Nature & Other Writings - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Part 2

Nature & Other Writings
Ralph Waldo Emerson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 29

 January 29, 2017 

Book 7 - Nature and Other Writings
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (2003)
 Part 2 - Pages ix-xvii, 1-63

Reading Time - 60 Minutes

I know... same batches of pages as yesterday but... I decided to do a post on each of his essays. They are that dense. Today it was the Divinity School Address. It echos his other work - we are all channels of the divine. Did I mention that he was the son of a Christian minister and actually became a minister himself? He left the ministry at some point, and I can see why. In fact... to pull a page from Emerson's book... I experience why! I think the reason why I love Emerson so much is that his experience is a mirror to mine. He just speaks it far more eloquently at this point... but my eloquence may come.

One thing he said in this essay was that we have distorted Christianity... and that we need a new Revelation. Even that we need a new Teacher... Someone to show that God IS, not God WAS. We are relying on a Middle Eastern interpretation of the divine (Christianity, Judaism, Islam)... and that we need something from the West.

I would say... we have it... and we did not recognize it. It is First Nations spirituality. They see the Divine throughout Nature... but we told them they were wrong. That the only path to the Divine was via the "one-true-faith"... through Christianity. And even though Christianity has a tradition of Revelation through Scripture AND Revelation through Creation/Nature... the second has atrophied through lack of use. We froze Revelation with the death of Christ... or rather the Apostles who wrote the Gospels and the New Testament. That was it... that's all God wanted written. I think not. I know not. I experience the Divine revealed around me... in Nature, in the writings of people like Emerson and it is fresh and new and alive. Did I mention, I love Emerson... or rather his Writings?

Nature & Other Writings - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Part 1

Nature and Other Writings
Ralph Waldo Emerson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 28

 January 28, 2017 

Book 7 - Nature and Other Writings
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (2003)
 Part 1 - Pages ix-xvii, 1-63

Reading Time - 60 Minutes

"Nature is too thin a screen, the glory of the Omnipresent God bursts through everywhere"

That's Emerson in a nutshell. I found that quote decades ago and fell head over heels in love with the words. It resonated for me at a very deep level of Truth. But... I came across it as some disconnected fragment on a quote website. I knew it was from Emerson, but I didn't know from what work, or in what context he uttered it. I still don't. But I'm searching.

I chose this book of Emerson's Writings because it had a couple of his essays that I'd come across - Nature and Self-Reliance. Having read this slim volume... I want more!

Emerson was more of a speaker than a writer; an eloquent lecturer whose speeches were living things. In reading his words, you kind of lose out on the pauses, the emphasis, the searching for words that were apparently a trait of his. I also have to admit, his writing sometimes took a bit of getting used to. It is mid-1800s writing and he really knows how to use words and make them sing, dance and soar. He is a true Word-Smith. You have to sort of get familiar with his sentence structure and cadence first.

So, what did I learn about Emerson... well... I love him. His essay Nature is brilliant... especially if one has an environmental leaning like I do. Essentially, Nature is a primary mode of Divine Revelation. We don't need to read the writings of millenia-old writings to discover God. We can have our own Experience right now. That's a theme throughout his writings... the idea that Experience trumps knowledge or understanding. Experiencing something is far more impactful than reading about someone else's experiences. He also argues that science is only half the story. We study nature to death with science but lose sight of the spiritual truth contained within nature.

Even back in the mid-1800s, Emerson could see the signs of the times. Nature and humanity are inextricably linked. What came to me was this... we are more and more disconnnected from Nature... don't grow our own food, live in urban concrete jungles, deny climate change... and we can see the results in humanity - increase in obesity, depression... According to Emerson - "Nature is medicinal. We can find ourselves in its eternal calm." But where do we go? To the doctor for some more drugs.

Here are a few quotes that stuck with me:

Nature is our dowry and estate. (for all of us)

Religion and ethics degrade nature and suggest it is dependent on spirit

Nature is a remoter incarnation of God, but it is inviolable by us - a fixed point against which we measure ourselves.

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky - Part 4

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 27

 January 27, 2017 

Book 6 - Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations
by Clay Shirky (2008)
 Part 4 - Pages 161-211

Reading Time - 60 Minutes

The thing with Collective Action is that while it might be hard to get going... it is also much harder to stop. There are several stages to go through:

1. Everyone Knows
2. Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows
3. Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows that Everyone Knows

Confusing I know... the author gives the example of how tiny little protests in Leipzig, East Germany became incrementally larger. The government did nothing to crack down on them, because the protests were so small. Other people saw this and joined the protests and by the time the government tried to act, the protests were too large. That was 1989... and East Germany folded like a house of cards.

Today, Facebook and Twitter help people to coordinate and organize. The huge number of people who participate mean that even if individuals just contribute a little bit, they can be enormously effective as an aggregate. You don't need every protestor to be a star-contributor... you just need a whole bunch to contribute below the average, and it makes a huge difference.

Back in 2000, a researcher suggested declining participation in community and group activities. This was of particular concern since they form the vehicle for creating and sustaining social change. The study was a little premature and community groups are not quite a dying breed. While bowling leagues may not be popular, people are finding each other online and meeting in the real world. MeetUp is a site that helps people find each other based on geography and affinity. Interested in hiking? Check your area and you're likely to find a group that is interested in hiking. Or maybe it's HO trains? Or writing? Anyone can start a MeetUp group and if there are people interested... you can all get together. The possibilities are endless.

The thing is... what works for protest groups also works for terrorists and criminal gangs. Wikipedia can survive vandalism because enough people care to undo it. But what about in the real world? Interesting question...

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky - Part 3

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 26

 January 26, 2017 

Book 6 - Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations
by Clay Shirky (2008)
 Part 3 - Pages 109-160

Reading Time - 50 Minutes

The star of this section is the online encyclopedia - Wikipedia. Under the umbrella of a non-profit organization, Wikipedia is almost entirely written, edited and corrected by an army of volunteers around the world. The reader who notices a spelling mistake can login and correct the error. People can add bits of new information, correct out-dated information or create entirely new articles. The key to Wikipedia is the people who use it and who care for it. There are vandals out there who try to delete things or add erroneous information, but their changes are usually undone within 2 minutes. It's a crazy system when you think about it... but it works. It is a never-ending, ongoing organic process.

But... there is an interesting dynamic that comes into play with Wikipedia, and other human endeavours. It's called the Power Law distribution curve. Bear with me... cause this is important!

Wikipedia Contributors - Power Law curve

What they noticed with Wikipedia is that you get a few people who contribute a LOT - of articles, of edits, of whatever. Most of the people might only contribute one or two things. There's an equation that you can use which basically says, your most productive contributor is a superstar, your 2nd most productive contributor contributes half as much as the first, your 3rd contributor contributes one third as much as the first... and your 10th contributor contributes one tenth as much as the first... On a graph, it looks like this... (see right). You get a few people who are responsible for the most work. It's similar to the Pareto Law - you know... 20% of people contribute 80% of whatever.

Power Law curve vs. Bell Curve

It apparently happens with employees as well... In the graph at right, they've flipped the axes but it's essentially the same as the Wikipedia contributors. A few of your employees are your star performers and make the biggest contribution. The vast majority are operating below the median...

The thing is... we still think human performance operates on a bell curve. You know... you have 16 super productive employees, 16 slackers and the rest are somewhere in the middle. Not true. The funky thing with the Power Law curve is that the Median and the Average are not the same (as on a bell curve). This means that most of your employees and most of the Wikipedia contributors are below average (gasp).

The thing with Wikipedia is this... it doesn't have to operate efficiently... if 1000s of people only make one edit, that's fine... because there are 1000s of them. It might not be efficient... but it is effective and that makes a huge difference.

On the heels of Wikipedia, Shirky also looked at how the reaction to pedophile priests in Boston differed from 1992 to 2002. In 1992, there were several news articles about priests being moved around after abusing children. The articles generated some uproar but it quickly fizzled. In 2002, however... the protests and outrage took off and generated Voice of the Faithful, the resignation of Cardinal Law and a shake-up in the Catholic Church. What was different? In 2002... people could share information very quickly via email, blogs and websites. It was also much easier to organize and find groups that were outraged. Organizing is no longer limited by geography and the laity finally have an opportunity to make their voice heard in a cohesive and coordinated way.

Social tools don't create collective action... they remove obstacles to it. It's not that people haven't wanted to organize in the past... they were stymied by time and space. Those barriers have fallen.

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky - Part 2

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 25

 January 25, 2017 

Book 6 - Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations
by Clay Shirky (2008)
 Part 2 - Pages 55-108

Reading Time - 1 hour

Here's a thought... the traditional newspaper is a dying breed. Think about it - eBay, Craigslist and other free online outlets are siphoning off traditional classified ad revenues. People are getting their news from other sites - Facebook, Twitter, counter-cultural sites. It used to be that those who had the publishing equipment (printing presses, fancy cameras) controlled the news. That is no longer the case. Nowadays, anyone can whip up a blog on the internet, or a website or share something on Facebook or YouTube. "If everyone can do something, it is no longer are enough to pay for, even if it is vital".

How many of us subscribe to the Encyclopedia Britannica? Or any Encyclopedia for that matter? Whether as physical books or online. Not me. If I need to look up info, I can search on the internet, use Wikipedia as my jumping off point and find tonnes of information on whatever topic I am interested in.

Which leads to the a completely different problem. There is a lot of junk out there! People are posting all sorts of things online - but most of it is not intended for general consumption. Some blogs are only for the friends on the poster. Yes, it is available for general viewing... but that doesn't mean it's intended to be read by everyone. It is in public, but not for the public.

In the olden days of newspaper and magazine publishing - the editors decided what to print - they decided what was good and what was bad. The model was... filter, then publish. Today, there is tonnes of stuff being published by so-called amateurs. The model now is... publish, then filter! In essence, we have gone from being consumers of media to creators of media. Some people publish and share blogs just for the love it. Whether it is is minimalism, HO trains, horses or gardening. People write and photograph and share because they love their topic. Think back to 30 years ago... and a lot of what is happening today would have seemed impossible. But when the impossible becomes possible... things can change... and we can get a revolution.

Today, at Standing Rock in South Dakota, First Nations and their supporters are engaged in a protest to preserve traditional territory and water rights against an oil pipeline. You'd be lucky to find anything about Standing Rock in the traditional media. The news of Standing Rock happened on Facebook and Twitter... only after it was weeks old, did traditional media show up to "cover" the event. Journalists aren't everywhere. People are everywhere. And today, people are equipped as mini-reporters... with smartphone cameras and social media apps. We have our pulse on the world... not the media. Who knows what can come out of that?

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky - Part 1

Here Comes Everybody - Clay Shirky

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 24

 January 24, 2017 

Book 6 - Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations
by Clay Shirky (2008)
 Part 1 - Pages 1-54

Reading Time - 1 hour

This is kind of a cool book. The premise is that the internet is changing media and changing the way in which we communicate. "When we change the way we communicate, we change society". Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube - all of these are changing the way in which information and events get shared. It also changes the way in which people can organize as groups.

In the olden days (before the internet) people were limited in their abilities to organize. Communication could take a long time and distances separated us. Organizations and companies were the essential directors of our ability to organize. But all of that has change. The internet and social media have provided us with communication tools that are flexible enough to match our social capabilities.

The author gives the example of Flickr, a photo sharing site on the internet. People upload photos and then tag them. When the London bombings happened, people on the ground took photos and shared them to Flickr and tagged them. All of a sudden, there was a huge pool of photographs of the event, taken from a variety of perspectives. Anyone with a camera could share photos and tag them with the event. It used to be that a reporter with a cameraman would be sent to the scene of an accident or a disaster but now, there are hundreds of people who can easily share their photos and their thoughts on an event. Flickr doesn't coordinate them... it just provides them with the tools to self-organize.

In the olden days, organizations would group and coordinate people but the organization could get so large that it no longer became profitable. Today... we can achieve large scale coordination at very low cost. Think Wikipedia - an online encyclopedia that is almost entirely run by a huge cadre of volunteers. The author suggests there are three stages to any group undertaking:

• sharing - e.g. sharing photos on Flickr
• cooperating & collaboration - e.g. engaging in conversation or producing wikipedia
• collective action - this one is the hardest - there needs to be a commitment to action - this is a little harder to achieve - there needs to be a common vision that binds everyone even when not everyone agrees

The idea that we are in a time of societal change/upheaval is kind of exciting. The old way of doing things is in a state of flux and what the new will be has yet to be revealed. It used to be that we were rather limited in the people with whom we could interact - the people from our workplace, our local community, our town, our region. Today... we can easily connect with people in Thailand, Iceland or Russia. We can find "our tribe" almost anywhere in the world. The internet has made it much easier for like-minded people to find each other, to share information and to organize themselves. Exciting times!

Almost Green: How I built an Eco-Shed - James Glave - 2008

Almost Green - James Glave

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 23

 January 23, 2017 

Book 5 - Almost Green: How I built an Eco-Shed
by James Glave (2008)

 Part 1 - Pages 1-204

Reading Time - 4 hours

I picked this book up at a thrift store before Christmas and thought it would be something different than it was. It was interesting, just not what I expected. Author James Glave lives on Bowen Island and in the mid 2000s decided that he wanted to build an eco-shed, a little office for himself, combined with some guest space. He wanted to build it as a Green structure.

After many trials and tribulations, he produced a 280 sq ft eco-shed to the sweet price of $100,000. While I commend the author for building something so eco-friendly, I do wonder at the cost of this structure. Maybe things have gotten cheaper in the last 9 years... but $100,000 is no small potatoes! Something about the project didn't sit right with me. Perhaps it was getting a $70,000 Line of Credit to build the place? Perhaps it was the necessity of getting "clear" lumber for the rafters.

Or maybe it's just the impossibly high hurdle of "going green" that is presented, at least from the financial perspective. Surely there must be easier and cheaper ways for us to lower our carbon footprints?

Next Book

Here Comes Everybody - The Power of Organizing without Organizations

Clay Shirky - 2008