1. Writing retreat in New England (with a $20/day rental car and a KOA campground)
2. On-the-ground full-time community organizing (Occupy, RRFM, community garden, etc.)
3. At-home controlled study of the abuse a human liver can withstand
4. Start an Immersion Project.  How do you feel about jazz?  Hate it?  GOOD!  Start there.
5. Go to sea to work on a commercial boat for a couple weeks
6. A thousand notes on Wikipedia ‘citations needed’, a laptop, and a library card
7. Pick a random celebrity.  You probably will know the person already.  Agree to feed his/her fish in exchange for use of his or her home theater, and have movie marathons.
8. Sketchbook, pencils, borrowed chair and easel, and an art museum
9. Pre-plan your vacation time, wait for the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ bizarre weather disaster during that period, and go assist with recovery/rebuilding efforts.
10. Eye exam, some awesome large work that you’ve never have time to tackle (Thoreau’s full journals, À la recherche emu temps perdu, complete Shakespeare, etc.), and a good reading lamp
11. Badminton.  On a unicycle.  NEED I SAY MORE?!
12. Or let me buy you a plane ticket to come out and see me

You (the reader) are welcome to any of these.  Except for the last one.  It’s unlikely that I will buy you a plane ticket.

“I assume you’ve seen interesting strata up-close in your climbing.  Have they ever generated an insight about evolution?  Other more emotional reactions, such as enormous respect for, or humility in the face of, the age and history of the planet?”

While I did not have this song in mind when I asked the question, Eddie Vedder, a surfer and a fellow atheist, wrote a song about his insights about evolution, and his emotional reactions to the age and history of the planet, while surfing.  And while he may have taken liberties with the evolutionary tree for the sake of a rhyme scheme, I still love these lyrics.

Big Wave

I used to be crustacean
In an underwater nation
And I surf in celebration
Of a billion adaptations

Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave!
Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave!

I feel the need planted in me
Millions of years ago
Can’t you see the ocean’s size,
Defining time and tide?
Arising up, arms laid upon me,
Being so kind to let me ride!

I scream in affirmation
Of connecting dislocations
And exceeding limitations
By achieving levitation

Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave!
Got me a big wave, ride me a big wave, got me a big wave!

I feel the need planted in me
Millions of years ago
Can’t you see the ocean’s size,
Defining time and tide?
Arising up, arms laid upon me,
Being so kind to let me ride!

Got me a ride!
I’ve got me a ride!

Today it came on shuffle, and I fell in love with it, and started crying.  This is now one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs.  Amazing how life events can change these things.

Force of Nature

Understand she’s a force of nature
Contraband hiding deep inside her soul
Exercising her will to lose control
She lets go

A common man, he don’t stand a chance, no
Wonderland pulling Alice in the hole
No way to save someone who won’t take the rope
And just lets go

One man stands at the edge of the ocean
A beacon on dry land
Eyes upon the horizon
In the dark before the dawn

Hurricane has the trade winds blowing
A gale force shaking windows in the storm
Shipwreck on the rock that he calls home
With one light on

Somewhere there’s a siren singing
A song only he hears
All the strength that you might think
Would disappear — resolving!

One man stands alone, awaiting
For her to come home
Eyes upon the horizon
In the dark before the darkness meets the dawn

Makes me ache, makes me shake
Is it so wrong to think that love can keep us safe?

Last I saw, he was out there waiting
A silhouette in the black light; full moon glow –
In the sand there he stands upon the shore, forevermore

Somewhere there’s a siren singing
A song only he hears
All the strength that you might think
Would disappear — resolving!

One man stands alone, awaiting
For her to come home
Eyes are closed. You cannot know –
But his heart don’t seem to roam

“Of course you like music!” he replied. “Music is math!”

I immediately corrected him. “No, Dad,” I said. “Math is music.”

Hey, Dad? I was right.

Oceans

Hold on to the thread
The currents will shift
And glide me towards you
You know something’s left,
And we’re all allowed
To dream of the next –
Oh, the next time we touch

You don’t have to stray
Two oceans away
Waves roll in my thoughts
Hold tight the ring
The sea will rise
Please stand by the shore
Oh, I will be –
I will be there once more…

“What an astonishing thing a book is.  It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles.  But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years.  Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.  Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs.  Books break the shackles of time.  A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
– Carl Sagan

When there is an issue of concern … or a fear … or a suspicion, instead of stacking it into a teetering pile known to only one of us, it is brought into the open.  We look at the concern, fear, or suspicion together; we talk about it; we resolve it to mutual satisfaction; and then we “put it in the drawer”.

What is the drawer?  The drawer is a phantom place in a bureau, the sort of drawer that might hold unpaid bills or aging photographs or unwanted heirlooms in a normal home.  But this drawer has no bottom.  This drawer falls to infinity.

We talk about the worry.  We place it in the drawer.  The worry flutters away into the abyss, and we never have to worry about it, ever again.

She and I also have a tradition of toasting celebrations.  This predates our intimacy, and we each admire the other’s toasts immensely.  After a night of multiple stressors, we listed four items and tossed them into the void.  We opened a much-appreciated bottle of saké, and I took the toast for the evening.

“To bottomless drawers,” I said.  “They defy real physics but define real relationships.”  She approved.

I love you, Penguie.  Here’s to bottomless drawers.

So what’s with Easter?

To the pagan Norse, “Eostre” was the name of a goddess of the dawn.  In north-western Europe, where there are bitter winters, the “Festival of Eostre” would be held in the springtime to celebrate the annual rebirth of the world.  That which had lain dormant for months was coming back to life: animals were being born; trees and flowers were starting to grow again; the days were getting ever longer.  Totems of birth — eggs and rabbits for their symbolism of fertility and fecundity — were celebrated.

Cultural traditions and rituals are very hard to change.  It’s tough to get people to give up their rituals.  It’s easier to get them to substitute one object of their worship for another, but keep the trimmings.  And this happened with Easter.

Christianity came in as a massively successful Mediterranean Mystery Religion with a god-man who is killed and reborn.  His resurrection was a deeply important part of the religion’s memeplex.  So, the Christians got the Western Europeans to start celebrating it, with a couple of minor changes.  For instance, instead of celebrating it on the first full moon after the vernal equinox, they started celebrating it on the first Sunday after the … first full moon following the vernal equinox.  That’s the calculation of Easter to this day, based on sun-worship and a lunar calendar, and explains why Jesus dies and is reborn on a different date each year.

They made some other changes.  For instance, they decided to ditch the bunnies and the eggs, because using symbols of sex in a liturgical holiday was unseemly.  Also, they changed the name: you can’t really have the name of a pagan goddess for your celebration.  Third, they totally played down the symbolism of the rebirth of their man-god being the rebirth of the world itself.

Actually, I may be entirely wrong about that last paragraph.  They may have made none of those changes.

Perhaps Eddie Izzard said it best, in the role of the Holy Ghost, criticizing Jesus for dying and rising at Easter: “If people don’t figure out that’s pagan, I’m just going to eat my hat!”

Happy Stolen-Pagan-Fertility-Festival.  And have courage, little bunnies.  You may yet escape.

Amy:  “No, but ask Kimberly.”

Me (after walking):  “Kimberly, have you seen my FedEx package?”

Kimberly:  “No, but ask Liz.”

Me (after walking):  “Liz, have you seen my FedEx package?”

Liz:  “No, but ask Alex.”

Me (after walking):  “Alex, have you seen my FedEx package?”

Alex:  “No, but ask Catherine.”

Me (after walking):  “Catherine, have you seen my FedEx package?”

Catherine:  “Yes!  I left it on your desk!  You didn’t see it?!”

I … hadn’t seen it.  It was on my desk.

Follow that link, and also follow @OccupyMailbox for updates.

You scoff or chortle?  The game’s mechanics taught me important concepts of computer science, early and well.  Learning to trade was a better immersion in economic theory than any Intro to Econ class ever created.  Group play taught me lessons in game theory that I still mentally refer to.  Selling a binder of cards bought me the computer on which I taught myself to program, and that led to a career.  And the draw to play the game got me out of my bedroom and forced a socially-awkward and introverted kid out into the world.

Have I taught Niall this game?  You bet I have!  And he loves it.  Here’s to another 18 years of this fantastic game entertaining, educating, and inspiring people.

Me:  “Do you have an extra Endless Ranks of the Dead?”

Opponent, pointing at a drafting table:  “No, but ask John.”

Me:  “Which one’s John?”

Opponent:  “The guy in black.”

Me, seeing five:  “That … doesn’t really narrow it down.”

Opponent:  “In the black sweatshirt.”

Me, seeing three:  “…”

Opponent:  “Sitting next to the guy in the red shirt.”

Me, seeing two:  “…”

Opponent:  “With the beard.”

Me:  “Oh, him.  Thanks”

½ Full

Climbing over mountains
Floating out on the sea
Far from lights of a city
The elements they speak to me

Whispering that life
Existed long before greed
Balancing the world
On its knee

Don’t see some men as half empty
See them half full of shit
Thinking that we’re all but slaves

There ain’t gonna be
No middle anymore
It’s been said before

The haves be having more
Yet still bored

Won’t someone save?
Won’t someone save the world?

Severed Hand

Big man stands behind an open door
Said, “Leave your lady on the cement floor.”
“Got some kicks, want to take a ride?”
I said, “Yeah!”
“Take your pick, leave yourself behind.”
I said, “Yeah!”

I’ve no fear but for falling down
So look out below!  I am falling now!
Oh please understand I just need, my friend,
A way — a way — a way home

Tried to walk, found a severed hand
Recognized it from the wedding band
Said “It’s ok, do you want some more?”
I said, “Yeah!”
“You’ll see dragons after 3 or 4.”
I said, “Yeah!”

“Understand I’m not falling down,”
I said.  “Look around, the room’s taller now”
I can’t close my eyes, ’cause I see the sound in waves –
In waves — lets me stay calm

If I don’t lose control
Explore and not explode
A preternatural other plane
With the power to maintain

Like a tear in all we know
Once dissolved we are free to grow
What is human, what is more?
I’ll answer this when I get home

Thanks for being a Starbucks customer – but has it been a while since we’ve seen you?  We’ve noticed that your Starbucks Card ending in 3603 has not been used for over two years.  And as of 6/29/2010, it has a balance of over $5.

My first response was “I … have a Starbucks card?”

The email gave me a link to the site where, if I had lost the card, I could transfer the balance over to another card I have, or if I didn’t have another card, they would mail me a new one.

“Oh, great,” I thought.  “What kind of service fee is it going to be for them to mail me a new card?”  I thought about going to a Starbucks and buying a card just to avoid the $1.50-or-whatever.

You know what the service fee is for a new card?  $0.00.  Zip.  Zero.  Nothing.  There’s a gift card with $6.40 on it that I forgot I had and that I definitely forgot having registered on their site, and the company sent me an email offering to cancel the card and send me a new one for free.

I know someone must have run the numbers and decided that increased sales would far outweigh the cost to the company, but I don’t care.  I just got $6.40 credit at Starbucks.  That’s two whole London Fogs.  Bravo — and thank you — Starbucks.

I Am Mine

The selfish, they are all standing in line
Faithing and hoping to buy themselves time
Me, I figure as each breath goes by
I only own my mind

The North is to South what the clock is to time
There’s east and there’s west and there’s everywhere life
I know I was born and I know that I’ll die
The in between is mine
I am mine

And the feeling, it gets left behind
All the innocence lost at one time
Significant, behind the eyes
There’s no need to hide
We’re safe tonight

The ocean is full ’cause everyone’s crying
The full moon is looking for friends at high tide
The sorrow grows bigger when the sorrow’s denied
I only know my mind
I am mine

And the meaning, it gets left behind
All the innocents lost at one time
Significant, behind the eyes
There’s no need to hide
We’re safe tonight

And the feelings that get left behind
All the innocents broken with lies
Significance, between the lines
(We may need to hide)

And the meanings that get left behind
All the innocents lost at one time
We’re all different behind the eyes
There’s no need to hide

So, if you were wondering why I know large amounts about a vast field of subjects I have no real reason to — something multiple people have brought up recently — that’s the primary answer.

That’s also a bit more than I’m comfortable admitting anywhere.

Miles Away

New moon peeking through
Now the sky is brand new
Feel it on my skin, is it night or noon?
It’s been the blackest night for quite some time
Since my love left with that heart of mine
It kept on ticking, I don’t know why

(Chorus:)
Now this rock bottom hurt has a whole new feel
It feels like the moon since I saw you here
And the light that comes from your face
Brightens this place
Tell me who needs a sun when it goes away?
It sets on me every single day

Darlin’, I’ll get my light from a star who is miles away

If I look too long will I lose my place?
I get caught staring into space
You see, my dear, there’s much I’d like to erase
It’s later now, my eyes adjust
Ooh, what a pretty boy he was
Pretty is as pretty does

(chorus x 3)

Teen-I-don’t-know: Werral d’weed at?

Me: What?

Teen: Werral da weed at?

Me: Where all the WEED at?

Teen: Yeah. How much you got on you?

Me: Um … none?

Teen: But you got your Rockstar [Energy Drink].

Me: Yeah. It’s good shit.

Other teen: We’re gonna go get some right now!

Me: Weed?

Other teen: Yeah.

Me: That’s … good.

Teen: See ya!

Faithful

Plaque on the wall says that no one’s slept here
It’s rare to come upon a bridge that has not been around
Or been stepped on
Whatever the notions we laced in our prayers,
The man upstairs is used to all of this noise
I’m through with screaming

And echoes nobody hears, it goes, it goes, it goes
Like echoes nobody hears, it goes, it goes, it goes
We’re faithful, we all believe, we all believe it (4x)

And echoes nobody hears, it goes, it goes, it goes (2x)
We’re faithful, we all believe, we all believe it (3x)
So faithful, we all believe, we all believe it

Myth is belief in the game,
Controls that keep us in a box of fear
We never listen
Voice inside so drowned out, drowned
You are, you are, you are everything
And everything is you
Me, you, you, me, it’s all related
What’s a boy to do?
Just be darling and I will be too  –
Faithful to you

All Vedder Tuesday

Song of Choice

Early every year the seeds are growing
Unseen, unheard, they lie beneath the ground
Would you know before the leaves are showing
That with weeds all your garden will abound?

If you close your eyes, stop your ears
Hold your mouth, how can you know?
The seeds you cannot see may not be there
The seeds you cannot hear may never grow

In January you’ve still got the choice
You can cut the weeds before they start to bud
If you leave them to grow higher, they’ll silence your voice
And in December you may pay with your blood

Close your eyes, stop your ears
Close your mouth and take it slow
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn’t know

Every day another vulture takes flight
There’s another danger born every morning
In the darkness of your blindness the beast will learn to bite
How can you fight if you can’t recognize a warning?

Close your eyes, stop your ears
Close your mouth and then you know
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn’t know

Today you may earn a living wage
Tomorrow you may be on the dole
Though there’s millions going hungry, you needn’t disengage
For it’s them not you that’s fallen in the hole

It’s all right for you if you run with the pack
It’s all right if you agree with all they do
If the Fascist Party’s slowly climbing back
It’s not here yet, so what’s it got to do with you?

The weeds are all around us and they’re growing
It will soon be too late for the knife
If you leave them on the wind that around the world is blowing
You may pay for your silence with your life

Close your eyes, stop your ears
Close your mouth, they’re never there
And if it happens here, they’ll never come for you
Because they’ll know you really didn’t care

Like this track from Los Angeles band System of a Down.  Here are the lyrics:

Prison Song

They’re trying to build a prison
They’re trying to build a prison

Following the rights movements
You clamped down with your iron fists.
Drugs became conveniently
Available for all the kids.
Following the rights movements
You clamped down with your iron fists.
Drugs became conveniently
Available for all the kids.

I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch,
Right here in Hollywood

Nearly 2 million Americans are incarcerated
In the prison system of the U.S.

They’re trying to build a prison

They’re trying to build a prison
They’re trying to build a prison
They’re trying to build a prison
For you and me to live in.
Another prison system
Another prison system
Another prison system

Minor drug offenders fill your prisons
You don’t even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars
Against the new non-rich,
Minor drug offenders fill your prisons
You don’t even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars
Against the new non-rich

I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch,
Right here in Hollywood

The percentage of Americans in the prison system (prison system), has doubled since 1985

They’re trying to build a prison

They’re trying to build a prison
They’re trying to build a prison
They’re trying to build a prison
Another prison system
Another prison system
Another prison system
For you and me, you and me

They’re trying to build a prison
They’re trying to build a prison
They’re trying to build a prison
For you and me
Oh baby, you and me

All research and successful drug policy shows
That treatment should be increased,
And law enforcement decreased
While abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.
All research and successful drug policy shows
That treatment should be increased
And law enforcement decreased
While abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.

Utilizing drugs to pay for secret wars around the world,
Drugs are now your global policy,
Now you police the globe.

I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch,
Right here in Hollywood

Drug money is used to rig elections
And train brutal corporate-sponsored
Dictators around the world.

They’re trying to build a prison

They’re trying to build a prison
They’re trying to build a prison
They’re trying to build a prison
For you and me to live in.
Another prison system
Another prison system
Another prison system
For you and me
They’re trying to build a prison,
They’re trying to build a prison,
They’re trying to build a prison,
For you and me.
Oh baby, you and me!

1. Niall and I were at the home of my father and his wife (“Nana Judy”).  They have a wooden fort installed for him.  He draws a sign to put at the entrance:

For your safty: no adults or human humen girls allowed

My father asks him about it:

My father:  It’s not safe for girls?

Niall:  No.

My father:  Why not?

Niall:  They might get hurt.

My father:  How?

Niall:  They might get pushed off.

2. Niall comes to me and tells me that he wants to build a trapdoor in it.  He describes it, and how it will work, carefully watching to make sure I think it’s a good idea.  Then he says, “OK.  Well, first I need to ask permission to use the chainsaw.”  He says this Christopher-Robin-level politely — as if he could sweet-talk his way into it.

3. Nana Judy is holding a sick rabbit near their hutch, and Niall inquires after it in an unusual but endearing order:

Niall:  What’s his name?

Judy:  ‘Rex’.

Niall:  What is he?

OK, my enamorment might be paternal sentimentalism.  If so, shush.  I’m going to pretend otherwise. 

Niall:  This is why humans should have teleporters!

Nonna: {to give him something fun to talk about:}  Oh, good idea!  Why don’t you grow up and build them?

Niall:  No.

Nonna:  Why not?

Niall:  {helpfully:}  Because it’s impossible.  You can’t make teleporters any more than you can make light sabers.

What makes these moments so charming is that his comments are completely innocent.  There’s no sarcasm, no ridicule; it’s just, “I have some information that you apparently don’t, so I’ll share it.”

Woman:  “Excuse me, sir?”

Me:  “Yes?”

Woman:  “Can I ask you a question?”

Me:  “Sure.”

Woman:  “[Hesitantly:] Decent people don’t make fun of other people, right?”

Me:  “Riiiiight.”

Woman:  “…”

Me:  “?”

Woman:  “…”

Me:  “Is that your whole question?”

Woman:  “Yes.  But they don’t, right?”

Me:  “That’s right.”

Woman:  “Thanks.”

Maybe start here?

Then maybe move on to an eco-awareness song (that takes the piss out of activist rock stars)?

And a song about “Prejudice, the language of prejudice, and the power of the language of prejudice”, with regard to that one taboo word:

A ten minute jazz-backed beat poem about critical thinking?  (No, trust me, watch this):

And round it out with an immensely touching piece that has immediately become my favorite Christmas song.  Of all time.

IMAGINATION AND RADICALS

Conservatism, I believe, is mainly due to want of imagination.

In saying this, I do not for a moment mean to deny the other and equally obvious truth that Conservatism, in the lump, is a euphemism for selfishness.  But the two ideas have much in common.  Selfish people are apt to be unimaginative: unimaginative people are apt to be selfish.  Clearly to realise the condition of the unfortunate is the beginning of philanthropy.  Clearly to realise the rights of others is the beginning of justice.  “Put yourself in his place” strikes the keynote of ethics.  Stupid people can only see their own side of a question: they cannot even imagine any other side possible.  So, as a rule, stupid people are Conservative.  They cling to what they have; they dread revision, redistribution, justice.  Also, if a man has imagination he is likely to be Radical, even though selfish; while if he has no imagination he is likely to be Conservative, even though otherwise good and kind-hearted.  Some men are Conservative from defects of heart, while some are Conservative from defects of head.  Conversely, most imaginative people are Radical; for even a bad man may sometimes uphold the side of right because he has intelligence enough to understand that things might be better managed in the future for all than they are in the present.

But when I say that Conservatism is mainly due to want of imagination, I mean more than that.  Most people are wholly unable to conceive in their own minds any state of things very different from the one they have been born and brought up in.  The picturing power is lacking.  They can conceive the past, it is true, more or less vaguely—because they have always heard things once were so, and because the past is generally realisable still by the light of the relics it has bequeathed to the present.  But they can’t at all conceive the future.  Imagination fails them.  Innumerable difficulties crop up for them in the way of every proposed improvement.  Before there was any County Council for London, such people thought municipal government for the metropolis an insoluble problem.  Now that Home Rule quivers trembling in the balance, they think it would pass the wit of man to devise in the future a federal league for the component elements of the United Kingdom; in spite of the fact that the wit of man has already devised one for the States of the Union, for the Provinces of the Dominion, for the component Cantons of the Swiss Republic.  To the unimaginative mind difficulties everywhere seem almost insuperable.  It shrinks before trifles.  “Impossible!” said Napoleon.  “There is no such word in my dictionary!” He had been trained in the school of the French Revolution—which was not carried out by unimaginative pettifoggers.

To people without imagination any change you propose seems at once impracticable.  They are ready to bring up endless objections to the mode of working it.  There would be this difficulty in the way, and that difficulty, and the other one.  You would think, to hear them talk, the world as it stands was absolutely perfect, and moved without a hitch in all its bearings.  They don’t see that every existing institution just bristles with difficulties—and that the difficulties are met or got over somehow.  Often enough while they swallow the camel of existing abuses they strain at some gnat which they fancy they see flying in at the window of Utopia or of the Millennium.  “If your reform were carried,” they say in effect, “we should, doubtless, get rid of such and such flagrant evils; but the streets in November would be just as muddy as ever, and slight inconvenience might be caused in certain improbable contingencies to the duke or the cotton-spinner, the squire or the mine-owner.” They omit to note that much graver inconvenience is caused at present to the millions who are shut out from the fields and the sunshine, who are sweated all day for a miserable wage, or who are forced to pay fancy prices for fuel to gratify the rapacity of a handful of coal-grabbers.

Lack of imagination makes people fail to see the evils that are; makes them fail to realise the good that might be.

I often fancy to myself what such people would say if land had always been communal property, and some one now proposed to hand it over absolutely to the dukes, the squires, the game-preservers, and the coal-owners.  “‘Tis impossible,” they would exclaim; “the thing wouldn’t be workable.  Why, a single landlord might own half Westminster! A single landlord might own all Sutherlandshire! The hypothetical Duke of Westminster might put bars to the streets; he might impede locomotion; he might refuse to let certain people to whom he objected take up their residence in any part of his territory; he might prevent them from following their own trades or professions; he might even descend to such petty tyranny as tabooing brass plates on the doors of houses.  And what would you do then? The thing isn’t possible.  The Duke of Sutherland, again, might shut up all Sutherlandshire; might turn whole vast tracts into grouse-moor or deer-forest; might prevent harmless tourists from walking up the mountains.  And surely free Britons would never submit to that.  The bare idea is ridiculous.  The squire of a rural parish might turn out the Dissenters; might refuse to let land for the erection of chapels; might behave like a petty King Augustus of Scilly.  Indeed, there would be nothing to prevent an American alien from buying up square miles of purple heather in Scotland, and shutting the inhabitants of these British Isles out of their own inheritance.  Sites might be refused for needful public purposes; fancy prices might be asked for pure cupidity.  Speculators would job land for the sake of unearned increment; towns would have to grow as landlords willed, irrespective of the wants or convenience of the community.  Theoretically, I don’t even see that Lord Rothschild mightn’t buy up the whole area of Middlesex, and turn London into a Golden House of Nero.  Your scheme can’t be worked.  The anomalies are too obvious.”

They are indeed.  Yet I doubt whether the unimaginative would quite have foreseen them: the things they foresee are less real and possible.  But they urge against every reform such objections as I have parodied; and they urge them about matters of far less vital importance.  The existing system exists; they know its abuses, its checks and its counter-checks.  The system of the future does not yet exist; and they can’t imagine how its far slighter difficulties could ever be smoothed over.  They are not the least staggered by the appalling reality of the Duke of Westminster or the Duke of Sutherland; not the least staggered by the sinister power of a conspiracy of coal-owners to paralyse a great nation with the horrors of a fuel famine.  But they are staggered by their bogey that State ownership of land might give rise to a certain amount of jobbery and corruption on the part of officials.  They think it better that the dukes and the squires should get all the rent than that the State should get most of it, with the possibility of a percentage being corruptly embezzled by the functionaries who manage it.  This shows want of imagination.  It is as though one should say to one’s clerk, “All your income shall be paid in future to the Duke of Westminster, and not to yourself, for his sole use and benefit; because we, your employers, are afraid that if we give you your salary in person, you may let some of it be stolen from you or badly invested.” How transparently absurd! We want our income ourselves, to spend as we please.  We would rather risk losing one per cent.  of it in bad investments than let all be swallowed up by the dukes and the landlords.

It is the same throughout.  Want of imagination makes people exaggerate the difficulties and dangers of every new scheme, because they can’t picture constructively to themselves the details of its working.  Men with great picturing power, like Shelley or Robespierre, are always very advanced Radicals, and potentially revolutionists.  The difficulty they see is not the difficulty of making the thing work, but the difficulty of convincing less clear-headed people of its desirability and practicability.  A great many Conservatives, who are Conservative from selfishness, would be Radicals if only they could feel for themselves that even their own petty interests and pleasures are not really menaced.  The squires and the dukes can’t realise how much happier even they would be in a free, a beautiful, and a well-organised community.  Imaginative minds can picture a world where everything is so ordered that life comes as a constant æsthetic delight to everybody.  They know that that world could be realised to-morrow—if only all others could picture it to themselves as vividly as they do.  But they also know that it can only be attained in the end by long ages of struggle, and by slow evolution of the essentially imaginative ethical faculty.  For right action depends most of all, in the last resort, upon a graphic conception of the feelings of others.

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Mom:  Boy, does this take me back!  Driving you or your [younger] brother around in high school!

Joshua:  It’s old enough to have been me.  It was released as a B-side in 1992.

M:  {amazed:} A B-side?!  What the hell was the A-side?!

J:  “Jeremy”.

M:  {ponders:} Oh, yeah, OK.  I can see that.

How cool is it that my mom can have this conversation?