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The Sun Winds Down

It was better than a colorful sunset. Surprisingly I had never done this before: drive out of my way to a spot where the mountains didn't block the last hour of the sun. Then I made a cup of tea and sat on the front step of the RV and watched the sun set. What did I think? That if I sipped the tea slowly the sun would slow in its descent, and I could suck out another five minutes of daylight?

But the leisurely sipping seemed to honor the sun and season. It is that time of year again, when I always getting a funny feeling in the stomach and a lump in the throat. It is time to retreat from the highest altitudes. No matter how many times I have done this, it still seems significant and dramatic.

But why does this funny feeling only come at the beginning of autumn? It never feels this way in the spring. Shouldn't it be symmetric?

My best guess is that we gringo/palefaces have a tribal memory of winter: winter is dangerous, winter is suffering. To escape winter by heading downhill and southward is a very dramatic thing.
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This ritual had been so pleasant and satisfying, I couldn't help but think about how informal and inconsistent rituals of any kind have become. In 19th century novels, rituals are mentioned so often. Were they really considered that important by folks back then, or was the novelist just filling the page with ink in an easy way?

The decline of ritual might be a part of the decline of Formality, in general. There is no distinction between people any more. The Young do not honor the Old by calling them 'Uncle' or 'Mister.' Men do not honor women with little gallantries of daily behavior. Everybody is on a first-name basis with everybody else. A gentleman and a peasant wear the same slob-clothing. Everybody listens to the same ghetto music.

Formality is undemocratic, I guess. We keep extending the French Revolution to more and more categories. When do we get bored with this endless leveling?

This slouching in the standards of civilization has been going on all during my life. But civilization can't just slouch into informality forever, or it would have ceased to exist millennia ago. When does civilization take a spike upward? Are those rare and rapid events in human history, followed by many generations of slouching?

Yes, I know. Grouchy old men have always had that point of view. I was rereading the beginning of Boswell's "Life of Johnson" the other day. Even back in the late 1700s Boswell, a genuine Scottish laird after all, was complaining how meaningless the term 'gentleman' had become in degenerate modern times.
[Samuel Johnson's] father is there stiled Gentleman, a circumstance of which an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud; when the truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, though now lost in the indiscriminate assumption of Esquire, was commonly taken by those who could not boast of gentility.
This topic is too long and difficult for this morning, and I am too lazy. The only thing that is certain is that there is no better place to think of these issues than a land delineated by orogeny and erosion, a land of mountain and canyon, of lifting up and wearing away.


Extra credit to any reader who can identify this peak in the Tucson area where I play out the spring equinox ritual. In a couple weeks it will be time for the Autumn Equinox ritual of camping with the sun setting or rising on some fine topographic feature.

Comments

XXXXX said…
Quite a few sweeping generalizations in this post but I think the beauty of the moment might be the reason....you just got swept along yourself. The study of societies.....always changing....is very interesting. I've never been able to figure out what the true impetus is. For example, an impressive number of people willingly gave up cigarettes when the Surgeon General's report came out but go figure on why we remain a terribly obese nation.
Perhaps rituals change more than become less. For example, your use of the expression "politically correct" suggests a new ritual . I'm not using the religious definition for ritual. (I don't think you are either.) I'm using the definition of "prescribed code of behavior regulating social conduct."
You are right, George. The setting put me in the mood for sweeping generalizations. Sorry!

But seriously, why does Civilization take such rapid jumps in certain locations, followed by generations of nobodys and losers who live off the cultural "capital" bequeathed them.
XXXXX said…
Have you read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond? Just one man's opinion but he deals directly with this subject.....the many environmental factors which have directly supported the growth of societies. First is survival and it is only once that is assured that culture in any form can be created. Once a society has succeeded in creating some wealth there is the management of it and its distribution and naturally its benefits.
The rise of literature in the 1800's is an interesting example. Most of it was written by those of wealth for one needed many servants to provide necessities in order to create the luxury of time in order to write. In England at this time such conditions making this possible evolved. ONE condition that supported this, for example, was the improvement in roads and, if one could also afford the luxury of possessing a carriage (rather than long rides on horseback) in order to get to London to develop one's contacts and ability to get their work published, then one had a chance to get one's work published.
And the societal results could be profound in terms of influence. Think of it: We really don't get to hear from the servants from this period and that was 95% of the population. We only hear from the elite, so they were the ones to influence society in how it thought, what it valued, etc.
It took revolt and revolution for the underdog to make a difference.
Very complicated indeed.
Chris said…
I guess, George, that the only way most of us nowadays "hear from the servants" is by watching Downton Abbey.

Chris
XXXXX said…
Forgot to make one more comment about your last statement, KB. It's a bit of the givers and the takers, isn't it? There are those whose circumstances lead them to be supreme "givers" of their entire lives for a noble cause and then it does seem when great things are accomplished there are those who are purely "takers", living off what has been accomplished earlier.
Here's where one's view of human nature comes into play. Personally, I believe in most cases, people give what they have to and take whatever they can get.
I like that explanation for the huge accomplishments of a couple generations of men in a certain country, while their descendants just screw around and decay.
John V said…
Sounds like y'all are just hangin out with the wrong people. :-)