Climate ideas sketched in 17 syllables
Haiku, syllogism and golden joinery
Eden flammable
Adam flicks ciggies, dickish
Leave your belongings!
One editor’s trick to fill a blank spot remaining in a page of news is to assign an article with a precise character count. “Writing to fit” is a case study in word-choice triage to convey a whole story within severe constraints.
When we explain the ideas behind Bank of Nature and “fiduciary economy”, the words are often and paradoxically unhelpful. It’s a problem not solved, so far, by yet another linear stream of blah blah blah — even if that’s how the world talks.
Our Bank of Nature goal is to ignite curiosity in the ideas. Our obstacle is, in the era of elevator pitches, “Who has time for curiosity?”
Five, seven beats too
Crack a Kintsugi joint code
Smithereens puzzle
In a departure from more information to less, I’ve been looking for words that fit a far more constrained space for storytelling. Haiku is the epitome of brevity that evokes new, multi-dimensional ideas with just three lines of 5-7-5 syllables. It’s a creative, immersive demonstration of language defeating a monotone status quo.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, a fan of poetry, introduced the idea of “language games” to analytical philosophy and said, in 1953, that “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.” He probed the sociological underpinnings of meaning in language, how that molds perspective, and the potential for differing “forms of life” to communicate nonetheless. As you know, we work with the term “fiduciary duty” that has many meanings. Most are politicized to be misunderstood and used against the obligation’s lawful design — turning what is an elegant model for 21st Century citizenship into a partisan talking point.
Fold in Aristotle’s syllogisms, conveniently composed in a haiku-esque three lines, to use language to outline logic. For example, his classic:
Premise (A): All men are mortal
Premise (B): Socrates is a man
Conclusion (C): Therefore, Socrates is mortal
What does this have to do with climate finance and fiduciary economy? Here’s a Bank of Nature version of Aristotle:
Politicians and CEOs define status quo priorities
The status quo’s growth DNA accrues habitat damage to the future
Governments and financial markets are anti-future
Begging the question,
Who or what is pro-future?
Fiduciaries
Kintsugi, as yet more inspiration, is the Japanese art of rejoining shards of broken ceramic. Adorning the cracks with gold, rather hiding them, respects history and reignites purpose. The related saying “Mono no aware” — or, the pathos of things that change — is tremendous impetus to glue together what can be rejoined with the patina of experience and without starting over.
Syllaiku, anyone?
Syllaiku hybrids
BoN mots recalibrating
Possibility
A surgical haiku is my next best effort to leapfrog the narrative stuck points.
Syllaiku is a Bank of Nature experiment that — with only a few words that join (Kintsugi-style) culture, logic, philosophy and abstracted creativity — tries to spark curiosity otherwise lost in wordier efforts to explain our proposal.
Rules of the Syllaiku game:
Write 5-7-5 syllables in three lines
Use logic premises A and B plus conclusion C
Rejoin in golden ways what can be reconnected
Defend creative license to trump all other rules, if the message lands
Write yours in the comments.
Not knowing whether this is art, snark, smart or on the mark, here are some Bank of Nature’s ideas about climate finance, fiduciary duty, debts to nature, speculation and neoliberalism, habitat longevity, deep time, safer alternative paths and climate hope, intergenerational loyalty and/or scale… explained through syllaiku.
Default. Denatured
“Tax ‘em 2C, Collections!”
Deadbeats evicted
Maslow level 2
Game’s snakes extort, ladders steep
Safety costs a splurge
Risk? ‘Morrows unknown!
Actuary eight-ball. Hark!
”Skip-to-thee-spoilers!”
Infinity pools
Tailings leach ate time, seeping
Market solutions
Loose skin in the game
Golden anticipation
Futures bought with trust
Pranayama in
Moolah manna I-ka-ching
CO2 exhaled
UV heated greens
Glamorous basement swimming
Retire Florida
Cooking up spreadsheets
Speculative food safety
Anaphylaxis
What’s yours is mine, child
Depreciating assets
Embryos revolt
Seesaw: law or lore?
Time-travelling consequence
Prudence flux. Killer
Caught in plastic sheets
Submerged, scalpel found in wreck
#Climatehope breathes free
Actuarial
Longevity lost, turning back
Towards authenticity
Stewardship equity
money for dignity, a
quality of life