Re: [atlarge-discuss] Cowardice Not

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>]

Yes James

Or - as Heinlein showed us - we are each of us "Strangers in a Strange Land"
until we learn how to reclaim those forgotten parts of ourselves which truly
bring us home (or, if you like, remind us of our destiny, of the potential
of who we really are). This is true of ourselves as individuals, and it is
true of our species.

Knowledge, information - in the deepest sense, that "arete / apetn" of the
Meno - what it means, as a human, to be excellent.

We stand, historically, on the brink of things. The Net reminds us of our
Worldwide destiny - and brotherhood and sisterhood. It makes possible a
small step or a giant leap in understanding.

IcannatLarge has been brave and aspirational - and our lives have been
encouraged by people who we've encountered who "dared" to think forward
instead of back.

None of us know the exact ways forward.

I'm a teacher. I'm using the web to create a network for school pupils to
communicate and share from schools in every country in the world. It's so
encouraging. It's our world. We can do it.

Danny Younger - correctly, in my opinion - foresees a growing involvement of
national governments in the development of the Internet. It is inevitable.
But simultaneously, there is the growing involvement of ordinary people in
localities. My own locality has a lively web community. And you, James, can
see the implications of the Net for the future self-determination of the
peoples of the world.

I feel elation, like today, when a school from the townships of South Africa
gets in touch and wants to build links with my wealthy white community in
England - through our children.

It is a future with scope and encounter.

The missing "knowledge" which you refer to - I think it sometimes happens
through "Encounter"... I think that is often the spark for a leap
forward.... a convergence of cultures ... or encounter with a group of
daring people ... or even something - or some group - encountering you ...
making contact first

Sometimes, I believe, a previously unknown knowledge comes imparted WHOLE...
you haven't had to work it out, it just clicks into place, and you realise
it's true... you see its reality...

Like the mathematics of higher dimensions, which seems to simplify what
otherwise appears fragmented and insoluble...

You encounter "arete / apetn" and you recognise it - from earlier encounters
in different forms.

The future of our species/race - will move forward through the encounter
with this knowledge/arete...

When I was a kid I used to collect postage stamps from all over the world.
On these stamps were pictures and I learned a bit about the countries that
they'd come from. But how much more we can learn by actually travelling
there.

Or it's like trying to understand an animal from a slice of its meat -
instead of seeing it alive in its natural habitat.

In a world of "specialists" - in a world that breaks things down into
smaller and smaller parts - and THEN tries to control it all... it is so
easy to think in logical hierarchies and miss the lateral leap - usually a
fusion of feeling and intellect, some response to beauty even...

The Alice in Cyberland project at Cern... breaking things down into smaller
and smaller sub-atomic particles... while all the while... the seasons turn,
the rivers flow, there is astonishing wholeness

That difference between the shadows in Plato's cave and a wholeness outside
that awaits

Encounter - wholeness - arete - excellence - beauty - courage - joy - loving
kindness

How do we encounter and find that leap to the future? In the pursuit itself.

I've grown convinced that our lives, our human experience, is all about
pursuit and feelings... everything is in flow... and if we open up our
beliefs and our imagination and pursue evasive truth, reclusive beauty...
then sometimes strange and wonderful things happen

This is indeed not cowardice or escapism. This is the courage of
confrontation, and the ardour of the excellent.

The patriarchal systems of the last century haunt us through the economic
imperialism of cerebral societies and an obsession with control. Whereas, in
some ways, we need a greater "letting go" ... and surrender to the flow of
imagination, the flow of human intercourse, the flow of creative knowledge,
the flow of shared projects

I never believed in UFOs... but say I did now, what would (I'm sure)
astonish me would not be the craft but the communication of some vastly more
developed intelligence - making contact - imparting knowledge... you'll
maybe not know what I mean, unless you "know" firsthand

Or in the privacies of my own spirituality, which is NOT to ram it down
anybody's throat, I believe that our knowledge is incomplete, but I also
believe there exists a completeness, a wholeness, an inviolable sanctuary of
beauty, arete and knowledge - and we encounter emanations of that arete and
love - if only we want to listen and receive and respond with our feeling
and mind...

Power dwells apart in a sanctuary, but nestles close in repeated personal
encounters.

The question I ask myself tonight is not "Is icannatlarge viable?" because I
don't know. The question I ask myself tonight is do we travel on, together
or separately? In one sense each of us is a "Stranger in a Strange Land". In
another sense, we have a knowledge and a vision of a land that draws us on.

And that happens in all aspects of our lives - Eric with the people he
serves - Joey with his compassion and pursuit of dignity for all - Judyth
burning the night away for the cause of a fairer world - you James,
prophesying without truly knowing the significance of your vision, but aware
of its urgent and insistent call

Oh it's late and I must go to sleep. I don't have conclusive answers. I just
know we journey on. Joey would like this one : a group of us used to climb
in Scotland from a shelter called Jean's Hut. There was a plaque on the wall
which said "Jean strode gaily by this way". She'd gone onto the tops - in
the flow of life - and ski'd over a cornice to her death. A friend of mine
fell from the same mountain top a few years later. I lost many close friends
in climbing accidents, including the woman I loved.

But they knew the risks they took. They did it "gaily" - in that archaic and
joyful sense of the word. They engaged. They went in pursuit of beauty and
flow. I still feel some of them, all unexpected, like a sob, like someone
homesick for their friendship and familiarity. But I believe we are a race
that was meant to journey and aspire. To embrace freedom. To be overtaken by
unexpected knowledge in the pursuit of ... what? Our true best selves?

You don't necessarily measure the success of a project by its outcome -
Jean's outcome was tragic - but what matters most is sometimes what is
gained along the way, in pursuit, in surrender and flow

Who knows what awaits our race? Who knows how the Internet may yet change
our lives?

If you look to the stars, do you see the past or do you see the future?

Richard

----- Original Message -----
From: Jkhan <Jkhan@MetroMgr.com>
To: <atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de>
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2002 2:44 AM
Subject: RE: [atlarge-discuss] Cowardice Not


> I recently encountered the following quote on the Web. It was
> apparently written by Heinlein as part of an essay that was looking
> forward 50 years:
>
> "The greatest crisis facing us is not Russia (substitute: ICANN here),
> not the Atom bomb, not corruption in government, not encroaching hunger,
> nor
> the morals of the young. It is a crisis in the *organization* and
> *accessibility* of human knowledge. We own an enormous
> "encyclopedia" -- which isn't even arranged alphabetically. Our
> "file cards" are spilled on the floor, nor were they ever in
> order. The answers we want may be buried somewhere in the heap,
> but it might take a lifetime to locate two already known facts,
> place them side by side, and derive a third fact, the one we
> urgently need. Call it the crisis of the librarian.
>
> -- Robert A. Heinlein, 1950 or 1952
> -- via http://www-ec.njit.edu/~robertso/infosci/heinlein.html
>
> Fifty years later, it's still the crisis of modern reality. The
> future now as always depends on understanding the natural and human
> world, identifying important questions/problems, answering/solving
> them, discovering and inventing, creating beautiful and useful things,
> and making good decisions. Which of these doesn't depend on access to
> information? Thus an unquenchable thurst for a democratic Web to insure
> access, generation after generation...
>
> We want to contribute in a way that we feel will be successful and
> equitably feasible for all to attain. Yes, I concede that 'Attainment'
> may be a challenge. However, there is no recourse now, all we have is
> the future, Until then, we must strive'.
>
> Best regards,
> James Khan
>
>
> P.S.: The Supermassive Black Hole is not due to wisk us all away at the
> speed of light, until a Google years from now. That still gives us a
> little more time to come together as human beings. I was so hoping that
> the interactive web would become such a wondrous global network of
> interconnected humanity, that we could reach a thorough understanding of
> one another and who we are, individually, interdependently, and united.
>
> I feel fortunate that we had the chance to participate in this small but
> wonderful group called Icannatlarge the start of something big, really
> BIG, the ability to stand on the edge and look down into our minds, one
> another's interspace.
>
> "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"
>
> jk
>
> http://www.historyplace.com/sounds/step.wav
>
>
>
>
>
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