Work on the book which led me to start blogging as a 'yak-shaving' activity, stalled halfway; I wasn't feeling connected to where I was writing it from. Essays tending to lack narrative constraint due to overambition, containing not quite enough and also too much. As i had a bit of poetry going on already, i thought i'd try to translate one. No-one has time to read work of serious length, attention is parcelled into smaller packages, even a few thousand words will probably be a chore. So this is bite-size sub-philosophy.
On Moving Things from One Place to Another
One enjoys a taste for other peoples' tastes,
tastes for things one might otherwise have never
realised existed. The other reasons to gather here
are more pragmatic; this is how energy is distributed.You and I live in a machine for living in; space
divides us as much as it unites us; fair
in your distribution, water and waste
flowing through one place, data and energy
undivided until needed. If to be fair
is to leave an unsatisfactory compromise,
please do not be fair with me.The sheltered citizens of this mind city
are distantly crowded about one another,
taught an infrastructure that provides
us with a necessary means to a null entity.
Given what we have, look how we have optimised
each center core; dull plenty, a pace of growth
frankly cancerous, massive size, great speed and mobility.The city we get to build together is built
from an old machine, previously complete,
made when we were less able to communicate.
Mobility loosens our bonds to our labour
and to our relations; we are transported
into a new condition. I move towards
what my life wants, or move it towards me.
We can help each other to work best; to share
is to move things from one place to another.As we become bigger and better, we find better
ways to get more things that we want near to us,
get the things we don't want to get away from us.
You and i can get by in the balance, each
compromise on what to endure; with more of us
in one place, the balance is harder to locate.
The spaces that we create together can be filled
or not-filled on a completely collective basis.The arteries of public space are clogged,
as they say in Connecticut. I can't get to
where i'm going without a vehicle. I'd like to
get there with quite a few other people. I would volunteer
to move less, pay a lot more for what is brought to me,
in return for being able to connect for less effort;
shorten the circuit.
