Arcata, CA
Wednesday September 24, 2003
8:42am I woke up at the barn and the whole family is up. Benson, Hannah, Dave and Jerome. The kids(Arrow and Kerouac) are all playing.
9:32am I've decided I am going to stay at the barn until it's time to go eat at The Endeavor. A couple hours. I'm going to lay here and read my book. Last night I was typing my stuff up and remembered how I was quoting all the stuff I was reading at Bayshore Mall. It was some really good stuff and I was really glad it was going in my log. I've found another paragraph that is noteworthy. It's on page 295 at the top. It says,
"Today there is a fast-spreading recognition around the world that progress can no longer be measured in terms of technology or material standard of living alone - that a society that is morally, aesthetically, politically, or environmentally degraded is not an advanced society, no matter how rich or technically sophisticated it may be. In short, we are moving toward a far more comprehensive notion of progress - progress no longer automatically achieved and no longer defined by material criteria alone.
We are also less inclined to think of societies as moving along one track, each society traveling automatically from one cultural way-station to the next, one more "advanced" then another. There may be many branch lines, as it were, rather than a single roadbed, and societies may be able to achieve comprehensive development in a variety of ways.
We are beginning to think of progress as the flowering of a tree with many branches extending into the future, the very variety and richness of human cultures serving as a measure. In this light, today's shift toward a more diverse, de-massified world may itself come to be seen as an important forward leap - analogous to the tendency toward differentiation and complexity so common in biological evolution.
Whatever happens next, it is unlikely that the culture will ever again return to the naive, uni-linear, Pollyannaish progressivism that characterized and inspired the Second Wave era.
The past decades, therefore, have witnessed a forced reconceptualization of nature, evolution, and progress alike. These concepts, however, were in turn based on still more elemental ideas - our assumptions about time, space, matter, and causality. And the Third Wave is dissolving even these assumptions - the intellectual glue that held Second Wave civilization together."
Here's one on 303. Towards the top of the page it says,
"Their thrust is summed up in the words of Ervin Laszlo, a leading systems theorist: we are "part of an interconnected system of nature, and unless 'generalists' make it their business to develop systematic theories of the patterns of interconnection, our short-range projects and limited controllabilities may lead us to our own destruction."
10:23am I finished reading for now. I'm walking into town. I'm going to go spange up a donut. I'm hooked on these donuts. They're good, though.
10:30am I'm over here at the Cash Oil. I'm going to take a shit.
10:41am Mike gave me a cigarette. I appreciate it, brother.
11:08am Alfred just hooked me up with some change. Thanks a lot, brother.
11:15am I walked up to The Endeavor and I saw Sky(7-10-03, 2:45am). Sky is the girl I had seen at the Peace Encampment in Portland and I had seen her again in Arcata a while back. She's doing good. I'm glad to see people again.
11:50am I'm standing here in line at The Endeavor and I see Brandon, the guy who gave me a ride from Oregon to Humboldt(7-22-03, 7:41pm). He was the guy with one arm who could drive haulass on twisty 101.
11:57am Man, The Endeavor is packed. There's tons of people here.
12:13pm Rennick saw me talking into my recorder and he wants to say something. Rennick: "Hey what's up dude. I'm glad to see you got a new recorder. Do you want to say something, Hunter?"(Hunter is this little kid who's mom hangs out with us in the plaza.) Hunter: "Hi recorder. Hello, what are you doing?"
12:43pm I'm done at The Endeavor. I got a full stomach. I'm going to smoke a cigarette out by the red curb. It's funny, I took my last hit of weed and Ranger Bob was right there. Since I don't have my glasses, I didn't notice him. Oh shit. He wasn't looking over here anyway. I took my last hit and now I'm walking to the school. I've got a world to save, hehe. I'm finishing up this chapter on September 26th and I just wanted to point out that I lost my green one-hitter right then, I think. My one-hitter, that got kicked down by this cool chick in San Antonio at Flip Side Records. It sucks, I wanted to have that little pipe on me when I got back to San Antonio so then I could ride the bus out to Flip Side and show that girl, Lorraine, how I still had that pipe. Lorraine is hot, too.
7:39pm I am officially caught up with my typing!! Yeehaw! I even typed up most of today already, so on that account, I am free to leave!
7:42pm I just finished up at the library. I came out and checked my little smoking post resource
I have here to see if I could find a little short in there. And Catherine saw me looking for a cigarette and came up to me and asked me, "Hey, are you looking for a cigarette?" I told her, "Yeah! You got one?" and she just out-of-the-blue offered me a cigarette. I appreciate it, Catherine. How very generous of you.
7:51pm I stopped under the decorated bridges before the footbridge and smoked that cigarette I got from Catherine. Ahh, I am so happy I am caught up.
Hehe, this girl riding on a bike behind me saw me talking into my tape recorder and she laughed, hehe.
8:19pm I went to the donut shop because I felt I deserved a donut for catching up. I looked in the window and saw that there was only one apple fritter left. I had like fifty cents and I walked in and asked the cashier if she would give me that last apple fritter for not enough. She said, "I can't do that." So, I asked the two kids sitting at the table next to the window. I said, "Hey, I really, really want that last apple fritter. Can you guys spare any change? Sean and Brian hooked me up with some change for a donut. I appreciate it, brothers.
Yeah! They even gave me enough for a milk!
8:30pm I was outside spanging for a donut and I ran into Benson, Hannah and Cocapelli. I asked them if they had any marijuana and they're smoking a brother out now over by the Co-op. I appreciate it, guys. That's very generous of you. It'll come back.
8:45pm Interesting fact from Cocapelli: "That through six people in the world, you can reach everybody in the world. Like, through all the interrelations."
8:55pm Cocapelli is recommending a book. 1984 by George Orwell.
I told Cocapelli about my plan and he listened good. He told me, "You do know that somebody might shoot you." He said that I was going to reveal a lot of stuff that a lot of people didn't want being revealed. I gave him the old script, "I am fully aware that I might even get assassinated for having these great ideas. But, I take great comfort in the knowing the fact that if I am killed, not only will I die a martyr(because I'm not doing anything wrong), but my mission will be accomplished even sooner. My shit is already on the Internet. I am basically famous in San Antonio. Just imagine the publicity my death or disappearance would bring. Everyone would want to read what the guy who died for the world wrote. It would be totally worth it. One life to save billions. I would die one happy man. I can't, for the life of everybody, find anything better to do."
And Benson recommends a book by William Cooper called Behold a Pale Horse.
9:15pm This sucks. There are all these other spangers in front of the donut shop. All of them want a donut. Dave and Jerome and this other guy. This sucks. I want a donut.
9:57pm Pete just walked out of the donut shop and without me even asking him tells me, "Oh, you want some change?" He hooked me up with fifty five cents. That's very generous of you, man.
10:14pm I got me enough for a donut, finally. I bought me a chocolate buttermilk one. I ate it and I decided I was going to read my book inside the donut shop. It's still kind of early. I got out of school early tonight, so I'm just going to sit here and read my book. I just read a good part on page 337. It says,
"Is it now possible, moreover, as it was not in the past, for a society to attain a high material standard of living without focusing all its energies on production for exchange? Given the wider range of options brought by the Third Wave, cannot a people reduce infant mortality and improve life span, literacy, nutrition, and the general quality of life without surrendering its religion or values and necessarily embracing the Western materialism that accompanies the spread of Second Wave civilization?
Tomorrow's "development" strategies will come not from Washington or Moscow or Paris or Geneva but from Africa, Asia and Latin America. They will be indigenous, matched to actual local needs. They will not overemphasize economics at the expense of ecology, culture, religion, or family structure and the psychological dimensions or existence. They will not imitate any outside model. First Wave, Second Wave or, for that matter, Third.
But the ascent of the Third Wave places all our efforts in a new perspective. For it provides the world's poorest nations, as well as the richest, with wholly new opportunities."
How did I end up way out here by K street? It's over by the Brio bread store, walking towards where Kate used to live at the end of 11th. That's crazy. I thought I knew this town better. Oh yeah! I don't have my glasses! That's why.
11:07pm I just got back to the barn. I just noticed that most everybody is awake at the barn. I see a candle going inside. Jerome is asleep, I think. This really sucks. I just realized I misplaced my pipe somewhere. Boohoo. I had been so proud that I hadn't lost it yet.
11:21pm We were desperately looking for a pipe and I remembered that bag of groceries that I had found when I first started crashing at the barn. It was still there, so I looked hoping there would be a potato we could use as a pipe. We found a celery stalk, err broccoli. I stand corrected. It's broccoli. We found a broccoli stalk and fashioned a smoke-inhalation device out of it. How very resourceful, eh?
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