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    economiz8ion of how ppl ha1ve B-come th tools of their tools

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1042

9/27/22 (cont.) | Boston > 8 @ Puga then walked 2 Harvard + baɔk again, 12 miles of walking in toetill 4 th day

MiT architeXture

 

9/28 > went 2 g0 SCUBA diving + jumped in w/ N inner-2be but th inner-2be started floating az if connected 2 a BC (buoyancy controller) + U/i kept floating up in2 th 5ky az if iT = hot error balloon until U/i cd adjust th BC 2 float baɔk down > then U/i + R bedder-½ went w/ a real est8 agent 2 look @ a house + th most important a5pect th agent wanted 2 show us = parking spa¢es (even th0 we said we din't halve a ¢ar), 2 options, both on plat4ms 100s of feet above th 0cean, but 1 had more room 4 un/packing + U/i thought iT = useless b/c th cliff = 2 hi 2 jump from

> walked up th Charles river again onely thi5 time U crossed + went thru th Boston College hood + past Fenway Park + thru Back Bay > 5topped in Boston Commons + red th «Economy» chapter of Walden by H.D. Thoreau > U/i red parts of Walden in college + recently 5tarted 2 read a copy U found in a book box but th font = tiny + hard 2 read s0 U/i bot a copy @ Harvard bookstore b/c R bedder-½ als0 wants 2 read iT in lite of th hippie back 2 th L& book they'R working on + Thoreau als0 = on R mined b/c az we drove 2 Boston from th Berkshires we passed Walden Pond + 5topped but din't hike around iT b/c we were appalled @ th $30 ¢harge 2 park your ¢ar! th book ¢ost $10.95, money better 5pent > Thoreau als0 = on R mined b/c 6 posts ag0 U/i quoted hym az saying «We do not ride the railroad; it rides upon us», perhaps th 1st line of support 4 th «selfish machine» theory @ th core of th book (iSBN) U/i = writing (dat technology Uses us 4 iT's continUed propag8ion, naught th other weigh around, taking Richard Dawkin's Selfish Gene theory 1 step further) > well, naught onely did Thoreau say dat about trains, but he reiter8s iT about houses:

And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him ... for our houses are such unwieldly property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them ...

> als0 a5tronishing dat Thoreau rote thi5 naught onely b4 Dawkins (+ McCluhan saying «we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us») but b4 Darwin's Origin of Species, coinsidentally onely published 2 yrs b4 ... 1854–1856 = quite fruitful yrs 4 book publishing! + 5peaking of tools shaping us, Thoreau then perhaps most concisely gets 2 th jist of what 5truck U/i dat day st&ing @ an intersection in Rome realizing dat ppl didn't drive cars + use phones, but cars + phones used us:

But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.

+ then again in regards 2 farm animals:

I am wont to think that men are not so much the herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer.

> Thoreau goes on 2 talk about how technology turns us in2 zom-Bs + how th best art tries 2 undo thi5 ɔondition:

The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agri-culture. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it.

> Thoreau definitely = wordy + beats around the bush gazing @ his elitist navel, but back in those dayz b4 TV there perhaps wasn't such a need 2 economize words (th0 th title of th chapter = «Economy») > sumtimes he cd say in 10 words what cd B said in 1,000, but U/i have 2 s¢an thru th 1,000 2 get 2 th juicy morsels, like:

The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful.

> th0 he does list dollar amounts, th economization Thoreau tocks about has more 2 do w/ th efficiency of self-sufficiency, az R R annual «economy of words» po5ts regarding running Ↄalamari Arɔhive > thi5 notion of economiz8ion = always on R mined every waking moment, minimizing R waste + output az much az possible, weather iT B w/ cooking or consuming in general, we try 2 think about sustainability of planet + R one afishinsea (hard 2 do when travelling ... so much unnecessary waste U have no control over in hotels + restraunts ... see also R «nimble economiz8ion post») > az Thoreau says, «the economy of living which is synonmous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges» > + ironic dat th total amount iT cost Thoreau 2 build his Walden house = $28.12½ + now iT cost $30 to park your car @ Walden pond

 

 

 

Boston Liebury

 

 

> walked around more, 5topped on riverfront + red a few more chapters, after a wile Thoreau just rambles on about thi5 + that w/ the occassional tidbit ≈

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.

+ observ8ions ≈ «the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation» > 8 sushi @ Sakana then walked back @ nite along th river, 14-15 miles on the day

 

 

 

MiT dome

 

 

9/29 | Mystic, Connecticut > woke up + ran along the Charles river then pushed on 2 Mystic > 8 @ Mystic Pizza then walked around, napped on a beach + now from our room just saw the drawbridge go up


1041 <(current)> 1043 > 5leeping @ pɹɐpuɐʇS ǝɥʇ in th city dat nvr wakes
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