Unrolling

Evolution, from the Latin for the unrolling of a book.

How wonderfully elegant!

As you grow up there are fewer and fewer instances of that wonderful little expansive feeling when you realized the etymology of a word.

The more you know the bigger the world is!

It nice to know that feeling doesn't go away.

Potato

Human being do not like pointlessness. We hate it. There must be a certain amount of satisfaction in working as a farmer. Every year your work, mindless, and grueling though it may be, produces. You have a potato, and that potato can feed somebody, or become another potato.

I see art like this. I may not produce food but I produce something new, something that wasn't there before. I produce ideas and concepts, I am a vessel for the dissemination of culture. Culture is a potato. Likewise as an academic I learn, not only because I want to, but simply to know because someone should know! Knowledge is a potato. A potato that can feed someone or become another potato (metaphorically of course). One idea inspires many others! That's what academic discussion is for.

Even on the very edge of "worth it", the fringe of commercialism, working for a salary produces potatoes. I work and I am given potatoes to eat, or place holders which represent potatoes that I can exchange for real potatoes. And the work itself, if it is productive, creates a sort of potato. When I make a latte, even though that latte is simply a luxury, nothing important, I have created a latte. It was nothing but component parts before I made it, perhaps the person who ordered it could not make one for themselves. I have given them a potato.

This is worth it.

When I am confronted with the abstract I become disheartened. We live in a world that is frequently devoid of potatoes. If I write a paper that I learn from, even if it is a bad paper I have gained a potato. If I write a paper that I do not learn from but teaches another person I have given them a potato. If, however, I have to write a paper that does not educate me or anyone else there are no potatoes, only a piece of paper, and you can not "eat" paper. An entire subset of our world runs on this paper. An entire population starved and potatoless, simply passing around pieces of paper, taxes, reports, burocracy. Things that are necessary only because we have created a completely artificial environment for them to mater in.

Yes, I must do my homework because I will get a grade. But that grade is paper. If I do not learn anything I have not gained anything really. There is no potato.

I don't know about you but I like potatoes.