Re: [atlarge-discuss] Cowardice Not

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Richard, James and all stakeholders or other interested parties and members,

  Although James reference to and Essay looking forward 50 years, I
am failing how such is helping us in getting the basic needs that we
must accomplish to be really relevant in the here and now..

Richard Henderson wrote:

> 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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> >
>
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Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 127k members/stakeholders strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 972-244-3801
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208



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