Yum... 2:29am, just off the phone with G, a lovely 5 hour conversation. Read 78 pages from "A Night in the Lonesome October" aloud, bringing us back up to date after getting behind, due to her trip to Mt. Vernon and some very sleepy nights. [Managed to kill the batteries on both cordless phones!]
Went for another walk on the Springwater Corridor trail today. It's paved, and it's a straight line, so it's a nice alternative when I just want to step out the door and go, rather than putting on my muddyable pants and walking shoes. [I suppose it also sort of allows me to ignore the fact that I'm going for a walk, which will consume time.] I go and visit the sheep.
On that walk, had a new idea about how to structure YL writing. I've played with using questions as essay titles, and with trying to identify the core questions I want to address in my work. I'm playing with a slightly different idea now, about how people relate to information. We want tools that we can actually use; otherwise info is at best entertainment. So I'm trying to tailor my questions so that they give the reader some kind of tool that they can walk away with. Not sure I'm meeting my own criteria yet. Maybe you just walk away feeling like "well, if someone asks me that question in the future, now I have my answer ready." That's more abstract than I'd like, but hey, I'm still hashing out this "tools" concept.
So, without really doing much to put these questions in order, or claiming that they're THE questions, here's the essence of that brainstorm:
1. Where is the line between youth and adults?
2. What is "adultism"? (a phenomenological definition)
3. What is the difference between "adultism" and "ageism"?
4. What motive do adults have for being adultist?
5. Why do adults treat youth badly, if they experienced adultism themselves while young?
6. Should even babies have the same rights as adults?
7. Is wanting to be "adult" inherently adultist?
8. What alternatives are there to being "adult"?
9. Psychologically, how do people transition into thinking like adults?
10. Do youth have their own culture? (Should they resist assimilation?)
11. Should youth exclude adults from the work of YL?
12. Why should adult activists get involved in YL?
13. How can adult activists working with youth avoid being adultist?
...And here are a few bonus questions that probably don't make the cut:
- How can youth work toward ending adultism?
- What harm does adultism do?
- What is the state of the current Youth Liberation movement?
- What special adversities do youth activists face? What advantages do they have?
- How might YL fit into a young person's everyday life?
I've been discussing with G the idea of creating a daily YL blog. Whereas The Generator is formal, the point of this would be to use an informal voice. It feels like it would be incredibly easy for me to put up a few random thoughts every day.
The main sticking point right now is that I'd most like to do this on Blogger, but it's the kind of thing where comment windows would be good. That makes me consider using Movable Type, which is a bit bulkier -- but maybe I'm just not familiar with it enough yet. ...I know I don't want to get into using a third system.
There's a big web of thought going on in my head, which doesn't have clear boundaries, headings, or questions yet. Right now, all I can really do is identify some of the nodes... I'll try to allude by now listing some "principles" that are getting ponder time:
1. No one lover can satisfy all your desires. (poly)
2. Each additional friend in your web takes an additional investment of time. (poly)
3. With the advent of the web, you can seek out almost any sort of person that you want. (personal ads)
4. Long distance relationships are difficult. Most friendships can't survive beyond a five mile radius. (relationships)
5. To work effectively with a person, you must first understand the context of their life: their job's demands, partner(s), history, interests. (activism)
6. You usually have to tell a thing three times before it will stick in someone's memory; maybe six before it's ingrained. (learning)
7. People seek learning when they have a concrete project that they are attempting. (learning)
8. The best way to get a person to do something is to ask, face-to-face, point blank. (activism)
9. People don't care about abstract / theoretical politics. More than anything, we care about our relationships. Politics only become important when they threaten the people we care about, or when our own peers start to care about an issue.
10. Niche "communities" (markets) are run by people who want to promote a party line, and attract people who have difficulty finding relationships on their own (possibly because they're unpleasant personalities).
11. If getting to be an integrated person is a goal, attending meetings with multiple niche communities may not work. The population of people who do NOT participate in organizations is larger than the population that does. ...There are alternative means for seeking out independent individuals.
...I'm feeling pretty random tonight, so here are one or two more things on my mind:
What is the origin of the word "brand"? As in "brand name", "brand recognition", and "brand identification"? Does it derive from the practice of branding cattle with hot iron? If so, my aversion to wearing something like a "Coca-Cola" T-shirt (where the logo is marketed as hip decoration) just became more adamant. Ugly image, the Disney store or Harley Davidson branding their customers with hot irons...
Kant's categorical imperative says in essence "do as you'd have everyone else do". But I'm feeling more tolerant these days -- do whatever the hell you want, I don't care. Getting what you want and need out of life is more important than doing things "right" (so long as you exercise a modicum of consideration for others). ...So, if there's not a "right" way of doing things, where does that leave the practice of ethics?
I'm recalling now a conversation I had with an OCA member, where I became convinced that the most important distinction between us was not our position on homo & bisexual rights -- it was our take on ethics. They believed in the "straight and narrow" -- that there's a right and wrong way to do
everything. Now, I have a lot more lee way than that, but perhaps my view of ethics is still shaped by a notion that some things are "wrong".
What is the alternative? Perhaps (and I'm still brainstorming around this, mind you) the language of "tools" could be useful. My criteria for what is "wrong" is significantly different from where the OCA person was coming from -- "wrong" is not a god-given thang, "wrong" is about the imposition of misery and suffering. I don't know if it's really possible to escape the "good" / "bad" framework; but perhaps a vision of creating better tools -- without putting down the status quo -- has some merit.
"Good" is seldom the problem; it's always the bad / wrong / evil side of the equation where we get into problems.
[Where is this line of thought coming from? Probably from reading a lot of online personal ads during the past few months. Taking a closer look at my attitudes about "no strings attached" ads, folks unhappy in sexless marriages, people who ask outright for someone with a 9" cock, who prioritize sex over lasting relationship, etc.]
Note to self: G wants to see a list of "things I hate". Hee.
"Nobody looks the way they look in pictures."
