Future of Man(hattan)

I finished reading a remarkable book called Mannahatta: A natural history of New York City this week, a coffee table-style book about Manhattan island when first discovered by Henry Hudson in 1609. I picked it up because I wanted an innovative history of the city and had recently traveled there. I realized why so many call greatest city on the planet. What I enjoyed most were the people – the fact that there are so many characters, and fashion and social statements are created just because people see a combination that interests them and they go for it. The lack of self-consciousness about the city and her people is perhaps why the rest of the world has to take them seriously. Many of the people you see walking on the streets of New York, perhaps with an odd outfit or shoes that for now are out of style, nevertheless exude confidence (which is also true of the book, in fact). This is precisely the reason that they pull it off, and the reason that the rest of the less-confident consumer public follows their innovation. The noise and vibrancy of the peopled city is perhaps what makes numerous pages of facing maps from 1609 and 2009 so compelling: they exhibit contrast between the tranquility and cacophony of the two eras, yet of course the pages make no noise.

I have long believed that my “drop in the ocean” makes a difference in terms of conserving resources. The last chapter of the book supports the idea, and presages the sea change in our mindset regarding the environment. Thinking of Manhattan in 2409, when we will undoubtedly have a more ecological mindset, it put a face on the long view of the conservation movement. It's always so difficult to explain in conversations about changing our habits and being more conscious of how we eat, construct our buildings, use transportation, and create waste. We can see this consciousness blossoming today, as more people install solar panels atop their homes and buy hybrid vehicles, as state governments enact taxes on overly-dispensable plastic bags, and technologies such as lightbulbs and refrigerators are manufactured to operate more efficiently.

In writing about the Lenape, the people who lived on the island when it was Mannahatta, Sanderson wrote of their hospitality and ignorance of wealth as we know it. I had never recognized these well-known characteristics in the same way as when he wrote about it. Native Americans took stock in the wealth of the community and people around them, rather than what they owned or their savings in a bank account. Money does, for the most part, correspond with happiness in our society. Not owning things that we don’t need and being sure that we use the goods we keep–minimalism–is something that appeals to me, and a principle that does make us happier. An acquaintance from South America dropped me a line about dia del amigo, a holiday which is unfortunately overlooked in the States. As we think of it in relation to the social customs of the Lenape, perhaps our culture (and this writer, I admit) does not celebrate it because our culture doesn’t accommodate such simple things as good advice and lunchtime company because we’re too concerned with wealth and progress.

The great thing is, Sanderson doesn’t take anything away from the people of Manhattan (or humankind, for that matter) for fouling up the once-immaculate ecology of the island, but instead gives them credit for making it such an innovative and unique place. He leaves us with an understanding of the city as it once was, and how some of the natural elements once banished are returning, with an idea of the role of nature in the modern city. The author reminds us that the challenge to reintroduce nature to our modern surroundings will come as much by necessity as by desire. But, as the process continues over the next 400 years, we’ll return to an earth more enjoyable for all of us.

"Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world's environment will be the greatest test of how far we came as a world community" – Margaret Thatcher

2093

We have but one life – it’s worth our while to enjoy the world around us. I found a beautiful metaphor which expresses this better than any: "this is water," an old fish told young ones. They of course didn't realize that they were in water at all, but it was the reality that they lived in. It is the same for human beings - we have to enjoy the water around us, and even move the water which surrounds us. Everyone deals with the same troubles, the same insecurities, and desires to have more.

My brother and his wife were recently blessed with something more incredible than they ever could have imagined. I reckon parenthood is something that takes you by surprise no matter what fabulous expectations you have for it. A thinking and acting human from scratch. Congrats to them! And for the rest of us, we now have another being in the world to enjoy – and see endless photos from his smitten parents.

Meanwhile, another man passed away last week. I was imagining how, to reach the age that he did - 113 - I would have to live until the year 2093! Imagine living until nearly the end of the next century, to see all of the technological, mechanical, and social developments that will come in that time. Henry is a the sign of new life here on earth, and the water around him hopefully he will enjoy more than the writer sometimes does. As I have written before, living positively and surrounding ourselves with good people is the only way that we might live to any ripe age. What type of racer will Henry be?

“Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them work a little, see if they’re frontrunners or a come from behind. Find out what their whole card is, find out what makes them run.”
“Did you find out mine?”
“I think so.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’d say you don’t like to be rated, you like to get out in front, open up a lead, take a little breather on the back stretch, then come home free.”
-- The Big Sleep

A monkey and fish

As a member of the “developed world” hoping to help those working in the development South, I find the following adage quite apt. To be effective, we have to question whether one system is better than the other, what we’re really hoping to change, and how we should help. Things that appear superior are not necessarily so, and thinking relatively seems the only path to “improving” the plight of others.

“A monkey and a fish were caught in a great flood. The monkey sprang to safety in a tree. Looking down, he saw the fish swimming hard, head on into the current. At considerable risk, he moved out onto a branch and swung down to scoop the fish out of the flood. Great was his disappointment when he found out that the fish was not pleased to receive this technical assistance.” – Don Adams

Man and his War

One day after Independence Day weekend, Robert Strange McNamara passed away. Forty-two years earlier, he left the Defense Department of Lyndon Johnson. He lived a long life of 93 years and exactly one month. Obituaries focused on his role in the Vietnam “conflict” that tore this nation apart throughout the 1960s and early 70s, and remarked that three decades later – when he could first bring himself to speak or write on the subject – that he said the war was wrong. He and other Americans who waged the war had misunderstood the region and people they were fighting.

As Tim Weiner noted in his obituary in the New York Times, his role in this conflict and his loyalty to President Johnson will forever overshadow the good things that he did for the world. Paul Hendrickson wrote the most authoritative biography of the man, and got to the heart of the torment that McNamara felt after the Vietnam War. In what most call a retributive stint at the World Bank and later on the boards of many organizations working toward development of the third world, McNamara brought nations to the table that should have long been included in development dialogue. He continued to fight against nuclear arms and to redistribute wealth throughout the developing world. Certainly, McNamara was caught up in a war that was unwinnable – as he believed long before he could bring himself to resign – but I do believe that he kept on with the best of intentions and was only later able to demonstrate them at the World Bank and afterward.

Much of the rancor about McNamara is that he lived to an old age while so many died on his watch. But, he lived so many years because he was passionate about many things and had the same determination in his personal life. We archivists have joked that he likely rode his exercise bike – as he the day before his death. In the course of four days he would fly from Africa to India and then to Aspen for skiing, then to South America for a summit, then to Washington to start it over again.

War is a terrible thing. But if McNamara didn’t wage it, would someone have done so in his place? We must not forget that it was a nation at war rather than one man and it went on after his tenure. McNamara has remarked that despite the tremendous costs he would do it again; he said candidly that he did not live with regret, though many claim they could see it in his face.

While I lack the visceral reaction to the War that my parent’s generation does, I believe his legacy will prove to be something more. Perhaps he can demonstrate how much of the time we have a Secretary of Offense rather than a Secretary of Defense. That we wage the same Orwellian war in the that we always fight; indeed we are fighting now. To let him rest in peace, I recognize that despite ruining so many lives he made many better, and seemed to have the best of intentions at heart. His later correspondence, interviews, and work show the love that he had from others who knew him as a man rather only as the Secretary of Defense. As so many Americans stand over his grave to see that he stays in it – as Bob Dylan hoped to do – our forgiveness may be as important as his contrition.

"Ecological considerations have made us all more aware of the interdependencies of our world. We have come to see our planet as ‘spaceship earth’ [Barbara Ward]. But what we must not forget is that one-quarter of the passengers on that ship have luxurious first-class accommodations and the remaining three-quarters are traveling in steerage. That does not make for a happy ship – in space or anywhere else. All the less so when the steerage passengers realize that there are at hand the means to make the accommodations more reasonable for everyone."

-- Robert S McNamara, ca. 1984

Anticipation

Remarking about the fluttering of the "butterflies" in her stomach to a quiz show host, a young quiz show contestant later found a note mailed to her home. "I feel compelled to write you and to inquire," an entomologist wrote: "are you not aware that most butterflies, after they have acquired wings, only live for two weeks or less? That they spend months or even years as eggs and caterpillars and pupae?"

As with all things, good feelings shouldn't be taken for granted. Reflect on the time that it takes them to develop. Lives—and the events and experiences that make them up—are likewise protracted and lie dormant for years, highlighted by fleeting and relished "butterfly" moments. Carpe diem, trust little in the future, and get the most from the butterflies as they will give. People who can take the present moment and make the most of it, it turns out, do the best for themselves in the long run. As well as there are reasons for going over things slowly, for relishing the time that you have with them, there are reasons to anticipate that good times will come. In this house there will be marvelous food; in this work the task will soon be done. You can't trust that your butterflies will have wings longer than two weeks, but by relishing both their growth and their fruit, you can make them live forever.

"For me a woman is a book. There is no such thing as a bad book, as I have already told you. Go over it page by page, one is sure to find some place that will repay you for your trouble. Page by page, my friend, I love to go over it slowly."

— Frank Harris, My Life and Loves, vol. III

Big toes

"Pranic energy only spreads along the open spaces," the endearingly awkward-sounding Pakistani yogi addressed her stretching audience. It reminded me of a book that I've recently read, and how energy seems to spread both through our bodies and outside them while we're reading something that makes us feel a surreal bond with others. I knew that she could: vibes are always running through the ether. As we create more space they flow more freely. And I have felt the same with this book, as I cannot help but speak up when I see someone the same energy from someone reading it. To the extent that I needed that estranged lover in the bar there to share my enlightenment, she was.

Moving through self-growth like the author, I recognized that to be content I have to come to terms with the past, those things that for our small brains are so difficult to face head on. At one point the author seeks the attention of the man who had both loved her but could not live with her, through meditation. “Hi sweetie.” She was, in reality, summoning herself to address the doubts that she held about the man. At the same time that she was communicating through open space-there was literally nothing that she was speaking to-she was at the same time allowing space to flourish in her own mind. The equivalent of those simple words has been uttered by so many in the search for closure after a relationship fissures or completely breaks apart.

When there is a disaster, though, what is often needed is space to organize things and get them back in order. Yoga practitioners constantly try to cultivate space, both in the world immediately around them and within their body. "Narrowing of space is synonymous with degeneration, and opening up of space is synonymous with life, health and vigour," the yoga instructor continued. Take time to rejuvenate. An acquaintance of mine once invested greatly in a project, both emotionally and monetarily, and needed space to recover when the endeavor failed. After he painted stars on his daughter’s bicycle as a way to pass time, word spread quickly. Soon other kids showed up wishing for the same embellishment. Once he had painted most of the bikes in the neighborhood fleet, a great enthusiasm for his work returned. He had painted a universe that he could work with; he could see that there were many reasons to reach for stars.

"The tone of the muscles in the big toe," she told her students, "would be the best indicator of one's ability to cultivate open space among the body." The big toe is the symbolic and practical connection to the earth, she continued, and without strength in this toe we won't be able to lift ourselves up. Do we have muscles in our toes? Not any tone, certainly, in mine. But I am happy to be conscious of it, to recognize that such a small an seemingly insignificant extremity of my body creates space and thus allows prana—the energy of life—to flow. Ironically enough, as her students lay on the ground, just as their big toes pointed toward the ceiling, she instructed them, "with the space you've created during practice . . . lift up."

Fog on the windows

I ran into an ex at the bar several weeks ago. I imagined myself in her boyfriend's place—as I certainly could have been. Instead of him, I would be thinking about her highly successful bocce league and worrying about whether the conference call had gone through for a talk about expansion. My path was richer—or at least it was a path that I now know was full of marvelous experiences and growth—for having diverged and made the way on my own for just a bit longer.

When I looked in the dictionary for the definition of solitude I found loneliness, which is a subtlety I can't forgive them for missing. The editors should have not have taken it so lightly; the difference is comfort. In the first you can have it, and it in the latter you cannot. Loneliness is associated with unhappiness, unquiet, and ennui. Solitude, on the other hand, can make us stronger and more in touch with the world once we're happy to re-enter it.

It runs in my dad’s side of the family. Always something of a loner, for lack of a better term, he is happy to have met a “social director” that kept him from going too far. We are reminded by a country legend we’re reminded to always travel with others—if you ain’t lovin’ you ain’t livin.’ Indeed, the best of times I have enjoyed in the company of others, and I must heed this rule. But, I am constantly balancing my solitary character with the pleasure of company. When asked whether she feared death (her lover had died in a plane crash on the way to visit her many years before), the legendary French singer Edith Piaf replied: not as much as I fear solitude.

Certainly I don’t fear it—often I seek it out and embrace it—but realize that if we don’t pass time with others, and take time to both love and to lose, we might as well be dead anyway. Passing time with people, whether finding them as I travel or laughing with old friends who live close to home, the company of others is what really forms us and makes us human. Solitude does make us stronger—if we can fend off its quick-encroaching neighbor. Thankfully the "social directors" of life keep us in touch with the rest of the world, but the only way to keep ourselves sane are bouts of solitude once in a while.

365 x 24 more

As I just passed the final birthday that I will enjoy in my twenties, I remembered talking to my mom some months ago and trying to describe what it felt like to be a twenty-eight year old and wonder what decisions about our everyday lives matter. These things don’t matter, she argued, all these things work out in the end… But, decisions that we make now do affect our futures, and I often get caught up in thinking about them to much. It makes more trouble than it’s worth, though. I’m done with it – decisiveness from here on out. If you think about it, people who make decisions, almost regardless of whether they’re good or bad, get further along in life. And, a decision, it turns out, often turns out to be the kernel of the plan in any case, since it allows to advance, to grow with the rest of the world. As birthdays so invariably remind us, it moves pretty quickly.


“But sometimes if you wait until you have your entire plan figured out and buttoned-up, the world will have moved on and passed you by.” – John Wood, Philanthropist extraordinaire, Room to Read

Identify

I will have to start anew. I keep trying to dig through old entries from my tireless journals, but the material there is old, and that is never what blog readers want to hear about. I’ll keep the writing pretty simple to keep on par with most of what is born digital. But, I have to establish some presence on the Internet, even if at this point it’s by pseudonym alone. Leave your comment, tell us what you think, what is your little piece of the world? My favorite thing about the digital age is the trend of the facebook page, so in vogue that many argue without it you hardly appear at all.

But what will I blog about? What might be called a memoirist wave in readership in the States, blogging and the great number of memoirs published in the last several years are signs that we crave an outlet for personal experience. One could argue, though, that it is simply a variant of fiction. Many of the most famous works have recounted an individual’s view on the world – could we not allege that Dickens, Alger, or even Orwell, did not write embellished memoirs? Today we must recount stories of our experience for fear of personality obsolescence. How can we see you if you’re not part of the cloud? As fiction was—and still is—an outlet to quench the thirst of the individual to see the collective, memoir is allowing individuals to be part of it. Sort of. Are we more fragmented because of all the time spent online, or are we more connected than ever?

Certainly, we have long lived by stories. As a quiet and introverted type, I sometimes wonder what people talk about all the time – I am sometimes mystified – but I suppose that’s it. I will try to do my share, and hopefully by finding a voice in ones and zeros I can find a stronger one in the real world. I can do my share, and post anecdotes about my day, a bit of trivia about archives and libraries, post a photo or two, and tell stories once in a while. Most of all, I can write about experiences and the people that grace my diurnal jaunt through the crowd.