PS The attached 'variation on a theme' has just emerged.
Warmest
Alan
--On 29 July 2009 08:53 +0100 "Alan Rayner (BU)" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>
> Dear All,
>
> Upon returning to the University yesterday, after a fortnight 'on holiday
> around home', I found myself writing the attached poem about a 'lost
> sole'.
> Maybe it will strike a chord with some of you?
>
> Perhaps it has something to say about how it feels 'at the bottom of the
> class' and what cannot be comprehended by 'those at the top', with eyes
> only for what brings competitive 'success'?
> Perhaps it has something to say about the real meaning of 'giftedness'.
>
> Perhaps it has something to say also, concerning the difference between
> inclusional and selective culture and how hard it is to reach the former
> from the latter, without admitting the presence of somewhere very
> fundamental?
>
> Warmest
>
> Alan
>
>
> PS Earlier, in response to an invitation, I had written the following
> paragraph concerning a presentation I gave at a recent meeting of
> arboriculturalists:-
> "I had a strong sense of history, both in the making and in the breaking,
> as I prepared for my contribution on 'Fungus-Tree Relationships' in the
> very room where Darwin & Wallace's paper on the 'origin of species' was
> first presented. My anxiety was not dispelled when David Cutler warned
> all speakers that Darwin's eyes would be following them, from his
> enormous portrait on the wall! For I knew that the key message I wished
> to get across is that we need to move on from the habit of thinking
> about trees, fungi and indeed all life forms as if they are self-centred
> objects, subject to the selective influence of external force, if we
> want to evolve more sensitive and sensible ways of working with them in
> the dynamic context of the complex, variable, fluid neighbourhoods they
> truly and naturally inhabit. I also knew that practitioners who work
> with real life are intuitively already all too aware of this truth, yet
> may find it difficult to be explicit about as they struggle with
> standardized rules, regulations and formulae imposed by an objective
> mindset fearful of uncertainty. In the event, I felt the human warmth of
> the audience and other speakers as this key message resonated,
> explicitly or implicitly, in their responses and subsequent
> presentations. Maybe we began to change the course of history together."
>
>
|