Challenges to Comprehension Implied by the Logo of Laetus in Praesens
Laetus in Praesens Alternative view of segmented documents via Kairos
3rd August 2001 | Draft

Composing and Engendering the Future

***

-- / --

Presenting the Future (Part 4, 2001)

"Future generation"

(reprinted from https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/converse.php#future)

How does the future emerge into the present? How does potential become actuality? What are the cognitive traps associated with phrases such as: "where does the future come from" and "the far-distant future" ? How are present initiatives established as future realities? Why does past understanding appear so quaint from the present and what does this say of present understandings that are taken so seriously now?

The sustainability of global conversation or dialogue is therefore viewed as necessarily dynamic rather than static. Insights from chaos theory and strange attractors merit attention (Judge, 1993b). Its meta-stable nature ensures its coherence by engendering "futures". Global conversations thus evolve through "generations", necessarily accompanied by schisms that challenge any previous sense of coherence. "Participants" in a conversation today are the children of those participating yesterday, or an hour ago -- even if they are physically indistinguishable. As with computer backups, one can usefully speak of grandfather-father-son relationships between one's own successive "incarnations" in social intercourse.

How then is the future generated? How does one understand the nature of a future generation from one's current mode of comprehension? How does one comprehend across the generation gap -- and seek comprehension in return -- if only by oneself?

Whilst such questions are challenging for society as a whole, they are even more challenging for oneself. Each person has multi-generational qualities, from the "child within" to the nascent elder. In the process of maturation, the challenges of communication between one's own internal generations become increasingly evident. They can no longer be satisfactorily projected onto the outside world.

How does one engender a future -- preferred or otherwise? Is there some internal procreative process, as suggested by depth psychology's enthusiasm for alchemical symbolism? Reproductive biology certainly achieves a future generation through mating. How does a new generation of reality-handling acquire viability and inspire confidence within one's own psyche? Can what is superseded be truly cast off like a reptilian skin, or must past generations be carried with us into the future --"unto seven generations"?

Whilst there is of course merit in speculating about future generations in centuries or millennia to come, there is another kind of inquiry into future generation which merits reflection. As implied above, a future generation, in the developmental or psychological sense of the maturation of an individual, has its own challenges. But of even greater challenge is the much more immediate focus of how one engenders the immediate future -- over the next hours or minutes.

It is easy to argue that this has nothing to do with the "future" as framed by this conference. But this may be a flaw in the way future studies is understood and a reason for its marginalization. Do futurists suffer from conceptual presbyopia? Failure to attend to how the immediate future is determined by "doing" in the present moment, may obscure modes of understanding vital to meaningful insight into the future of biological generations -- to the epochs in which future studies may prefer to roam. Any sense of well-being is associated with the immediate present, rather than with the distant future. It is now that the help from "You and I" is required by the conference theme, whether for the young or the elderly.

How does future generation occur on this scale -- and what insights does it offer for understanding on the larger scale? As various schools of meditation have it, one attends to a certain complex of events for a while (seconds, minutes or hours), as an act combining mindfulness, empathy and action -- with, or without, others. Then, by distraction or choice, that focus dies and one passes on to some other complex of events. This process can be experienced as a sequence of generations of attention foci -- maybe returning cyclically to a former focus. It is through this process that one engenders a future into which one is then borne (Sogyal Rinpoche, 1994). Any practice, discipline or habit can be considered a form of "meditation" in this sense.

When a generation is understood as taking some 14 "years", possibility of change is perceived as limited by most. But understood as lived cycles of experience many hundreds of "generations" may take place within that same period of years. Such generations may be existentially more significant, and give rise to more variety, than is often associated with conventional thinking about the future 100, 1,000 or 5,000 years hence -- which is usually unchallenged by the reality of experiential change.Focus on the scope for change through psychological generation may well offer vital clues to change over longer periods of years. Greater attentiveness is therefore required to the potential emergence of fundamentally new varieties of significance over such periods.

From this perspective the challenge becomes how creatively to traverse a succession of generations -- the "Wheel of Life" for some Eastern religions (Sogyal Rinpoche, 1994). Various approaches might be taken to this psychological "reincarnation" process through many "little deaths". The generations could be "managed", as attempted by those favouring highly structured schedules (and armed with pocket "organizers"). One contrast would be to live the succession completely spontaneously as a child of the moment. They could be "navigated" with the spirit of an explorer, entrepreneur or opportunist. They might even be "surfed". They could be treated as an aesthetic exercise in composition or design -- "composing" a lifestyle as explored by Mary Catherine Bateson (1990). Or, like a breeder, focus could be placed on "breeding" better futures by combining suitable quality bloodlines engendered in past experience. The process could even be treated as an exercise in "gardening" a life -- life husbandry. In each case blending constraints from the past with potential distractions by the unforeseen creates pitfalls and opportunities. What strange new insights and disciplines will the future bring to this process?

Composing the future

The argument has stressed presence in the present moment -- from which futures may be engendered. This is contrasted with projection of the present into the future to avoid the realities of the moment. Any such projection is understood as necessarily superficial (namely two-dimensional) -- if not merely some form of linear extrapolation. This precludes meaningful transfer into the future of a vehicle for experience of any higher dimensionality. Presentations are acclaimed as meaningful efforts to do this -- but any perceived success is at the price of entrapping people in two-dimensional futures -- in pre-sentations.

Given such anchoring in the present, how might a future be more fruitfully understood? What might be ways of thinking about how it is engendered? The latter term itself contrasts intriguingly with the sexist emphasis of linear projections so evident in most "manstream" thinking about the future, as argued by Janis Birkeland (http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/TPP/birkeland.html). "Engendered" however suggests a growth process originating from a reproductive cycle -- implying cross-fertilization between quite distinct meme-pools. This suggests that a more appropriate metaphor might be that of gardening or cultivation. Several alternative metaphors might well be considered as necessary complements to encompass the complexities of the human present/future interface, including:

Such emphasis on getting away from the present through "opening doors to the future" may be the most effective protective mechanism of a nourishing future. The future that is elsewhen is an illusory future marketed assiduously by snake-oil salesmen playing with linear projections and two dimensional pre-sentations (eg billboard and hoarding developmentalism). A futuristic space journey is only viable if a vast amount of thought is given to learning about the system that actually sustains people in the present. The cognitive vessel that can sustain life into a desirable future is above all characterized by a multitude of interacting feedback loops ensuring the collective integrity of different systems. Whilst attention has been given to these in modern space technology, almost none has been given to their psycho-social equivalents -- notably with respect to the psycho-social design of space colonies.

From a psycho-social perspective, a fundamental metaphor to explore in this connection is that of the Holy Grail and the quest for it. Within such myths much energy is vainly expended on looking elsewhere for the power it represents to transform the present into the future. However the tradition makes the point that the physical form of the Holy Grail is quite ordinary, although recognizing it requires another way of sensing -- with fatal consequences to the unwary. In many of the early French texts the Saint Graal (as the vehicle or container) is related to Sang Royal (as the contained). This suggests the importance of the blood circulation metaphor as a system for sustaining the integrity of the body in the present -- rather than elsewhen. In psycho-social terms this integrity is exemplified by both a degree of "holiness" and of "sovereignty" over the whole system (as implied by the associations to royalty) -- effectively maintaining the coherence of a complex pattern of feedback loops.

The integrative patterns of many traditional celtic designs might be seen as mnemonics of this challenge (***). What are we educated not to recognize as our "noble" heritage in the transformative integrity of our personal experience of the coherence of the present moment? And yet at the same time we are encouraged to move on to a better future -- abandoning irresponsibly whatever is a drag -- often with language reminiscent of an archetypal venal landlord requiring that the premises be vacated. What might be the patterns concealed in the present moment that have the transformative power implied by the Holy Grail -- if rightly comprehended?

As remarked by anthropologist Diana James (personal communication, 2001):

In the Christian tradition the divine consciousness was manifested in the body and blood of Christ. This symbolic sacrifice of body and blood to create new life, or reincarnate, or resurrect from death is common to many other major creation myths and rituals. In the Grail legends originating in pagan Hispano-Moorish myth the Grail vessel filled with blood was a feminine symbol of rebirth or reincarnation in the Gnostic and Oriental sense. The Grail was associated with the Horn of Plenty and the Sacred Heart, the union of masculine and feminine. The strong sexual symbolism was sanitised by Christianity in the 12th Century, but the association with life and death remained. The Grail Temple at Montsalvatch, Mount of Salvation, was a model of the universe. The Grail was kept inside a miniature model of the universe inside the main temple under the dome.

There may be a message to the western world that sanitising this myth, taking out the quest for the mysterious feminine principle, the blood of Christ is now available at every chapel, has resulted in the modern death of spiritual quest. No mystery, no secret, no quest - a truth the indigenous people (such as the Australian Aborigines) know and hence keep Tjukurpa (the Dreaming) alive with mystery, secret and essential questing of the individual to discover the essential divine or creation spirit they manifest. Each individual and the whole society must keep this consciousness alive in the continuous present. Perhaps an essential element in the unfolding entelechy of the human race.

Knot being: to be or knot to be

In addition to celtic patterns, many contemporary artists and designers have crafted knotted shapes of unusual aesthetic appeal -- increasingly with the assistance of math visualization programs. As with the classic mobius strip, these weave continuously around themselves modelling a finite but unbounded space. They may model, more realistically than a sphere, the complex multidimensional space in which we experience the moment (cf Ron Atkin, **) especially if they are recognized as representing a dynamic, standing wave, flow condition. Some may suggest a fourth dimension and how it is woven coherently into the other three. Finalizing a fundamental relationship, such as marriage, may be described as "tying the knot".

Knots themselves have been studied extensively by mathematicians for the last hundred years (see http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/knotlink.htm). Recently they have proven to be of great interest to theoretical physicists and molecular biologists (http://www.wspc.com.sg/books/series/skae_series.html). One of the most peculiar things which emerges is how a category of objects as simple as a knot could be so rich in profound mathematical connections (http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/workbk/knot/knot.html).

Although knots are a common metapor in a number of schools of spiritual development, the relevance of knots to the problematique of the person was highlighted in a much-cited study by psychiatrist Ronnie Laing (Knots, 1970):

There is something I don't know that I am supposed to know. I don't know what it is I don't know, and yet am supposed to know, And I feel I look stupid if I seem both not to know it and not know what it is I don't know. Therefore, I pretend to know it. This is nerve-wracking since I don't know what I must pretend to know. Therefore, I pretend to know everything.

Curiously a particular form of knot, reminiscent of a common celtic pattern, has been used by Jacques Lacan to model an understanding of the person basic to his particular school of psychiatry. The borromean knot is of the same class as the interlinked rings on the Olympic flag. According to Lacan the body is only an imaginary consistency, not an actual concrete whole. It is pierced by losses that give rise to the desire to replace the lost object which, in turn, gives rise to the scopic, invocatory, oral and anal partial drives which seek to close up the "holed " body with substitute objects in the world. Lacan places such an object at the center of the intertwined Borromean knot of real, imaginary and symbolic orders -- something then returns from the primordial experience of it which one can never regain as conscious memory or narrative. (http://www.academyanalyticarts.org/Ragla1.html)

Borromean knot Traditional Celtic pattern
Traditional Celtic pattern

The approach has proven of interest to postmodern theories of crime as evidenced by the work of Bruce Arrigo (1996) on the psychic configuration of existing crimoinological reality. Lacan's later works examined Borromean knots as topological constructions. His interest in such figurations was in providing a re-tooling (a different graphing) of the psychic apparatus and the constitution of sense. In that topography, Borromean knots are homologous; that is, they are corresponding and interpretive devices which explain how sense production occurs, how it is reproduced, and, therefore, how it ensures the stabilization of hierarchically constituted discursive formations. Such knots are instructive mechanisms for further appreciating the limitations of existing criminological theory to produce discourses and narratives inclusive of a culturally diverse criminology. Lacan was also interested in the use of borromean knots as a way of cultivating mythic knowledge. Put another way, these knots were a critical means of discovering replacement discourses; that is, grammars more compatible with the jouissance of those whose voices and ways of knowing remain silenced (http://www.tryoung.com/archives/pomo-crm.htm#20b)

But Lacan's approach has been criticized from a feminist perspective by semiotician Julia Kristeva (1980) using social theory that is a blend of linguistic and psychoanalytic theory. She believes in the potentially revolutionary force of the marginal and repressed aspects of language. She identifies the semiotic with a repressed feminine libidinal system, and the symbolic with a masculine libidinal system. Others have extended this dichotomy to higher dimensional chaos and lower-order lococentricity respectively. The semiotic is anarchic, pre-Oedipal, and polymorphous erotgenically, maternally oreinted, and involves primary processes. The symbolic is Oedipalized, paternally oreinted, and involves secondary processes. It is "order superimposed on the semiotic. The semiotic overflows its boundaries . . . in madness, holiness and poetry.", and avant-guarde art and texts (see http://www.blueberry-brain.org/chaosophy/kristeva.html). She cautions that: "Current attempts to put an end to human subjecthood (to the extent that it involves subjection to meaning) by proposing to replace it with space (Borromean knots, morphology of catastrophies), of which the speaker would be merely a phenomenal actualization, may seem appealing." If language and language acquisition can impose limitations (subjugations) on an individual, the use of sytems theory (catastrophe theory), may not entirely liberate the subject (individual).

Clearly the imagination is enticed by intuitions of possibilities associated with such strange shapes and their dynamic implications (http://www.cs.ubc.ca/nest/imager/contributions/scharein/KnotPlot.html). The guidelines to writers of one fantasy tale specify that by "tesseracting" an individual is able to move from one point to another without passing through the intervening space -- reminiscent of properties attributed by physicists to wormholes. With the enhancement of the quality of visual graphics, much creativity will be unelashed into giving form to spaces with unusual properties that resonate with subjective experience (for example, for knotting software, see http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/knotlink.htm).

The Union of International Associations is exploring possibility that the complex networks of international organizations (30,000), world problems (56,000), and strategies (32,000) in response to them, which it profiles and visualizes might indeed be usefully understood and portrayed through knot theory. This might provide radical new insights into "untangling" the Gordian Knots of the social problematique that characterizes the present.

The isomorphism between the basic borromean 3-fold knot, the classic Venn diagram and some celtic patterns offers an interesting mapping of the experienced relationship between past, present and future. They draw attention to the different interfaces between all three. These may also be explored as a form of temporal phase diagram. Similary there are intriguing similarities between 4-fold mandalas and knots (extensively linked on the web) which suggest, in the light of their articulations in celtic patterns, the existence of stabilizing feedback loops and transformations linking the psychic functions symbolized in depth psychology by earth, air, fire and water. Further vital complexifications are suggested by the relationship between mandalas and the dynamics of the enneagram (John Fudjack and Patricia Dinkelaker, 1999 http://tap3x.net/EMBTI/j4selfb.html)

The celtic spiral symbol (above) from New Grange (Ireland, circa 2,000-1,000 BC) suggests continuous movement, the twin base spirals never meeting, always opposed, interwoven, inseparable and interdependent, contained within a closed but endless spiral. Whether or not this was a key to Celtic religious thought, and the need of the two opposites for each other, their containment within the evolutionary third, and the unity of the system makes good sense of an age-old pattern.

Work cycle

The notion of a work cycle is introduced here because it is relatively clear that a living system cannot exist in a state of stasis on interfaces between past, present and future. Living is synonymous with one or more active work cycles through which energy is moved through feedback loops to ensure integrity in the moment. The most obvious in mammals may be the respiratory cycle. This energy may take the form of attention -- even vigilance. Those drawn to the enneagram are particularly attentive to the cyclic structure of work as mapped by that diagram (see Anthony Blake. The Intelligent Enneagram http://www.duversity.org/archives/intellennea.html). The structure might be usefully considered to map six intermediary positions necessary to hold a relationship between past, present and future -- whether as interfaces or different ways of understanding time.

The concept of a work cycle is basic to thermodynamics -- and is exemplified by the Carnot cycle. The question here is whether this provides insights into a necessary dynamic relationship between past, present and future in terms of the nature and focus of attention. Is there a sense in which living embodies some such cycle -- of which the the heat engine is merely a limited material analogue? The heat engine cycle does indeed have to relate past, present and future in order to sustain its activity.

Curiously it is Gregory Bateson in a section on Form, Substance and Difference (http://www.tiac.net/users/knowweb/bateson.htm) of his book Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) that relates the depth psychology work of Carl Jung to the thermodynamics of Sadi Carnot. But it is in another book, translated by Jung's colleague Richard Wilhelm (1929), that Jung comments on a fundamental cycle identified in a Chinese text T'ai I Chin Hua Tsung Chih (The Secret of the Golden Flower) -- more recently translated by Thomas Cleary (1991). This focus has also been compared to the Nestorian Gospel of St Thomas (http://www.netmastersinc.com/secrets/golden_flower1.htm) -- although within the Christian tradition careful attention has indeed been paid to the significance of a "rota" as a cycle of duty, of which there may be musical variants. The much-cited Chinese work discusses the "circulation of the light" of awareness through various conditions during meditation reminiscent (if only in the metaphors used to describe them) of stages of the Carnot heat cycle.

The insights of such circulation may also be evident in the psycho-social attraction of certain pattern dances -- presumably providing some kind of time-binding resonance transcending past, present and future for participants.

The past century has provided widespread familiarity with engines, notably combustion engines in motorbikes and other vehicles. The operation of the piston cycle has entered collective consciousness in many ways -- as well as the distinction between 2-stroke engines and those with multiple cylinders. This suggests a line of inquiry as to whether thinking itself can be understood as operating in cyles that might be usefully modelled by such engines for many people. In this sense a basic cycle would alternate between the extremes of any form of polarized thinking -- with each extreme providing a turning point. One might be associated with the charge that drives the cycle. Clearly this might be understood as a cruder pattern than that associated with multiple cylinders -- if their operation could be integrated to reinforce a common rotation. Of special interest in this respect are rotary engines (cf the Wankel rotary engine).

Related to such understanding of an engine is that of gearing whereby rapid rotation is translated into slower and more powerful rotation that can perform certain kinds of work. Many forms of thinking might be associated with rapid cycles. These need to be geared down to speeds that can mesh with operations in the material world (see Conceptual Birdcages and Functional Basket-weaving. 1980, https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/compbask.php#gear). This challenge might be seen in relation to that of gearing down principle to practice.

Earlier the question was raised of how to configure, juxtapose and superpose sets of categories (3, 4, 5, etc) to create a "door frame" governing integrative cognition -- to frame any response to the riddle of life in the present. This challenge can now be presented dynamically. This is most easily described in terms of a paticular kind of fair ground challenge involving a a tunnel through which one must walk -- in which the frame of the tunnel rotates. To make life difficult, the tunnel frame is made up of successive segments with a triangular, square, pentagonal, hexagonal, or other cross-section, each rotating independently. In the cognitive analogue however the challenge in the present moment is to position relevant conceptual sets of 3, 4, 5, etc aspects (thus essentially incommensurable) in relation to a common centre in order to move navigate through them -- even if they rotate at different rates in relation to one another around such a common axis. As in the segments of the fairground tunnel, each "side" is effectively a trap to which it is a mistake to cling more than temporarily -- but such features frame the cognitive doorway. This challenge may also be described metaphorically by the geometry of magnetic bottles used to contain plasma to ensure nuclear fusion, where containment can only be successful if the plasma is effectively prevented from touching (and being "quenched") by any such contact.

The conceptual implications of this challenge have been most clearly articulated by Ron Atkin (1981) in describing the navigation of different degrees of complexity in a multidimensional space. He illustrates the challenge by use of a simple triangle (more).

These considerations raise the question of how fundamental sets of principles are to govern behaviour, especially in the moment. Whether it be the basic "Liberty / Equality / Fraternity" that originated with the French Revolution, or variants of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/univ.php) with its 30 principles, it is how these governing principles relate to each other dynamically, rather than statically (like a conceptual laundry list), that is a vital key to viable navigation. There is also the intriguing possibility that the associated patterns of "values" and "virtues" (so extensively articulated in eastern belief systems) may in fact encode attitudinal control "mechanisms" (and traps) for the effective navigation of knowledge spaces in the moment (https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/othwise.php#navig).

It is within this framework, and recalling the functioning of any engine-driven vehicle, that interesting questions might be raised about what might be understood by the following "verbs":

"Future generation" (reprinted from https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/converse.php#future)

How does the future emerge into the present? How does potential become actuality? What are the cognitive traps associated with phrases such as: "where does the future come from" and "the far-distant future" ? How are present initiatives established as future realities? Why does past understanding appear so quaint from the present and what does this say of present understandings that are taken so seriously now?

The sustainability of global conversation or dialogue is therefore viewed as necessarily dynamic rather than static. Insights from chaos theory and strange attractors merit attention (Judge, 1993b). Its meta-stable nature ensures its coherence by engendering "futures". Global conversations thus evolve through "generations", necessarily accompanied by schisms that challenge any previous sense of coherence. "Participants" in a conversation today are the children of those participating yesterday, or an hour ago -- even if they are physically indistinguishable. As with computer backups, one can usefully speak of grandfather-father-son relationships between one's own successive "incarnations" in social intercourse.

How then is the future generated? How does one understand the nature of a future generation from one's current mode of comprehension? How does one comprehend across the generation gap -- and seek comprehension in return -- if only by oneself?

Whilst such questions are challenging for society as a whole, they are even more challenging for oneself. Each person has multi-generational qualities, from the "child within" to the nascent elder. In the process of maturation, the challenges of communication between one's own internal generations become increasingly evident. They can no longer be satisfactorily projected onto the outside world.

How does one engender a future -- preferred or otherwise? Is there some internal procreative process, as suggested by depth psychology's enthusiasm for alchemical symbolism? Reproductive biology certainly achieves a future generation through mating. How does a new generation of reality-handling acquire viability and inspire confidence within one's own psyche? Can what is superseded be truly cast off like a reptilian skin, or must past generations be carried with us into the future --"unto seven generations"?

Whilst there is of course merit in speculating about future generations in centuries or millennia to come, there is another kind of inquiry into future generation which merits reflection. As implied above, a future generation, in the developmental or psychological sense of the maturation of an individual, has its own challenges. But of even greater challenge is the much more immediate focus of how one engenders the immediate future -- over the next hours or minutes.

It is easy to argue that this has nothing to do with the "future" as framed by this conference. But this may be a flaw in the way future studies is understood and a reason for its marginalization. Do futurists suffer from conceptual presbyopia? Failure to attend to how the immediate future is determined by "doing" in the present moment, may obscure modes of understanding vital to meaningful insight into the future of biological generations -- to the epochs in which future studies may prefer to roam. Any sense of well-being is associated with the immediate present, rather than with the distant future. It is now that the help from "You and I" is required by the conference theme, whether for the young or the elderly.

How does future generation occur on this scale -- and what insights does it offer for understanding on the larger scale? As various schools of meditation have it, one attends to a certain complex of events for a while (seconds, minutes or hours), as an act combining mindfulness, empathy and action -- with, or without, others. Then, by distraction or choice, that focus dies and one passes on to some other complex of events. This process can be experienced as a sequence of generations of attention foci -- maybe returning cyclically to a former focus. It is through this process that one engenders a future into which one is then borne (Sogyal Rinpoche, 1994). Any practice, discipline or habit can be considered a form of "meditation" in this sense.

When a generation is understood as taking some 14 "years", possibility of change is perceived as limited by most. But understood as lived cycles of experience many hundreds of "generations" may take place within that same period of years. Such generations may be existentially more significant, and give rise to more variety, than is often associated with conventional thinking about the future 100, 1,000 or 5,000 years hence -- which is usually unchallenged by the reality of experiential change.Focus on the scope for change through psychological generation may well offer vital clues to change over longer periods of years. Greater attentiveness is therefore required to the potential emergence of fundamentally new varieties of significance over such periods.

From this perspective the challenge becomes how creatively to traverse a succession of generations -- the "Wheel of Life" for some Eastern religions (Sogyal Rinpoche, 1994). Various approaches might be taken to this psychological "reincarnation" process through many "little deaths". The generations could be "managed", as attempted by those favouring highly structured schedules (and armed with pocket "organizers"). One contrast would be to live the succession completely spontaneously as a child of the moment. They could be "navigated" with the spirit of an explorer, entrepreneur or opportunist. They might even be "surfed". They could be treated as an aesthetic exercise in composition or design -- "composing" a lifestyle as explored by Mary Catherine Bateson (1990). Or, like a breeder, focus could be placed on "breeding" better futures by combining suitable quality bloodlines engendered in past experience. The process could even be treated as an exercise in "gardening" a life -- life husbandry. In each case blending constraints from the past with potential distractions by the unforeseen creates pitfalls and opportunities. What strange new insights and disciplines will the future bring to this process?

[To Part 5]

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

For further updates on this site, subscribe here