally unkind to nature came back to bite me.  

However, I do know that when it comes to honeybees, if one of them stings you, crushing the offender could well get you in worse trouble as could flailing about swatting at them. Decades after the mayapple episode described above, I went on a hike on “Turkey Mountain” with my son-in-law and some of my grandchildren when one of the boys stepped in a bee’s nest. I was holding my grand-daughter and didn’t have the option of trying to run or trying to flail at them. I just stood still. I didn’t get stung nor did my grand-daughter. But everyone else who was swatting at the bees, did get stung. 

In general, it makes sense to me that if you are kind to nature, you will generally experience more pleasure yourself. Since humans are social animals, your kindness to nature will typically not go unnoticed by others. Though there might be some few perverse folks who will do the opposite of what you do, most will follow your lead. Humans are social animals. Except for pre-teen boys and a few spoiled sociopaths, most people are predisposed to be nice to other forms of life. Life competes with other Life. But Life also collaborates and cooperates with Life. Big time. And, one of the many examples is that people collaborate and cooperate. That is the natural tendency and they must be manipulated to instead be needlessly belligerent. A more natural stance is to see what others are doing that has a good result and join in. 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

For example,

For several years, my wife & I attended the Newport Folk Festival. Like most people, I love music, but I especially love outdoor concerts because I can dance to the music. Most of our ferryboat trips to Fort Adams State Park were accompanied by spectacular summer sunshine. Hot sunny weather meant a great time to dance to the music and occasionally take a short dip in the water to cool off. 

One summer day, however, our lucky streak of sunny weather came to an end. Everyone at the festival, including our little group, huddled and shivered under their umbrellas and leaky raincoats. You think a raincoat is pretty effective at keeping the water out. But that’s because you’re judging its effectiveness on not getting wet when you walk from your home to your car and your car to your workplace or the drug store. Under those circumstances, they work well. But when you sit for hours in a downpour, you’ll get wet, raincoat or no raincoat. 

So, after about an hour and a half, the thought came into my head: “Hey! I came here to dance. I’m soaking wet anyway. I’m going to dance!” I stripped off to my bathing trunks and do what I came there to do: dance. Why let the rain stop me? 

I enjoyed myself. After about a half hour, a few others began to dance. Performers on the stage commented favorably on the spirit of the dancers. More joined us. Within a few hours, hundreds of people had joined in the joy. At some point, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see a microphone in my face and a large TV camera. At that time, I had the exulted title of “Executive Director” so my first thought was to wonder whether my management chain would see this interview with me in my bathing trunks, and if so, what they would think of it. In moments like that, it seems to me, the best thing to do is simply continue to embrace the moment. So, I simply told the truth about what I was doing and why; that I came to dance and I was enjoying it; that there was no point *wishing* it wasn’t pouring down rain, and that instead, it was more enjoyable to embrace the rain and make it part of the dance along with the music. 

If scores of people pile on to crazy and easily disprovable conspiracy theories, wouldn’t many more people pile on to something that is positive and joyous and life-affirming? 

If you make some small change that is pro-planet, wouldn’t that tend to induce others to do the same? And, if they did, wouldn’t that tend to induce still others to do the same?

You may or may not be on the nightly news and induce still more people to change their attitude or behavior, but you’ll certainly have a positive influence on those in your immediate vicinity.

If denial of reality can spread like a pandemic, why not small life-affirming changes in the behavior of your fellow human beings? 

——————————————-

Life is a Dance

Come Join the Dance

Imagine All the People

You Must Remember This

You Gave Me No Fangs

Screaming Out a Warning 

Ah Wilderness

Roar Ocean Roar

The Tree of Life

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Listen You Can Hear the Echoes of Your Actions

Author Page on Amazon

Psychology of Change: Growth, Decay, and Chrysalis.

31 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

awarenewss, change, GreenNewDeal, learning, metamorphosis, psychology

Perhaps the “Psychology of Change” is a label that hides too much variation in types to reveal any common patterns. Let me explain. 

First of all, what “works” or what “predicts” change in such diverse situations as: 

  1. One imposed from without by force (as prison inmates, say;) 
  2. Acquired as a child through acceptance of the cultural norms (as is normal);
  3. Enlightenment in an elderly adult through contact with a child (as in Silas Marner, Finding Forrester or Ana).

Photo by Pragyan Bezbaruah on Pexels.com

May well have nothing to do with one another. In addition, the speed of change, and even the acceleration of change, and, yes, possibly even the jerk might have an impact on what happens. Again, consider a few examples.

You are the major breadwinner (by being a bread maker) in your family of four. You are moderately “well off” financially but your business has been going steadily down for the last five years. You could relocate but you all love the private school your kids go to. Finally, your youngest is a senior, so next year, you will relocate to a part of your nation that is growing. 

Photo by Vital1na on Pexels.com

This is no doubt a fairly large change. But, it is also moderately slow. And, not only is it slow; there is only moderate if any acceleration. You will naturally see more details that need to be attended to as the date creeps closer. And, there will be some surprises. But for the most part, the speed and predictability of the change is within your capacity. If you didn’t perceive it to be so, you wouldn’t have decided on the move. 

Now, let’s change things just a bit. Same family of four. Same worsening of conditions. Only now, before your youngest even starts her senior year, COVID 19 strikes. Your business is no longer slowly shrinking. It plummets to the ground. Some people were predicting this might happen months ago, but you chose to listen to the people who said it would all go away. But now is now. You are experiencing much faster and less predictable change. Not only that; the potential magnitude of the change is much greater. Before, you realized it would take time to build your business back up in a new location. But now? You might not even have the wherewithal to survive the next six months, let alone move. And when? And to where? You had a spot all picked out in one of the more trendy and affluent suburbs in Silicon Valley. But now? It’s a hotbed of COVID!

Photo by Uriel Mont on Pexels.com



Are the same things that are important in situation one above the same things that are important in situation two? 

Now, let’s add just a little more to the scenario, but without the COVID19.

As before, you are the major breadwinner (by being a bread maker) in your family of four. You are moderately “well off” financially but your business has been going steadily down for the last five years. You could relocate but you all love the private school your kids go to. Finally, your youngest is a senior, so next year, you will relocate to a part of your nation that is growing. You are on your way to your bakery and the sky grows dark. You worry that it will be pouring down rain just as you make the 50 yard dash to the front door of your bakery.

You need not have worried because the Class Five tornado delivered the front door to a spot only two feet from your normal parking spot. That front door was the largest remaining piece of what had been your grocery store. Your house was also destroyed. And, so was the private school. Luckily, your youngest was unharmed. Not so luckily, your other child and your spouse were killed in the storm along with 73 others in the area. 

We all have the intuition that this person will make the most profound changes, but in what way? Of course, nearly anyone would be in complete shock for a time and not know what to do. But then what? It seems equally likely that the person would:

A. Decide that life is absurd and it’s out to destroy you and the only way to protect yourself is drink like a fish. And, the child’s better off somewhere else.

B. Decide that life is absurd and it’s out to destroy you and the only way to protect yourself is to never love again.  And, the child’s better off somewhere else.

Of course, A and B are not mutually exclusive. They often go together.

C. You decide that life may end at any time and that the most important thing in life is to enjoy every moment. And, that means, among other things, spending a lot of time with your remaining family & friends. 

D. You decide that service to others is the most important thing in life and you and your child both eventually become involved in a UN project to show people how to bake more nutritious bread.



There are endless possibilities of course. And, they are not fixed outcomes. The person may decide that life may end at any time and that the most important thing in life is to enjoy every moment — and to spend time with friends and then — three years later —- take path A or D instead. 

As someone trained in “Experimental Psychology,” my disciplinary reflex is to try to identify parameters and try to relate conditions of change to results in terms of outcome as a function of those parameters. 

Perhaps, however, a better approach is more like the Periodic Table. Rather than an “infinite variety”, it might be true that most cases fall into one of several dozen categories. Each category is basically a theme or premise for a story which we relate to precisely because they are common “types” of change. 

Examples might include:

 “Situation slowly deteriorates and protagonist makes adjustment.” 


“A natural disaster destroys much (or all) of what the protagonist loves and they must create a whole new life.” 

“Situation slowly deteriorates, and in turn, the protagonist engages in ever more self-destructive behavior, making the situation worse and eventually resulting in disaster.”

“Situation slowly deteriorates, and in turn, the protagonist engages in ever more self-destructive behavior, making the situation worse and eventually resulting in — enlightenment followed by a complete turn-around.” 

And so on. 

—————————————————-

Essays on America: Wednesday 

The Invisibility Cloak of Habit

The Update Problem 

How the Nightingale Learned to Sing

Take a Glance; Join the Dance

The Walkabout Diaries: Life Will Find a Way

21 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

ecology, GreenNewDeal, life

It’s what life does! 

Check this out. What is this? It’s obviously the stump of a dead tree. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s the dead and broken trunk of a tree. 

Or, is it? 

It took me about five minutes to convince myself that all of those yellow flowers and associated green leaves are part of that same tree! 

Here’s another example. Where did these mushrooms come from? As you likely know, they grow from spores. But where did these spores come from? I didn’t plant them. There are no mushrooms nearby. But somehow, a puff of spores wafted on the wind and found an appreciative stretch of well-shaded damp ground. 

Life is amazing. Well, after all, it’s been doing its thing for 4.5 billion years. And, when I say “it”, of course, I really mean “we” because all of life — you, me, and everyone else and every other life form on this planet, like it or not, are on this same spaceship earth.  

—————————————————

Life is a Dance

Author Page on Amazon

The Teeth of the Shark

14 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Climate change, ecology, GreenNewDeal, pivotprojects, pollution, survival

The gaping, hungry maw of a Great White Shark circles beneath unseen. 

Wolves staring their glowing, glowering eyes in the snowy woods. We feel the burning eyes but they are just beyond our ken.

Roaring forest fire burns tree and bush and flesh as we run amok with blind panic. 

Would we not protect our children from these horrors if we could?

Photo by Josh Hild on Pexels.com

I fear for our children. And our children’s children. 

But not for Great White Sharks, or wolves, or forest fires or Grizzly Bears.

High in the thin invisible air, higher than the condor soars — deep, deep in the dark underground rivers of the world and in the crushing ocean depths, there lurks a monster more terrible than these by far.

Its tiny stinging tendrils reach out from the ocean, the sky, the forests. 

They are ugly and they reek though often they snake out unseen to claim their victims.

Photo by Leonid Danilov on Pexels.com

Each year the monster grows and claims more victims, condemning them to death — not the swift but terrible death of the Grizzly’s jaws — or the snap of a Great White Shark. 

Instead, the victim succumbs to the slow, grey, agonizing and painful cancer of rotting disease. In the tumor’s desire for unlimited growth, it sucks the life from its victim over months or years. The tumor, of course, like all creatures of pure greed, has no life of its own. It cannot sustain its own life but must prey on others. That is the nature of Greed, of Cancer, and of Pollution – three names for three heads of one deadly dog: Cerberus. 

(Wikipedia, 14 March, 2021: Hercules and Cerberus. Oil on canvas, by Peter Paul Rubens 1636, Prado Museum.)

And yet, we do not choose to kill the monster. Indeed, we feed this monster. 

We fool ourselves that we make friends with it. 

In truth, we simply bribe it with Today so that it may grow stronger for eating Tomorrow. 

In our Greed, we give the monster what it wants Today so that Tomorrow it may eat more of our children and of our children’s children.

Oh, yes. 

I fear. 

I fear for our children. 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Ugly, fetid, foul, poisonous tentacles of pollution encircle our children and they are closing in. They are closing in. 

And yet, we have all the weapons we need: our will.

We can withdraw the hand of Greed that feeds Today to the deadly beast. 

And all through the massive hall of mirrors, the countless years called:

 “The Infinite Tomorrow”, 

our progeny will thank us.  

Unlike us, their empathy will be strong, valued, and nearly ubiquitous. So, they will know that, as absurd as it sounds, this was not an easy decision for us. It was a near thing. We nearly doomed our entire species to lives of disease, disaster, and despair. 

But we cannot let that happen, can we?

——————————————————-

https://www.who.int/news-room/air-pollution

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/05/850470436/u-n-warns-number-of-people-starving-to-death-could-double-amid-pandemic

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/freshwater/deaths-from-dirty-water/story

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/02/global-warming-world-not-doing-nearly-enough-un-report/6476363002/

https://pivotprojects.org

The Forest

12 Friday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

forest, GreenNewDeal, poem, poetry, psychology

[The poem below is one I wrote about 60 years ago. I still feel the same way today. So, here’s an example of something that hasn’t changed about me psychologically despite all that’s happened in my world and in the world..]

I think the forest is a holy place: 

A shrine of peace for bird and beast and man;

For when I stop to rest from life’s quick place,

I journey through the wood and there I scan

With eyes and mind a palace, emerald-walled.

I see the columns, black or gray or white;

And I am thrilled and my whole being enthralled

With this great tonic of the forest light

Which casts the tender green of maple leaves

About the dark, dank, mossy forest floor;

And then the stillness of the woodland cleaves,

When some beast’s call or cry is heard once more.

But I have often seen a sight of shame:

A forest where the trees are all the same;

Where every trunk’s conforming hue is gray

And every limb and twig is set in form.

I walk for miles and see no creature gay,

For everything must coincide, conform.

I see a fiery disc set sky aflame;

The sunset throws black shadows, thin and tall; 

Yet even this to beauty has no claim —

Each tree is three feet wide and forty tall.



Some people say that would be heavenly: 

To live where each bright day the setting sun

Shall beam and gleam and glimmer flawlessly.

But I would rather see some variation:



A world where trees are not at all the same —

Where every oak its unique beauty does acclaim. 


Author Page on Amazon

The Tree of Life

19 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

ecology, Eden, evolution, GreenNewDeal, life, love, nature, poem, poetry

Life is not rigid. 

Life is flexible. 

Life does not pretend it knows all the answers. 

Life builds on what has worked before and

Forever changes just to see what will happen next. 

Life is not a bigot or a racist or a homophobe or a misogynist.


Life has an open mind. 

Photo by Elina Sazonova on Pexels.com


Life will always find a way. 

Life is a joyous dance, not a mad, manic march of machines and marionettes. 

Life is not a gun. Life is not a bullet. 

Life is not a lie. Life is full of joy!

Life is full of love. 

Or, love, perhaps is full of life. 

Rip Love out of Life and … is what still life? 

Life is choice. 

Life pushes and pulls and tries and strives. 

We learn:

“Two berries are better than one.” 

We learn:

“Red berry taste better than green berry.” 

Photo by Dana Tentis on Pexels.com

Eventually, life learns that it needs to change

In order to survive. 

In order to keep being part of Life

In order to be and to become. 

Humanity, my personal favorite on the Great Tree of Life

Has lately morphed into a cancerous growth upon the Tree.

Many of us are no longer content to be alive within The Great Tree of Life

We want to become The Great Tree of Life. 

We want all of it to be like us. 

Just like us.
Exactly like us. 

Only…

When it comes right down to it, who is “us” exactly? 

If it’s okay to privilege human convenience over all other forms of life…

If it’s okay to replace the wondrous diversity of nature

With cement & Soylent green…

If it’s okay to destroy the lives of animals who share

Ninety per cent of their genes with us,

Then why not those who share 99% or, for that matter 99.9%? 

When a part of Life begins to think like that, 

It is no longer a part of the Tree of Life.

And the Tree of Life, who has been around, you know, 

And seen a thing or two.


And the Tree of Life, you know, is 4.5 

Billion

Years old. 

And survived asteroids! And volcanoes! And ice ages! 

And its immune system will destroy any cancers 

Any cancers that threaten the integrity of the whole.

Photo by VisionPic .net on Pexels.com


You see: 

It is no longer Life if it is all human beings and their great green machines.

The very essence of Life is the dance, the joy, the variety.


A maniacal macho monoculture is not really Life. 

Something would occur


And since all remaining life would be forced to concur

POOF!

Photo by Mike Krejci on Pexels.com


Out it would go. 

Only a momentary waft of smoked ruins.

The death of all life and none left to 

Remember or to mourn. 

Photo by u041fu0430u0432u0435u043b u0421u043eu0440u043eu043au0438u043d on Pexels.com

Just as cancer untreated kills the patient, 

So too does unrelenting greed kill the planet. 

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Hopefully, on some other whirling Eden 

Orbiting some other far-flung and lucky

Solar System another Tree of Life 

Even now is playing, dancing, singing, choosing

Even now, it is living, loving, changing, learning.

Even now, it is thriving and this Other Earth, 

That Earth has smart species a plenty 

But they enjoy each other’s company. 

I like to imagine that earth, 

You know, just in case.

Photo by Mau00ebl BALLAND on Pexels.com



But… 

I also like to imagine that we can look at what we’re doing

I like to imagine that we can look at where we’re headed.

And change course. 

Before it’s too late. 

I like to think we will.

How about you? 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

—————————-

Author page on Amazon

Index for a Pattern Language for Cooperation 

Good Morning!

14 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

ecology, GreenNewDeal, index, poem, poetry, story

{Today, I rediscovered this poem which I originally wrote for our holiday letter on December 31, 1999. It seems apropos two decades later.} 

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

Good Morning! 

The sunlight sparkles on the snow;

Sparkles on the sea; 

On the fields of wheat; 

On the forests.

Photo by Mike Krejci on Pexels.com

A New Day:

A New Millennium.

Lids flutter open

In waves across the world — 

Minds at last awake 

From their deeply troubled dreams.

Blind ambition opens sleepy lids;

Wipes the sand away from slumber.

Humanity awakes!

At long last, 

The veil is lifted from minds and hearts.

Hands touch hands

The world round.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Everyone laughs as if on cue.

To think that we were ever so blind.

To think that we were ever so silly.

We chuckle and shake our heads.

Our teen-age years of rebellion are over. 

Guns fall silent. 

People see beneath the skin.;

People hear beneath the accent. 

We are glad to have so many brothers,

So many sisters, so many long-lost cousins. 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

With joy, the people begin the long,

Long journey back to Eden. 

We remake our traveling spaceship jewel.

We replant the surface of the earth. 

Seen from space,

Our whirling little marble greens again.

Our whirling edge of blue clears again.

Seen from our backyards, 

The moon grows clear and huge.

And stars once more appear in night skies. 

Birds fly over Mexico City.

Dictators become gardeners.

Soldiers become poets. 

Plastic turns to wood.

Creation is re-created.

Paradise, always there —

Suddenly appears.

Our multi-millennial blindness is cured.

Our multi-millennial sleep is over.

Good Morning! 

—————————-

Other Poems —- 

The Truth Train

The Pandemic Anti-Pandemic

Life is a Dance

T-Rump Swan Song

Comes the Dawn

https://petersironwood.com/2020/08/23/listen-you-can-hear-the-echoes-of-your-actions/

Try the Truth!

Roar, Ocean, Roar!

The Ailing King of Agitate 

Who are the Speakers for the Dead? 

The Watershed Virus 

Ah! Wilderness!

Essays on America: Poker Chip

Screaming Out a Warning

You Gave me no Fangs

Blood Red Blood

Snowflake

Mother’s Day

Comes the Reign

Choosing the Script

The Jewels of November

Imagine all the People…

The Most Serious Work

The Joy of Juggling

Wristwatch

Maybe it Needs a New Starter

https://petersironwood.com/2020/09/06/my-captains-no-captain/

A Cat’s a Cat and That’s That

Fate and Late on the Interstate

Camelot is in your Heart

Peace

Ambition

The Impossible 

The Bubble People 

Race, Space, Place, Face

Piano

A Suddenly Springing Something

Hauntings across the Time Zones

Ah Wilderness!

13 Saturday Jun 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, health, poetry, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

ecology, environment, Feedback, GreenNewDeal, life, poem, poetry, truth, wilderness

(I first published an earlier draft of Ah Wilderness in Peng Poets e-zine, summer 1997. I’m nearly finished with the highly recommended book, The Overstory, and so I decided to take another look at the poem and then extended it with the dissolution of form of the poem meant to mirror the dissolution of our society moving at last into prose but then, hopeful with the seed of form returning. I realize poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea. One reason I like it is that its dancing always on that same razor edge where life itself does its dance: chaos and regularity; change and stability).

scenic view of lake in forest

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Ah, Wilderness!

The words may well connote a false un-blurring
A fear, a chill — not from frozen stone alone
Or lake wind’s sweep; but from the urgent stirring
Of some soul still hiding restless in our bone.

Curse not the thorns of tasty blackish berry;
They keep fruit safe from claws less clever.
Curse not how swift the prey, how very wary;
They shaped our brain; & helped us know forever.

Curse not the winter’s churlish wind unkind
Or burning hot dry summer’s cinnamon sun.
They invented beautiful raiment through our mind
And taught us numbers soaring far beyond one.

4770779D-0898-482C-B861-83F8498070A4_1_105_c

Curse not the change of season; or the suddenly sliding slope –
Unpredictable now and in the future as ever always
They make us search for patterns far beyond our scope of grope.
Ah Wilderness!

You are me as seen in Darwin’s mirror of minutes and hours,

And days of ways taken and untaken & lead us here at last.

We strive to take it all and make it all, all ours, all ours!

Churning every fragrant flower and pine to dust,

We must! We lust! We must! We lust!
We don’t have time for this and that.

We want everything now and that’s that!

air air pollution climate change dawn

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

And if in time all wilderness is bleak and dead,

Our bodies too shall wither and die and by and by

Our souls shall be but number: grey, unloved, unfed.

Asphalt, plastic, concrete & glass. None will die

Because in our endless war on nature, we are all “Undead.”

The Zombieland: machines gone mad; machines gone bad.

Swaths of humanity wishing to meld to macabre, merciless machinery!

abstract barbed wire black white black and white

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Life is what works! Life is constant change and innovation. But it’s been working for over four billion years! Look around you! It not only works! It’s marvelous! Machines don’t smell like that. Machines don’t look so beautiful as that. Machines don’t sound as melodious. Machines may be used to magnify malicious malignities if we let them.

Life is cooperative and interconnected and everywhere at once dancing on a razor’s edge between chaos and regularity. Machines are built to be efficient and effective and just tolerably presentable enough to be purchased — purchased by people who typically do not have to deal with the machine day in and day out. What do they care whether the machine is loud or smells bad or ruins your hands or explodes every so often or pollutes whole towns or scares away all the birds or kills every fish in the stream and every frog and that more trees will have to be cut down to feed it and more land raped to oil it?

Life is the invention of Love yet Love requires Life. (Maybe that’s why Love created Life; so it would have a way to express itself). Machines can be built to help save lives. Other machines are designed to kill lives. A machine that’s designed to kill lives never decides, “You know what? I never signed up to shoot peaceful protestors. That sucks and it’s anti-American. I quit.” At best, machines are amoral.

What to think of people who want to destroy life and replace it with a strict unmoving hierarchy with a life-hating king at the top? Don’t they see that they would not truly be alive in such an arrangement? They would not “decide” or “dream” or “change” or “love” or anything else without the permission of someone or some rule who knows nothing about how they really feel. And doesn’t care. Do you?

woman raising her hands

Photo by Marlon Schmeiski on Pexels.com

To destroy all wilderness means humanity would be signing its own death warrant.

The attempt to replace life, which we know works, with machine will eventually fail and fall and take damn near all of humanity with it over that cliff of ever-lasting greed.

Ah, Wilderness.

567C8405-05AF-42C9-8CFA-F8B1922A05F6

Ah, Wilderness.

A6253369-6ABE-4B57-884E-BEFF53F7F505

Author Page on Amazon

Introduction to a Pattern Language of best practices in Teamwork & Collaboration

Index to Pattern Language for Teamwork & Collaboration.

The Myths of the Veritas: The Forgotten Field

The Impossible

 

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