The Totalization of Shadows, Part XVIII
I look out the screened window of my tent. I see the trunk of a white spruce tree.
I have a knee-jerk reaction to this sight. I think: "Ah, beautiful."
A sense of relaxation and repose accompanies this judgment, this aesthetic judgment.
This is the interaction,which repeats:
A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."
A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."
A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."
A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."
After a very long time, maybe over a period of months, I finally observe the extensive beetle infestation of this trunk. The tree is diseased. The tree is probably dying.
A large number of similar trees tumbled dead to the ground as windfall just this month.
Was it untrue the tree was beautiful? Obviously, I was in the thrall of a convention in regarding the tree the way I did-- there's a great deal of insensitivity in judging the tree as I had--there's no sense involved in overlooking the tree's actual condition.
I have a knee-jerk reaction to this sight. I think: "Ah, beautiful."
A sense of relaxation and repose accompanies this judgment, this aesthetic judgment.
This is the interaction,which repeats:
A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."
A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."
A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."
A:Sight of tree trunk.
B:"Ah,beautiful."
After a very long time, maybe over a period of months, I finally observe the extensive beetle infestation of this trunk. The tree is diseased. The tree is probably dying.
A large number of similar trees tumbled dead to the ground as windfall just this month.
Was it untrue the tree was beautiful? Obviously, I was in the thrall of a convention in regarding the tree the way I did-- there's a great deal of insensitivity in judging the tree as I had--there's no sense involved in overlooking the tree's actual condition.
posted by Yusef Asabiyah at 8:01 PM
3 Comments:
This morning I awoke, opened up my apartment window and looked out. Through thick layers of toxic fumes from the nearby powerplant, I could still make out a little patch of blue sky. From this little glimmer of blue sky I could not help but think 'Ah, what a lovely morning'.
Is that a coal-fired powerplant? If so, I would find it remarkable. The white spruce trees here in Alaska are commonly susceptible to diseases of various sorts, but over the last thirty or so years have become even more so, due to a thirty year period of drought. This is what is also causing the forest fires up here. Some link the drought, the disease, and the fires to the increase of global temperatures, and some link that to the burning of hydrocarbons.
-Y
Isnt that Gaia theory? That the earth is one big holistic organism. Organism means living, which means self-sustaining? The fact that the sun has become hotter but the earth sustained a constant temperature, could be an argument for a Gaia theory.
A powerplant running in Copenhagen can make a spruce tree in Alaska turn sick. I dont know if it is a coal plant. Maybe I falsely attributed the thick plumes of toxic air pollution to the powerplant. It could come from all the cars that dominate the room of the city.
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