Tree update; the roots of vengefulness

[eve_prime]

Cottonwood update. As of this afternoon, our cottonwood is reduced to the trunk and crown; the tree guy will come back tomorrow, weather permitting. I quite like the tree guy, and of course the process is fascinating to watch. I made lots of tiny films of branches crashing to the ground, to share with D. Of course I couldn't work at all while they were, so I watched a lot of Star Trek, when not outside taking pictures. The back yard definitely feels more spacious now, but also unsettlingly exposed. The new fence will help, but that's several stages away. Seeing how sickly the tree really was does help reconcile me to the process.

I did get some work done in the afternoon, including finishing Galen Strawson's essay on the ethics of those whose self-concept is episodic rather than narrative. (He makes finer distinctions than that; I'm just being casual here.) I liked this line, which popped up in a footnote. Cultural criticism, anyone?

"The fundamental ground of chronic vengefulness is boredom: as a specifically cultural phenomenon it dates back to a time when there was far less to entertain people outside their work."

Could it be that people in honor-based cultures with clan hatreds extending back for centuries are just more bored than the rest of us? Would it be harder for terrorists to recruit if young people around the world found life more interesting? I guess famous philosophers can get away with tossing out lines like that to see if anyone bites.