Pursuing praxis

I don’t get the whole improvisational personal expression thing. It’s why I could never be in a band, or be an actor. So when I saw this link on Chris Davis’s site, I was like, here’s another idiot extolling randomness as a place-holder for meaning, *annoyed sigh.* Well, I don’t have a good refutation of my last sentance’s snottiness, but what the hell! This guy is awesome! I’m like, inspired!

I think why I like it is because it picks up on this feeling I’ve had since I was a kid: that the world is mine, just sitting there waiting for me to get to know it, that by traveling I’m just getting to know parts of my world. Why not dance my way around the world? Because I think I do get the improvisational personal expression thing (just not other people’s, most of the time), that I don’t lack motivation, just tools. And I think this guy’s onto my idea of world citizenship, and his dance is not random or meaningless, just personal. Maybe I’ll cut my teeth (err, cut a rug) in China :o).

I promised myself I wouldn’t let this blog turn into Katie’s Critter Corner, because I’ve got bigger plans for this blog. But, I have a huge weakness for large, herbivorous quadrupeds, and if they’re pretty to boot, I’m sold. And this picture (painting?) is just incredible. It interests me how we ascribe human virtues to non-human animals, and these animals gain greater value in our minds by this imposed label. Just plain anthropomorphization? Are we that hard up for inspiration?

No, I say. I think, even if we were innundated by other virtuous humans, we would still do this to animals. First, virtue doesn’t get old, you can’t wear it out, you can’t get sick of it. We’re not filling a virtue void by anthropomorphizing animals. Second, I think it goes along with the imaginitive, creative, artistic impulse, where by playing with the juxtaposition of ideas, represented by objects, you can create a powerful, succinct message that if taken literally, flouts reality.

In any case, in this male greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) I see nobility, pride, courage, ability and curiosity. How can I not love that?

The progressive co-evolution of large body size, grass-grinding teeth, and single-hoofedness in horses over-simplifies equine evolution to the point of modern myth. There was a whole bush of horse ancestors, all possessing different combinations of these traits. The five living equid species are but paltry remnants of a once-diverse lineage. How is that progressive? or exemplary? And of what use is such an over-simplification, when it does nothing to explain the current diversity of bovids (cows, bison, sheep, goats, antelopes), arguably much more successful in terms of species numbers, sheer quantity of individuals, variety of traits, and habitats occupied? Very little, and Gould has these choice (if numerous) words to say on the subject:

“If we define evolution as anagenetic [non-branching evolution] trending to a “better” place, how can we depict a successful group with copius modern branches extending in all directions within the cladal [geneological] morphospace? Instead . . . our conventions lead us to search out the histories of highly unsuccessful clades - those now reduced to a single surviving lineage - as exemplars of triumphant evolution. We take this only extant [living] and labyrinthine path through the phyletic bush, use the steamroller of our preconceptions to linearize such a tortuous route as a main highway, and then depict this straggling last gasp as the progressive thrust of a pervasive trend.” [my emphasis] (SET, pg 908).

It’s hard to generate accurate depictions of complicated phenomena using “linear thought.” Really hard. And even if you get it right, you have to work to not misrepresent your subject material. Linearized thinking very quickly generates false dichotomies, about which I’ve already ranted :o). Best to think in trees of possibilities, and take your time about it, and do a good job. That’s when all the interesting stuff happens.

Today someone sarcastically complimented me on being white and privileged (without knowing a shred of my, or my family’s, history), presumably based on his previous observations that I’m intelligent and beautiful (which he said to me) and what many people call accomplished (a useless word I could rant on at length). The good news is, it took me less than an hour to stop being outraged at his fucked up thinking, and now I’m thinking how to think through such situations generally. Because with the impetus provided by him, I can make this situation benefit me, thereby making myself even more objectionable in his book. Ha.

It’s hard to see through anger. It’s why I can’t argue with creationists. Or, if I do, I have to select very tiny, achievable battles on my own turf. They are so, so wrong it swamps my brain with incredulity, anger, not knowing where to begin, wanting to set them straight, knowing it’s not my duty to fix them, wanting to let them screw up their own minds and lives (because honestly, are they going to listen to me? NO.), and being pissed that their irrationality (en masse) makes my life unnecessarily more difficult. What to do??

I had two insights regarding the asshole encounter, and it might help me deal with the general problem. First, I realized that he was damning me for the things he initially valued me for - he was damning his own values. If values are things by which to successfully guide your life, and he willingly holds ones he dislikes, he must not - deep down - want to live. Certainly not to thrive. But to creep along apologetically, eyeballs just barely protruding from the muck of his soul.

Second was how he phrased it: "capitalize on all the advantages which white / moneyed privilege has conferred upon you." Passive. Bingo. Privilege, as a noun and in reality, has no ability to do anything. Privilege is something conferred by someone. Presumably he meant my family, which is certainly where I got my whiteness. It’s just that no matter how much money my parents threw at me (or how blindingly white their genes made me), it doesn’t, on its own, produce who and what I am. In fact, money and achievement are inversely related in the history of moi. The more obstacles you put in my way, the better I do. I latch on like a burr on an unshorn sheep. Clear a path for me, and I have no incentive to do anything - because the prize at the end won’t have been achieved by me, so in every way but a technicality, it’s not mine. Why work for nothing??

Obviously, I made me what I am - I did all the thinking, working, trying, persevering, surviving, aiming for something way out of reach, my way or no way at all. Money doesn’t do that, race certainly doesn’t, nor do parents or indeed any other thing besides me.

Thus, his sentance structure gave away his irrationality as well as the real answer to the problem. And by noticing it, hopefully I can dismantle other speedbumps like him even faster in the future.

There’s just so much else to do.

The Santa Fe Institute. Heaven on earth. And I’m going to forge a path there as soon and as fast as I reasonably can.

Sheila liked my formulation of functional relationships, integration, emergent properties, my validation of hierarchical levels in evolution, and my grand analogy with the mind-body relationship (including free will!). She recommended I check out SFI, hinted that I might be onto something publishable with my idea, and that there really isn’t anyone in the department whose head is in this stuff with me (though apparently they are all about it at Duke). And two nights ago Kevin gave me free rein as to topic choice and outside readers. I just have to have a do-able dissertation. That’s a reasonable expectation, and a good one given my tendencies.

Life is fucking grand.

A few clarifications about me and my work are in order.

How I am not like Lara Croft

• I’m a paleontologist, not an archaeologist or anthropologist. Mixing these up is like thinking all engineers drive trains. Thank you.
• American, not British
• (eventual) Dr/Professor, not Lady
• I do my own library research
• I have a degree
• I work within the academic system
• My boobs aren’t the highlight of my work
• Nor do they need CGI
• Less fire power
• More intellectual power
• Less money
• But I earn it all
• I deal in ideas, not artifacts
• I don’t have a stunt double
• And I don’t get multiple takes
• I’m less likely to get shot at
• I have a cooler dad
• When I get a telescope, it won’t be quite that big
• I like a 1911 Colt .45 to her Magnum .44s
• I’m right handed
• I don’t have a butler. Yet.

That said, I’ll grant a few similarities in acknowledgement of the initial parallel drawn

• My work can potentially take me anywhere in the world
• I collect old things in the field
• I know history
• My interests and work are highly multidisciplinary
• I’m a woman of action
• In a traditionally male job
• I aim to be my best
• I have a statistically unpredictable collection of friends and associates
• I mainly work alone
• And to the beat of my own drum

"The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of to-day — of a master-mechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago.

These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars — neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience — and for them all, man is indebted to man." — Robert G. Ingersoll

[Thanks to Jenna for culling this quote.]

To commemorate achievement, to remember and inspire, we build glorious monuments for all to see.

Me, I build myself such that my life is a monument of achievement, upon which others may erect their own.

At the end of a civilization, the concrete hulks linger on, while the minds that made them are long gone.

I have again taken notice of some perhaps-odd traits about myself that deserve examination, evaluation, and integration into or out of my life.

I love getting rid of stuff. The fewer unnecessary things I have, the more possibilities I feel are open to me, and the more efficacious I feel. When I was a teenager, I secretly hoped to get kicked out of the house. First, because I was dying to be out on my own anyway, but it was smarter to stay if left up to me. But also because I absolutely relished the idea of what I simply call having to make decisions. I wanted my life and my well being to be utterly up to me, rise or fall, live or die - because I thought (and still think) that I can do it, that I can succeed, and better than most, too. I spent a lot of time just thinking out how I would do it, what I would need, what my best bets were, and a dozen back-up plans to boot. I wanted a take-no-prisoners, grit-in-your-teeth, bare-knuckles, empty-stomach approach to my own life. But I knew it was smarter to stay, even though it sucked the life out of me, because I thought (and knew) I could withstand the more civilized and insidious forms of warfare, and that in the end I’d be a stronger, smarter person for it. And I am, though it’s taken longer than I’d known to expect to achieve the personal (not professional) stature I’ve always envisioned for myself.

Which all goes back to the baseline observation that I do well under pressure. Like, fantastically well, on the whole. I thrive, though rest is eventually essential.

So the question is, how do I integrate this raw aspect of myself into a very civilized society and profession? I mean, hell, I hear Farrish Jenkins serves espresso in the field. Little cups and everything. And go for it, if it makes sense. But I want to keep my eyes on the struggle, even if no one else looks at it with me, because that’s what motivates me. The out-standing clashes, the conflict, the heat, the chipping away at perceived impossibility - these create the possibility of objective greatness.

Frills are for the party after the prize has been won.