Here’s a different definition of flat-worlder: A person lacking ambition. Now, I’m not writing about people who are “down on their luck” through circumstances beyond their control. Rather, flat-worlders in this context have an attitude predicated on a world without hills worth climbing, an endless plain, a surface over which such flat-worlders travel with minimal effort. That kind of person who either does not see an elevation worth climbing or sees the elevation, but decides the climb is not worth the energy expenditure, is a flat-worlder.
The idea of “up” is important to us. We use it metaphorically in economics and achievements. We think of rising to the “top”—different in various contexts, of course.
If there were a way to measure how people of different geographic regions saw “up” and “down,” we might see whether or not physical place has been a control on ambition before the rise of the modern world. Today, there’s been a dissemination of virtual geography, making any research in the subject dubious. One might see those who live their lives exclusively on a wide plain open up their laptops to see Earth’s many geologic features or even the highlands and lowlands of a distant moon or planet. And, of course, there are those high-standing roller coasters in amusement parks across the Coastal Plain.
Once I mentioned to a Miami-born child that I missed the hills of the Appalachians. Having never been outside southern Florida, the child said, “We have hills here.”
I asked where, and he responded, “There’s one over there,” as he pointed to a highway overpass bridge. His real sense of a natural hill was limited to an artificial highland, and we have many of them on the coastal plain of eastern United States. There is, for example, Mt. Trashmore in Virginia, and farther north one can see other large trash piles, discreetly covered with vegetation and even trails and playgrounds. But back to the point: Because our brains are conditioned by experience and because much of that experience is visual and gravitational, we might from the time we are children see up and down as significant metaphors for success. Even if one lacks ambition, he is unlikely to say, “I hope that through hard work, I can stay at the same level.”
The ponderous plodding toward some “height” or “peak” toward which anyone climbs requires energy, and few are willing to expend the necessary energy if they see no change in elevation. So, how do you see your goals, as distant points on a flat plain or as distant heights? And do you see artificial hills (the Miami child’s idea of a hill) as obstacles too great to pass? There will always be artificial highlands. The question for each of us is whether or not we think of the artificial (the imposed, the anthropogenic) highlands as the ultimate “up,” and the failure to reach the “top” as the ultimate “down.”
The idea of “up” is important to us. We use it metaphorically in economics and achievements. We think of rising to the “top”—different in various contexts, of course.
If there were a way to measure how people of different geographic regions saw “up” and “down,” we might see whether or not physical place has been a control on ambition before the rise of the modern world. Today, there’s been a dissemination of virtual geography, making any research in the subject dubious. One might see those who live their lives exclusively on a wide plain open up their laptops to see Earth’s many geologic features or even the highlands and lowlands of a distant moon or planet. And, of course, there are those high-standing roller coasters in amusement parks across the Coastal Plain.
Once I mentioned to a Miami-born child that I missed the hills of the Appalachians. Having never been outside southern Florida, the child said, “We have hills here.”
I asked where, and he responded, “There’s one over there,” as he pointed to a highway overpass bridge. His real sense of a natural hill was limited to an artificial highland, and we have many of them on the coastal plain of eastern United States. There is, for example, Mt. Trashmore in Virginia, and farther north one can see other large trash piles, discreetly covered with vegetation and even trails and playgrounds. But back to the point: Because our brains are conditioned by experience and because much of that experience is visual and gravitational, we might from the time we are children see up and down as significant metaphors for success. Even if one lacks ambition, he is unlikely to say, “I hope that through hard work, I can stay at the same level.”
The ponderous plodding toward some “height” or “peak” toward which anyone climbs requires energy, and few are willing to expend the necessary energy if they see no change in elevation. So, how do you see your goals, as distant points on a flat plain or as distant heights? And do you see artificial hills (the Miami child’s idea of a hill) as obstacles too great to pass? There will always be artificial highlands. The question for each of us is whether or not we think of the artificial (the imposed, the anthropogenic) highlands as the ultimate “up,” and the failure to reach the “top” as the ultimate “down.”
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