Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Thoreau #4, or Cheap Society


Let us return to our series on Thoreau with a discussion of his thoughts on society and the frequency with which we see one another. The topic is apropos for our modern day where, thanks to cell phones and the internet, we are rarely out of contact with our entire network unless we choose to be. If Thoreau felt that seeing one another in person too often could result in a cheapening of relationships, one can only imagine what he would have to say about our incessant texting, emailing, and messaging. 

"Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the post-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each other’s way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another. Certainly less frequency would suffice for all important and hearty communications."

Where to begin? This quote is near and dear to my heart, for a number of reasons. One such explanation that the reader may assign to this is standoffishness. However, dear reader, don’t think me so simple, nor think such things of Thoreau himself. 

While I am – and Thoreau was – decidedly introverted, I am not averse to human interaction, nor should you be, either. We have already covered how no one can exist truly isolated, and the above quote in no way alters that fact. As an aside, and while we are on the topic, I strongly recommend reading Susan Cain’s exceedingly accurate and masterful book Quiet. It is spot on in its analysis and description of navigating life as an introspective and solitude-seeking individual, of which I no doubt am, Thoreau no doubt was, and perhaps you are. If so, the above quote from Thoreau likely resonates with you, as well.

But then let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s examine that first sentence: “Society is commonly too cheap.” It is such a simple statement that carries so much weight. Thoreau is not talking about society as a whole, or even the prevailing culture of the time. It wasn’t that there was a dearth of quality artists or thinkers in the mid-nineteenth century, and Thoreau chose to level a pointed critique at society as a whole. Rather, Thoreau is speaking to society in terms of guests invited over to one’s home or out for an evening, what we would more commonly refer to as company.

This statement rings even truer in the modern world, where we can be constantly connected with one another via the internet and our phones. Thoreau isn’t necessarily calling any one of us bad company, but oftentimes too frequent company. When we interact on such a regular basis, it becomes difficult to bring anything new or noteworthy to the table when we again speak. If I have just spoken with you yesterday, and nothing notable has occurred in the day since, there is really no reason to drop you a line on the basis that we have a traditional standing appointment of hearing from one another.

Frequent communication lacking new intrigue is a recipe for setting up an echo chamber, as we see with modern social media. With nothing new or better to discuss, conversations will quickly lapse into familiar and established ruts: complaints about work, complaints about the weather, complaints about other people, rehashing political viewpoints that have already been articulated, re-debates of the merits of keeping or trading player X from team Y, the list goes on. If we cannot garner anything more robust to talk about than the above list or similar, perhaps it would be best to either let the silence remain or to seek out fresh company.

Fresh company does not have to mean finding someone else to spend your time with, though that is a valid option. For, you see, you may find yourself to be the best company at given times. This is not a pass to be anti-social. In many cases you should and will even want to be in the company of others. However, it is also important that we all know how to spend time alone with our thoughts, comfortably and without allowing those thoughts to become self-destructive. Self-destruction can come in several forms including berating yourself for past mistakes, allowing yourself to make new mistakes in the same vein as those past mistakes, having belittling thoughts of others or yourself, slothfulness, and so forth.

I caution against slothfulness in particular because this is one of my acute weaknesses. Generally, I would be described as a type-A, driven individual, which in most cases holds true. There are times, however, when my most self-destructive habit is a sort of slothfulness and inaction resulting from a combination of fear, anxiety, and worst of all, boredom. 

Fear and anxiety usually stem from the fear of knowing that I have a lot on my plate, but at times, no motivation to do it. Fear and anxiety can also stem from a feeling of loneliness and isolation. It all plays out into a sort of ambivalence. Each of these can be easy enough to do battle with, though. In the case of the former, make action a part of your daily life until it is ingrained in you as part of your routine. It becomes routine to look at the list of to-do items in your head, or on paper if you’re of that mold, and begin attacking them. It isn’t so important whether you get to everything or are successful in every aspect. The key is that you make progress, thus avoiding fear-induced slothfulness in the first place. 

In the case of the latter, modern society provides numerous ways to get in touch with friends, even across great distances. Say you’ve moved to a new city, and you’ve been gone long enough that, even after making new friends, you begin to miss your old friends. Technology provides you ample ways to contact them, and you just might find, as Thoreau alludes to, that your relationship has been enhanced by even a brief separation.

Now I want to address boredom-induced slothfulness. This is the most subtle and perhaps the most difficult to deal with, though in principle it should be less so. I hesitated and consequently chose not to refer to it as contentment-induced slothfulness, because of the positive connotation attached to the word contentment. However, this may be a fair characterization of the feeling. 

Contentment or boredom – whichever you prefer in this instance – is what makes it difficult for me to start and finish – particularly finish – a blogpost such as this. At times I can be content in the plans that I have for the blog, and therefore find myself unmotivated to actually work on it. Envisioning the finished product of a blog post and how it may be received can undermine the drive to actually put in consistent work on the blog, though writing invariably brings me joy. We are getting off course from discussing the company we keep and how frequently, so let's return to our main premise. 

Though we need to become comfortable in the company of our own thoughts, keeping exclusively our own company too often becomes a recipe for self-destruction. Just as relationships may become stagnant with too frequent communication, we also run the risk of stagnating ourselves by not recognizing the signs and allowing solitude to turn into loneliness and to get the better of us. Each individual will have different tolerance levels for human interaction as well as for solitude. It is up to you to find that happy medium which neither allows society to become too cheap nor isolates you from it.

Less time engrossed in our own company and less in the company of those familiar to us also leaves the door open for more opportunities to make new acquaintances. It is a well-meaning game that we all play in which we hope that we might positively influence someone else’s life, just as they hope that their interactions with us will have had a similar effect. You will find that touching someone’s life in such a way, however briefly, will indeed, suffice, and commonly result in a richer society.

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Sonnet 73, or The Onset of Autumn

Bryce Canyon, Utah

The autumn season officially begins today. For some, that means falling leaves and changing colors, as in my photo above from Bryce Canyon one October a few years back. For others, it means the onset of football, the re-emergence of pumpkin spice-themed beverages, and a return to school. For others, it means a cooling of the weather and a long-awaited (or dreaded) return to cozy coats and sweaters. For others, it's merely a scientific recognition of the earth's changing position as it revolves around the sun.

And for still others, autumn marks a time of reflection. It's a well-worn trope, but for good reason. Autumn reminds us of the end of all things. It reminds us that there will come a day when we are no longer youthful, and all that we have to look back upon are our memories of what once was. This feeling is captured splendidly in William Shakespeare's famous Sonnet 73, which is reproduced below.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

The imagery is resplendent, as the reader can practically feel the chill wind upon their face and watch the final yellow leaf fall gently to the earth. It takes the reader and puts them firmly in a memory of their own. For Shakespeare, and for many of us in the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere, autumn also marks a return to crisp mornings, chilly evenings, and even a bit of frost upon the ground. 

Autumn does eventually lead to a time of slumber in winter followed by renewal in spring. But in autumn, let's pretend that we do not know what awaits. All that we have to guide us is a slowing down that can be felt. The days shorten – as Shakespeare eloquently captures in his description of the setting sun – the weather cools, and the air simply has a feeling about it. It is calm and relaxed. 

Autumn invites us, too, to slow down, to take a break from our ceaseless pursuit of productivity (more on this in a future post). Shakespeare even warns of such pursuits, warning us that we – which is to say, life – will inevitably be "Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by." The Bible likewise instructs us that things will one day come to an end: "The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray" (1 Peter 4:7). Whether you are inclined to pray or not, I read this as a call to reflection. Slow down and be of sober mind, so that you may reflect on life and its many blessings, as well as its many hardships. Nonetheless the implication is clear: slow down

Shakespeare ends by imploring us "To love that well which thou must leave ere long." This is a concept which is preached in nearly every philosophical and religious tradition: be present. Do not let your mind dwell on that which is not in front of you, lest your time slip away and you not even notice. As Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us, there is a time and a season for everything. Autumn is the time and the season for rest and reflection. Be not wearied, rather, cozy up and take time to listen for the "Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds [sing]." Listen well, and you may find that you hear more than just birdsong. 

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Flash Fiction: To Be Truly Alone

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/35879738625/

It's been awhile since I posted original fiction, so I thought it would be fun to reflect back on a piece that I wrote for a flash fiction (fewer than 1000 words) contest back in 2018. It's a first foray into action and science-fiction for me, and certainly stretched my comfort zone. 

My intent was to highlight and speak to the sheer vastness of the Universe, and particularly how small humanity can feel in that context. Not only is the Universe vast and presumably empty, but humanity is the only intelligent species that we are aware of to date. Whether – or perhaps, when – we encounter another civilization, what will that mean for us? What will it do to our psyche? And what will it mean to be human in that new context? 

These themes are all too lengthy to fully flesh out in fewer than 1000 words, of course, but they are themes that I hope this piece at least touches on – with some fast-paced action driving the narrative. Below is a brief synopsis introducing the story, followed by the story itself. I had a blast writing it, and the process made me want to pick up an HG Wells novel and do a deep-dive into classic sci-fi (The Time Machine and The Island of Dr. Moreau are probably my two favorites of his). Hopefully it will provide the same impetus for you.

Synopsis: The two sides had been friendly for many years, but when one turns suddenly violent and takes captive an unarmed individual, her only remaining recourse is to make a desperate attempt to free herself and find out what else her captors are planning, before it is too late.

→To Be Truly Alone

The bucolic dream melted away, the rolling green hills replaced by stainless steel walls, cold to the touch and colder in their sterility. Paisley flexed her fingers, struggling to regain control of herself. She looked to the bruises dotting her arms, examined a still bleeding gash in her leg. She could only imagine what her face must look like. 

They had never been violent before. Something must have changed, spurred them on; either that or they were incredible at playing the long con. She didn’t intend on waiting around to find out what they wanted, or perhaps had already taken.

Setting to work, she looked to the opposite wall, as she remembered that it was a one-way mirror. Paisley knew her captors were impressionable, so she stared into her own reflection, hoping one of them was manning the booth hidden behind. Within a few seconds, she crumpled to the floor. She lay motionless, listening hard. Sure enough, the door clicked open, and one of them crept in, reaching its grey, scabbed hand forth to feel for her pulse. At its touch, Paisley grabbed it by the wrist and rolled it into a choke maneuver, making the most of her size advantage.

“Where am I?” she hissed into its lone ear. “Don’t!” She grabbed the stun prod from its flailing hands and took the keycard dangling from its belt. The body in her grasp went limp, the trachea of its thin neck crushed. “Dammit.”

Paisley briefly wondered if she might feel remorse later; no time for it now. The keycard let her into the observation deck behind the mirror, where she frantically searched for clues as to her whereabouts. Shoving the card into the nearest terminal, its screen lit up on the home page. “Welcome to Reynolds Embassy 2117 – Europa Station. Enter login credentials.”

Shit. Her captors were using their embassy orbiting a human outpost to hold her. They must have staged a coup. It would only be a matter of time before they mobilized to target earth, if they hadn’t already. She drug the limp body of the guard into the booth and used its palmprint to gain access to the system. A quick search of the mainframe confirmed her fears. She had to move fast: It would only be a matter of minutes before they realized she’d escaped the holding room. 

Gathering up the keycard and prod, she shuffled out of the booth and into the hallway, searching for a medical wing. If she didn’t get the prodigious bleeding from her leg stopped, she wouldn’t get far. Voices around the corner. Paisley tried the keycard at the nearest door and slipped inside. 

It was dark and smelled of cleaning products. She searched the cleaning cart with fumbling fingers and came across a mending kit. Not exactly prime first aid, but it would have to do. Trembling, she withdrew a needle and threaded it, plunged it into her thigh, and worked quickly to stitch together her leg. Tears flowed unbidden from her eyes. Fatigued, Paisley struggled to piece together her situation. 

They had drawn blood from her, of that she was certain. The gash and bruises? Testing her healing response, likely. Then it hit her: they lacked white blood cells. That would explain the scabbed over skin. Wounds could never heal properly because of constant risk of infection. A final genetic modification they wished to make before engaging in intergalactic war. She had to get this information out to her side.

Easing the door open, she made her way down the hall, looking for a breathing apparatus. Her suit would have been incinerated, or locked up, at least. She prayed that it was only locked up. Using the darkness to her advantage, she picked her way past several open doors toward the end of the corridor. Supply room. Excellent. 

Once inside, she was elated to find her suit still intact. She pulled it on and fitted the helmet on snugly, attaching an extra oxygen cannister to her belt. Her best hope was to make it to open space and activate her beacon. Then it would be a race for humanity to recover her body first.

Hideous alarm sirens let her know that they had discovered her escape. Time to move. Extending the telescoping stun prod, she made her way back into the hall. She had 100 yards to go, and three armored individuals were already running at her. She parried a thrust of a stun prod from the first, using its momentum to shove it in the back and send it flailing behind her. The second vaulted off the wall, aiming for her head. Paisley dropped to her knees, sliding below its attack along the smooth floor. She sprung to her feet and kept running. The third combatant stood resolutely in front of her. Wrong move, she thought. She hit it square in the chest like a jouster, sending it flying the opposite direction.

Small as they were, she knew their true advantages lay in intellectual prowess, sheer numbers, and a certain disregard for human ethics. She had to make it out alive and warn humanity. Reaching the exit, she thrust the guard’s keycard into the slot. Nothing. It required two-factor authentication. Panicking, spurred on by the footsteps of a multitude of them just around the corner, she ran to retrieve the card off the body of her nearest dispatched opponent, ignoring the sharp pain in her leg.

With a thrill she watched them barreling down the hall, headed straight for her. Paisley sprinted back to the door. Reaching to her wrist controls, she calmly switched on her beacon.

She was afraid, certainly, but also disappointed. Decades ago, humanity had come to know that they weren’t alone in the universe. But in a way they were still alone, of this much she was certain. With nary a glance back, she pushed the second keycard into the airlock, watched the doors slide open, and launched herself into the void.

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

What Action Looks Like, or Why We Don't Do Anything Anymore

https://unsplash.com/photos/aebPbwAWjDs

Let's talk about language. This necessarily requires a disclaimer: I'm not an English major, I studied engineering and climatology. However, it's not so much the intricacies and structural aspects of language that I'm after. Rather, I want to talk about the proliferation of our use of nouns as verbs, a process known as verbification. (And yes, I fully appreciate the irony of the word "verb" being turned into a verb.)

I'm not a Luddite of language. Language changes and evolves over time, often in helpful ways. Words come and go, get adapted to our changing needs, fall out of use to promote a more just society, and so forth.

But sometimes changes in our language indicate something else is going on. Language reflects culture at large, and in this current cultural moment, perhaps we are "verb-ifying" our language because we don't actually do anything anymore. The verbification of the word becomes a stand in for the action itself.

The cascade began with "texting" and "google-ing." These uses streamlined our language and made a fundamental sort of sense. It is much more fluid to say that you "googled" something, rather than to wade through the unwieldy construction of "I conducted a google search," or "I searched for it on google." (I am omitting capitalization to reflect the use of google to refer to online search in general, rather than the specific use of the Google platform. See how language reflects our larger culture?)

But the story now is changing. Adulting. A new way to Chipotle. Dialogued. Venmo me. Summer safely. This is how you money. For the most part, these new verbifications seem to fall into the realm of cheeky taglines, clever marketing, relatable phrases that will stand out in the ever-expanding competition for our attention. In fact, the first link of Google search (as of this writing) turns up an article citing the (dubious) claim that our attention spans are shrinking and the subsequent challenges that alleged phenomenon poses for marketers. I would argue instead that we are still able to sustain attention just fine, but that there are ever more competing claims being made on our scarce attention. 

Enter in the verbification of words. In a world where competition for attention is being ramped up, individuals seek ways to distinguish themselves from the crowd and companies seek ways to better engage with potential customers. It's done in the name of individualism, being a trend-setter, or being cute. But really, it's just sad.

Follow me. Ok, I get it. Follow is actually a verb. Jesus even exhorted people to follow him. But Jesus's invitation entailed actually doing something. Now? Just a click or a tap. And you've "done" it. And herein lies the problem for modernity. A search of verbified words turns up several webpages guiding one in the practice or explaining its history; other search results offer an indictment of the practice. I, however, want to examine instead what the practice says about us from a broader standpoint.

Much has been written about how much activity – and rest – was involved in a standard day for our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors, notably by Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens. Movement and action were indelible parts of the hunter-gatherer's day. If one didn't move, one didn't eat or survive. 

Contrast this with our modern day experience where one needn't leave the house for days on end. Food, groceries, gadgets and items from Amazon and the like, and all manner of things can be ordered and then delivered right to our doors with only a few keystrokes on our part. This is undoubtedly helpful when we're sick and need or ought to stay in; it is not my intention to demonize modern conveniences. 

But beyond those rare circumstances, it is simply a form of luxurious convenience that allows us to reap rewards without consideration for the true cost of our lack of action. Inaction is not quite the right term to describe this phenomenon since an outcome is actually being produced, so let's instead call it "un-action." Such un-action results in isolation from others, treats the underpaid people involved in the delivery industry with indifference at best and contempt at worst, has a negative impact on the environment, and requires no meaningful effort. There can be no sense of accomplishment when one has, in fact, not actually done anything. Even for those of us in white collar professions, most of our day is spent clicking, typing, and moving virtual objects about on a screen. 

There is a counterculture, however, that would have us take back our sense of accomplishment, and a long list of articles examining the joy and mental health benefits of the flow state that can be achieved while working at a self-determined physical task. From Shop Class as Soulcraft to the classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, we humans seem to know intuitively that joy awaits us when we are allowed self-determinacy and when we work with our hands. The human body evolved to move, and we are denying our bodies a core part of being when we cease to do physical things. 

I think that we sense – subconsciously, at least – that action is missing from our lives. So we create it with our language. We verbify words and allow ourselves to be sucked into the digital vortex and we convince ourselves that we are ok with it. Our capitalist system then embraces the trend and jumps on board with verbified advertising, as with the Chipotle example above (not to mention countless others). 

But what if we could push back? Set down the phone; walk to the store; interact with other people; cook at home; garden; make something; do art; go for a run; find rejuvenation for your body and mind through movement. It will take a conscious effort, but it just might be necessary. Better yet, it just might be an action worth taking.

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Seek What Can Be

https://unsplash.com/photos/GewlrE-mkk4

The tagline "Seek what can be" adorns the top banner of this blog. I wanted to take some time to explain what I have in mind with that motto.

To "seek what can be" connotes a notion of possibilities and fulfilled potential, of reaching out and grasping at an idea and turning it into a reality. As noted on our About page, being Deliberately Aimless is about desiring that which cannot be and embracing life's contradictions. And so, with a motto imploring you to "Seek what can be," I present you with another contradiction: a blog rooted in the notion of grasping at unattainable things in life that is, surprisingly, defined by a motto of attainment.

Why the contradiction? Because while we want to take on life's big – and sometimes un-answerable – questions on this blog, we don't do so in a pointless or meaningless way. For instance, when asking the question What is the meaning of life?, it's not enough to just say that we don't know or that there are many interpretations. While this statement is true to a degree, we also want to examine all the different perspectives and practices that have been produced through the ages of our shared and collective human experience. Just because a question is difficult or even impossible doesn't mean that it isn't worth taking on. In fact, we view that difficulty as the very reason to engage with it.

To seek what can be involves looking beyond the mundanities of everyday life to see the bigger picture. Life is hard, but it does us no good to cower in fear or to run from it. We must instead meet it head on. Confront life and let it take your measure, and may it not find your measure wanting. 

But neither is this meant to be a rah-rah, puff out your chest anthem. There's a reason that I relate more strongly to Henry David Thoreau than to Theodore Roosevelt, though I greatly respect them both. And as I write this I am struck with the thought that perhaps there aren't such great differences between the two men as a cursory glance would suggest. 

When life dealt TR the worst of blows and took his wife and his mother from him in the span of a single day, he entered into his journal a somber and simple statement: "The light has gone out of my life." To deal with his grief and this great tribulation, Roosevelt sought solitude in the Dakota Territory where he became a rancher for a time and hunted and rode on the high plains. Roosevelt did not run from his trauma. He merely sought out a place of solitude wherein he could work through it. Solitude – as Jesus informs us numerous times through his actions – is a great teacher and can be a place of strength.

To seek what can be can also refer to this sort of seeking. The seeking of solitude, of re-centering, of greater understanding, or the realization that one simply cannot understand what has transpired but that it is possible to keep moving forward. That the light may have gone out, but that it can also be re-ignited.

As someone who deals with bouts of despair – and who doesn't these days? – I think it is this secondary definition that is the more important. Sure, by all means, seek what can be in the sense of following your dreams and making great things happen. I want to encourage that heartily, as well. But I think it is in the quiet moments, where we are unsure, downtrodden, beaten down by life, that seeking what can be can really be a mantra to carry us through. 

In the words of beloved author EB White, "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." To seek what can be is the hope that some day one need not choose between these desires, but that they would be one and the same.

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Ocean Exploration via Biomimicry

 

https://unsplash.com/photos/JtVyK2Sej2I
In a previous post, we examined the benefits of design inspired by the principles of biomimicry. As a reminder, biomimicry is the practice of observing and then mimicking nature as a way of finding innovative solutions to human problems. Nature has often optimized solutions through many millennia of natural selection at work. Our task, then, is to take these solutions that are readily available and find ways to tweak and apply them to human problems. One such example that I want to explore is that of deep sea exploration.

The deep sea and the sea floor are the last (macroscopic) frontiers on earth. By some accounts, more than 80% of the oceans and sea beds remain unexplored and unmapped. To gain an idea of the complexity of the issue, we should start with a little history of ocean exploration. 

In the United States, the first coastal survey was performed beginning in 1807 after the authorization of the Coast Survey by President Thomas Jefferson. It wasn't until 1840 that Sir James Clark Ross of England took the first deep sea sounding in the south Atlantic. The Gulf Stream, a key factor in the moderate temperatures of western Europe, was finally mapped in 1860 following a 15 year mapping project by the US Coast Survey. Ocean exploration and our understanding of climate goes hand in hand, as the oceans act as a great moderator of the climate that we experience due to the high heat capacity of water.

From 1872-1878, the first modern bathymetric map was created following soundings taken by the Coast Survey in the Gulf of Mexico. Fortunately for us in the modern world, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now produces an online and interactive bathymetric data viewer. It allows a user to delineate and download a digital elevation model (DEM) of the ocean floor as measured by sonar and lidar (pulsed laser measurements).

Following the early creations of bathymetric maps from high-density soundings, ocean research in the following several decades continued primarily through depth soundings, dredging of the sea floor, and temperature measurements. It wasn't until the 1920s that radio acoustic ranging came on the scene and more modern methods were developed in subsequent decades, such as sonar and, in the past two decades, lidar. To underscore the difficulty of comprehensive ocean exploration, then, it has only been in the past century that we have been able to take electronic measurements and only for the past several decades that we have been able to do so at scale. This setup helps to explain the current paucity of knowledge regarding the oceans, particularly the vast space been the surface and the floor. 

The above methods all represent remote ways of measuring the ocean. Sending a craft, especially a manned craft, is far more difficult due to the immense pressures reached under even a couple thousand meters of water. From the 1930s, we have been sending humans to increasing depths in increasingly rigid and thick-bodied diving craft. In 1960, the manned Trieste bathyscaphe reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, a depth of over 10,900 meters (over 35,800 feet). In keeping with design principles of the time, the Trieste had a 5-inch steel wall around the pressure sphere, a small plexiglass observation window, and a thinner exterior steel wall to contain the float liquid used for buoyancy. 

Our design principles for deep sea diving may be changing, however, as a team of researchers from Zhejiang University in China demonstrated in a 2021 paper in the journal Nature. The team designed an un-manned diving craft using principles inspired by the soft-bodied hadal snailfish. This translates to a diving craft design with a silicone body and dispersed electronics, thus allowing the electronic components of the craft to be spread out in the silicone body and not require the pressure resistance that a centralized system would necessitate. 

This approach allows the robot to operate as a deep sea organism does, with its body flexing and responding to changes in pressure, but remaining pliant enough to not be crushed by the immense pressures. The robot is propelled by electrical signals that convert into mechanical energy and induce a flapping motion in the "fins" of the craft. Think along the lines of how the electrical current makes Batman's cloth cape rigid in Batman Begins.

The robot was subsequently tested in the South China Sea to a stated depth of 3,200 meters and was later tested in the Mariana Trench, though the final achieved depth was not stated. And while it is noted that the propulsion system needs some fine-tuning (ocean currents can pose a problem for the device's limited mobility), this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, one inspired by simply observing and mimicking organisms in their natural environment. 

The potential advances we may discover lurking in the depths of the oceans provide more than enough motivation to continue this biomimicry-inspired research, whether we ultimately make breakthroughs of a medical, energy, or as yet unknown origin. This is research that allows us as humans to Seek what can be, something that we here at Deliberately Aimless certainly support (more on this in a future post).

For full details of the research, read the press release from Nature here.

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Mount Timpanogos on the Horizon

 

Mount Timpanogos, Utah

As the winter season draws to a close here in Utah and we find ourselves firmly in mid-spring, I thought it would be fun to revisit a photo of Mount Timpanogos (11,749') that I took in early April 2018. I had trudged through the deep spring snow up to the top of White Baldy (11,321') in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Still relatively new to the area at the time, I knew that vast vistas awaited me at the top, but I didn't quite know what the views would hold. I was not disappointed.

Timpanogos, or Timp as it is affectionately known by locals, is the second tallest mountain in the Wasatch Range, second only to Mount Nebo (11,928'), which is just visible in the above photo in the distance on the right hand side. It wouldn't be until October 2019 that I would summit Timp itself – perhaps more on that in a future post.

The climb up White Baldy begins at the White Pine trailhead, the starting point for many of my favorite hikes in the central Wasatch. Eventually the trail diverges in the wood (I couldn't help myself), and the hiker can choose between the White Pine or Red Pine trails. I took the left-hand trail and continued up White Pine. (I know, that's a lot of Pines.) 

The snow was still deep, but soft. It was early spring and the snow was beginning to melt in the afternoons. I had begun in the early morning, but would find myself post-holing a route through the waist deep snow at certain points later in the climb. My thighs screamed bloody murder, and I had to scramble on all fours to reach the ridge that would carry me to the summit, but it was worth it just for the sheer beauty. (Make sure to take proper gear, precautions, and safety measures. Snow can be finnicky and is not to be underestimated on steep slopes.)

Nothing quite prepares you for the stillness and silence that can be experienced in a snow-covered forest. And as I made my way above the tree line and the sun made its way over the ridge to touch the north slope, the entire landscape before me began to sparkle with a brilliance unmatched by man-made displays. In those moments, nothing else mattered but the next step that I took. The serenity even silenced the typically incessant thoughts in my head. 

Then I reached the top. And the view that awaited me is what you see at the top of this post. Shimmering, sparkling, brilliance.

As for the descent, steep as it was, I reminded myself of the line from Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, "It's impossible to fall off mountains, you fool." And so I made my way back down, brisk and lively across the snow.

→Haiku

Bluebird sky above,

Untrammeled snow at my feet,

Mountaintops beckon.