I just really got myself thinking, because I was thinking about bonsai and how I have this fondness towards it as an art form because it feels very... it kind of feels like how I feel about people who like, have train autism? and then I was like "but obviously people who do bonsai and people who have train autism aren't necessarily the same types of people, bc those are two very different activities both on a practical level and in terms of social purpose" and then I was like "right, I guess what I mean is ...stuff that involves a very narrow but very very DEEP amount of knowledge about Making A Thing in a way that is socially/culturally enriching, but not necessary for the tasks of day to day survival" and then I was like whooooa, its interesting to think about where people whose skills lie in that direction have tended to be placed socially at different times and at different places. I guess another example might be the people who are doing Clockmaking? anyway, it just made me think about how historically speaking, in most societies being 'the person who has a very very narrow but very very deep knowledge about Making Something and whose brain's approach things is as Problems To Solve' has occupied a pretty valuable space socially!!! like, it is important to have people in your community like that, bc they're sort of the mutations. hang on let me refine this thought one sec.
humans are a social species to the degree that almost no other animals are, like, this is the main notable thing about us. one could say that the unit of survival for humans is A Community, not An Individual (or rather two. I guess. whatever u understand me) and so in some ways, people who think differently than a lot of the other people in the community, or who become Very Very Interested in figuring out how something works, or whatever, we are like cellular mutations in organisms. causing developments in Communal Knowledge. rather than just accidentally creating cells that can sense light and dark or whatever. mutations in cells can be regarded a number of ways but objectively they're just neutral developments of difference.
people who become fixated on Solving Small Material Or Mechanical Problems have been quite crucial to human communities, typically, if you think very very zoomed out. in a species way.
so it's interesting to me to see in which situations at which times instances of Difference (in terms of, for example, how one sees and moves through and interprets the world) is viewed as a positive, negative, or neutral development by the society in question.
I forgot what I was saying. anyway. bonsai is super cool and I love being autistic. its funny how capitalism claims to be the only type of socioeconomic system in which innovation can thrive, when the conditions of capitalism are so hostile to the sorts of people who often Think Different in ways that could be useful to the community if those differences were respected. that seems like a much better method of encouraging innovation to me.
