If you know me, you’ve heard me whistle.

I know, it’s a petty prompt for a post, but in all seriousness, I am so grateful that I can whistle.

Being abroad so far has been a fantastic and broadening experience. My mom asked me while skyping the other day whether it’s been worth it, being here, and without hesitation I went rambling about all of the ways that I’ve grown and learned in the last months, which really comes down to my becoming slightly more acquainted with the world in all its bizarre diversity. I had a very drunk old man fall on my table two nights ago and knock my water glass and milanesa to shatter and splatter on the ground. I shared a mate with some random teenagers on Lavalle yesterday and ended up seeing (and understanding) Iron Man 3 en castellano with them (which was awesome, by the way). I walk a little taller here, not because I’ve grown, but because appearance is everything in this damn world. And so it goes.

It’s all been great, with the distinct exceptions of deeply missing two of my main loves: my people, and my music.

Of course I miss my people. Those who are usually sources of strength and comfort are… far away. That can be difficult and saddening. I miss you guys often.

But my music. Ah, my music.

If you know me, you’ve heard me whistle. Perhaps it’s because I began my musical education young that I feel the urge to express melodically; what is nature or nurture is difficult to discern. But whatever the source, I get something from being musical that I cannot replace with any other activity or mode of expression. Listening to music is in no way the same. In fact, I hardly listen to music at all. It’s like reading a cookbook and having no kitchen. Or shopping for running sneakers after having broken your legs. I don’t want to hear anyone else express, no matter how beautifully. Their songs block my own.

I can always hear my familiar melodies faintly in my head. They are so important to me, each of them having evolved and matured through the course of years and events. They formulate best through my fingers, thanks to the incredible privilege I’ve been bestowed, foremost by my mother for having prodded me to practice for all those years, but also by my makeup, my teachers, my guitar-smashing friends…

But these fingers have been denied their dancing lately, and are antsy, like, “WTF man?” I reply to them, “I know, right? Seriously, I’ve been looking!” For a country with a strong historical piano culture, there is remarkably little recourse for a non-music-student-traveller in search of a practice room, or a living room, or a hotel lobby, or a bar room— anything, anything with a dingy upright beer-spilt poorly tuned set of keys. Anything to get these melodies out of my head and into the air where they can re-enter through my ears and create that magical cycle of musical creation.

And so I whistle.

And just as a by-product of having whistled a lot (and having applied some conscious effort at ‘improving’ at whistling) I find that it … does the job. I can’t really sing, well. Humming is not as satisfying. And when it comes down to it, whistling produces a relatively pure tone, if high-pitched and shrill. But even then, I can comfortably whistle from about C1 — E3, which is enough range for a fantastic range of repertoire. Whistling thus allows for that blunt melodic expression that I feel the need to produce.

So in all seriousness, I’m grateful that I can whistle. I’m not sure if those around me share my gratitude, as you’ve certainly heard more of it than you’ve wanted at times. Here in Argentina, my host family has nicknamed me ‘El Silbador,’ although I think it’s used somewhat affectionately as my host-mother Carmen has exclaimed several times, “que buen silbatazo!”

Because I know some of you will recognize it, I’ll include here what is probably my most-sampled motif, which has been ever on repeat this last year. Ancient 1. It’s a simple, tragic tune, but never-ending, and full of hope.

And because I’m feeling bold, here is a recording on piano from before I left for Argentina, in which you will hear this motif and others. I don’t share this lightly, as this was produced in a sad moment. But it’s not a sad song; I whistle it in happy times too. Also please pardon the recording quality, which is horrendous. I should really get a microphone. #Someday. #WhenIHaveMoney.

Soul bearing is always a mixed experience. I hope I didn’t bore you with my musings. I did just write about whistling, which is not exactly a deep intellectual subject, though important to me, as I’ve just described. To make up for my own lack of interesting ideas, here and here are two innovative social enterprises that you should be aware of and support.

Be well!

Marxismo Ecológico: The “I Have a Midterm Tomorrow” Edition

May 6, 2013

Thoughts

4 Comments

I’m writing this post essentially as a review for my parcial (midterm exam) tomorrow afternoon… however I do find this stuff important and interesting and I’ve been pleasantly surprised in my studies to find Marx’s opinions on the human-nature relationship both logical and… agreeable — not generally the word people would associate with the author of such world-infamous revolutionary dogmata. But my goal, by the end of this (hopefully concise) post is to convince you that Marx was not only an extremely progressive ‘environmentalist’, but furthermore founded his entire body of academic work on the necessity of repairing the human-nature relationship. Which (spoiler alert) he eventually says is impossible to do within the context of our current capitalist system, and thus suggests socialism or communism, and.. yeah. Revolution, yadda yadda etc.

So let’s start off tens of thousands of years ago, when the first human-ish populations were hunting and gathering and hadn’t quite figured out how to plant seeds in a row. At that point, humans did effect their ecosystems, but only proportionately similarly to any other animal specie of our size and reproductive prowess. All of that Native-American-Pocahontas lore of living with nature and respecting (her) natural flows? That, according to Marx, is the only sustainable state that humans have ever known. We had to respect nature’s flows, because even early humans’ primative ‘ecology’ enlightened them to realize that if you overuse a resource, it dries out, whether it be animal/plant/fish/bug/water. Even then, if early humans DID overuse a resource, they often would pack up camp and leave, allowing for nature to naturally replenish itself, causing (as far as we know) little long term harm.

Then we discovered how to plant seeds in a row. Agriculture, that crazy paradigm shift that allowed humans to generate food surplus which allowed for some humans to specialize and craft goods which could then be traded with other humans so that we could build massive, dirty campsites and generally distance ourselves from soil toils; this, the dissociation the human producer from the source of his production (nature) is problematized by Marx as the metabolic rift, (referencing the action of intaking and transforming (labor) resources and outputting goods as a type of metabolism). Since we are not directly connected to our own production from natural resources, Marx says we are alienated from nature; capitalism inserts labor between man and nature, which indicates, given the emergence of large-scale agriculture, long-distance trade, and general globalization, that this metabolic rift is only intensifying.

And the result of this metabolic rift is the ideology that modern capitalism was built upon: the Great Chain of Being; Natural Theology; the teleological notion that nature was created by God or a higher power for man to use and abuse (the bible actually says that we should act as a “shepherd” to nature, implying an element of caretaking, but that was conveniently overlooked by Christian colonialism). Ownership by divine providence, says Marx, is a philosophical idealism which has been used to justify and encourage the domination of nature by man. Hence, we have private property, anthropocentric arrogance, and the earth and her resources are commodified whilst man is elevated to a semi-devine, non-animal, non-God, ‘superior being’.

In contrast to this idealism is Marx’s materialism, which could be understood as ‘thinking scientifically.’ We are comprised of matter, and even though we can’t see them, atoms, and we are the product of millions of years of evolution by way of natural selection according to the laws of nature. According to this epistemology, man is clearly not anything divine or superior, and even though we’ve operated (..since hunter-gatherer days) on the false ideology that we’re not part of nature and are not subject to the same set of natural rules and regulations as the rest of our biotic community, we are just as much a production of our evolutionary pathway as is a flea.

Though, says materialist philosophy, we are different, in that we have actually changed the earth itself over time, and as we went about transforming the world, we transformed ourselves:

primates, who constituted the ancestors of human beings, descended from the trees, erect posture developed first (prior to the evolution of the human brain), freeing the hands for tool-making. In this way:

…the hand became free and could henceforth attain ever greater dexterity and skill, and the greater flexibility thus acquired was inherited and increased from generation to generation. Thus the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the product of labour.

Our brain is perhaps the most remarkable result of this reflexive socio-natural relationship— as we developed cultural items, such as the ability to use tools or pass on knowledge or ultimately develop language, natural selection also acted to favor those who were most adept at participating in such culture, leading to our current cranial capacities which we’ve neatly abused to figure out the most creative freaking ways to destroy the earth that birthed us. Anyways,

So now we’re here today with our titanic chasm of a metabolic rift, and frankly it’s not even the religion idea that motivates our further worldly destruction but rather flat anthropocentrism, justified by the exalted pursuit of profit (which is still part of the idealist philosophy, as anthropocentrism is a teleology)— where does sustainability fit in? What happened to respecting the laws of nature, which are still-and-forever-will-be conditions of the human existence? How can we justify ownership of this land? Finally in line with his esteemed manifesto, Marx writes:

From the standpoint of a higher socio-economic formation, the private property of particular individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as private property of one man in other men. Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations as boni patres familias [good heads of the household].

We’ve been shitty heads of the household. And I’m certain we will continue, if not worsen, our reign of terror.

Capitalism, writes Marx, “creates the material conditions for a new and higher synthesis, a union of agriculture and industry…” — in other words, capitalism is a powerful engine which has led us to a point where we’ve got the brains and brawn to figure out a path towards a “higher synthesis”, which he suggests to be a system of “rational agriculture, which needs small independent farmers producing on their own…” and the regulation of associated producers. HOWEVER, since we’re humans, and we’ve got to have free will and self determination and especially-in-God-bless-AMURICA, this sort of regulation is immediately termed socialism or communism, which it very well could be, except it won’t, because these systems fail, or at least we’re convinced they do.

DOOM AND GLOOM, we’ll probably keep hacking and fracking until Iceland is an anachronism and Sweden is the only place with no garbage.

Until then, VIVA LA REVOLUCION

***

~~ Keep in mind, Marx was convinced of the omnipotence of reestablishing our metabolic link in ~1850′s, long before the Teddy Roosevelts and Rachel Carsons of modern environmentalism. Environmentalism wasn’t even around yet, heck, the idea of the “scientist” had just been coined in the ’30′s, and the concept of “ecology” in ’69… progressive ‘environmentalist’? I think so.

And I would call that damn concise. Have you ever read Marx????

How to Talk to Your Taxi Driver (In Argentina)

May 3, 2013

Thoughts

4 Comments

“Hola, ¿como va?”

“Bien, ¿vos?”

“Bien. Ehh, bueno— Suipacha y Juncal, porfa.”

“Bueno.”

“Gracias.”

“No, a vos.”

Well, that’s how. Nothing tricky there. You could even go without the pleasantries; a simple, “Suipacha y Juncal” is all you really need to get yourself home.

Perhaps, then, a better question is not how, but rather, why should you talk to your taxi driver.

I’ll answer with an anecdote, not surprisingly, about a taxi ride.

It was late March, and I was leaving La Bomba, which is a drum circle directed by a conductor who uses a language of cues and gestures to create combinations of rhythms between the drummers, real time. Very cool. It was a correspondingly energetic crowd, featuring all of the festivities that such crowds often offer. Namely, I was drunk (legally; this is Buenos Aires, OK). But that night, I was feeling a little off, not really grooving with the vibe, maybe missing home a little. It had been a good night already, even before the concert, so I decided to call it quits and stumbled my way out of the crowd onto the street.

I hailed a taxi.

I had precisely the conversation transcribed above.

And then I slumped back in my seat feeling grateful for cushions and wheels and the fact that I didn’t have class till 14:00 the next day.

The driver, an older, mustachioed guy with a cross hanging from his rearview mirror, asked me how I was doing. Tired, I replied. Wasn’t really feeling it tonight, I said. He asked where I was from. I gave him the spiel. I’m from outside of Boston, MA, here studying sociology, Spanish, and art, living with a host family, and yes I like Argentina very much (they’re a prideful bunch, gotta stroke that nationalist ego).

We had a very pleasant conversation: about how corruption is present in both of our countries, but perhaps only more obvious in Argentina, about the role of religion in our countries, about the recent election of el Papa Argentino— and so on. Somehow, late-night drunk Spanish conversations always flow so smoothly, or perhaps that’s just how I (don’t) remember them.

He asked about my family and friends, and whether I missed them. I said yes, of course, though I especially miss my girlfriend, who is back in los Estados Unidos. That’s probably part of why I wasn’t feeling it tonight, I said. Concerts are better with girlfriends.

Then he asked me, “¿Y qué tal con los mujeres acá? ¿Te la están dando?”

“¿Cómo? No entiendo..”

“¡El sexo! El fuckey-fuckey, el baile sagrado. Y qué de la novia, ¡no la vas a ver por cinco meses!

I laughed, mostly in reaction to his sudden burst of colorful language, but also a little unsure what he was getting at.

“I mean, yeah, that’s true. I will not be having sex for several months. Quite the conundrum,” I replied, not seeing where this was going.

“What if I told you that I could take you right now to a place where you could choose from four rooms; from four photos. For 110 pesos (about $15) I can take you there and you can see the photos, and for $450 pesos (~$65), you can do anything you want to whichever one you choose.”

It probably appeared to him as though I were actually contemplating his offer, as it took me solidly thirty seconds to sort out what was actually happening.

“What? Like, what? Now?”

“Si, ahora. ¿Vamos?”

“Whoa, whoa. ¡No! No, hombre, ¡no tengo ningún interés! Tengo novia. Tengo… ¡dignidad!”

He said OK and kept driving, acting like nothing had happened. It got silent for a full minute. Still five minutes from home. I finally asked him, “So you, like, do this? With like, prostitutes?” He said yes. I asked for how long. He said about twenty years. Whoa, okay. I paused, considered the situation. I felt almost as if I were watching someone else being taxied through Alto Palermo. I don’t talk to taxi-driving pimps every day, okay? Suddenly, I realized the opportunity at hand and became very intrigued by my situation, almost in an academic sense. There he was, “the oppressor,” driving along, nodding to the cumbia playing quietly in the background. Now that I see him, what do I say?

Well, I’m not sure how I feel about it now, but at that moment, I felt compelled to get on my horse and spout that righteous academia which I do generally prescribe to: I talked about cycles of poverty and abuse, and about how every person is just as logical within their bounded rationality as each other person; these women don’t want to be selling their bodies, but they do so, because they have ended up in situations where it has become the logical course of action— which is tragic, on an institutional and human level. I fairly ranted, knowing I had only another two or three minutes to make the impression that I needed to make— my shot to exert direct influence, however insignificant, upon this global patriarchy. After each of my sentences, he nodded his head in silent accordance, and when I finally had gotten my points across and we were pulling up in front of my apartment complex, he said only, “Si, si. Muy triste, muy triste.”

I paid, and said goodbye, and then went up to my room and asked myself whether I had just imagined the whole thing. It’s not that strange an event; we all know those people do exist in the world— but I will admit that at that point in time, it was a shock for me to meet one of them.

So then, to answer my question: Why should you talk to your taxi driver?

Because that’s where life gets interesting. The moment you step out of your daily bubble and touch upon that which is foreign and new, you open yourself up to seeing a world you have never seen before. Yeah, he could have been dangerous, and I could have unwittingly ended up at a whorehouse. But in retrospect (and even in the moment), I realized that this was something so removed from my customary sphere of interactions that I would never have come across it had I not then talked to my taxi driver. And obviously, there is much more to discover from the taxi drivers of the world than prostitution rigs; everyone, including yourself, is living hir own unique experience, and in my opinion, it can only benefit you to open yourself and learn from them.

Flow State

April 15, 2013

Personal, Thoughts

2 Comments

As I begin to write this, I would like to announce that I am currently not experiencing this yet-undescribed “flow state”. On the contrary, I’m feeling pretty tired and not particularly motivated, and I’m admittedly surprising myself by continuing to write now. And now. And tonight, because today and yesterday and for the last several weeks, I’ve felt only few scattered hours of (still-undescribed) “micro-flow”, even though I do generally consciously and meticulously arrange my life so as to lead to the highest chance of my experiencing this state of being that is called “flow”. So struggle with me here, hopefully I finish this post (having begun and abandoned a healthy handful in the last week)…

Time to define: “flow“, as first described in 1975 by positive psychologist Csíkszentmihályi Mihály, is a “state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.” Mihály suggests that in order to achieve a flow state, “a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur. Both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, then apathy results.”

It’s a very intuitive concept. It’s a reference to being “in the zone” or finding the “rhythm” or the “groove” of a task or activity. I think that this balance can be found on a micro scale, say, when you’re outside raking leaves in an autumn breeze, or gliding through the second mile of your afternoon jog, or when you’re writing or reading or browsing Reddit and everything except that singular cat GIF in front of you just melts away. Bask in it, feel alive and aware of the wondrous capacities of the human being; chase it, but not too much (consider that eating mind-numbing amounts of chicken wings or potato chips might also be considered some sort of “flow”..)

So micro-scale flow is — nice. It feels great, and makes for great productivity and reliable momentary happiness. And I’ve had several hours of this, usually after I drink a café doble and have only before me two hours to kill and a thick stack of teoría sobre el medio ambiente en relación con la sociedad to read. Awesome.

But that’s not what I’m really talking about. That’s a nice moment, but then it’s gone. Flow state, I believe, can be achieved on a much larger scale; or, at least, Mindvalley CEO Vishen Lakhiani thinks so. In his widely viewed speeches and TEDx talk, Lakhiani describes how he turned his company around not because of busniess plans or venture capital but because be enacted a state of flow for himself and his company by monitoring and adjusting his environment so as to create conditions for flow state to regularly occur for himself and his employees. He puts it nicely: to personally achieve a state of flow, you must “be happy in the moment” and also, simultaneously, maintain “grand dreams for the future.” He describes four types of people: 1) People who are unhappy in the moment and have no dreams for the future. 2) People who are good and happy and so therefore don’t feel the need to think about the future. 3) People who are unhappy with their lives as they are but have grand visions for their future, and 4) People who are happy in their daily moment and still maintain grand dreams for the future. This fourth state would be considered (as opposed to micro) — macro-flow.

But how to get there, and then stay there. That’s the important question. Great that Mr. Lakhiani has achieved this nirvana of mind and business that has resulted in the rapid growth of his multimillion dollar company, but how can I get there myself?

Mr. Lakhiani’s suggestions are a series of progressive business practices that are meant to stimulate systematic happiness: He has his employees keep a gratitude log, which has been psychologically proven to increase one’s base happiness quotient He has an “awesomeness bell” which he rings “only in moments of sheer and total awesomeness”; He created a company ritual where employees get handsy with a statue of Wonder Woman and yell, “I will blind you with the light of my awesomeness!”; He distributes a portion of his company’s profits (not stock options) to his employees; He constructed a web app to provide a platform for coworkers to praise each other (and encourages them to do so); He limits their working hours, and tells them to use 5 hours of their 45 hour work-week studying a subject separate from their job; Group meditation, group sharing of outside interests, halloween parties, incredible company retreats, 3pm siestas— etc; happiness, happiness, happiness.

Innovative stuff for the labor unions, but the great takeaway for us humans is to build independent and resilient systems of happiness into our lives to keep our happiness levels elevated enough so that we can be productive.

The alternative to systems of happiness I’ll call band-aid happiness, which is the transient kind: one-more-cupcake, or one-more-pair-of-shoes, or one-more-interesting-article, by themselves, will never lead to anything but momentary happiness. Having arrived at that realization sometime towards the end of high school, I have generally considered myself against the direct pursuit of happiness. I still do not see happiness itself as a goal. A certain amount of it is necessary, as too little happiness will cause downward spirals, just as much as excessive “happiness” blinds you from the realities of life. But as Mr. Lakhiani does aptly point out, it’s about having sustainable systems of happiness that are independent of accomplishing goals or social politics or consumerism. This is a valuable takeaway.

Why, then, for the last several weeks, have I been sub-flowing? This is me, personally, wondering here. I’m asking. I know, I generally like to be the blogger-with-the-answers, because at my well-marinated age of 21 I’ve got so much experience to boot. But I am frustrated, because I don’t like not-having-answers. I spend much of my life arranging these systems of happiness. I carefully and often reflect on what activities I do and do not enjoy, and then I arrange those tasks that I do enjoy in logical portions and sequences every day. I don’t work too hard, or too much. I work effectively, for a few hours every day, and spend the rest of my days pursuing other “enjoyable” elective tasks, (reading, writing, exploring the city, being with friends, etc).

Why, then, for the last several weeks, have I been sub-flowing?

I suppose at this point in the conversation, grief is a necessary mention, as there are always moments every day where this plays into my mood and actions. But I do not think that my general state is still fully a function of this external adversary, or perhaps I just can’t see it.

I do not think that I have a nice conclusion to this post, and I am sorry for that. No full circles or pretty metaphors, and for the record, I did not achieve anything even mildly semblant of flow while writing this. It was more laborious than you’d think, though not overly time consuming.

But I accomplished something, and that feels good. I’ll keep chasing that feeling and arranging my systems, and maybe I’ll pursue happiness a little more and spend a little less time arranging. That might be an answer. Honor thy happiness! (but only because it allows me to work! B-)

Thanks for reading, readers. May you each find your flow!

Oh, Flaneur—

March 4, 2013

Thoughts, Travels

11 Comments

I’d like to share a concept that I have grown to adore and utilize widely in my life.

It’s an old French ideal, something probably upper-class and white and readily eyebrowed, but the art of the flaneur is a specific take on observation: Wikipedia says the word means something along the lines of “to stroll” or “saunter” or “loaf,” which alludes to that principle at the core of flanerie, which is to do nothing; to have no objective, no destination, no prerogative or goal in mind, except to observe in any way you might like the surroundings you encounter.

Historically, the flaneur has been important in some strains of academic thought including urban modernization, class conflict, and architecture. Important theoretic contributors include Charles Baudelaire, Georg Simmel, Susan Sontag, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb; of course there are lots of interesting learnings pent up in each of these contributions to the theme, but this being a blog and you having the Internet, I will let you explore ad libitum and I’ll proceed with what I’d actually like to write about.

I have now begun my semester studying abroad. Except for when I’ve had to participate in program-scheduled activities (picking classes, orientation etc.) I have had a great many hours of entirely unstructured time. Like most humans I do often enjoy the company of others and so I have certainly been getting to know the other international students as well as my host family and an interesting handful of native Argentines. But when I wake up on Friday and Saturday and Sunday (literally, every day this weekend) with nothing that I must do, I think to myself, I’ve made it. I’m here, this is what I’ve been waiting for. Enter, the flaneur.

I am in love with the idea of eschewing purpose, first in any location, as it matters not where you look but how, but with even more gusto in some place new and fantastic. Not that I have any problem with having guiding purpose in your day or life, as you would be idle to be without it. But so often, our purpose lends us spectacular clarity upon our destination and utter blindness to anything that might be even a degree off-course.

There is a nice parable that illustrates this idea, in which a rich man leads a crowd of people to see that he had laid out a trail of dollar bills on a sidewalk stretching as far as the eye could see. Immediately the crowd swarms, racing and elbowing each other to pick them up first. When they arrive, breathless, at the end of the trail, the rich man points so as to lift their gaze ever so slightly, to see that he had also hung hundred dollar bills from the trees on either side of the sidewalk. In the distance, not yet far from the starting line, a single man had noticed the hanging money and was about to climb the fourth tree.

To be alone in a crowd; to be one with its ebbs and flows, its conflict and resolution; to notice and admire each grand story as it marches past, mysterious forever; invisible (unless someone else is watching me, and then let them). Baudelaire looked to be one with the crowd. I look to be one part of it. A tiny part, scarily small, or perhaps the world is scarily large, and I’m still normal-sized. Perhaps I am enamored with this concept of relativity, that suddenly I’m not so important; I tire of placing myself on such a false pedestal, like why should I care so much about myself? I can answer this question only evolutionarily, and perhaps economically as I will likely someday contribute some value back from where I’ve taken it. But ethically, I am an arbitrary prince, my value arbited by fickle luck. In my selfishness I am disgusted. But I digress..

Now, im not so idealistic as to suggest that all of you with your busy lives and money-trails should suddenly stop these activities and squat on city corners for hours each day. In my luxurious moment, I am able to begin and end the day without having accomplished a single goal, except to have observed, and that is a truly precious privilege. However, I also have lived the busy life, and this mindset has not only just occurred to me in these spare minutes. For it is that exactly: a mindset. Often I’ll set aside a time slot,- nothing outrageous, perhaps half an hour, during which time I’ll set the single goal of getting razors and body soap from the CVS nearby. Unless each of our days are so routinely unfortunate that each task forever bleeds into the next, I think we are generally able to allot a bit of extra time for oneself at strategic points in our days. To do what? To do nothing. For me, I have seen the most hideous and the most beautiful things in these times, the most banal and the most surprising. If you are so jaded to experience that you do not feel the attraction to this activity (or lack thereof), then you should read my last post, which explained slightly why I like to keep my eyes open.

An interesting adaptation of this concept is that of the cyberflaneur, in which this mindset of not being always-purposed is applied to our use of the Internet. Trends indicate that we increasingly use the Internet only functionally. In an article published in the New York Times last February, Evegny Morozov commented that our increasing societal single-mindedness is reflected on the Internet:

Something similar has happened to the Internet. Transcending its original playful identity, it’s no longer a place for strolling — it’s a place for getting things done. Hardly anyone “surfs” the Web anymore. The popularity of the “app paradigm,” whereby dedicated mobile and tablet applications help us accomplish what we want without ever opening the browser or visiting the rest of the Internet, has made cyberflânerie less likely. That so much of today’s online activity revolves around shopping — for virtual presents, for virtual pets, for virtual presents for virtual pets — hasn’t helped either. Strolling through Groupon isn’t as much fun as strolling through an arcade, online or off.

(Side-question: is social media helping or hurting our discovery of interesting things? Morozov seems to think that it’s a distraction from our own perusing, but technosociologist Zeynep Tufekci doesn’t quite agree; is there a ‘filter bubble’? Is seeing new and exciting articles from our friends on FB a new flaneurism, or is it the ‘daily me’?)

Again, not that I think we should all sit around flipping through page after page of Wikipedia or Reddit or TED, but in actuality, I do! Everything in moderation, but these tools of modernity can connect us with troves of brilliance and creativity, information about history, art, all of the academica under the sun, etc.

Set parameters. Fifteen minutes. Forty-five. Don’t allow yourself to over or under-do it. If you get so wrapped up in a wikipedia binge that you only look up two hours later, the next time you might have ten minutes free, you’ll think “I don’t want to start, because then I won’t be able to stop.” Not that self moderation is easy for everyone, but give it your all..

Be an active observer of your world. Loaf both on the curb outside Starbucks and then again inside; sip your latte, but use their WIFI to read about the folks that might have a cure for HIV in infants. Follow your money trail, but look to the trees! You might see a monkey 8-] (or a mantis??)

On Substitutes and Glitter-Bombs

February 19, 2013

Thoughts

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Coming Soon: Mantis&Me, Travel Edition

January 2, 2013

Personal, Travels

—mantisandme

where the mantis goes to think.

For the Love of … Whistling

Marxismo Ecológico: The “I Have a Midterm Tomorrow” Edition

How to Talk to Your Taxi Driver (In Argentina)

Flow State

Oh, Flaneur—

On Substitutes and Glitter-Bombs

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Coming Soon: Mantis&Me, Travel Edition

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