Collective Memory
Tofu Pad Thai appeared as though by magic this afternoon at Thai Kitchen. I was already deep in conversation with Ann Graham, the co-founder of First Night. When the first event took place on New Years of 2006, I was so excited about the ant car, pirate ship of puppets, segue ballet, poetry and performance that filled downtown Austin with families that I wrote to the Austin Chronicle to publicly sing its praises. Despite massive crowds and universal praise, by the end of the second year their budget had been slashed and Ann had quit. While First Night continues to this day, I had to know how and why this story ended the way it had.
Most people realize the value of learning from past mistakes, but are often too rushed or lazy to put time into checking history before making decisions. Additionally some would rather make old mistakes again on their own. There was a hilarious slogan that trickled down from the top at my old software company. “We don’t use best practices, we invent them.” Pride meant that the wheel was held up before us time and again as a triumph of in-house creativity.
Some of this is human nature. When I was a kid and told not to touch the hot lawnmower, I still had to try it. There was no way I could truly internalize the knowledge without the intense pain that sent me screaming and hopping in circles around the back yard for the next hour. After that, I knew how hot a lawnmower exhaust could get. I believed.
When the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) project failed many years ago, my father had been working on it for eleven years of his life. An important advance in human scientific understanding collapsed in a morass of political squabbling and pork barreling as dazed scientists looked on in awe, their ability to understand the laws of nature that shape our universe useless against the inconceivably irrational complexity of governmental and military bureaucracy.
In the months that followed there was plenty of finger pointing, but ultimately people retired, moved on, and began the process of forgetting. I wanted to dive in and start doing interviews a few years later. It was one of the most fascinating human dramas I’d seen in my lifetime and my documentarian urges were already building. Sadly it was felt that my association with someone who was deeply involved would just stir up the wrong kind of trouble. An author who had written a book about the cold fusion debacle was approached about chronicling this story for history. He was interested, thought it was critical that it be done, but couldn’t write it because it just wouldn’t sell.
And so more lessons sink into the sands of time as a fresh batch of humans struggle up the next dune. Maybe we’re children that have to know. Maybe the rules really do change and need to be constantly retested. (Modern electric lawnmowers are not nearly as hot.) I just wish there were more value placed on collecting this information for those of us who have already burned themselves a few times and are ready to skip a few steps ahead.
As always, click the photo to reach the photographer’s site on Flickr.com
