The Biker Magi Page
musings from the fool on the hill ...
The telegrapher had a skill. When the telephone came along, his skills did not go away, nor did the skills of telephone users surpass or even equal his. Yet the telegrapher was made obsolete in favor of those lacking his skills.
I learned photography before the advent of auto-exposure and auto focus, and could in fact develop my own film. Then came digital cameras, and now everyone thinks they are photographers. Perhaps they are ... skill-less perhaps, but photographers nonetheless. I learned electronic engineering and radio theory, learned how transistors worked and how radio waves reflect off the ionosphere, had to pass a test and obtain a license before I could operate a radio that could make a telephone call. Now, lacking any skills whatsoever, anyone can get a cell phone and do the same thing.
People don't like to admit they lack a certain skill. We live in an era when everyone likes to think that they can do whatever they want. They hear slogans such as, “Where do you want to go today?” The marketing message seduces them ... tells them that they can do whatever they want to do, it lies to their ego, makes them feel perhaps they are just as good, tells them they don't have to turn to a telegrapher or photographer or some other specialist. But it is a false value, and they don't realize that they now instead depend on a faceless, soul-less “other” in the form of the corporation furnishing the technology. But at least now they don't have to feel grateful.
I still remember walking down the streets of my hometown at age 6. Though I'm now middle-aged, I'm still essentially the same person inside ... I've seen a lot of places, learned many skills, and endured many hardships. These things I thought would bring acceptance, recognition, even status ... but where the opinions and viewpoints of other people are concerned it seems I have struggled in vain. My accomplishments seem to be mine alone, vastly unrecognized by the bulk of humanity.
But then I look at the bulk of humanity ...
In the American southeast, it is my opinion that no one cooks quite like an older black woman. Just thinking about it brings to mind the aroma of stewed beef and sweet potatoes and lima beans and rice and corn bread ... and so it is that I like to tell the story of one such woman, and her sixty-five year old daughter, and younger granddaughter, all three together in the kitchen as they prepare a holiday meal. It is in this setting that the youngest begins to cut the end off of the turkey ... but her grandmother stops her. "What are you doing?" the grandmother asks. Before the youngest can answer, however, the middle aged woman steps in. "Mother," she says, "she is cutting the end from the bird the way I taught her, the way you taught me!"
The elderly woman laughs.
She laughs so hard she nearly falls over. Finally, when she can speak, she says, "My dear, I used to cut the end from the roast because I had a small oven!"
So it is with the vast portion of the population. They do what they are told, like the middle woman, because they believe it is right, not understanding why they were taught the way they were. They then teach others. They possess knowledge, yet without understanding.
Why are you cutting the end from your turkey?
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"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying amen to what the
world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive"
Robert Louis Stevenson |
“Primitives manifest all the reactions of the wild animal against
untoward events. 'Civilized' man reacts to new ideas in much the
same way, erecting psychological barriers to protect himself from the
shock of facing something new.”
... C. G. Jung, Man and his Symbols, p31 |
"I don't care what everybody else is doing, if they all jumped off a
cliff, would you jump, too?"
...My mother |
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'This is the truth I tell you:
Of all things freedom's most fine. Never submit to live, my son, in the bonds of slavery entwined. William Wallace |
It is not evil that the vast majority of a population of ants works
blindly toward the goals of the leaders of their colony; nor is it evil
for workers bees to spend their lives blindly serving the queen.
But we are neither ants, nor bees: to require unquestioned conformity
is how the Nazis took over Germany. It is blind conformity that breeds
terrorists. If I were to conform, to become like somebody else, would
the person that I am continue to exist?
The Biker Magi |
“Without deviation, progress is not possible.”
- Frank Zappa |
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