On Curtains
"Wherever we go, we are friends" -Sloth and Manatee
Sloth and Manatee
I was on a run the other day, having the random thoughts that I have on runs. This random thought was, basically we are all just living The Wizard of Oz. Like, this is all of our story. Even Star Wars on some level is The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz is probably The Odyssey and The Odyssey is something else, but that’s more than we have time for.
But our moment in history feels like the part of The Wizard of Oz where we are pulling back the curtain and finding some dude back there and asking, “Is this all there is?”
But let’s go back to how we got to that moment.
Being a person is hard. It gives rise to anxiety, and dissatisfaction, and other hardships. This is where Dorothy and/or Luke are bored and want to leave the farm/desert planet.
So we go out. We meet weirdos. Stuff happens. And maybe we get the idea that out there, somewhere, is something that is not the insides of our heads and that will Solve Things for us. We are Nicely Distracted.
But then there’s that moment where we have made the mistake of looking for some Solution to Our Problems, and we find out that it is not all that. Toto pulls back the curtain. Or maybe the ultimate Boss Enemy isn’t all that, either. There’s a lil hole in the Death Star that blows the dang thing up. Is that all there is?
Then, there we are, a person again, still anxious, still kind of wiggly. But we are us. Still.
People are people. They pee and poo. No matter their title or station or how many cameras point at them. We have to remember this, because people with their own motives try to convince us that we are in the presence of the Great and Powerful OZ, or the ultimate Darth, but in there, all there is, is people. With motivations. Who pee and poo.
Remember this, when someone tries to tell you we are building a technology that will think for us. Why does anyone want to do that? The reasons are pretty basic. It’s people making a living, sniffing around on the planet, like anyone else. It is up to us to stay clear-eyed and realize we are still us. We don’t have to let anybody cover over our world with concrete or ones and zeroes or anything else. We don’t have to believe things just because they are said, or said loudly. We can experience, we can hang out, we can make stuff. We can pull back the curtain and see for ourselves.
Brainwaves
Best of Brainwaves Volume One: The Fountain of Stuff
Best of Brainwaves Volume Two: Mom, Dad, I'm a Cat
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Art!
I have to share some things from the comics-making camp I just taught at Richmond Art Center in Richmond, CA. I had kids from about 9 to 12 years old, with one 6-year-old going on 12.
As with all my classes, the first part is just finding out who’s in there, and what their tendencies are. In this case, they wanted to dive into making their comics, all day, every day. So we did.
Deploy pizza gun!!
Just brilliant, right??
BunnyFrogCatSnake
Things Of The Week
This very-long-ago Nova on the Magellan probe that went to Venus has some of the best music in a science documentary ever. Ever! Just go to 23:00 minutes in this episode and enjoy.
Oh wow, fantastic NASA photo archives. Check em out. Like this one!
Did you know in North America there’s a whole reciprocal museum membership system called NARM? It’s a whole lot of institutions, and joining one at the NARM level gets you into all of em. Splendid!
Okay! That's enough nonsense for now.
May you deploy the pizza gun, may you experience for yourself with no machines at all, won't you be my neighbor? - Betsy
HELLO AND THANKS FOR READING!!
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