There are amusement systems and adventure systems.

White water rafting is an adventure system.

Roller coasters are amusement systems.

White water rafting calls for participation.

Roller coasters call for passivity.

White water rafting invites participants into risk, peril, failure, and joy.

Roller coasters invite paying customers and season pass consumers to stand in line for 2 hours in exchange for a 2 minute dose of dopamine.

White water rafting cultivates an instant and indelible sense of collaboration and camaraderie.

Roller coasters invite consumers to stare at their phones for 2 hours while being surrounded by hundreds of other consumers staring at their phones.

White water rafting requires creativity, contemplation, curiosity, and robust consideration of others.

Roller coasters require automation and torpidity.

I don’t mean to besmirch the honor of roller coasters. I’m just making observations about the difference between adventure systems and amusement systems.

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Now let’s consider the difference between systems of tacabur (Somali for “adventure”), and systems of torpidity (| ˈtôrpəd | mentally or physically inactive; lethargic).

And in the spirit of tacabur, we will make this one participatory…

Mountaineering is a _________________ system.

American airlines is a _________________ system.

***The correct answers for the blanks above are “tacabur” and “torpidity”. Got it? I will refrain from supplying you with the answers from here on out. You got this!

Mountaineering requires full _________________.

American airlines requires maximum _________________.

_________________ demands your full attention, shrewdness, curiosity, contemplation, collaboration, problem-solving, risk-taking, adapting, adjusting, failing and learning, wonder, awe, accountability, focus, energy, camaraderie, merriment, morale, gumption, etc.

_________________ demands that you stay seated! And in an effort to cajole you into a state of maximum passivity you will be supplied with a screen to stare at for the duration of your languorous peregrination (you will also be supplied with a tiny pillow and blanket… i.e. you will be pummeled into a complete state of passivity). The riskiest thing you will see in this context is an ash tray, but ironically the ash tray bears the emphatic emblem of outlawing the very activity that would necessitate an ash tray.

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Now let’s talk about sailing…

Let’s talk about movement.

To achieve movement in sailing, you need wind. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

Now let’s suppose a member of the supreme court is having a conversation with a vagabond mystic. And the supreme court judge is using every ounce of his education, experience, rationale, logic, wisdom, credentials, and venerable status to establish a movement with the vagabond mystic. In accordance with the wisdom of the supreme court judge the movement will resemble a cruise ship!

But then the vagabond mystic says, “How about you forget all about your education, and your experience, and your rationale and logic, and wisdom, and your credentials, and your venerable status. And forget about this consumeristic cruise ship nonsense. And let’s be like curious, vulnerable, risk-taking, desperately dependent children who sail across the ocean, and who “achieve movement” not by means of prediction and control, but by THE WIND! Eh? …Eh!?”

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Now let’s imagine the vagabond mystic was curing people of diseases, and making a lot of really excellent wine, and giving away free food to thousands of people. And let’s imagine lots and lots of people flocked to see this vagabond mystic. And let’s imagine they tried to take him and make him king by force. And let’s imagine he completely dodged them, and went up on a mountain by himself. And let’s imagine that the crowds tracked him down, and they were singing his praises. And let’s imagine he deliberately talked to the crowds about truths that they thought were inescapably offensive and repulsive.

That is what we call “squandering popularity,” and it is a primary ingredient for the movement-making system of the vagabond mystic.

What about wealthy people? All movements need financing! There are instances where rich people seek out the vagabond mystic, and they say, “I’ll follow you wherever you go.” And the vagabond mystic says, “No you won’t. You’re too committed to your system of consumerism, automation, materialism, accumulation, amusement, academia, and passivity. You’re not ready for my style of movement. You’re not really onboard with my system of prodigal participatory adventuring.”

Oh, and if you’re curious about the financing… it was handled via the wife of the household manager of the guy who beheaded the cousin of the vagabond mystic (#Joanna).

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Now let’s consider the participation to potential failure ratio.

Of course, when considering the participation to potential failure ratio, one must consider the participants. It is logical to recruit educated, decorous, people. However, the vagabond mystic recruits uneducated, common, men; and former terrorists, prostitutes, demon-possessed peoples, and hated government workers.

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Review:

The system of the vagabond mystic will not allow for automated, mindless, passive “participation.”
Systems that thrive on mindless, automated, consumerism are things like theme parks and American Airlines.

Algorithms and automation are for languorous lovers of screens, and cutie coolie consumers.

Adventures are for lovers of the vagabond mystic and his paradoxical system, and mysterious movement making style which puts people in the risky environments of rivers, mountains, seas, Samaria, tax-collector parties, and servitude.

The vagabond mystic sends out his participatory adventurers as fishermen, and as such they are – each and every one of them – compelled to problem solve, and be shrewd, and childlike, and live by faith; and experience joy, fail and learn, be curious, and delight in the fact that they will never never never be able to predict and control anyone or anything.

The educated elite (a.k.a. the pharisees) pump out next class/generation of automated subscribers. Indoctrinated mindlessly zealous adherents of traditions, policies, tedium, criticism, academia, formulas, and formalities.

That’s it for now.