A set of email messages from the OGM Google Groups under the title [OGM] Belonging, and Big Narrative (Was: California's Big Drought)

(This is an attempt at linking different notes and providing some commentary, using Obsidian as the document arrangement technology.)

There is a long-standing and ongoing email discussion that incorporates many notions of constructing, sharing, and promoting what Pete From Peter Kaminski Mon, Jun 14, 2021 at 107 PM describes as "how to help the people in the world to 'get it', about water or food systems or soil health or equity & justice, etc., so that we can be good stewards of the planet and good ancestors for the generations to come."

This generative response to Pete's note from Jay From Jay Golden Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 1101 AM starts by describing this nugget: "At the essence, to me this is how smaller stories inform greater stories, and how we can collaborate on living stories into new mythology. I think this topic strikes at the core of reality creation."

Ken From Ken Homer Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 1109 PM follows up with this: "I recall reading a post by Humberto Maturana where he claimed that humans are essentially cooperative and collaborative - we had to be because the world was a dangerous place in which to raise children and so what got conserved (from a biological point of view) we behaviors that rewarded making the world safer to raise children up to be adults."

Klaus From Klaus Mager Thu, Jun 17, 2021 at 1205 AM follows up with some concrete observations: "But in any case we need to protect people with access to food and shelter as a first step. We have significant gaps in our social structures that can best be bridged at the local level, one community at a time, with plenty of assistance and support. Looking ahead, it can only get more challenging."


Using Obsidian as the technology to link these messages together surfaced some frictions.

  1. Email subject headers cannot be used as Note titles (which are file names) because they contain ":" and other verboten characters. Each note title required manual composition.
  2. The format of the email content also needed manual cleanup to get a consistent style for the notes. Each email note had its own peculiarities.
  3. Insuring that forward and backward links exist is an ongoing Obsidian issue. Tiddlywiki/Stroll capability is a benchmark for supporting this kind of linking.