online: 10 april 2011 modified: 9, 10 april 2011 9 april 2011 the systemics of everything
city forest
...saturday noon in east wind and sun... runners and athletes of very varied ability... from strong young men with weights straps and other gadgets (to induce muscle growth) to elderly people (who manage to run at speeds slower than some walkers)... picnickers are gathering on the lawn... several people are climbing 6 or 7 metres up in a fir tree... while i simply sit and write this...
...a woman is teaching a small boy to ride a bicycle... with a rod which she holds to keep him upright... dry leaves are occasionally turned over by the gentle wind... a small aircraft circles at a few hundred feet... and a crow walks by... then flies off into the forest...
...while thinking of systemic action in this circumstance and prospect i see an ant approaching along my thigh and brush it away (though i wish i'd let it take its course)... at which i realise that (at some scale or other) any action or non-action is systemic (if it changes the circumstance, or whole, of something else in a significant way?)...
...looking at a wristwatch i decide to return and get something to eat... and thus proceed with living... according to habit...
...stopping on a bridge over a motorway to listen to the loud and ceaseless sound of cars and trucks passing below at about 100kmh... and also to look down at cherry blossoms and newly opening sycamore leaves at the top of the trees that are thriving beside the high speed road... despite the intense vibration, sound, and goodness knows what other emissions...
...i guess this is systemic action if anything is...
...the loud noise and the sense of powerful movement becomes less threatening... and interesting... if i pause to pay attention to it... as do the treetops... seen from above...
...and now this bridge crosses an electrified railway in an empty cutting that seems traffic-free and soundless... but then a single vehicle passes beneath while i wrote that and i did not see what it was... and now come two locomotives coupled together and emitting harsh sounds, more screeching than thundering...
...but, once they've gone, the the railway cutting seems a privileged zone of emptiness and over-control and inflexibility... a left-over from a time of rigid plans...
later:
from the motorway to the ant... such big and small experiences (which at first may seem tedious and disjointed) became coherent and interesting if one sets aside conventional ideas of what is good or bad, important or trivial... and in this a new theory can be a help... in this case the idea of systemic influence of each thing on many others, far or near... and thus the joy of letting go of useful but life-deadening ways of organising life and living it... organised for convenience and profit but also with loss of the whole...
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