Where the Bananas Are

My latest addiction is Stumbleupon.com.  I can spend an hour easily jumping from one item to the next, constantly looking for items of interest.  When I signed up for an account, I was asked to list my interests, and one of those interests was quotations.  I love a well-constructed phrase that provides insight into the working of the human psyche or human society.

Of course, many quotations are meant to be inspirational.  I was perusing a website the other day that was filled with inspirational quotes when it occurred to me what I was doing, and why.

First it has to be understood that I am an unapologetic believer in evolution as a concept to describe how human society has been shaped. The development of the human language was a key factor in the success of humans as a species (7 billion strong and growing).

Before our current success, we had to survive.  Communication was key in our survival.  Of course, that isn't limited to just the human species.  It is key to many species, and the impetus for communication within a species deals with two main topics:  where food may be found and warnings of danger.

These concepts are only important to species who live communally.  We qualify for that.  Solitary animals usually only have two types of communications:  this is mine (stay away) and it's time to reproduce.  I guess we have those as well, but that type of communication is generally self-evident, I think, and doesn't lend itself to my current topic.

What does lend itself to my current topic is dancing bees.  Bees are a communal animal, and they have a means of letting other bees know where to get the pollen.  Upon returning to the hive, bees who have found a good source of pollen will do what is known as either "the waggle dance" or "the round dance."  The waggle dance tells the other bees the pollen is some distance away, the round dance is a shortened version of the waggle dance that tells the other bees that the pollen is closer.  If the pollen is really good, the bees dance harder.

Another animal behavior that lends itself to my topic is meerkat barking.  They live communally, too, and when they are out foraging, one meerkat will stand guard.  If the sentry spots something hinky, he barks, and everybody takes cover.  Then, once everyone is safe in the hole, the sentry will go out, barking constantly as he checks everything out.  When everything seems to be in order, he stops barking, and everybody comes back out.

Bees dancing to share food sources and meerkats barking to warn of danger.  I think the human language began with our primitive ancestors trying to convey similar concepts to one another.  We just got real good at it.  We developed a language capable of expressing both concepts in many ways, shapes and forms.  And as simple as these concepts seem, I want to take them down a step further.  I want to completely simplify the underlying idea.

There is food here:  At the most basic, this idea can be simplified to I can lead you to sustenance.

Danger approaches:  The root idea behind this is I see something you don't which will cause you harm.

In the first idea, sustenance can go beyond physical sustenance.  We, as humans, have progressed beyond just struggling day to day to find nourishment for our bodies.  We have reached a point in our development in which spiritual, emotional, and existential nourishment is much more difficult to come by than a bunch of bananas.

We have also moved past warning each other about approaching creatures which may be trying to eat us.  Our warnings usually have more to do with self-destructive behaviors, or warnings against misconceptions on where sustenance as understood in the first idea may be found.

Now think of every inspirational quote you have seen today, either on Facebook or wherever you get your inspirational quotes.  Does it offer sustenance or a warning?

I love quotes.  I love the simple expression of complex ideas inherent in the best quotes.  But I think the complexities of this world go far beyond what a simple quote can tell us.  We need to read, we need to try to  understand more than these simple quotes that we see all day can express.  We have moved beyond the simple bee dance and the meerkat bark.

We can't just throw quotes back and forth and hope to convey to one another the broad range of sustenance available and dangers present in today's society.  We have to read, we have to talk to one another, we have to truly communicate in order to really understand each other.  There is sustenance everywhere, and we can tell one another how to find it.  There is danger every where, and we can keep one another from falling prey to it.  But first we have to understand one another, and that has to come from a deeper level of communication than can be expressed in an internet meme posted on Facebook or Stumbleupon.  We have to remember that the inspirational quote can only tell us where the bananas are.  It is up to us to go get them.

Elegy for Robin Melton

This weekend, the world lost one of the truly great people I have known.

Robin Melton grew up in Billings, Missouri just like me.  She was in my brother's class, a year older than me.  She lived about a block from me.  She had a great yard for whiffle ball, and I remember playing there.  I remember her mother had one of those purple martin houses, and there was a particular bird living there which Robin pointed out.  She said he was very rare in this part of Missouri.  He looked to me like any other bird, but she knew he was special.

I wonder if Robin knew how special she was?  I think she did.  But she never held that over anyone.  She was intelligent, athletic, and beautiful.  Many people are at least one of those things.  She had the good fortune to possess all those attributes, and one more.  She was kind.

I was the kid brother tagging along when I went to her house.  Robin was impressive then, even before we all went through adolescence and realized the incredible beauty she possessed.  She played baseball on the boys' baseball team, and excelled at it. As a kid brother, I was used to being rejected by my brother's older cooler friends, but Robin welcomed me as an equal.

Growing up in a small town, there are rarely any of the cliques you will find in larger schools, but common interests do have a tendency to produce groups which spend more time together.  Robin was an athlete and a cheerleader.  She ran with a popular crowd, and she was usually at the center of that crowd.  She still made time for everyone that wanted to talk to her.

Years later, after I had gone through various life-shaping events, I ran into Robin.  She and my wife served on the board for the local Habitat for Humanity together.  My wife was as impressed by her as I have been for most of my  life.  We would see Robin at various events, or even just out shopping, and she always made time to say hello.

I even had the opportunity to interview for a job with Robin once.  I was between jobs at the time.  She knew I had a degree in English.  In the interview, she told me she had some wonderful scientists working for her, but they just couldn't write.  She tried to justify the additional expense of a writing consultant by exploring other areas where I might be able to pitch in.  Unfortunately, I had no back-hoe experience to go with my English degree, so the position didn't materialize.

She did ask me one question in the interview, though, that I have carried with me.  When I told her that I just hadn't found a job that I felt would make me happy and challenge me, she asked me why not.  She appeared to be honestly confused by the concept.

I think she spent her whole life challenging herself and succeeding, always moving forward.  Living any other way was not even a consideration.

In this part of Missouri, in any part of the world, Robin was one of the rare ones.  I have known a few people who have accomplished great things.  But I have never known anyone who did so with such grace, with such kindness, with such beauty.