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SLOWSCULPT

                                  June 19, 1992

A Sturgeon story that I read long
ago called "Slow Sculpture", uses
raising Banzai trees as a metaphor
to propose another way of thinking
besides "being in control"/"being
controlled".
                                        
The owners of Banzai's are more          
properly called companions.  In          
rasing a banzai tree, you                
imagine a goal, and try to 
encourage the tree to move in            
that direction. And it does              
indeed respond, but usually in           
a way you hadn't quite                        So, a question like 
imagined.  So you get new                    "What factors in my life 
ideas, and imagine a new                      are under my control?"
goal...  The point being that                 should be transformed into...?
you don't just influence the                  
tree, the tree influences you.                          What can I influence? 
                                                        What influences me? 
Sturgeon's point, is that two people                    And what's the 
living together grow together in                        intersection of the 
much the same way.                                      two sets. 
 
But how is a person living alone                                    CIRCLES
any different?                                                      
                                                           
"You" have an idea of what    
"You" should be like, and     
"You" make an effort to       
encourage yourself to     
change in that direction...                         
                                         
Here the feedback loop is          
closed even more tightly.             So why is the sculpture so slow?
                                      Knots must exist in the loops.
I think it's clear                    Self-reinforcing problems.        KNOTS
that the usual                                                              
language like "You                    One way out: 
must control                          Subdivide the self.
yourself" is a                        The super-ego must 
mess of unexamined      SELF          control the id.
assumptions.                          Morton Rigor must            MANIACS
                                      control Nunzio Nasuno.              
                                                            
                           What are the   
                           other ways out?
                                          
                            
                            
                            
                            
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