valencia mud

San Francisco’s Four Barrel Coffee is one of those neo-Cheers hipster hangouts where nobody knows your name and no one really cares as long as your Toms are in season. If any of the vinyl records on the shelf behind the barista are on your iPad, 5 points. If your ‘look’ is some shade of dapper lumberjack, sexy bag lady or Spock in Ray-Bans, 5 more points. If you can explain why coffee just tastes better with taxidermy and mad science in the background, I’ll buy your eco-friendly house-roasted expertly handcrafted latte.

help

I'm considering a blog transplant -- a new URL, a new theme, or perhaps, another one... Every day, I hear advice, wisdom, aphorisms, little pieces of advice that sometimes sound out of place or off-topic. Sometimes they come from startling sources. They may take a moment to settle, for the relevance to develop like a polaroid...but when they do, I want to collect them into a shining case, share them like shells gathered on a beach. So that would be the theme of my new blog. All of the overanalyzed thoughts and musings of my mind throughout the day. The coincidences, the reverie, the words shared that connect the dots. Today, I was crossing a bridge -- a very famous one -- with someone I respect and admire. The topic was accomplishment, and the dopamine rush that comes with achievement -- however small. For her, it can be as simple as making granola, and hearing how good it smells from anyone who passes through her kitchen. Or, it can be as triumphant and validating as a casting call with a major catalog -- regardless of the outcome, there is a sense of being chosen. We also talked about help. My aunt lives in Algeria. Her mother lives in Marin, California. Every week, my aunt sends her produce from Sonoma, in an artisan bucket, replete with charm and the novelty of having it delivered every Tuesday morning. This is where technology intersects the ancient imperative to care for one's parents, to pay them a visit, even if it's in food form -- delivered by someone you've never met. This is our world -- it seems impersonal and far too convenient to nurture something as primordial as mother-daughter relationship, or to render real care for the elderly. But the impact is exponential. Her mother -- my grandmother -- knows that her daughter sat with her two daughters across the ocean and "handpicked" everything that gets delivered each week. Purple fingerling potatoes, golden beets, quail... an ode to bygone luxuries. She said, "It's like I'm eating with her. It's such a gift, such a surprise, it warms my heart". But she has never told this to her daughter, my aunt. Why? Because she doesn't want a voluntary gift to become a burdensome chore, obligation. I wonder, though, who benefits most from charitable acts? Who receives the greatest soul satisfaction from giving, serving, volunteering? And it's not a new concept -- the Peace Corps volunteer returns with tales of having gained/learned more from the people "in need" than they themselves shared with the needy. The missionary who discovered that spirituality is amorphous, unassigned to a single sect or Sunday, after living with people in need of "saving". Who is the needy person, if the giver is ultimately the receiver? Is this what we base our concept of "work" on? Giving to receive, time for money, energy for security....What if work was modeled after giving -- where everyone wins, everyone benefits -- giving comes from an entirely different place -- a place of security, of abundance, of empathy. You have to have before you can give...whereas traditional work becomes a necessity out of lack. So we talked about helping people. The human inclination, NEED for a sense of accomplishment -- in many different forms -- but specifically, making another human feel good by giving, by sharing. Showing love. Showing support. Empathizing and taking action. Who benefits, and why is it so difficult to be the recipient? Why is it unclear or unacknowledged that in many cases, charity yields more than one beneficiary? And the need to accomplish is intense. Aside from giving-- a gateway to that dopamine rush of having done something "good" -- the need to get something done, overcome, build, create, use your hands, is tremendous. And work, as it has been defined for decades/centuries, is often not really work. It doesn't yield the same sense of accomplishment that blue collar work might. And now, even that seems insufficient. I think we need a new kind of work. One that gives everyone a chance to be the giver and the receiver. One that makes your hands feel like powerful tools, rather than appendages that obey the mechanized commands of the mind. Operating in a digitized world, we are still warm blooded humans. It is interesting to see where that river has flowed, and comforting to see that it hasn't dried up.

burning uncertainty

In the wake of 2011 – a year that inspired Time magazine to crown “The Protester” as Person of the Year and one that Forbes dubbed “The Year of Uncertainty” – it’s no surprise that more people want to stick it to the proverbial Man than ever before. Perhaps in anticipation of The Man’s soaring unpopularity and a first-ever sold out Burning Man 2011, Black Rock City LLC (or BRC, organizers of the annual Burning Man festival) introduced a lottery-based ticket sale for Burning Man 2012. But rather than promoting its self-proclaimed culture of “radical inclusivity”, the lottery method left thousands of would-be Burners feeling, instead, burned by The Man.

The lottery churned out more losers than winners, divided integrated groups (“theme camps”), artists and veteran Burners who have long been the torch bearers of Burning Man tradition. True to the times, disgruntled Burners took to online forums and social media to vent, compare notes and lament the halo of uncertainty that looms over Burning Man 2012. San Francisco Bay Chronicle summed up the worst of it with an article titled: Burning Man Ticket Fiasco Creates an Uncertain Future.

As a potential first-time Burner (or birgin, in Burning Man lingo), the apocalyptic appeal of 2012 inspired an inaugural hajj to the desert – a notion that I shared with about 80,000 lottery entrants. I imagine their rationale was similar to mine: If the Maya were right, and life as we know it is trending toward a cataclysmic halt, it’s time to check the bucket list. And when it all hits the fan, where better to find yourself than wandering in 105 degree heat, butt-naked in Nevada at a week-long desert festival that includes a pyrotechnic “F---You” to The Man? After everything The Man has dealt us in 2011 (and the past decade for that matter) at least 80,000 people agree that burning him to the ground would be cathartic.

Ticketless Burners and tribal schisms are one thing, but the 2012 lottery gods also favored a high birgin to Burner ratio, leaving many to riddle: How can Burning Man be all that it has grown to be in its 25-year history if it is rife with birgins? Will it be a ringmaster-less circus with children taming the tigers? Addressing this year’s deluge of birgins, Burning Man's Communications Manager Andie Grace blogged: “You’ve arrived at a very interesting time, can you tell?...We love newcomers. However, if new Burners are the lifeblood, the existing community of collaborators, projects, and creativity is the corpus of Burning Man.”

As the lottery dust settles, uncertainty emerges as the red-headed step child of good intentions turned sour. But to say that the miscalculations of one festival’s organizing committee have single-handedly created an uncertain future is hyperbole at best. As long as turbulent uncertainty insists on showing up as the uninvited and party-fouling guest of the past decade, it might be time to give it a formal place card.

Uncertainty – the byproduct of abrupt and unwelcome change – is to now as free love and peace signs were to the 60’s. Change is often labeled positive when it means regime change, social progress, and opportunity. But when it leaks into hallowed tradition, change loses its charm. Although change has been a singular constant throughout history, its wavelengths seem to have shortened as it comes in higher potency, higher frequency, and greater intensity than ever before. The Burning Man 2012 ticket fiasco is a microcosmic sample of this all-encompassing brand of change that takes no prisoners and spares nothing in its mission to usher in a new era – or to escort us out of existence.
Dissecting the effects of change and uncertainty on a macro level can be overwhelming and virtually impossible. Fiasco aside, the circumstances surrounding Burning Man 2012 offer a finer lens for examining how our perception of uncertainty can have a greater impact than uncertainty itself:

Uncertainty is what we make of it.

Uncertainty is not a cozy word. But when the track we’ve been on has landed us in hot water, the only certainties that come from expired ideals are those that ensure the same unsustainable results. Certainty and uncertainty have been typecast as hero and villain respectively, but pervasive change has allowed them to swap roles. Certainty for certainty’s sake is no longer serving us. Adaptation requires something new, something experimental, something that might fail. While the Burning Man ticket lottery system backfired in some ways, it successfully underscored the power of perception. In hindsight, BRC organizers speculated, “We can now see that some of that happened simply because the perception of scarcity drove fear and action for all of us….Game theory won out over good wishes.” Attempts to lessen the blow of change and uncertainty can yield unintended consequences – not all of which are inherently negative. The wild card nature of uncertainty means that its power is unpredictably neutral. While fear of uncertainty can destroy and divide, tolerance can cultivate possibility.


Facing Uncertainty: Fight or Flow

Change and uncertainty are not controlled substances, and they cannot be selectively applied. We can’t route for democracy in the Middle East, accountability in Washington, and a viable planet without expecting uncomfortable changes in absolutely every area of our lives. Uncertainty can either be a force that inspires futile resistance or it can be the momentum behind a miracle. The paradox of uncertainty is like an ocean swimmer caught in a riptide: fear kicks in and instinct says, “Swim ashore!” But fighting the current can be fatal. Swimming parallel to the current – away from the certainty of dry land – is the best chance of survival. The fear of scarcity and exclusion spurred by the Burning Man ticket lottery may be the metaphorical equivalent of fighting the current. For those still hoping to get a ticket, going with the flow is the best bet. It’s not about giving up and accepting defeat – it’s about trusting that the forces of uncertainty will carry you to safer waters without a fear-induced struggle.


Mitigating Uncertainty: Embracing Structural Change, Preserving Tradition

For veteran Burners, passing the torch to the newcomers, novices and birgins will require some forfeit of creative control, a foray into the unknown, and faith in uncertainty. Change can tear at the fabric of tradition and familiarity – threatening the way it’s always been, the way it “should be”. Change and uncertainty, like the twins in The Shining, appear at the most inopportune moments. We can’t outsmart it, we can’t put a muzzle on it, and there is no such thing as Change Zero with lime. Moreover, attempts to mitigate the shock of change can have adverse effects. But where do we draw the line on what we’re willing to give up? Can Burning Man be Burning Man without its creative corpus? What can be salvaged, what is worth preserving, and how can the old compliment the new? Perhaps the answer lies in the Burning Man 2012 theme: Fertility. Fertility is the midpoint between uncertainty and certainty. It is the potential --not the promise – of a rebirth. Fertility belongs to youth, to Burners, virgins and birgins alike. Fertility also involves a necessary cycle of destruction – a literal shedding of the old in preparation for the new.

Whether you hold a golden ticket to Burning Man 2012 or not, change and uncertainty is here to stay. The power of perspective will play a pivotal role in how things shake out. In that vein, an alternative to the hyperbolic Burning Man Ticket Fiasco Creates an Uncertain Future might be Burning Man Ticket Phenomenon Reflects an Uncertain Future… and that’s not such a bad thing.

v


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Jonathan Fields /// Author, Uncertainty:
Rather than trying to snuff out uncertainty and fear and taking down your endeavor along with them, honor their role as signposts of innovation, and find ways to be able to embrace those seeming demons. When you learn to dance with uncertainty, the doors to genius swing open.

3934

is it a frivolous luxury to believe that you can do whatever you want?


life overlaps are interesting to me. sometimes i think that my older self, Self 27, will collide with Self 9 or Self 6 in the same places where she once walked, or rode a bike, or sat by a fountain and read books from the imaginarium.

sometimes i think certain spaces will always be mine. i think, would i believe someone if they told me that one day, that space would no longer be mine? would no longer be open, or safe? there are some spaces that i thought were immune to loss. like misplacing a mountain -- impossible, improbable, unthinkable.

visiting old spaces that used to me mine is like walking on an indian burial ground. i want to take off my shoes, i want to respect Self 6 who still plays there, i want to feel the ground again as i did when I was self 3. i want to see if the bricks are the same, if the windows have people inside of them, i want to know what kind of life they have in those walls. i want to know where they drive that car, why they need so much space and what they carry in the trunk. i want to know if the rose paint is still stuck to the walls, under that layer of sage and terracotta. i want to know if the lemon tree is still in back yard next to tchaikovsky's grave -- i wonder if they even know he is in there. i want to know if there is a bald patch where adam and eve's clay faces used to peek out of the ivy wall -- if they also keep a key hidden there in case someone forgot, in case the door slammed shut in the wind. i want to know if it smells like chlorine, like martinelli's apple juice, or spider webs on light gray linoleum lawn furniture. i want to know if the garage smells like cardboard, like bungee cords, like sun-faded beach towels.

is that little apartment under the stairs -- the one he built for tigger -- still there? do they know all of the little secrets of the house -- where the poem is buried, where the chalk drawing was erased, where the bubble fell and bounced down the stairs into a pile of shattered glass? do they know that the piano was played for hours, antiques and jelly beans bartered and sold for pencil-drawn currency on notepads -- stacks of notepads -- little novelties of a more organized life -- an ironic vacation -- held together with a red wax strip?

do they remember the parties -- with salmon, with lamb, with a sauce that burned and shoes baking in the oven? what about the white pig that sat on a pink marble counter top, scarred and spotted from years of scotch tape and reminders, missed phone calls and dates, codes and account numbers?

what about mary? her socks leaving dark shaded marks on the butter yellow carpet?

palm

half-moon pietersite:

palm trees, puddles underfoot.

delayed, weather pending.

focusing the inner eye.

protection.

stopped on the way for a big hair pat down.

stopped again on leg two, curiosity and suspicion over
ganesh and my hand of fatima.

the world, a ropes course, is designed for the slow, the uninspiring brand of bizarre, the elephantic land masses that breathe loudly and show up late.

you do not have to be nimble, considerate or small enough to fit in a chair in order to fly.

note to self re: seat selection...empty rows attract procrastinating customers with no business wedging into a middle seat.

left side, pick odd. right side, pick even.

hide your sports section.

do not travel with religious symbols hewn from heavy metal in your carry on.

check for delays before rushing through foolish lines with distracted blue shirts chattering about shayla and what she did on friday.

dodge overzealous sparrows eyeing your pesto.

wild geese

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver



You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

curiosity

to eloquently quote albert:

my dear,

creativity doesn’t come from doing what you’re supposed to diligently (that’s discipline). no. creativity comes from trying things we’re not supposed to, from not using those ticking seconds efficiently, from avoiding work, from adding fun to a boring task, and from the mind that says to itself, “wouldn’t it be funny if…”

and what other time is this not more apparent than when we’re procrastinating and wasting time?


creativity is the residue of time wasted.

the creative being is at first, a horrible user of time; a time-waster.

Falsely yours,

Albert Einstein

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wasting time is luxurious, reckless, decadent. paradoxically productive.

and it makes people curious. annoyed. indifferent. alarmed. obsessive. laugh.

the tallest poppy is the first to be eaten, lopped off.

appear to waste time, to willfully squander it without documentation, without counting, without the seconds meaning money or the minutes meaning production.

others will wonder. ponder. inquire. conspire. construct theories. move their pawn in front of your knight, their bishop next to your queen.

they are dying to know what would happen to them if they did what you do...

scorn, they believe, is the punishment for pleasure. so is it true -- they demand to know. you play hero, they play villain. the battle begins.

jealousy is like the tree avoided on a hill -- avoidance creates a backward magnetism. no no no becomes a certain yes.

what would happen if the worst became true? rather than finding out for themselves, it becomes a game of synthetic circumstance.

how would a human -- unfettered by a common brand of inhibition -- react to opposition x? y? z?

and so jealousy is the cousin of curiosity -- a sort of fear braided into fascination and contempt. an unconscious longing, sparked by an imperceptible void.

your piece is my piece, it says. i can't have mine if you have yours.