Living by the Environment: Cascadia

3/24/14

Humans are a phenomenal people. We’ve overcome obstacles of nearly insurmountable immensity when viewed from the head on. Just seven or so generations ago, a democratic, representative government was nearly unheard-of, and the wonders of our post-industrial-revolution world were out of the picture for even the most extraordinary of thinkers. Most remarkably, we’ve come by great strides to understanding the universe we live in, in all the vastness it encompasses, to nearly the largest and smallest scales as are possible from our standpoint.

The one thing, however, that our race is still humbled by, is the very world we live in. Farmland is warped to conform with the boundaries of rivers and mountains, houses are precariously perched and often impossible in the face of great inclines, and our settlements are routinely swept away by the weather in determined regions of elemental intensity.

We cannot beat our environment.

Since the beginning of our time, we have been forced to adapt to our environment or die. Today, we have the resources necessary for simple survival, but still conform to the rule of nature in the best interest of all involved. This new way of living is different in each of the innumerable bioregions found on our planet, and is uniquely beautiful in each case.

Perhaps among the most sparkling of examples is the Northwestern coast of North America: Cascadia. Bordered on one side by the Pacific Ocean and its accompanying range of hills and mountains, and on the other by the range of dormant volcanoes we call the Cascades, it is a land rich in falling water.

The region’s unique and prosperous collection of flora and fauna have long been appreciated, cherished, and savored by the humans that reside there, resulting in a way of life that is unparalleled in its efficiency, unique quality, and low environmental impact. The people of the area share a common love for all that surrounds them, recycle often, and consume locally.

Portland, for example, is moving progressively towards businesses supporting the Cascadian identity, preferring Voodoo donuts, Pendleton blankets, and, above all, locally-brewed beers to the out-of-area competitors. More and more, the people of Portland find themselves at farmer’s markets, street fairs, and supporting local businesses.

The Northwest has also become an evolving tech centrum for the United States, a Silicon Valley to the North. Companies such as SurveyMonkey, Webtrends, Wieden+Kennedy, and CD Baby all got their start in the Pacific Northwest, providing valuable export potential for the region.

It only makes sense then, that this unique, productive, and self-supportive identity should be consolidated under one flag. And what better to define this identity than the one thing us humans have not yet conquered, our environment.

The Cascadian movement can be described as a movement that “isn’t about a like or dislike of federal government,” but rather “about a common love for a place and the desire to see it become even better.” A united force of defined identity will lead to a more coherent, driven movement to secure the identity we know as our own in Cascadia, built upon what we do to thrive within the constraints and benefits of our environment.

Faith in Humanity

Faith in Humanity
3/16/14
Sometimes it’s nice to have your faith in humanity restored. Be it by a song, a video, a combination of words, or just a thought from a friend, it’s a wonderful feeling to find a common point of connection between yourself and the rest of the human race.
We get so involved in our own battles, and everyone else in theirs that it is at times nearly impossible to stop and just connect. Conversation is a valuable luxury reserved for only those with the time and energy to spare for it. However, it is sorrowly undervalued. Motivation for new, better, creative, comprehensive and beautiful ideas and products are just waiting at the brink of a conversation we just don’t take a moment to have.
It could at times be just as easy as sharing your thoughts. A simple thought of any kind, if shared, may hit someone at just the right moment. A feeling of connectedness is a feeling of optimism and possibility in the conversations and ideas to come.
So talk to your friends!
Share what’s on your mind!
You never know when it may hit someone at just the right moment. Thoughts are funny like that.
I beg of everyone to create and to share, to listen and to learn, and most of all to converse. There is no idea stronger than that composed of two, so make one!

How Shattered the Glass

How shattered the glass beneath my feet

How broken the lives I’m yet to complete

But cracked is the shield I try to repair

Prevent all the pain of a soul laid bare

Good and Evil

In response to a quote from Ralf Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance.

"Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong is what is against it.”

The biggest issue that I see with the terms “good” and “evil” is their use as a descriptor for any given interpretable force or idea.

Using the example of selfishness, one can assume that humans all are, to some extent, selfish. This word comes with obvious baggage in the form of a negative connotation by our modern interpretation. Selfishness is seen as the food of greedy businessmen and the schoolyard bully. However, from a more optimistic viewpoint, the idea of selfishness could be reworded to the idea of survival; one will tend towards putting one’s own needs ahead of the needs of others for the sake of evolutionary progress and self-sustinance. This idea will obviously have a much more positive connotation to any Darwinist, progressive thinker.

Another fairly simple answer would be love. Generally, people would say love is the epitome of good, but others might say it is simply falsities and impairs judgement, leaving the somber, darkened connotation of an addictive drug.

For any disputable idea or force, wide discrepancies will be found between the many possible interpretations, each, to some extent, seeded in one’s own moral viewpoint. Because these interpretations follow directly in the path of personal viewpoints, it is important to remember that the connotations one assigns with any idea are solely personal.

Almost any idea or force could be, at this point, assigned to either the “good” or “evil” sides of the spectrum, the two sides of the spectrum being constantly balanced and conflicting with one-another. For ideas such as love, the societal mean will undoubtably lean towards a positive connotation, but there will always be outliers to the mean. These outliers deserve unbiased and uninfluenced respect in conversations that do not directly pertain to the subjectable idea. If judgment of the idea is included in the discussion, this judgement both removes all other paths possible when an alternative interpretation is considered.

I see this possibility of paths like the expansion of a family tree. With each new child in each new generation, the opportunity for infinitely more children is opened up, exponentially increasing the total amount of people in the family. The shape this expansion creates, with increasingly many possible children from each new child, is much like that created in a discussion when an interpretable idea is looked at from multiple directions. When any of these interpretable ideas is looked at with a predetermined connotation, it closes the door on all opportunities that would potentially arise from its alternatives. If all ideas are looked at pre-connotated, only ONE out of the infinite possible conclusions can be reached. Surely this cannot be seen as a preferable route for rational, abstract thought conversation.

The reason I have a personal intolerance for the terms “good” and “evil” is that they are the simplest, and most judgmental forms of pre-connotation. Classifying something as either “good” or “bad” gives no real understanding of the concept, or the speaker’s full standpoint on the subject. Instead, all that is gained is the knowledge that the speaker finds this idea either preferable, or not.

On a personal level, I am however a full advocate of thoughtful and meaningful classification. If, after thorough analysis of the subject matter, the thinker can fully summarize all parts of a finite idea (i.e. not love, as it is terribly undefined) towards either “good” or “evil” progress, this can come in handy when making personal or internal conclusions or arguments. More simply put, classification makes the personal decision-making process more efficient.

Despite the need for personal efficiency, it is still important to maintain an open mind regarding ideas for not only personal growth, but the benefit of discussion as a whole.

It's Not Easy Being a Teenager

It’s not easy being a teenager. We age in our abilities and our potential far too quickly and far too all at once. Overnight, without warning, our eyes are held open and forced to investigate the vast supply of knowledge, information, technology, opportunity, and inherent error that is our world. The suddenly expanded capabilities of our minds are overloaded by the possibilities of thought that are suddenly opened up to us. The dark, mysterious nature of our reality, infinitely interpretable and essentially ambiguous, roars, with its all-penetrating voice, “examine me!”, and we do just that.

When I first set my mind on, well, thinking, things got ugly fast. In all honesty, it’s only gone downhill from there. With every moment, my mind unravel another layer of choice and ideation, and opened another door to possibilities in patterns, paths, and directions of thought. My mind is one massive family tree. When any one more factor to thought, experience bringing change in mind, or concept needing inspection blindsides me from out of nowhere, the whole tree takes a hit, needing to be reexamined and reconstructed.

Please see my inspection of Good and Evil for more on that exact idea. Now, back to my insanity.

As I started with, we learn and gain ability far too quickly. If, possibly, these monumental and life-changing developments could come at points evenly incremented through a period of say, 10 years, we would be able to adapt to and utilize each one to our own, personalized, best fit. As it is, we need to pack these years, lifetimes, of thought and evolution into as little time as we can deal with, packed down underneath everything we do on the surface. There is so much that we are called upon to accomplish, when, even spending every moment of our days, not even then would we have time time to intellectually capture everything that we need to do to satisfy our own, personal need for thought and understanding of everything that goes on around us at every given moment on any given day in this insane, overwhelming, and intrinsically complicated reality filled with things that we can every day only hope to comprehend in their entirety in order to live out our daily doings to an extent that makes them productive and enjoyable to the slightest of acceptable notions of productive and enjoyable.

There is a lot on our minds.

Why I'm Here

I need to create. The intrinsic obsessive-compulsive need to be productive that is in every adolescent has been a part of me as long as I can remember thinking profound thoughts. Sparked by the ever-present pressure to achieve, but driven by the simple goal of being myself, it is constant, evolving thought that drives my sense of individuality, which in turn, drives my need to create. Creation is the most direct means of self-expression, as it comesfrom myself and from myself only.

For far too long I’ve constrained myself to solely the medium of music. However broad a medium it is, it is still predominantly formulaic in nature. For this reason, an artist will spend far too much time trying to find the exact right rhythm, intonation, allusion, diction or rhyme, and not enough time developing exactly what it is that he is trying to get out. His thought.

While these tough restrictions may have the ability to separate the truly genius artists from the rest, it is a devastatingly laborious process that often leaves the true beauty of creation in its dust. In my experience, I have become so fed up with my own creations by their completion, that I was unable to enjoy the idea I originally set out to present secondarily to the world, but primarily to myself.

For this reason I have set out to explore writing. Writing as I see it is the most primal way that our thoughts can be permanently preserved and expressed. We practice the skill continuously and persistently every moment of our lives, organizing words and ideas into whatever order we damn well please to suit our needs. Sadly, the majority of the beautiful process of human thought is left between our own ears, rather than being shared with someone else’s. How else better than to bring fruit to your conscious thought by giving it contact with paper (or a blog in this case)? That way, your individuality, rather than being spread to one person through conversation, can be spread infinitely by paper.

With this blog I hope to explore what it means to be truly human, and take any readers along on my journey. As I believe that abstract and profound thought and ideation are intrinsic human qualities, I know for a fact that anyone, were thy to look hard enough, would find a chord ringing truth in my long, sometimes descriptive but always hard to follow, run on sentences.

I will, of course, continue to explore my passions of photography and music, and will try not to let my societally bred perfectionist qualities show, as true beauty is found in the raw, untamed thoughts of the mind.