It’s strange how one thing can lead to another. Sometimes the result is hodgepodge, sometimes pattern. Today it was intricate, well ordered, lustrous pattern.
I began this morning by picking up where I left off last night with my “drifting off” thoughts in bed. Ironically for someone who, like many others, has preparation for sleep in mind when he reads in bed the subject of my evening’s read was mental restlessness. I’m reading “Open Minded” by Jonathan Lear and he puts the idea of restlessness out there as a basic feature of the human psyche. OK, maybe not the best book for your bedside table at night. But I get up this morning (having successfully put aside that concept in favor of actual restfulness) thinking about the disruptive function of restlessness and how it works to break up the cozy comforts of “knowingness”.
My Sunday morning pledge is to not look at social media until I actually accomplish something. Sunday morning is also my “Bible study.” Well, that’s what I call it anyway and sometimes it involves studying the actual Bible. But it is always dedicated to pondering imponderables. After sitting quietly with the usual morning muddle of my own thoughts during which I drink my first cup of coffee (I told you this was a routine!), I go off in search of the term “disruption.”
This leads to a chain of exploration which winds up with Eukaryota, which is kind of an important word for reasons we will discover. For now let’s just leave it here on the page with its lovely pronunciation: “You-carry-oh-tah.”
I’m glad I woke up today. I say it out loud: “You-carry-oh-tah.” (just so beautiful.)
Let me recount the descent of thought I followed from just typing “disruption” into the search field. If you prefer “ascent” that’s fine. Just beware that you are now identified as hopelessly cheery.
Up pops “The Disruption of 1843.” Sounds curious. Many years are full of disruption. Why does 1843 rise above the others to earn distinction on the disruptiveness scale? It turns out that a great schism occurred in the Scottish church that year involving dissent over who controlled the placement of clergy in local churches and who was really in charge after all. According to those rebels who decided to part ways from their established church, it was most certainly not the state!
A side discovery to this was finding an amazing portrait of over 400 of the 1000 plus Scottish dissenters who met to begin their independence movement. A painter present for the festivities wanted to memorialize the confab and a photographer who was also present offered to take pictures of the rabble as reference material. It was a pioneering event in the history of photography and resulted in one amazing 5’ x 11’ painting. (See image here)
From there I picked up on “Presbyterianism” because I remembered something about it starting in Scotland as a religious movement with emphasis on local control of church teaching and organization, rather than relying on hierarchical dictates. In that Wikipedia article there was a curious editor’s warning that said emphatically; “This section possibly contains original research.” Well that certainly caught my attention since I was under the impression that Wikipedia was all about original research. Turns out to be anything but! A basic rule for them is that nothing should appear on any page without referencing established resource material. In other words, you can’t just put any old shit up there. Wait… this IS the internet isn’t it?
From there I went off onto a little bit of a worm-hole tangent. Just stay with me.
On the Wikipedia page that describes the above policy regarding “original research” there was a small flag at the bottom “Wikiversity allows original research”. Hey, thank goodness somebody does! Again, my interest in the theme of disruption was demanding some access to the open air here. And “Wikiversity” sounded interesting. I think I could afford to go there!
Wikiversity is part of the “Wiki” nebulae, an element of the Wikimedia Foundation, which is in turn part of the Wikimedia Movement. And that’s a lot of Wiki. Wikiversity is a free school, a collection of learning materials developed through the generosity of spirit that runs rife through this whole enterprise. After noodling around this cloud college for a while I saw a list of other projects that the Wikimedia Foundation has going. First I tried Wikinews but that was a little thin (the content seemed to be dominated by English football for some reason.)
The next morsel of click bait for me was Wikispecies. I have no idea why. There was also Wikivoyage which sounded too leisurely I guess. This was study time after all. On Wikispecies I looked at several pages but they all contained just taxonomy with no narrative content. I did learn that wrens and finches are related so now I’ve got that little factoid to wield on my next trip birding. (me) “Did you know wrens and finches are related?” (her, looking at a wood duck) “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”
Now comes the part where those members of my audience in the “cheery” faction get their due. I found myself looking at the taxonomy structure and wondering what was towards the top. I was ascending! Way up there, above order, above class, above phylum, above kingdom even… was that word: Eukaryota. “You-carry-oh-tah.”
This was the big kahuna! The Domain. All organisms with a cell structure that contain a nucleus with genetic material belong to it. Its the mother ship. The uber category. The Realm of the Seven Kingdoms. The background category that every form of life belongs to.
Except for bacteria.
That will have to wait for another Sunday.