Replying to LO24506 --
Dear Organlearners,
Andrew campbell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes:
>One fine day my friends, one fine day...
>
>"Wanneer 'n persoon 'n boom plant, wetende dat ny
>nooit darander sal sit nie, dan weet jy dat beskawing
>wortel geskiet net."
Greetings Andrew,
What a powerful insight.
Just for the record: a few typing or spelling errors:
"Wanneer 'n persoon 'n boom plant, wetende dat hy
nooit daaronder sal sit nie, dan weet jy dat beskawing
wortel geskiet het."
Indigenous trees here in our country, large enough to sit under,
are usually slow growing because of our low rainfall. It takes
roughly a hundred years to have a suitable tree.
I have a deep affinity for trees. When I see one felled down for whatever
reason, I feel like losing a limb self. I have travelled extensively
through my own country and have visisted most countries in Southern
Africa. The deforestation of its natural trees (not artificial
plantations) is one of the saddest sights to lay eyes upon. For every
million trees destroyed, perhaps one will be deliberately planted.
So much for civilisation ("beskawing") taking root ("wortel skiet").
I have once read a book by a natural philosopher (I forgot his name and
the name of the book.) He had a most extraordinary thesis. He said that
the qualities of a civilisation are determined by the "awareness to the
span of time" of its civilians. The longer the time span they are aware
of, the deeper and wider the qualities of civilisation which they will
promote.
His thesis seems to be purely coinciental (serendipituous). It is only
when we think about the relationship between time and "entropy production"
expressed in terms of "deep creativity" that his thesis becomes more than
merely a coincidence. The more complex (and thus entropy rich) a creation
becomes, the longer is its creation time becomes. For example, of all
living species, the one which has appeared most recent and thus took the
longest to create, is the species Homo sapiens.
Jan Smuts, the father of holism, was very sensitive of the role of time in
all evolution. His political opponents often criticised him for being
secretly a Fabianist, someone who takes no action against a problem so as
to wait for the problem to die away or mutate into a new problem. When he
stressed that many problems take several generations to solve, they often
accused him of shifting the responsibility. He certainly knew the deep
value of your quote.
When planting in the wild seeds of a tree species which will take several
hundreds of years to become mature, it is not a case of throwing the seed
on the ground and walk away for good. Very few suitable niches exist
naturally for the germination of the seed and the subsequent sustaining of
the seedling.
When I get to a rare tree which has set seed, I will take a pocket full of
them and spend the next few hours in planting them. I will dug a flat
hole, put several in the hole, covered it with peat, and then cover the
peat with large rocks, leaving a vertical cenotaph through which one or
more of the seedlings will get sufficient light the next ten years or so
to grow with. The rocks will prevent it by getting burnt by the sun or
being eaten by antelope. By revisiting the places where I have planted
such seed, I know exactly how slowly it takes for a tree to mature on its
own. Most are still not big enough for me to sit comfortably under. That
is why I get raving mad when I find someone chopping down a tree without
any respect.
I have often said to fellow travellers on expeditions that I will gladly
do this planting of trees for the rest of my life. If I did not have a
family to care for, I would perhaps have been doing this now rather than
planting trees in cyber space. I would also make a law that any person who
wants to chop down a tree, much produce evidence that he/she has planted
one hundred trees so as to earn the right to chop down one tree. The fine
for chopping down one tree will be planting a thousand trees to make up
for the loss.
Think how great a difference it would have made if our government would
have organised one hundred of workers to do this tree planting as a
permanent job. Each would have given rise to a million of rare indigenous
trees in his/her life. It would have cost merely 1% of the tax-payers
money which mean while disappears actually by corruption. But now we have
corruption galore as well as artificial plantations of foreign trees
taking up the best habitats for natural trees. These plantations are
managed purely for commercial interests.
So much for civilidation taking root!
>With all my love, care and respect.
The same here. Let us keep on planting long lived trees in cyberspace
rather than pioneering weeds which will have served their purpose after a
couple of years.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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