They may sa-a-a-y I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one...

With 30 million watching American Idol, and few taking time to explore the creative potentials of their hands except through the manipulation of keyboards to engage in their "virtual realities," I know I'm way out of pop culture, unless we redefine the term to refer to curmudgeons old enough to be called "pops".

There are interesting things that happen when you engage the real world through your hands. Test this for yourself. Take a pocket knife and a stick. Whittle. Pay attention as the knife moves down the length of wood. It grabs your attention, narrowing your field. You find yourself and your sharp edge engaged in following grain. A pile of thin shavings builds at your feet. Not at first, however, you must practice. To become good at this requires that you steel your attention and hone your steel. After a time, you begin to see your success measured in such a small thing: a perfect curl of thin wood whispers from the blade. The world of the large, the distant, and the distracted passes by to little effect. You no longer need the SUV or the MacMansion; the trappings of fools that take tremendous toll. You've made the cut, and it is for the virutous, the living, the real.

From wikipedia.org: The phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally was reportedly coined by David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth, as the slogan for FOE when it was founded in 1969."

Acting locally is best defined in one's own hands, in the most sensitive shaping of the human environment. A knife and a stick. Get much beyond the most local in your actions and you run dangers of egotism, pretense, and the American Idol.

Will you join me in the Wisdom of the Hands? We'll call each other "Pops." We'll start a "pops culture" with values that sustain the health of our little blue planet.