OK I admit to feeling a naughty grin when I looked down on the mesa where some Lazy Dazers are camped. My dog and I were on a mountain bike ride on a higher mesa popular with my breed, near St. George UT.
Zooming in, I can see somebody's rigs, left-center and slightly to the right of center.
An allegory popped into the mind: do you remember that episode in the third season of the original Star Trek, called "The Cloud Minders:" a community of exalted intellectuals, musicians, and poets live in a city called Stratos that is levitated in the sky. They do nothing but pursue intellectual and aesthetic pursuits all day. Meanwhile, down on the planet's surface, live the miners who do all the grunt work that allows the elitism and luxury of Stratos to exist.
As I looked down on the Lazy Dazers and grinned naughtily -- and haughtily -- the allegory grabbed control over my mind. Why was it so powerful? It was not caused by the visual stimulation alone, impressive as it was. Maybe it was a (musical) leitmotif that kept playing in my head.
And yet, what was so special about that leitmotif? In fact I didn't even know if it was used in the "Cloud Minders" episode. (I had heard the leitmotif in another Star Trek episode with a classical Greek theme.) Maybe that is why all this came together and affected me so strongly.
I was being given the opportunity of combining outdoor scenery and exercise with an allegory from somebody else's story, and then combined that with some music from another context. My imagination was being teased and provoked into working. "Imagination" basically means combining things, making comparisons, or forming connections. Perhaps you could take this experience as a template for getting the most from an outdoor experience. Even better, it just seemed to happen by itself; these outside factors just seemed to impose themselves on me.
Finally we made it to the edge of "Stratos." Here Coffee Girl looks down onto the squalor of the Lazy Dazers lowly earthbound camp.
The Lazy Dazers use a certain approach to nature that is well-intentioned, but mistaken. Every day, they visit the scenic freakishness of nearby Zion national park. Is that the way to give Nature a chance to make its maximum impact on you?
I never go with them, probably because I look "down" on their approach. I can't see the difference between what they are doing and a 7-year-old who wants food to be exciting. For him that means going to a Dairy Queen and pigging out on one of their lacto-globular sugar-bombs.
Or compare their approach to nature to an adolescent boy who masturbates twice a day while looking at genetic freaks in Playboy magazine. Meanwhile, a couple desks away from him in the classroom, there is a nice, average-looking, young woman that he won't even give the time of day to.
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(Must I add the disclaimer that this post was written in the spirit of raillery, at the expense of people who are doing so many things right that they can afford to be good sports about getting zinged a couple times? They are having a wonderful time together, and I am envious.)
 |
| They are down there somewhere. I thought I saw them. |
Zooming in, I can see somebody's rigs, left-center and slightly to the right of center.
An allegory popped into the mind: do you remember that episode in the third season of the original Star Trek, called "The Cloud Minders:" a community of exalted intellectuals, musicians, and poets live in a city called Stratos that is levitated in the sky. They do nothing but pursue intellectual and aesthetic pursuits all day. Meanwhile, down on the planet's surface, live the miners who do all the grunt work that allows the elitism and luxury of Stratos to exist.
As I looked down on the Lazy Dazers and grinned naughtily -- and haughtily -- the allegory grabbed control over my mind. Why was it so powerful? It was not caused by the visual stimulation alone, impressive as it was. Maybe it was a (musical) leitmotif that kept playing in my head.
And yet, what was so special about that leitmotif? In fact I didn't even know if it was used in the "Cloud Minders" episode. (I had heard the leitmotif in another Star Trek episode with a classical Greek theme.) Maybe that is why all this came together and affected me so strongly.
I was being given the opportunity of combining outdoor scenery and exercise with an allegory from somebody else's story, and then combined that with some music from another context. My imagination was being teased and provoked into working. "Imagination" basically means combining things, making comparisons, or forming connections. Perhaps you could take this experience as a template for getting the most from an outdoor experience. Even better, it just seemed to happen by itself; these outside factors just seemed to impose themselves on me.
Finally we made it to the edge of "Stratos." Here Coffee Girl looks down onto the squalor of the Lazy Dazers lowly earthbound camp.
The Lazy Dazers use a certain approach to nature that is well-intentioned, but mistaken. Every day, they visit the scenic freakishness of nearby Zion national park. Is that the way to give Nature a chance to make its maximum impact on you?
I never go with them, probably because I look "down" on their approach. I can't see the difference between what they are doing and a 7-year-old who wants food to be exciting. For him that means going to a Dairy Queen and pigging out on one of their lacto-globular sugar-bombs.
Or compare their approach to nature to an adolescent boy who masturbates twice a day while looking at genetic freaks in Playboy magazine. Meanwhile, a couple desks away from him in the classroom, there is a nice, average-looking, young woman that he won't even give the time of day to.
_________________________________________
(Must I add the disclaimer that this post was written in the spirit of raillery, at the expense of people who are doing so many things right that they can afford to be good sports about getting zinged a couple times? They are having a wonderful time together, and I am envious.)
Comments
Jim
The intention is camaraderie, fellowship, and moving in the outdoors. You may think you have it all figured out, looking down your long nose at misguided peons. We wish you could get over your pride and prejudice and not discriminate against certain outdoor activities in certain places, that you would choose fellowship over isolation, conversation with real people instead of the whackos that live inside your head.
But you have written yourself into a corner by peeing on nearly everything the gang does and the places they go. We really don't go into a National Park everyday, and if you were here, camping with us instead of passing judgment from on "high," you'd know that. Recall that we made a genuine effort to join you at your camp as you requested (for a mountain bike ride), and you stood us up by not showing.
And then to compare Zion to Porn…and what we do there to "masturbation," I don't even know what to say to that.
Misguided Mark
Jim
I am always looking for analogies between what I am seeing and some classic book or movie. This has the disadvantage that the reader might not be familiar with the classic book or movie.
But your comment starting me thinking: maybe that is why the comparison with the "Stratos" episode in Star Trek had such an impact on me. It gave me a justification, in my imagination, for aesthetic snobbishness. (grin) I was up there, looking down on the Lazy Dazers, and really laughing at my own elitist snobbery more than anything else.
Seriously though, I think my comparisons to Dairy Queens and adolescent masturbation while looking at Playboy were quite apt.
I used to ride with a bicycle club from St. George. Every couple weeks we'd ride through Zion. They didn't even glance at the scenery. Once I was fluttering my eyelashes A LITTLE and almost caused an accident for the rider behind me. I was considered a bit of a fool for looking at the scenery at all. The locals only go to Zion when an outside visitor comes to town.
I believe Mark was thinking of the children in his blog posting "A Million Freaking Mormons, Part II: The Apocalypse".
kaBLOONie rarely writes about the children, so he probably doesn't think of them much.
However, W. C. Fields had some thoughts of the children in the movie from "Tillie and Gus". The actress asks him, "Do you like children?" and Fields responds, "I do if they're properly cooked."