Jane Goodall & a Monkey, Too

Dear Transcendentals & Romantics
& Colleagues Across the Curriculum

Sara asked me what I was all-the-time writing in class
during Talk-Free time etc. & I said well, it’s sort of like
Jane Goodall and the monkeys—that’s my image:
me—Jane Goodall, you guys, the monkeys.

But see: Jane loves the monkeys: they can do no wrong.
It’s AllGood for Goodall. Can you imagine Jane in her
Science Mode—observing what’s actually HAP-ening
and saying— ooono, don’t do that: bad monkey!
bad monkey! No—Jane would never judge a monkey.

Of course not. That would be Jane Moralist Mode—not
Goodall the scientist: watching and recording and thinking
and looking for patterns and meanings.

Here’s where it gets tricky:

I’m also a monkey with my own monkey business going
on—my own monkey agenda, which, if it gets messed-up,
causes me consternation.

This is my modal triad (the kind of stuff that comes to me
Thinking In Class):

JG&M
JG M

Jane mode: artist, scientist—watching, observing,
suspending judgment and agenda.
(What a transcendentalist!)

Monkey mode: full of my monkey business: things
to do, stuff to take care of… good&evil-ing,
cherishing & demonizing… you know: I’m
only human.

JG&M mode: this one’s almost impossible to characterize,
but let’s just say it’s the mediator, trickster, in-betweener,
regulator mode: neither Jane nor a Monkey—but NOT
not Jane & NOT not a monkey, too. Get it?

You can maybe improve my terms and images: play the
triad game—how opposites can be seen to RELATE
(all in the family and yet radically different.)..

Academics/Work/Service;
Art/Humanities/Science;
Theory/Practice/ In-Game
(performance). Variations

&&&

What does it take to change a mind-set,
attitude, cerebral habit, affective
habitat, way of thinking,
seeing, bias&belief
system, noetic
organization…. ?

This is the question-of-questions
that might FRAME the Sustainability
Concern that seems to characterize
OUR Community—and it’s
environmental commitment.

Note: the difference between a change in
mind-set and change of mind.
I can easily change my mind
about this or that but my
mind-set? Attitude?
How? (other than
temporary
pharmaceutical
adjustment.)

Note: Mind-Set (aka attitude: habit of minding,
frame of minding) is to minding as a Thermostat
Setting is to range of temperature & weather
tolerance.

Mind-Set: a regulator of tolerances—setting of
bottom and upper thresholds inside which I can
monkey & be monkyed around say, but if the
monkey business dips below or above the limits
of mind-set then ouch ooo, damnit, visceral grind
and gut signaling something’s WRONG.

Like that. How does ONE change one’s MIND-SET.
That’s The Liberal Art Question. IN my house (oikos,
ecos. ) I can just go twist the thermostat dial to 65 from
70—or up to 75—so as to maintain my comfort zone.
But my MIND-SET: how does THAT get recalibrated,
reconfigured, reformatted?

That’s The Liberal Art Question.

ENVIRON-MENTAL
studies
physical psychological
environment environment

Separate and Polarize these 2 kinds of “environment”
so they aren’t collapsed and confused—each
contaminating the other.

Now: wonder how they are related and maybe what
the ratio of emphasis is HERE in the WWC environment.

TRANSCENDENTAL

19^th c. word standing for Out of the Box. The question
(at this stage in our study) is HOW. How is it possible to
think out-of-the-box? To transcend? Our efforts to
sustain are a result of a gut visceral realization that our
ways-of-thinking and/or our ways of acting have generated
our sense of a Sustainability Crisis.

So: how does one think out of the unsustainability box toward
a sense of “higher sustainability”? Recalibration of my
mind-set?

That’s the Liberal Art Question.

Transcend & Descend at the same time?
IN the box (bubble, cave, culture, convention,
closet—“ecos” system) AND out of it at the same time?

That’s the Liberal Art Question—
right there.