“Contributions to the life history of the sockeye salmon” … that is the name of two papers I found in a used book store in Nanaimo, BC today and quickly purchased. There were about 10 more, but at $15 a pop, I didn’t really want to grab them all. One is from 1932 and one from 1933.
Pretty darn interesting (for fish-interested folks anyways… those pondering how bureaucracies and scientists and fishy individuals have looked at these things, and how certain cultures have cropped up around these issues).
I’ll post more on these once I am back home and have more time to ponder.
In the meantime, more good tidings from Godin to consider on these twisted and forked paths:
…that’s the best way to make big things happen.
Write down your plans. Share them with trusted colleagues. Seek out team members and accomplices.
Shun the non-believers. They won’t be easily convinced, but they can be ignored.
Is there any doubt that making big plans increases the chances that something great will happen?
Is there any doubt that we need your art and your contribution?
Why then, are you hesitating to make big plans?
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Anne Lamott relates an image from a friend in her great book on writing, Bird by Bird. My version:
Everyone is given an acre of attitudes at birth. It’s yours to tend and garden and weed and live with. You can plant bitterness or good humor. Feel free to fertilize and tend the feelings and approaches that you want to spend time with. Unless you hurt someone, this acre is all yours.
Probably worth putting up a decent fence, so that only the attitudes that you choose will have a chance to put down seeds, but it’s certainly a bad idea to put up a wall, because a walled garden is no good to anyone passing by. You get to decide what comes through your fence gate, right?
Watching out for invasive species—spending sufficient time on weeding and pruning and staking seem to be incredibly powerful tools for accomplishing the life you want. I refuse to accept that an attitude is an accident of birth or an unchangeable constant. That would be truly horrible to contemplate.
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You see, in the fisheries world… as in many other worlds (corporate, government, etc.) there are many folks that sow some rather interesting acres and plant some curious crops. And sometimes when the neighbors start peering over the fence and asking some hard questions about what sort of seeds might start blowing their way… well… some folks start getting very protective of their acres…
…they build higher walls, thinking that will keep the questions from coming, and keep curious minds from prying.
… and then when the neighbors start asking about what sort of financial transactions are involved in the neighbors acres… oh well… things start getting a little dicey.
Many folks don’t like hard questions… don’t like their acres that they’ve tread well-worn paths into… and in fact, what is actually the case is that they never owned that acre in the first place. They just have such a righteous, protective attitude and figure since they wore the trails into those acres that this gives ownership… and screw the tough questions.
But the thing with questions… and neighbors… is they never really go away.
And meanwhile, the sockeye continue to make their contributions to life history… and people — not the fish… or the seals… or the squid… or the ocean currents… or climate change… or… or… — continue to be the problem.. and continue to avoid tough questions.