Name: Anonymous 2007-08-20 4:18 ID:UF+2LU2s
http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/epic_experience/
“Reading poetry does not generate poetry.”
Its another day as usual-- you go to work, or to school. People are passing by on either side, people talk to one another on cell phones, there is a level of background conversation which gradually gets higher as you enter the more crowded streets. And you think over whatever theoretical problem you’ve been kicking around in your head-- more or less indifferent to your surroundings, perceiving almost none of what goes on around you. Daily life has a dream-like quality about it.
Imagine a combat scenario, an armed group settling a vendetta in a mid-sized town in the Caucasus. You’re the object of the vendetta. The presence of two known enemy gang-members approaching you sets you off that what you’ve long waited for has finally come to pass: they are coming to kill you. You look up, aware that the two of them probably haven’t come alone. Scanning the streets, you make out at least two other unknown men who could be in their employment. Suddenly every detail becomes extremely important-- the two men are 20 meters away. The street between you and the two men is crowded with market stalls, which will slow them down. You notice a man on top of a nearby house, he could easily be in their employ, set up for the event that you evade them, to send out the final bullet. You note the angle from which he would be shooting at you, and the likelihood of evading him by taking cover under a veranda.
One inevitable outcome of evolutionary history is that the primary metric of significance for us humans is survival value. In a safe, known environment, we can walk with eyes wide open and notice almost nothing. In an unsafe environment, under the influence of fear and adrenaline, one notes details which otherwise would never have entered one’s mind. Suddenly the details of that particular street corner, and that particular crowd of people, become crucially important-- and they take precedence in your mind over all other concerns. The lethality of the situation has made these details significant.
[...]
“Reading poetry does not generate poetry.”
Its another day as usual-- you go to work, or to school. People are passing by on either side, people talk to one another on cell phones, there is a level of background conversation which gradually gets higher as you enter the more crowded streets. And you think over whatever theoretical problem you’ve been kicking around in your head-- more or less indifferent to your surroundings, perceiving almost none of what goes on around you. Daily life has a dream-like quality about it.
Imagine a combat scenario, an armed group settling a vendetta in a mid-sized town in the Caucasus. You’re the object of the vendetta. The presence of two known enemy gang-members approaching you sets you off that what you’ve long waited for has finally come to pass: they are coming to kill you. You look up, aware that the two of them probably haven’t come alone. Scanning the streets, you make out at least two other unknown men who could be in their employment. Suddenly every detail becomes extremely important-- the two men are 20 meters away. The street between you and the two men is crowded with market stalls, which will slow them down. You notice a man on top of a nearby house, he could easily be in their employ, set up for the event that you evade them, to send out the final bullet. You note the angle from which he would be shooting at you, and the likelihood of evading him by taking cover under a veranda.
One inevitable outcome of evolutionary history is that the primary metric of significance for us humans is survival value. In a safe, known environment, we can walk with eyes wide open and notice almost nothing. In an unsafe environment, under the influence of fear and adrenaline, one notes details which otherwise would never have entered one’s mind. Suddenly the details of that particular street corner, and that particular crowd of people, become crucially important-- and they take precedence in your mind over all other concerns. The lethality of the situation has made these details significant.
[...]