Rabbit Holes

Let's go down the rabbit hole, together.

Per Merriam Webster,

: a complexly bizarre or difficult state or situation conceived of as a hole into which one falls or descends

especially: one in which the pursuit of something (such as an answer or solution) leads to

other questions, problems, or pursuits,

Per me,

: the development, or home, of a hyper fixation,

especially: a place where time does not pass consciously until eyes begin to burn. Also known as: a cause of inspiration,

too many tabs on a phone, fever dream inducing insomnia,

perpetual third place in pub quizzes,
pillow talk about the coldest you ever felt,
and if anything in the tundra feels,
what exactly awaits under the permafrost,
why are people not more concerned,
why people are, frankly, too concerned,
if the brain could ever be accessed like a storage device,
can it be password protected,
and if so, can we even define personhood,
but really, can we even define anything, even words,
why dictionaries even have authority,
your mother,
growth that can feel like loss,
& loss that can feel like growth.

Let's go down the rabbit hole, together.

A recent start, before I tumbled down…

I stumbled upon a debate* on Reddit about what being “uncontacted” truly means for a tribe or culture, which of course led to…

learning more and more about the known tribes in what we call Ecuador and northern Brazil
then eventually reading the excellent memoir We Will Not Be Saved by Nemonte Nenquimo & Mitch Anderson (UK title, US title is We Will Be Jaguars)
and questioning why we even count the way we do in Western society, before remembering,
Base 10 is what we use, which makes sense, as we always love counting on our fingers don’t we?
It’s wild how a simple disposition for counting on our fingers vs. counting things in nature can so profoundly impact one’s mathematical understanding,
and of course, language itself, which often has a strong impact on one’s understanding of time itself.
With different understandings of time, just how different can our feeling of, and connection to, the past and future be? What about the present?
Shake your head off. This hole hit a dead end (for now). Back to Nemonte, of We Will Not be Saved. Her work was incremental in getting Ecuador to become the first country to recognize the rights of the environment. What would the world be like if other countries followed suit? Or if this had always been the case?
Of course, the memoir also has a much deeper twist, regarding Christian missionaries and the harms they can (and do) cause…
Which eventually, leads me to reading the masterpiece of a novel, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and further researching
okapi and palindromes,
how and why different clothes and adornments developed,
and why, of all the options in the world, and those outside of it, Western society had to develop the modern neck tie. Does anyone actually like those?
&c., &c., whereas &c. is an old-fashioned way of saying,
etc.

*debate: do you ever feel like debates are less and less common? There’s disagreements, sure, but they often feel like watching a game of ping pong, with the balls already preformed, ready to go, and people just waiting for their chance to hit.