It’s the middle of May; it’s early in the morning; I’m in Cleveland. If I knew Cleveland’s moniker, I certainly would have used that rather than the city’s name. It’s sort of been my thing on this road trip to be vague about where I am and only moderately specific about the time. It’s a way to make you, the reader on the other side of this correspondence, do a little more work making up some things using whatever confirmation bias engine you’re operating upstairs and down. The Rockefeller original spot. The place where the river went up in flames (among other places with anachronistic pollution stories). A place that does not appear to have ideal air quality (the coal processing station right next to the neighborhood I’m staying in can’t be particularly helpful re: particulates. But hey, the Midwestern university town where I live burns a lot of stuff and drives a lot of cars too. So I’m not complaining. I’m just drinking coffee.
That’s plenty of plot. I’ve been thinking a lot about infrastructure between people. Friendships, manager relationships, coffee buyer/barista connectivity. Is there a concrete and steel bridge that is going to need high levels of maintenance in order to avoid becoming unstable and cataclysmically falling into the burning river thirty seven years down the road? Or is there a deer path that gets worn over time, and in certain types of rain storm becomes muddy and difficult to pass? Or is there perhaps no trace of infrastructure; a meadow that is lightly trod upon sometimes, holding no memory in the land of interlocutors? Sometimes I want to be the progenitor of a brand new place, a place where the inter-relationships between the people making power, the people making coffee, and the people delivering the mail are all intimate and permanent and lovely. And then I read a little bit about mutualism (the Wikipedia page is fascinating). I learn about the different utopian strains of 19th and 20th century thought. And I remember that all this has been tried before. And yet ought to be tried again. But there is much to learn from “markets” as well, more than just “communism bad, moneys good” (please hit those scare quote notes in a high-ish pitch). Free-ish exchange at prices that people agree to without too much interference (outside of advertising, regulation, taxes, peer pressure, invidiously comparative fear, childhood anxieties) seems to have the seeds of some usefulness to it. My favorite price for free exchange, it turns out, is free.
Now a Burning Man style gift economy is not the utopia you’re looking for. But inside of the layers of many other exchanges, the webs of connection, disconnection, and emotional motivators & valuation machines, there are people. Some people I love, some people I’d like to get to know, and lots of people I’m happy to ignore with no possibility of intersections. It’s a beautiful thing. And it all comes back to Survival of the Fittest, the most wrong interpretation of the supposedly most awesome scientific discovery ever. Yes, it’s interesting that animals derived from other animals, and going all the way back bacteria. However. The idea that competition for resources ruled the day, rules the world, and defines the things that live and die and reproduce is the worst bit of nonsense I’ve heard. Worst because it gets so much air time, but above and below the “conscious” surface. How much competition is needed for the sun? Perhaps a tiny amount, on a micro level, within a given forest. But plants aren’t motivated by taking over the world, but sucking up all the available sun on the earth’s landed surface. So there’s no necessity for winning, no imperative for victory. Sure, extinctions happened, and sometimes because resources ran out and certain organisms were fortunately or “strategically” adapted to surviving the particular scarcity. But geese exist. They’re pretty slow on the ground, have this ridiculous need to travel annually, and aren’t particularly good at hiding. And yet, they live! The “compete” for resources and reproduce. The geese are a great example that we aren’t playing professional football by the rules on this earth. Even if we are playing on a 100 yard field, there are thousands of footballs bouncing around and everyone on the field is free to pick one up and walk into either end zone. So many points on the board. And the team that won here today? Couldn’t possibly say.
Roman Ryan 