Musings on the Path

The gatekeepers have stopped
the barbarians at the gate.
They guard access
to empty pews.

The horde demanding entrance
is empty too.

Who are the gatekeepers for:

• botanicals (e.g. quinine)
• religious images (e.g. kachina dolls)
• recipes (e.g., chitlins, gumbo, pizza)
• religious institutions (e.g. churches, clergy)
• clothing (e.g. cheongsam, kimono, Aloha shirts, guayabera)
• credentials (e.g. MFA and other college degrees)

Some gatekeepers are going away or being circumvented

• Non-denominational churches walk away from denomination rule, hierarchies, and gatekeepers, and establish their own.
• Bitcoin end-runs governmental currencies and is backed by nothing beyond the ability to generate a valid one.
• Discount brokers undercut full-service brokers.
• Hedge funds and venture capitalists dance in and outside the stock markets.
• Shadow banks are not legally banks, but offer many of the same services, e.g., loans.  Regulations are much less stringent.
• Uber, Lyft, and other ride-sharing companies try with varying degrees of success to break the taxi company (and city permitting process) monopoly.  In general, the sharing economy does this too.

Disintermediation refers to cutting out the middle man, e.g. buying direct from the manufacturer’s Website.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who will watch the watchmen?

I’m not advocating no rules, regulation, or gatekeepers. How do we keep those who keep out the unqualified and unscrupulous from becoming those who shield those inside from competition or criticism from outside. Who do we prevent those who guard/protect us from becoming our prison guards? In another context I asked, “Public Safety Officer or occupying army protecting privilege?”

Austin, TX is a “humid, sub-tropical” climate.  In my daily activities, the “strenuously casual” dress of where I came from Davis, CA. It is a hot-summer Mediterranean climate, so drier than here. My clothing is less appropriate here, but a suit, even a tropical suit, is too hot and too dressy for everyday wear. For the Capitol, it’s different.

The guayabera originated in similar climates (Cuba and/or Mexico). It is lightweight, traditionally white, and left untucked. It has some populist connotations, especially when worn by politicians. It has been urged as a revolt against the European suits of the colonizers. Here, I find the actions of the “suits” in the capitol revolting.

It is appropriate for this climate. Is it appropriate for a straight white male of predominantly Great Britain origin? Or is that appropriation by a member of the dominant ethnic group? Or is it an appropriate way to distance myself from the ruling group?

This morning I watched a video of the governor of Hawai’i, David Ige, talk about measures being taken around the eruptions in Lower Puna. He was wearing a pressed, button down Aloha shirt. The two officials mentioned, Tom Travis and Mike Kaleikini, can also be seen in other videos making statements wearing similar shirts. In Hawai’i this kind of shirt is formal wear, replacing the coat and tie or suit and tie.

The Aloha shirt was a commercial invention by a Chinese merchant based on earlier designs by a Japanese immigrant made from kimono fabrics. So it’s an appropriation of an appropriation, typical of so much of current culture in Hawai’i.

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto
I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me.

Terrence of Rome

 
Who decides what is appropriate use or appropriation?

At a writer’s retreat in a former convent, the leader, a Zen Buddhist practitioner, spoke of the Great Silence, a practice shared by many monastic traditions. Silence is observed by the whole community from dinner to breakfast the next morning. At the time I thought, “If I observed that, I’d be single before the year ended.” Monastics by definition are single, so that’s not a consideration for them.

In the weeks afterwards, I realized I can observe an Internet silence, no news or social media. Every night around dinner time I back up the day’s work and shut the laptop off. It is not turned back on until after morning coffee and Morning Pages. I only look at the weather prediction until after breakfast.

Austin Kleon, one of my favorite writers on the creative path, said “You can be woke without waking up to the news“. On our recent trip from Texas to Northern California, I sat with my back to the TV during breakfast. On several occasions we turned the sound down or off. We generally tuned it out. I wanted breakfast in peace. The glazed/hypnotized look on many of the watchers didn’t encourage me to turn around and watch. Mostly these were single people. Couples and families had an easier time resisting the “plug-in drug”.

Try a little silence. It will give you something to reflect on.