music: Ozomatli- Ozomatli
You�ve gotta do something with all those hours in transit. This summer my travel book and companion on the Greyhound Bus up Australia�s East cost was Jared Diamond�s Guns, Germs, and Steel. It�s been a buzzbook as of late, and I understand that they�re making a PBS miniseries based on its premises. It was strange and uncharacteristic that I picked a nonfiction tome such as GG&S to while away my vacation hours; it didn�t exactly make light beach reading. But taking in Diamond�s arguments for why certain societies were the ones to conquer other societies was especially enlightening as I was immersed in Australian and Hawai�ian environs.
His basic argument is elegant and simple: the reason that some societies (namely European and Asian) conquered other societies (namely everybody else) was a simple matter of geography. Some would like to believe that the conquerers (or �oppressors,� as they are called in schools of sociology, anthropology, and education) are inherently better in some way, that there is somehow a genetic explanation for the European�s superiority. Diamond refutes this, saying that Europeans are in no ways genetically superior than anyone else. Instead, the determinant of societal advancement had everything to do, ultimately, with geography. Eurpoeans were the ones with the technology, weapons, communication systems, and infrastructure to carry off conquests, yes, but it was they who developed these advancements because they had the sustainable food supply to support large concentrations of people in urban areas and specialization of labor above hunter-gatherers. Diamond, like �Daniel Quinn,�: argues that it all comes back to agriculture. And Europeans were the ones to develop food surpluses the fastest because of the geography of their homelands: climate, availability of domesticatable livestock, presence of edible plants, and the like. Diamonds says that Australian Aboriginies never had a chance to rise to technological levels that would lift them from a life of hunting and gathering because Australia has so few plants suitable for agriculture, so few animals suitable for domestication (which yields both food and energy for farming and construction) and one of the harshest climates on the planet. Europeans, on the other hand, had a favorable climate, large domesticated animals, and a larger array of crops to grow which allowed them to move away from hunter-gatherer lifestyles quicker, increase technological capabilities, and as a result develop weapons, methods of communication and information tansmission (writing and literacy), and immunity to disease and infection (a byproduct of living around animals and in concentrated areas) that allowed them to be the conquerers of others instead of vice versa. Diamond allows that any society would have reached this point given enough time and natural resources, but the important point is that the Europeans reached this point first and therefore became the ones to conquer.
I buy it. Diamond argues well and reaches the same conclusion multiple times throughout the book (so much so that you get it by the end of the second chapter and find yourself suffering through similar arguments that reach identical conclusions for the rest of it). There is one leap that he makes, however, that I�m not quite sure about. He basically says that societies conquered because societies developed the capability to conquer. You should, he says, just because you can. I don�t believe that is entirely true. For the most part yes; people who find they are able to do something that wold benefit them in a selfish way will do so, but not in all cases. I think that Diamond ignored certain value systems and moral codes which would prevent societies from going out and conquering others even though they were able to do so. I�m thinking specifically about non-western value systems, ones that emphasize harmony with ones surroundings as opposed to a more competitive western model. Could it be that Europeans were the ones to conquer because they were the only society interested in conquest on that scale?
I can�t concede this point easily; too much of my hope for the future lies in the idea that humans are not unconditionally selfish. I�d like to think that some groups of people can grow to a certain size and level of technological advancement, become content with that, and forego progress for a �lower-level� stability. That the sense of self-entitlement and self-righteousness necessary for things like colonization and slavery is not universal for humanity. I suspect that religion has something to do with it; tribal spiritualities do not push progress absolute correctness the same way that the Christian church does. But if Western religion were a product of agricultural advancement and technology and not a precursor�
There may just be a doctoral thesis in here somewhere. At the very least it puts an interesting spin on some topics I�ve been mulling over for the past five years or so. Diamond, a physiologist by training, does an excellent job of justifying his historical arguments with empirical data. But I think deduction can only get us so far here-i think there�s something more fuzzy at work: the psychology of self-entitlement. Diamond recently followed up GG&S with a second book that supposedly works his framing of the past into our future; maybe here is where things get a little fuzzier. I think the trick, unfortunately, is to allow for some fuzziness, which doesn�t seem to be in Diamond�s agenda. The need for order and explanation: another pervasive human tendency, but not necessarily one that is universal.
music: Toots and the Maytalls- Funky Kingston
One year later, some new twists, same story.
I feel very fortunate to be able to take off for two months at a time and travel to fantastic places. Big thanks to Brad for being my OZ resource and mahalo to Parker for being my island tour guide. People have been asking how the trip was; it’s not the sort of thing you can really answer. the July archives from Australia tell some of the tale. Unfortunately Hawaii is not so up on the backpacker scene, as most people stay in hotels and resorts so internet access is more limited. But as an attempt at explanation for the past couple months, pictures of Australia and Hawaii are posted on the anize photo gallery.
Doing an extended trip solo is an incredible thing. Some people understand the impulse because they have done similar or have the urge to, but most people are sort of shocked. I had moments out there, halfway around the world, where I wondered what I was doing myself, and there were lonely times, but for the most part it was excellent. Australia was absolutely no problem as there is an enormous backpacker culture there; I actually had to make a point of spending time by myself. You need to after spending a significant amount of time bouncing in and out of 8-share hostel dorms. Most people who go to Hawaii aren’t backpackers though, they are staying in resorts and hotels, so I spent most of my time alone on the islands. I realized out there in the middle of the Pacific that the solo journey, for me, is not a challenge. It’s easier for me in a lot of ways, especially when backpacking, to be on my own. The places I went this summer were places that I’ve been burning to see, and so I chose the experience of being in those places over the need to share the experience. There isn’t really any other place I can think of that beckons me in that way (although there are plenty of places I’d like to go) so for the near future I expect my travels will be with other people. Were it possible to compare this summer with last summer I might take the cross country road trip with AJM over my wanderings in Australia and Hawaii. Maybe because it was an exploration of my big backyard, but probably because it was a shared experience. We made music nightly. This summer I didn’t even have an instrument.
So I’m back in Boston.
It’s funny to be home in the late afternoon on a Monday when everyone else is at work.
I find myself in much the same position as I did at this time last year: sleeping on my couch. My subletter, who I understand will be moving in more permanently, is still occupying the pumpkin room off the kitchen and I’m still picking the same clothes out of my backpack. But I have some things back: my computer, my phone (didn’t miss either all that much), my guitars (missed a lot). I’ve already had a jam session with the band down in the Biosphere. I found, to my horror, that the leather strap stored next to the Gibson’s neck wore through the finish enough to cause a couple small indentations. Very, very not good. I’ll take the Gibson into the nearest authorized luthier in the coming weeks. But really nothing happens until I get back into my room.
the 1-2 is a flurry of activity; almost everyone is in transition. Marla is already gone, to Berkeley for grad school, and tmo is in the process of clearning out his stuff, on the precipice of his own extended solo journey. Claire has been gone. Ron is roadtripping somewhere in the midwest. JZ is moving into tmo’s room. Upstairs Chuck is gone, and Anna now occupies the third floor She had us all up a couple nights ago and seems to be down with the whole-house ethic. Matt and Gina seem to be the only ones not in transition. Peet is moving downstairs, and when he moves his stuff Gabe the subletter will be able to move his stuff into Peet’s room, whereupon I can move back into my room, set up Mission Control, and begin to get set for school and the coming fall. But an interesting thing has happened in all this shuffle, I realized: I have two new roommates on the second floor. Unexpected, this is.
There are boxes and piles and stuff moving in and out and all over the place. It’s a project trying to keep your stuff together, especially if you have to move it. We have a house meeting on Thursday night so hopefully things can be made more clear then. What I do know is that things here are changing and rather quickly, which at once is unsettling and at the same time opens up all sorts of possibilities for how things are going to go down this next year. One thing is for sure, though: the solo excursion has reached its end. Being back reminds me that I have a community, I have responsibilities and a sense of purpose, and I have a lot of work to do.
I’m currently sitting in the Railway Square YHA in Sydney, the first place I set my big backpack down in this country. Tomorrow I leave Australia, but my net movement at this point is practically 0. I’ve come full circle.
I don’t miss Sydney, or big cities for that matter. This morning I woke up in my tent in the Australian outback, at a roadhouse about 250 km outside Alice Springs. It’s big out there, and besides some select nights in the North woods of Wisconsin, the night sky was among the best I’ve ever seen. At points the only light source for 50 miles in any direction was my headlamp. I even became accustomed to the once strange configuration of stars that grace the southern hemisphere. I can recognize the Southern Cross and that’s about it. (How many can pick out more than the Big Dipper?)
The past three days has been spent in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, home to what whitey calls Ayers Rock. I did it in a rental car driven on the wrong side of the road, and I managed to find Jentz and Christian, two German students who came along for the ride. I dragged them behind me, more like. They were into seeing the rock and doing the National Park thing, but had no love for sleeping in tents, cooking food, or walking long distances in the desert. All of which are fairly prevalent in a trip out to Uluru. Luckily we picked up a fourth once we were out there: Jenny (or Janet?) from Sydney, now working as a youth worker on an aboriginal reservation 600 km west of Uluru. More precisely in the middle of nowhere than even Uluru.
It felt good to be driving, although the stereo in the car did not meet my music dorque specifications. And although they didn’t say anything, I could tell the Germans were not down with my musical selections. Christian had a two hour window to be an iPod DJ and really pushed musical boundaries with techno remixes of little-known 80’s pop groups (Boy Meets Girl, anyone?) and more mainstream stuff like Roxette and Dido. They surely couldn’t discuss the effect of a switch in Phish’s 1999 stage setup and its effect on type II jamming style like some Germans I know. But because my name was on the dotted line, I carried the keys and had my finger on the button. The whole expedition had that vibe: this was my trip, and they were along for the ride. Jenny/Janet was hitching so she had the liberty to jump off whenever she wanted.
Four and a half hours of driving through the outback gets you to the park from Alice Springs. On the way there are precisely 5 roadhouses and nothing else built by humans. The land is beautiful, though; it had more trees than I thought it would. but that’s all you see: trees. And scrub brush. And red dirt. And then, finally: a really big rock.
Uluru is really, really big. Larger than life big. But you expected that. You’ve seen so many pictures of the thing that you probably expected it to be bigger than it really is. I did, at least. But it is an impressive sight. Catching a glimpse of the thing on the horizon gives you a little start, partially because it is so big but also because you are seeing something you’ve seen pictures of for so long. Like when you see the Empire State Building or the Mona Lisa for the first time in person. You think: “oh, that’s it.” And that is it. Uluru. A big rock in the middle of the desert.
Were it only a big rock in the middle of the desert, the trip would have been arguably for very little. But the magic of the thing to me was that the entire park was run by the aborigines, the traditional land owners, and everything about the rock was steeped in their mythology. Being an outsider we didn’t get to learn about the juicy details of the thing, but we got enough about it to understand that the thing’s significance is not just that it is big and sticks awkwardly out from its surroundings. It is the physical reminder of the creation time to these people, and its many faces and facets are relics from a more magic time when gods and people coexisted. It is the source of and subject of many of the aboriginal people’s stories and mythology and is involved in many of their life events and rites of passage. It is, i think, a symbol for how they believe people can and should live their life: steadfast, patient, quiet in its beauty. Those people out there are some of Earth’s greatest survivors, and so is that big rock.
Nowhere in the entire park was there anything about geology, natural history, or anything else related to Western science. It was all aboriginal lore and custom. I think the point was lost on my travelling companions. They were just hellbent on climbing the thing. I didn’t climb because the aborigines wished that we wouldn’t. Nor did I take photos of certain parts of the rock as the aborigines wanted them to remain unphotographed. But it’s amazing that so many people did climb the thing and snap pictures. Matt said that they didn’t close the climb because someone figured out that climbing Uluru accounts for as much as 10% of the whole country’s tourism and the white government made the aborigines leave it open because of this reason.
About 45 km to the west of Uluru is Kata Tjuta, a formation of smaller (but still massive) rocks that are much less known but in their own way much more magnificient. The hiking trail takes you through the middle of the formations and because of this you really feel a part of the thing. So in its own way it’s even greater than Uluru despite less press. There are also some points of significance relating Kata Tjuta and male rites of passage so there are a lot of young guys boldly hiking around there, snapping photos of themselves, and the like. The trail itself, called “Valley of the Winds,” is beautiful. The Germans complained about the few dozen feet of elevation change.
Besides the hike up Uluru, there is a 10 km trail around its base. This was my trail. This was, I decided, the last thing I had to do before leaving Australia. I wanted to see every facet of the rock from every angle. I wanted to closely examine this geological anomaly, this source of story and law for the Aborigines, this well-recognized reason for why I came to Australia in the first place. Thanks to mom I have a picture of me as an 8 year old dressed as a swagman and holding a picture of Uluru. Now, almost 20 years later, I have a picture of me dressed in the same clothes I’ve been wearing for a month at Uluru itself.
I walked around the big rock. It took close to 3 1/2 hours. But I guess it’s ok for me to go now. I shuttled the Germans back to Alice Springs. I hopped a plane for Sydney. I’m back to where I started. I didn’t do everything I wanted to do but I accomplished all my goals here. I’m ready to leave this place.
I’m exhausted.
Hawaii tomorrow. I get a day back in the process of getting there, which is interesting. Hawaii has been the not-thought-about encore to this trip which has the potential to be equally as spectacular. I haven’t thought about it a bit, but now that it becomes my present reality I’m getting excited. Which is, AJM would tell me, my first mistake. Stop #1 upon arrival: gear store. The Germans managed to misplace my pot handle tool and the Australians took my empty fuel bottle at the airport. Bastards. The fuel bottle is a necessary; travelling backcountry without a stove and heat source is not advisable. The pot handle would be really nice to have. My weapons: I will need them. Technology allowed us to move us away from aboriginal ways of life and enjoy a sedentary lifestyle, but technology also allows us to move back to nomadism. The contents of the backpack I’ve packed and unpacked for a month now has shelter, warmth, fire, water, food, and basic tools. Everything one could need.
So just like that the month of July is over. And once again July was legendary. August will hold adventures of its own in new and strange places. Now that I’ve been to Uluru and seen the rock in the Red Center, I’m ready to move on.