Humans are immensely complex machines. It’s insane that we don’t come with an actual user manual. Then again with all of the education, so called self help gurus, and psychologist there’s an abundant support staff on hand to mend the injuries caused by trial and error. We stumble through life interpreting. We interpret the glances, the backhanded comments, the embraces that go on for a moment too long. It’s not surprising that we quite often misinterpret and expound on the decrepit foundation that is created.
There is hope. Design* has acknowledged the thing that psychology has been so breathlessly touting for ages - emotions. When I have discussions with my father about what it takes to be a parent he expresses that it’s a matter of simply being there. Being a good dad is about taking care of your children. His elegant philosophy lacks granularity and marked consistency. Though I must testify that I did come out alright, following his doctrine of presence is a matter of placing stock in serendipity. He won the lottery.
If time has exclaimed one great truism it is that with advancement comes higher levels of resolution. For example at first we observed that things fall from trees. Then we realized that the falling was due to an invisible force, we called it gravity. Finally we learned to control that force in a civil manner with careful calculation. If all goes well skyscrapers won’t topple and planes don’t plummet from the sky. With regards to the internal processes of human beings we are rapidly approaching this apex of understanding.
Today, school programs are being created that smash the tired paradigm of rote learning. By these carefully planned strategies our children are failing less, succeeding more, and in time will achieve immeasurable ambitions. All of this empowered by the simple fact that we are finally understanding that there is an invisible force called emotional development and it isn’t just a sweetener for life but a critical part of being human.
What must be divined from this lesson is that it’s not enough to just stumble through life. It’s not enough to artlessly be mindful. It takes real work to become balanced. It takes copious amounts of dedication to sort through the natural and unnatural emotions that are experienced day in and day out. Perhaps it’s more than we were ever meant to handle. As with many theories only time will tell and when we are seeing our lives last for hundreds and thousands of years perhaps the prodigious pattern will emerge.
October 12th, 2009
2 Comments at "Complex Machines"
The closest we have to a user manual to the structure of the human body is Tom Myers’s book “Anatomy Trains”. Boulder Bookstore stocks this. The second edition just came out — they should be getting that in a week or so.
This is my favorite book in the whole world, and it’s taken me years to really appreciate it. Anatomy Trains is a tensegrity-oriented mapping of the lines of tension in the body. It also deals with the fractal nature of tension components: the network of fascial fibers. Tensegrity is a big pill to swallow, but fractal tensegrities is a much bigger pill. Buckminster Fuller actually envisioned big tensegrities made up of networks of teeny weeny tensegrities in 740.21 of Synergetics (which can be found on rwgrayprojects.com ). Myers was a student of Buckminster Fuller, Moshe Feldenkrais, and Ida Rolf — a really amazing combination.
My main complaint is that its full title — “The Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Professionals” — will scare away many civilians. OTOH, if your book sells for ~$60, it had better have a pretty serious title.
You can see a 20-page PDF summary of the first edition at
anatomytrains.com -> explore -> articles -> Anatomy Trains Summary
I’m sorry; my first entry was a bit off-topic for your posting. I was clearly a hammer hunting for a nail last night. OTOH, it does demonstrate that something we, as a society, have “understood” for hundreds of years is fundamentally incorrect.
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