When I need some wood;  for a staircase;  for a post or beam;  for a fire to
cook or keep my house warm;  I go cut some.


Its easy for me.  I live on the edge of a forest.


When I have a task in mind, I look for a particular kind and size of tree.
My favorites are very small trees because they are easy to handle and
thinning them improves the life of the forest which supplies me.   The
physically hard part is taking the bark off.  The intellectually hard part
is the joinery.  The more you work with poles, the more you realize why
modern construction long ago went the square route.  When you have a round,
natural, peeled log with no lines on it, it really drives home the point
that we have to create the lines we need.   Most people forget this because
society carves up their timber for them.  All they then have to do is stick
a tape measure along any dimension they want and bob's yer uncle.  Done.


I like it all, peeling the poles and making useful and attractive things out
of 'em.  But I don't like wasted effort.  If a particular log is not going
to fit the structure I need, then I'm not going to spend  too much time
taking the bark off or cutting the joints.


And what this has to do with the MoQ, you ask?  Well, I think we've been
trying peel the wrong pole for the job.  I think we've been trying to cram
too much into the metaphysical realm.  I think a lot of arguments go on
about matters of static attachment because matters of static personal
attachment are adduced to first or primary causes and ultimate reality - the
realm of metaphysics is rather narrow, after all.


That doesn't mean I think philosophical matters should not be addressed or
discussed.  I would hope a full range of discussion would flow from a
philosophy of Quality deduced from a solidly grounded metaphysics.  I just
think we would be served by clarifying the unity of a solidly grounded
metaphysics and then grow and build from there, without getting distracted
by the kind of trite "oh you can't prove anything so it's all valid"
relativistic philosophies of the day.



There gav.  I shared an analogy.  Happy?

-- 




The young man assembles the materials to build  stairs to the moon, and the
old man makes a wood shed out of them.

Thoreau
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