My previous post was an unrivaled success. One indignant reader commented that I deserved to be slow roasted in a biochar retort for all eternity. I was sued for copyright infringement for use of the phrase, “Come on up out from back down in under there.” And I was soundly ridiculed for my mistaken belief that it is now fashionable to share one's preferred prepositions. Turns out it's another part of speech altogether. Who knew? As they say everywhere, “all publicity is good publicity,” so I am looking forward to vastly increased notoriety due to my social blunders. (By the way, my preferred pronouns are aught, naught, and suchlike, though I find it difficult to choose because there are so many wonderful ones.)
It will be difficult repeat the glorious faux pas that was my previous piece, but one must make the effort. Since writing it I have been ruminating on the words of Wittgenstein, who said, “If people never did anything stupid, nothing intelligent would ever get done.” Does it logically follow that if I do more stupid things, then more intelligent things will result? If so, could it be assumed that by doing stupid things, I am obtaining a yield of intelligent things? I cannot answer these questions conclusively, but asking them has allowed me to sneak in a permaculture principle. As my loyal readers know, it is in my contract that I must include one.
Let's totter on to more engaging subject matter: While thinking of Wittgenstein I was reminded of his words, “In most cases the meaning of a word is its use.” I believe he meant that words can have different meanings depending on the context and this leads to big misunderstandings when there is no generally agreed upon meaning for a word. Or perhaps he didn't mean that at all—he was a wily fellow and could have meant something else altogether. See how that works?
He was no doubt spurred to make such a statement by being a witness to drunken arguments in pubs, in which neither participant understood what the other was saying. His theory of word use is proof that Wittgenstein was many years ahead of his time. These days one can come to the same conclusions in under five seconds on social media, but Wittgenstein didn't have the benefit of such technology, and must have devoted many long evenings to primary research in smoky taverns. For this I commend him; it is solid evidence that he was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century.
I've done an immense amount of research on social media and have quite a large blister on my scrolling finger to show for it. I have learned that the problem Wittgenstein identified is extremely prevalent in gardening circles. I've lurked on countless arguments that went nowhere due to use of terms with amorphous meaning, such as bamboo, raised bed, pawpaw, no-till, and shade. The term bamboo could mean over a thousand things, as that is the number of species so named. No one seems to know if raised bed means raised mere inches and still connected to the native soil, or refers to a waist-high box of soil on legs. Is a pawpaw an Appalachian native beloved by rednecks, or a mesoamerican fruit prized by southeast Asians?
Furthermore, no-till simultaneously means an industrial agricultural practice where dousings of chemicals replace plowing, and a home gardening practice for people who don't own shovels. Don't get me started on shade, which is often used to indicate simply a place where the sun doesn't shine. But where is the nuance? Shade can be moist or dry, dappled or full, deep or bright. I can feel my blood pressure rising as I consider conversations in which the particular type of shade being discussed was never mentioned.
Now is a good time to focus on my breath, and remind myself that the internet is just pixels of contrasting brightness and for all I know the conversations I have observed were among bots. It's a good time to go outside and touch the grass, or perhaps lick a tree. There are subjects far more important than gardening, though it hurts me to admit it, but if we can't even agree on gardening terms, how can we discourse meaningfully about gender, critical race theory, or spatulas? (Is it a metal utensil for flipping eggs, a rubber one for scraping bowls, or a tongue depressor?) The answer is, we cannot. Not only is there no generally accepted meaning for these words, which renders the efforts of even the most earnest debaters meaningless, most combatants are disingenuous and knowingly use words with slippery meaning. Worse, the propagandists are on to Wittgenstein's ideas and employ his theory to obfuscate everything. It's easiest just to give up and not try to converse at all, which is what they want us to do. Raising the most timid resistance against the status quo is now labeled literal violence, which, because I now understand Wittgenstein's theory of language, I can translate to mean someone got their feelings hurt.
As guest columnist here at Turtle Paradise, I feel obligated to offer some practical advice. In my previous columns I provided an exercise and a spiritual path . Now I exhort readers to reconnect with the natural world as a panacea for what ails you. Forsake your screen and go outside. Sample pond water. Splash around in puddles wearing boots with holes. Overdo it in a tank top on the first sunny day of spring, because there's nothing like a good sunburn to renew your connection to Mother Nature! (If you merely tan, perhaps try being stung by a bee to facilitate bonding with the natural world.) I know that my advice to reconnect with Gaia is banal, but it's literally all I've got (by which I mean I have lots of other advice, but I need to save it for future posts.)
I will leave you with another quote from Wittgenstein: “A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.” What does it mean? I'll leave that up to you.