spreading fecundity
Not only has it been diluted through achieving buzzword status, but sustainability isn't even an adequate objective:
When I won the award from Clinton at the White House, the press all came up and said: "Oh, Mr. Sustainable, what does it all mean?" and I said I'm not that interested in sustainability, really, because if it is just the edge between destruction and regeneration, if sustainability is just a kind of maintenance, is this exciting?
If I were to ask if you were married and you said "yes," and I asked, "What is the relationship to your spouse like," and you said, "Oh, ah, sustainable."
Who cares? What we are looking for is fecundity, sex, children, movement.
-- William McDonough, Designing the Next Industrial Revolution (talk at Bioneers 2000)
I doubt fecundity has the phonemes for memetic procreation, but intending that the world should improve because we're here is a more appropriate ambition.
Mr. Sustainable spoke at the Cleveland Clinic's Ideas for Tomorrow series last week (PD review.) I instructed that others not miss the event, but was crushed (like so much recycled glass) when I found I'd committed myself elsewhere.
comments
No one at the county that I've talked to really likes the name for the Office of Sustainability [because most of them don't know what it means]. Maybe I should suggest it get renamed the Office of Fecundity. Although then there might be some confusion with Child and Family Services...
-- Adam Harvey (June 5, 2007 7:13 AM)
(ha!)
But, yeah -- similarly here: anyone whose goal is to sustain Cleveland [as-is] would likely benefit from a head check.
-- jeffschuler (June 5, 2007 8:57 AM)
I especially like that the synonyms of fecundity are "readiness" and "output". Its etymology is: "fecund -- c.1420, from O.Fr. fecond, from L. fecundus "fruitful, fertile," from *fe-kwondo-, suffixed form of L. base *fe-, corresponding to PIE *dhe(i)- "to suck, suckle," also "produce, yield" (cf. Skt. dhayati "sucks," dhayah "nourishing;" Gk. thele "mother's breast, nipple," thelys "female, fruitful;" O.C.S. dojiti "to suckle," dojilica "nurse," deti "child;" Lith. dele "leech;" O.Prus. dadan "milk;" Goth. daddjan "to suckle;" O.Swed. dia "suckle;" O.H.G. tila "female breast;" O.Ir. denaim "I suck," dinu "lamb"). Also from the same L. base come felare "to suck;" femina "woman" (*fe-mna-, lit. "she who suckles"); felix "happy, auspicious, fruitful;" fetus "offspring, pregnancy;" fenum "hay" (probably lit. "produce"); and probably filia/filius "daughter/son," assimilated from *felios, originally "a suckling."
http://www.reference.com/browse/all/fecundity
Our governments need an office of humility most of all. Especially Cuyahoga County.
Thanks for the Bioneers talk link. I found it most inspiring.
-- Susan Miller (June 5, 2007 2:29 PM)
Baby steps good sir! sustain and then fecund.
-- Mark (June 5, 2007 5:21 PM)
Susan: Good diggin. I liked the correspondence to Sanskrit dhayah (not to be confused with Dhyana.)
I'm not sure that Cleveland needs an Office of Sucking either.
Mark: slush fund then fecal stain.
-- jeffschuler (June 6, 2007 5:12 PM)