We’re dipping into the archive today to re-visit a Trail Baboon post from two years ago. Did you realize that next month this online conversation will have been going on for five years? That’s just an eye blink in the vast span of human history, but it represents a prodigious amount of tippy-tapping on various keyboards throughout Baboon-land.
Today is the anniversary of two cataclysms, the Sack of Rome in 1527 and the explosion of the Hindenburg in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937. Both were sudden and somewhat unexpected, though there were hints of what was to come – Rome had been sacked before (in 410) and a string of other hydrogen-filled airships had already crashed and burned.
Still, one always hopes for the best and an optimistic soul is surprised when things turn out otherwise.
In our time, the Hindenburg is a better-known calamity, but only because there isn’t compelling footage of the Sack of Rome.
Historians say the Sack of Rome marked the end of Italy’s High Renaissance, and significantly pushed forward the protestant reformation. The Hindenburg disaster called an abrupt end to the development of rigid airships – most certainly those filled with hydrogen.
So it goes.
Although we try to prevent catastrophic events and want to have some positive influence over the great changes that sweep over our world, it often feels that we are stuck in the role of an interested, but powerless, observer. Perhaps this explains the popularity of parallel-world games like Minecraft, where one can start from scratch and construct an environment with just a few elements, an assortment of building blocks, and a blank canvas.
You could take advantage of this technology to try to build a make-believe world without Kings, Armies, Popes, Nazis and New Jersey. But you’d still probably need gravity, fire, hunger, ambition and hydrogen.
Things might turn out pretty much the same.
Is there such a thing as creative destruction?
Trail Baboon 
Could be. If I ever see it, I will disect it to find out.
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Rise and Destroy Baboons!
So would the American Revolution qualify as creative destruction?
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Is there a creative aspect to demolishing old buildings with controlled blasting?
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Today Mike the cement guy is going to arrive at my house and, with his gang, engage in creative destruction of bad cement and sloping sidewalks and front steps. eventually replacing it all with level cement and increased garden space.
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It rained so Mike and the guys didn’t show up. Too muddy to take up the cement. They will come Friday or early next week.
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I’m going to be practicing creative destruction on my community garden plot in very short order (or, more likely, hiring the retired gentleman with the rototiller to do it for me). I was out there last evening, and there’s a whole crop of dandelions that have to be destroyed if my kale and sweet corn are going to have a chance.
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One aspect of my work involves going to court in divorce proceedings when child custody is an issue. I don’t know if a divorce hearing is an example .of creative destruction, but I suppose it could be.
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A friend who was long a civil cases lawyer and then a judge says a congenial divorce is very rare in his experience.
I persuaded, with much resistance, my crippled mother-in-law to divorce her drunken and abusive husband. She moved into a senior high rise. He moved two blocks away from there.. They became great friends. He would not come when he was drunk. Sober he was a wonderful man. So he would push her through the park, they would have picnics, he would come play scrabble, he would take her to the State Fair twice each year and push her all over the grounds.
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Without mass extinction humans may not have come to dominate the planet. Rex might still be king
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Good morning. Destroying things can be fun. Do you remember Gallagher and his Sledge-O-Matic? Gallagher was very funny and very destructive. Of course, you might not think he was using destruction in a creative way if you sat in the front row when he used the Sledge-O-Matic on a watermelon.
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This topic is too emotional for me at the moment, or maybe I’m too emotional for it. Is it “creative destruction” if something unique and lovely is destroyed to be replaced by something nasty?
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nope
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I am exhausted by the bleakness of the human heart these days: greed, hate, superiority,violence, etc. My depression is elevated from this at close range and distant range.
I am writing a novel about depression, including the topic of teenage suicide. When I deal with those parts of the book, I have to move slowly, allow my depression breathing space. All this is based on my own depression and experience with teenage suicide and depression. Is that creativity out of destruction?
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yep
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I was so sorry to hear about the fate of the cutest bungalow in St. Paul, (HIghland/Groveland is too limited a scope) Steve. It’s criminal that your charming and unique home should have come to that end. Don’t grieve to long though; your choice to be near family was the right one and your close proximity and relationships with Liam and Molly will bring you enduring joy, peace, and comfort. It’s a damn shame though!
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One part of my book is about the demolishing by fire of the main character’s childhood home. As I was writing this chapter, the end of your house was posted on here. I keep thinking about you. Old age is letting go, damn it.
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life is letting go. the sooner we learn it the better
damn it
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In sauerkraut making, such “destruction” is called “population dynamics.”
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say more. im not with you. i have a frioend who sold franks sauerkraut from appleton wisconsin a couple years ago. flannagan the irishman selling the german sauerkraut his neghbors liked to eat.
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I guess all the baboons are refraining from commenting because they don’t want to be considered gas bags.
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Renee, the lack of replies might be due to the gas bags being low on gas. I know that I have been a little low on gas lately which has reduced my number of replies. I think the main characteristic of a baboon is no fear of being thought of as a gas bag. This seems to be a very busy time of year leaving little extra time or energy for running off at the mouth on the trail and perhaps marking the bad day for gas bags by generating some gas bag activity.
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True, Jim. I am both busy and sick, so I understand. A full day at work really made me exhausted and now I am running a fever and coughing. I made a quick trip to the walk-in clinic and hope some meds will work their wonders.
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heck i was just saving up all my stuff until i could sit down with it. today has been a bit much but now is now
creative destruuction is always creative and usually not meant to be destructive but simply the way it turns out. i am creative at everything and when it is production the world is a happy place with praise and fruit enough to go around. when it turns out to be a wasted effort it is a creative death spiral that sucks the energy out of the moment and leaves the bystanders standing with mouth agape and thoughts of what could have been.
i am great at creatvie destruction. a rock star. but it keeps me getting up in the morning to try to get it right tomorrow.
I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.
Robert H. Schuller
i love inspirational quotes only because life kind of sucks and a shot in the arm is always welcome.
the hindenberg company went on to do something else ill bet ..those hindenbergs had to sell the company when the name went up in flames but they did turn the corner and move on. .
until they and the jews sunk the titanic
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today was orson wells 100th birthday speaking of blimps that went down in a blaze of glory.. poor old orson. the stories about his wine commercials are legenday. from war of the worlds to citizen kane to no wino before his timeo was hard to watch. i liked him but how do you kick rita hayworth out of bed for eating crackers. he was an unhappy genius who could have been a creative genius all the time if not for his demons. another gasbag gone by the wayside. happy may 6th.
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and thank you dale for 5 years of camaraderie provided to all us baboons who happened to luck out and find you as the glue to hold this group and this place in the world together. the morning show was tough to lose but the trail has made it tolerable. thanks for that. do you keep track of stuff like the 1500th blog or any of that? this should have been asked at 6 am but i am slow today as i am many days. i am not the consistent one around here unless it is consistent at being inconsistent.
hail to the alpha baboon. the enigma the picture of the opposite of creative destruction.
creative juices abound in that brain and flow from the fingertips to the typewriter keys. thanks dale. who else celebrates the anniversary of sacking of rome? we are in a special place here on the trail. i hope youre not using this as a preamble of the days to come. i cant imagine waking up without the trail or the baboondocks to greet me and give me a gentle wake up or a special check in to look forward to if i have a busy day. i missed one or two maybe (maybe not) but not too many.
creative is the word around here. destruction … yeah maybe . but creative for sure.
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Love your enthusiasm, tim.
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It is amazing what augmentin and mucinex can do for a person, along with advil. I think tomorrow will be a good day.
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Glad there’s a pharmaceutical solution for you. 🙂
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hooray for tomorrow
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