Sunday, January 13, 2013
Snow as organizer
Polistra and friends are thankful to live in a place with plenty of snow.
Shoveling my own yard and looking at other yards, a thought popped up: Snow encourages organization in both long-term and short-term ways.
Long-term is obvious in a historical sense: People who live in cold places have to be frugal. They have to store food carefully and think ahead. Even in a modern city there are plenty of days when you can't get to the store easily, so you need to plan your marketing. Warm-place people can grow food at any time, and can always get around easily.
Those opposite constraints, imposed over centuries, create different genetic patterns. Disorganized people die or move away from cold places. Snow strongly discourages criminal behavior, partly because the more violent ethnic groups don't like cold and wet weather to begin with, and partly because snow makes it wonderfully easy to track burglars.
The short-term aspect is a new thought. My yard doesn't have any paved driveways or sidewalks in the summer, but in winter I create paths with the shovel. Others have created graceful curves, placing a pretty 'virtual walk' where no actual walk exists.
Snow gives an immediate reward to the organizing impulse. You can create a nice sharp construction in 15 minutes and zero cost, compared to several days and thousands of dollars for the same construction in bricks or cement.
= = = = =
Bit later: the Essex Lion is out and about this morning. 15 degrees doesn't seem like ideal Lion weather, but I guess he's hungry.
Shoveling my own yard and looking at other yards, a thought popped up: Snow encourages organization in both long-term and short-term ways.
Long-term is obvious in a historical sense: People who live in cold places have to be frugal. They have to store food carefully and think ahead. Even in a modern city there are plenty of days when you can't get to the store easily, so you need to plan your marketing. Warm-place people can grow food at any time, and can always get around easily.
Those opposite constraints, imposed over centuries, create different genetic patterns. Disorganized people die or move away from cold places. Snow strongly discourages criminal behavior, partly because the more violent ethnic groups don't like cold and wet weather to begin with, and partly because snow makes it wonderfully easy to track burglars.
The short-term aspect is a new thought. My yard doesn't have any paved driveways or sidewalks in the summer, but in winter I create paths with the shovel. Others have created graceful curves, placing a pretty 'virtual walk' where no actual walk exists.
Snow gives an immediate reward to the organizing impulse. You can create a nice sharp construction in 15 minutes and zero cost, compared to several days and thousands of dollars for the same construction in bricks or cement.
= = = = =
Bit later: the Essex Lion is out and about this morning. 15 degrees doesn't seem like ideal Lion weather, but I guess he's hungry.
Labels: Heimatkunde
¶ 7:35 AM
