John Wood's daydream - 6.00am, Tuesday 14th June 2005~~#0099CC; background:">re-imagining the pilgrim
- I envisage a quieter, more empathic, ‘creative, more ‘attuned’ world in which to hear and see a car or a plane would be a rare and delightful moment…motorised vehicles would only exist as hand-made art-works, and each would therefore be cherished for its uniqueness.
- In the absence of non-renewable fuels, long journeys would also be very special…they would be welcomed as arduous, spiritual, and/or secular pilgrimages.
our transformation as humans
- In this more intimate, proximal world, humans would become willing competitors with their own pets and specialist technology… they might, for example, seek to be as clever as a cat, or a quantum computer - or they might decide to become as light and intense as a raindrop.
local
- Just as, in the 21st century, we still choose to race against linear (i.e. mechanical) clocks, so we would build ultra-flat, durable tracks for GPS-regulated cycle-ways…there would be roof-top farms and a plethora of tiny restaurants and micro-breweries run by Irish students, Sri-Lankan chefs, German artists, or Tibetan priests.
a shift of investment
- I foresee a world – not too far away - in which human dwellings are, technologically speaking, no less than half as sophisticated as today’s hybrid cars…so that we inhabit our homes in order to share our wisdom with them (i.e. informing them and learning from them).
doughnut houses
- In this Attainable world, cities would evolve into optimally shaped labyrinths (i.e. in accord with the topology of convivial/creative adjacency and energy conservation, etc) that provided humans with an uncanny sense of a blessed continuum between outside/inside, utopia/dystopia, artificial/natural…etc.
values based on simple things
- We would begin to play with space-time in a phenomenological way...
- …Nature might become jealous enough to mimic Art
- …and Sport would become a dazzling, less competitive confusion of shamanistic acrobatics and psychic, or playful illusion.
- Each citizen’s understanding of food-growing, healthcare and Feng-Shui would emerge through early learning in voluntary play gardens…however, most humans might want to tease each other with interruptions to bodily harmonies…some buildings might be toroidal, others would be tetrahedral, some might be conical.
no need for Gymnasia
...
- Each dwelling would be able to sustain human life with an absolutely minimal input of energy and materials…living in a house would be more like being on a galleon…essential routines such as trimming sails, louvres, water levels, or optimising the solar collector might force inhabitants to run upstairs and downstairs all day…in order to catch new rainfall, or to maintain the quiet flow of air through passive ventilation systems…the absence of hazardous chemicals would make everyone feel generous and contented.
- In this world, tree farming, mixed gardening, and story-telling would become the basis for complex and diverse suburban industries…the majority of diseases would be identified with a situated and embodied understanding of ‘sharing’, sympathetic mythology, nutrition, biotic processes, conflict resolution, practices of meditation, mutual care, or ways to deal with sadness and alienation…
beyond monoculture, beyond the 'control' paradogm
- ...rats and other ‘vermin’ populations would be relegated to a less pernicious role in the food-chain - once we have replaced archaic water-dilution methods of sewage disposal with local aerobic systems…likewise, self-destructive corporate executives and emotionally damaged politicians would eventually come to realise that power that comes with the central management of vast populations and financial income is ultimately counter-productive, once they see that an extremely high quality of life for the average person is seen to cost very little – in real terms…i.e. Utopias have never been more Attainable.
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