November 2, 2003
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Think globally,
feel locally.
Okay, I guess I was reaching for that title. Some of my conversations with my old friend April at last weekend’s bazaar got me to thinking about the ’60s slogan attributed to French agronomist Rene Dumont, “Think globally, act locally.” Specifically, when I’d told April about our plans for Addicts Unlimited she said she was glad to hear that we were going to start something of that sort in Willow. She looked disappointed when I told her it wasn’t in Willow, but on the web.
I’d been thinking ahead to a time when we might have enough local interest to start a face-to-face group around here, but it was on the back burner as I worked up web content and worked out my own ignorance of the intricacies of CSS, cascading style sheets. First things first, and all that jazz. Now I have moved that “sometime” idea up a bit and we are starting to look for an appropriate place to hold group meetings. Nothing says I can’t multi-task and work on that while I learn web design, eh?
While my focus was on a presentable global presentation of our ideas for transcending addiction, I’d been setting myself up for a more immediate, intimate little shocker. Guess what: I’m not as evolved as I’d like to be. While I’m far enough along not to blame someone else for hurting my feelings, I haven’t yet transcended all tendency to let my feelings get hurt, to feel disappointment. That means I’ve not transcended all my expectations, I guess.
This afternoon I was studying my online lessons, looking at the CSS inheritance tree, trying to get the relationships straight. I read some of it aloud to Greyfox, hoping that it might help me set it all straight in my own mind. As I went along, he asked a few questions and explaining basic concepts to him did help me grasp some of what I had been reading.
That’s not all it did, apparently. As the printer chattered away making a hard copy for me to refer to offline–twenty pages that I intend to put into a binder and carry with me so I can study during idle moments wherever I am–Greyfox spoke up: “Y’know, when you told me you were studying Cascading Style Sheets, I thought you were learning to build a website that looked like a waterfall.”
“What!?” I said, “Are you kidding?”
He assured me he was totally serious. I got to thinking. I’d told him I was learning to write elegant, simple code and that my goal was to make a site I could feel good about, one that might elicit admiration from any professional designers who looked at the code. Doug and I had discussed, in Greyfox’s presence, how such simply elegant code made pages that loaded faster, required less space to store, etc.
Maybe I should have caught a clue to the way his thoughts were trending when he said he hoped I wouldn’t unduly delay the publication of the content just to pretty up the presentation. Even so, I had no idea that he’d so misjudge me, that he would think I would use trashy, flashy animation tricks, etc. Okay, so I’d told him I wanted to make our site interactive, didn’t want it to just look and act like a book on paper, but wanted it to make good use of the medium in which it was presented. But… waterfalls?! I felt a little hurt that he would have thought I was so silly, so shallow. I thought he knew me better. Silly me.
So, that’s the local feelings part of the title above. Now, for the global thoughts. Earthweek is my favorite part of each Sunday’s Anchorage Daily News. Today, Greyfox was reading to me about locusts in the Sudan, and I stepped over behind his chair to see what else was in Earthweek. “Mile-a-minute vine” immediately caught my eye. This is an invasive creeper that is doing to Pacific Islands and Rim countries what kudzu did in the American South and still does in some areas, only worse. It’s a real killer.
Check out Mikania micrantha.
Comments (7)
Someone once observed that the USA and England were two countries divided by a common language. I can relate to that. In this household, I am similarly divided from Kathy and her son.
In the outside world, I have had no problem communicating with customers, wholesalers (even those whose first language is Chinese), drunks, dope fiends, cops, crooks, cranks, slum lords, slum dwellers, Natives, red necks, politicians, patricians, electricians, beauticians, village idiots, Mensa members, bartenders, elbow benders, money lenders, and on occasion, even birds, trees and rocks. So you’d think I might be able to communicate with members of my own family. But noooo!
Sometimes, stuff that I think is perfectly reasonable and logical, not to day bloody axiomatic, is bizarre and/or pathological to my loved ones. Sometimes I totally lose my temper and my Libra tact and blurt out something I am totally positive will be massively hurtful and start World War III in our living room, and guess what–no one’s offended! They laugh, for heaven’s sake!
Conversely, sometimes I casually drop a little off-hand “silly me” comment–like my ignorance over what the hell a cascading style sheet is–and I give offense to my tough-minded, tender-hearted and sometimes thin-skinned sweety.
Actually, this is something I had been thinking about blogging about. I guess I should write in such a way as I think will give maximum offense–then it will be sure to give her a good laugh. Go figure.
I didn’t say I was offended, you silly man. I said my feelings were hurt. “Common language,” indeed!
Thank you for illustrating my point.
In my book, when one is offended, one’s feelings ARE hurt.
That’s what I like about this relationship: it makes me THINK and INVESTIGATE. I went to the dictionary, and sure enough, hurt feelings are one of the definitions of “offense.” I’d always seen being offended as a sort of indignation thing, more pissed off than hurt.
whoa. this is like a tennis match only more interesting.
it’s nice to see you two “talk” things out like this.
more people should learn to do this.
waterfall? o_0 *snork*
sorry…
meh. i probably would’ve thought the same thing, if it’s any consolation.
I think I would have laughed if Jonathan thought I was going to put an animated waterfall on a webpage.