Strolling
Some canonical avenues deserve a stroll. The Avenue des Champs-Élysées from Jardin des Tuileries and Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe is one prime example.[1] What comprises a best place to stroll?
Climbing
Some canonical heights deserve a climb. The stratovolcano Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is one prime example.[2] What comprises a best place to climb?
Lounging
Some canonical lounges deserve a visit. World travelers may recognize the Vienna Lounge at Terminal 1 in the Vienna Airport, which was voted not just the best in Europe, but the overall global winner in a recent survey.[3]
Let’s consolidate
These three activities need not be treated separately. After absorbing the ambience of a stroll’s surroundings and conquering a challenging climb, one deserves a rest in a comfortable milieu, a lounge. The details are not important. The common thread weaving through these activities is the “self.” None directly benefit other individuals or society. That by itself is certainly OK, because there are myriad indirect beneficiaries. Vendors of food and souvenirs will earn from your stroll and from those of the friends and colleagues whom you have enticed into duplicating your excursion. Similarly, providers of food, equipment, and trek guidance will earn Tanzanian Shillings at every waystation of a climb. Whether frequenting the lounge in Vienna for a business meeting or for a respite between flights, all who derive income from the travel industry will benefit.
Given all those ancillary earnings, it would be selfish not to stroll, climb, or lounge. The larger picture informs us about the connection between commerce and the individual, not only the obvious connection through labor, but also through leisure. (A previous Ruminations post dealt with Labor, 15 July 2024.) To be fair, my definition of “leisure” does not include mountain climbing, but to each their own. No matter how much of an individual we like to think we are, we are part of a mutually supportive collective -- often quite indirectly. The economic knock-on effects of our activities are the easiest to cite and measure. I would add the less-easily-quantified interpersonal interactions that occur along the way as a collective benefit.
Muse or move
Is there a message or a moral to this story? Is it just something to think about, or do we have an assignment, a duty to participate in this collective in a new and more ecumenical way, a productive way? No and yes. No, because each of us is not, or should not be, a slave to some larger proscriptive or prescriptive agency. Most of us define our freedom as not being a cog in a large wheel without options. Yes, because, like it or not, our strengths contribute to the general welfare. I would say those contributions are a duty. That’s particularly true when we know that our weaknesses, our infirmities, receive support from society’s largesse.
Metaphors
OK, I guess the game is up.[4] These are not three separate and distinct ruminates. Ruminants are grazing and browsing animals that pass their consumed food through complex digestive cycles.[5] So it is with the ideas of stroll, climb, and lounge. They fit into a single complex story about us, especially easy to appreciate if we think of the passage of time. We stroll through our days, often encountering obstacles to climb and overcome, as well as finding opportunities to rest or lounge, satisfied that we have made it that far. That cycle repeats as we invest in and derive energy from digesting our journey.
High-sounding esoteric sentiments about the nature of our lives don’t accomplish much, but for me, they are a context, a stabilizing backdrop behind a frenetic pace of chores and obligations. They also provide a mindful retreat where making sense of ups and downs, of allies and antagonists, and of plans and serendipity is possible.
Silos: food and faith
We try not to preach here. Religiosity per se is beyond our intended scope. But without advocating for or against, we must recognize its impact on our lives -- on the lives of the devoted and on those they affect for better or worse. Each of us tends to derive sustenance from a single set of sources. When it comes to the food we need for our bodily upkeep and the inspiration and reassurance we derive from our faith, be that from an organized church or an ad hoc conviction, we don’t jump from one source to another willy-nilly. In other words, those silos are secure. Customers and congregations can be counted on to reappear unless and until a major life-changing event intervenes.
You know where I am going with this. Where we derive our information, our knowledge, about everything is also siloed. And there’s the rub. When trapped in a silo, the only safe way out is up – no strolling or lounging until one climbs out. Given how silos typically disgorge their grain, I would not suggest taking that painful path.
The silo analogy can be taken one more unreasonable step further. Both food and information silos are subject to contamination and require periodic maintenance and cleaning.[6] The best remedy in both cases is fresh clean air and sunlight. They say if a lie is repeated frequently enough and loudly enough it begins to smell [my word] like the truth.[7] Just as physical silos may require outside professionals to perform a thorough cleaning to protect the grain, the figurative silo needs the intervention of outside sources that inject objectivity and data into the ingrained and hardened mix of unchallenged ideas.
Too far afield?
Lest you conclude that our veering into the figurative, leaving the literal behind, was too great a departure from our initial topic, we can go back. I do continue to suggest that even a brief walk around a city block, mounting an elevated platform to view a cityscape, and taking a short relaxing break between this and the next chore can have a salutary effect on our mood, on our hopes for what’s to come, and by contagion, on the frame of mind, if not the economic wellbeing of our compatriots.
Credits: The sherpa in the lounge and on the Paris street were generated by OpenAI.com’s DALL-E image generator.
The Chicago Chinatown L elevated rapid transit system station view is from:
https://stock.adobe.com/images/chicago-chinatown-l-elevated-rapid-transit-system-station-view/1033775201
[1] https://www.dezeen.com/2021/01/12/champs-elysees-avenue-paris-extraordinary-garden/
[2] https://iugs-geoheritage.org/geoheritage_sites/pleistocene-kilimanjaro-volcano/
[3] https://www.cntraveler.com/story/vienna-airport-lounge-review
[4] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/game-is-up
[5] https://extension.msstate.edu/publications/understanding-the-ruminant-animal-digestive-system
[6] https://advanced-environmental.net/avoid-food-contamination-in-your-silos-with-regular-cleaning/
[7] https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/illusory-truth-effect
Nota Bene: Others may ruminate differently. But be warned: In my case, seeing or hearing something quite trivial -- a saying, a store clerk’s mannerisms, or bad grammar on a food product’s label – triggers a stream-of-consciousness extrapolation toward grander notions and generalizations. That is what often happens in these posts. ADDENDUM: Those subscribers who have been here for a while will have noticed that at times ruminations have veered into diatribes. I make no apology. I just want my readers to know that it’s quite intentional. When events come close to making the ‘blood boil,’ that discontent bubbles up here.
Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed here are my own at the time of writing with no expectation that they will hold beyond my next review of this article. Opinions are like a river, winding hither and yon, encountering obstacles and rapids, and suffering turbulent mixing of silts from its depths and detritus from its banks. But just as a river has its clear headwaters and a fertile delta, so do opinions, notwithstanding any intervening missteps and uncertainties.
Reminder: You may visit the Cycloid Fathom Technical Publishing website at cycloid-fathom.com and the gallery at cycloid-fathom.com/gallery.
Forthcoming posts (unless life intervenes)
Expertise: Yours and mine
…and everyone else’s
9 December 2024
Escaping the un-PCs of the 1960s
…Big and slow ‘monocular’ past – nostalgia on steroids
16 December 2024
