The Focus Is Now On The Sourdough And Richard Dawkins
My Toughest Challenge To Date?
Sourdough and Richard Dawkins you ask? What on Earth could possibly require a focus on sourdough bread and Richard Dawkins? Well easy, they both espouse the factors and principles that are inherent in the underlying motivation that has now become my obsession and my next goal.
If you’ve actually read my previous posts (or at least even a select few of them), you might know that I set out earlier in the year, intent upon accomplishing a few things- those basically being to:
- participate in a 5K run (Article Link)
- lose enough weight that I could properly fit into my tuxedo (Article Link)
- start a blog detailing some of the trials and tribulations that I experienced along the way towards (hopefully) accomplishing 1 & 2 above.
As of this writing (roughly eight months in), I can proudly (while also a bit surprisingly), say that I’ve achieved (in whole or at least in part), all of my aforementioned initial goals (granted while doing so, I did not break any records, win any Olympic Gold medals, nor was I awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine or Literature, but I still consider myself rewarded in that I managed to accomplish things I set out to do).
Small Feats Are Better Than Defeats
FWIW, the 5K run was a binary Y/N feat, (which, yes I finished it). The weight loss goal was a bit more definingly argumentative to quantify, although I did hit, as well as exceeded, what I deemed to be my weight loss “target” (and perhaps for confirmation of which, did require having both the jacket and the pants for my tuxedo entirely recut). The BLOG part, is my “debatable” sticking point. While I did do everything that was required to get it up and running, and I’ve been actively (to a degree anyway) posting and publishing articles for months now (with high SEO scores to boot!), the only problem? No one’s actually reading them. I haven’t gotten one single legitimate, real reader. Seriously. Zero. Nada. Goose egg. The ultimate UGH. From my perspective, it’s along the lines of- “If a tree falls in the forest, blah, blah, blah.”.. that- “If you post a blog online, and nobody reads it, is it ever anything more than still just a private journal?” The abject (brutal) failure/rejection in this regard is palpable to me, and something that I am now driven to remedy.
Finding The Right Recipe (Or Maybe Just the Starter)
Uncomfortably staring failure directly in the face (which at this point is honestly me just looking into a mirror every day, expecting/hoping to see a blogger), I have defined my newest goal- which is to get 100 subscribers for my blog. The real challenge in this undertaking, I already know, will be working in/dealing with a realm of fact and function, well outside of my purview. I realize, and accept, that this is probably going to be far more difficult than simply putting on a pair of runners every day and heading downstairs or outside, with a goal of exercising at an intensity low enough to ensure that I don’t injure myself.
Comforted (and encouraged) by the fact that I couldn’t (as far as I know) “pull a brain muscle”, contrary to my physical workout protocols, my approach to conquering this new goal was with reckless cerebral abandon, so I started thinking far and wide, looking to find, extract, and reapply principles and models that were either time proven or peer acknowledged, that would see me realize my goal. Of course, I had no farther (or wider possibly) to look, than ancient fermentation principles and modern evolutionary theory. And for those, the obvious mentors were: sourdough and Dawkins.
It All Starts With The Right Ingredients
So getting back to my topic, what exactly (or even remotely) do sourdough bread and Dr. Richard Dawkins have to do with one another, and more importantly, relate to me accomplishing my newest goal of getting 100 blog subscribers? Easy, I’m going to rely upon/leverage the fundamental practices and theories relative to the two (that in my mind’s eye are concise and crystal clear) to make/cause things to happen (hopefully anyway, we will see), resulting in the achievement my goal.
Before I get started trying to explain how the two abstractly come together sensibly (or at least how the thoughts seemed to converge perfectly in my head at 5am one sleepless morning), a little background on each..
Sourdough: A Six-Thousand-Year-Old Science Experiment in My Kitchen
Sourdough bread: Has been around since an estimated 3700 BCE, dating back to ancient Egyptian times (reportedly even detailed in hieroglyphics). Some of humanities earliest “recipes” come from those early bakers as they happily discovered (most likely by chance from a chemical accident, resulting from winds blowing wild yeast into an earthenware pot that caused the unique/necessary, I daren’t say magical, process) fermentation. Those bakers learned how to “feed” their dough, keeping it veritably alive and continuously “growing”, for generations. The significance of this is that, fast-forward a few millennia, and that same process- almost unchanged, is now happening in my kitchen.
It was just five days ago to be exact, my wife announced that she(means we) wanted to undertake sourdough bread baking. Within hours, and a quick $60 Amazon spree later, we almost definitely had accumulated more proper/specialized sourdough bread-making utensils and tools than an entire medieval village had centuries ago. Long story short, we(means I’ve) been operating on a routine 12 and/or 24 hour rotating shift since then, to make sure that what almost certainly happened by natural random chance close to 6,000 years ago, went exactly according to plan today, as per the very specific instructions/requirements found in the cardboard box that like windblown yeast, appeared somewhat surreptitiously on our front porch (and yet with Amazon Prime, less than 24 hours after being ordered).
An interesting side note (familiar to anyone that bakes sourdough), is that you often “name” your sourdough starter. So of course (very familiar to anyone that knows my wife), we(she) named our sourdough starter/culture “Dylan” because, hint “To Ramona” is her favorite song. It does seem fitting though, because apparently sourdough, like Bob Dylan’s music, takes time, care, and a little mystery to fully appreciate. And also, like sourdough, Dylan’s music will probably be around for millennia.
All of this nonsense aside, what’s actually really interesting about sourdough bread is that once the culture (or “mother” as it’s often called) becomes active, it can replicate indefinitely (very much like cell division), provided it’s well-fed. There are documented (purportedly anyway) instances of sourdough starters being hundreds, even thousands of years old (https://www.oldest.org/food/sourdough-starters/). Interestingly enough, a master of “non-reality” (a legendary pioneering video game designer) took things from an “imagine that” concept, to an acutely realistic/historical possibility, by harvesting sourdough culture microbes that are said to be over 4,500 years old. One can’t help but marvel at the thought that, in light of his pursuits, although in “real time” you still wouldn’t be breaking bread with King Tut, Cleopatra, or possibly even Julius Caesar, the loaf itself that you could be noshing might actually have been baked from strains of the same dough. And the best part? It wouldn’t even be stale.
Dr. Richard Dawkins: The Original Lord of the Meme
Dr. Richard Dawkins: Has been around since March 1941, which in human terms, means he’s seen a few things. He is a world-renowned biologist, zoologist, and author, and a handful of other very distinguished “-ists” and “-ors” that I could list, that look extremely impressive on paper, but would probably make most of us quietly Google them mid-conversation. The man’s resume’ reads like the scientific equivalent of an Oscar-winning credits roll.
Dawkins is probably best known for something that most people today associate with cats in sunglasses videos and internet culture- the “meme”. Yep, long before memes were funny pictures with bad fonts, they were a revolutionary, evolutionary concept for which Dawkins coined the term in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. (A magnum opus BTW, or, if you prefer, disciplina elevans– which sounds even more impressive in Latin.) (Fun fact: that was also the same year that Rocky Balboa went the distance but lost a heavyweight championship title match to Apollo Creed. Coincidence? Probably. But I like to think that both reflected moments about discovery, with underdogs punching above their weight- one in the boxing ring (another on the big screen), and the other in the world of molecular biology. And stars were born. Or are they created?).
Now, I read The Selfish Gene once upon a time ago (or, let’s be honest, skimmed enough of it to try to sound smart at dinner parties), and although my grasp of it falls somewhere between “very interested layperson” and “confused dog chasing a laser pointer”, here’s what I took away from it: Dawkins described life, even at the cellular level, as a kind of an ongoing survival project. Each/every little biological bit, each “inner part”, works tirelessly and selfishly to ensure its own continuation. It’s nature’s built-in instinct to keep existing, to persist through time, to not die, and in fact to survive through replication (and improvement). Expounding upon that core motivation, but taking it 15+ rounds (and even then some is always desirable), going from a culture (verb) to a culture (noun), we also go from physical to theoretical (which in this instance to a large degree still requires physical), but that all being said (or rather done), becomes a meme. The rest is history, propagated by current awareness.
Pretty simple I know, but what I think is truly amazing, is that his book (as groundbreaking as it was/is), has been overshadowed by that simple little “4 letter word” (itself a character repetitive, mimicking, rooted in Greek actually meaning “imitated thing”-sourdough anyone?, word), that has become the epitome of itself. I’m guessing the expectation of what it evolved into (I went there), was more than what Dr. D. could have even fathomed at the time that he first scribbled (or typed?- I’d honestly like to know) it down. But ultimately, in the big scheme of things (IMHO anyway), if you can write a book conceptually about survival, that not only excels in its discipline, but spawns a word that eventually gives rise to everyone knowing what “Grumpy Cat” might refer to, and/or what it means to be “Rickrolled” (which BTW has been viewed now over 1.7 Billion times- yes that’s a “B”), you’ve definitely earned/secured your place in history.
FWIW follow-up, Rocky lost the fight, but won the Oscar for Best Picture that year, beating out All the President’s Men, Network, and Taxi Driver (all VERY good movies). Interesting thing though, I always thought it was also up against Star Wars, and had cleared a very high bar to win that little statuette, but apparently not- Star Wars was the following year. (And it lost to Annie Hall. Go figure, wild times.)
Baking a Better Blog (and Maybe Going Viral)
So this is where I try to tie it all together. Dylan thrives through feeding and patience. So does my(our) sourdough starter. Dawkins’ memes spread through repetition and connection. The Rocky franchise had 9 movies, and countless memes from it. My blog? Well.. so far I’ve been patient and continue to feed it, hoping that at some point, it might “activate”. Knowing that perhaps like wind-blown yeast, it’ll only take one lucky grain to land successfully and start the fermentation process, I’m now laboring to produce that grain.. something that will somehow scratch or claw its way into Dawkins’ meme theory, and trend, or hopefully even go viral. I know it’s possible, it happens all the time- I just have to make it happen. To get there.
This whole thing has turned into something of a social media experiment- part science, part art, part existential therapy (but at this point so far, since it’s all just only in my head, there’s really no social to it yet, however the critical voices are still deafening). I’m a Gen-X’er trying to appeal to Gen Z’ers, which feels like using dial-up internet to connect to TikTok (and TBH at least I knew how to set up a 56K modem). But hey, evolution’s about adapting, right? So that’s what I’m committed to doing, while also understanding that it’s entirely what’s required if this blog, like my(our) sourdough, is going to rise (and by that I mean grow). Here’s hoping that even if you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, an old dog can still learn, if he’s interested in surviving.
Detailed below, are the achievement tiers of/for my new goal (by now you should know I always give myself degrees of accomplishment for my bloggoals, which helps to avoid tears of disappointment, while also encouraging continued motivations):
Quick note: Aside from the first two (which I’ve already discussed), I’ve redacted the remaining tier accomplishment criteria because I didn’t want to: a.) be ridiculed for actually thinking I could ever actually achieve that; b.) have the disclosure of the goal somehow falsely/inappropriately contribute to it being accomplished (even though I know that’s inherently contrary to the entire point of this article); and c.) pass up the opportunity to use the word “redacted”, because it’s been in the news and on TV so much recently, and it always refers to extremely important stuff that everybody wants to know or find out about. And here we go:
- Get 100 subscribers for the blog.
- Get something to trend.
- XXXX XXX XX XXX XXXXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXX
- XXXX XXXX XXX XXXXXXX XXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XX XX XXX XXXXX X XXXX XX XXXXXXXXX
- XXXX XXX XX XXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXXXXX
- XXXXXX X XXXX X XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XX XXXX X XXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XX XX XXXXXXXXX XXX XXX XXXXXXX
- XXX X XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XX XXXXXXXXXX X XXX XXXXXXXXXX
Conclusion
I’ve definitely got some work to do. Hopefully, eventually, someday, someone will be reading this, and it will make sense, and perhaps mean something. It’s not a message in a bottle, and I’m not stranded on an island, but if you’re a runner and you’re reading this, you’ll know what I mean when I say.. it feels like I’m looking up a long, long, uphill road, but I know if I can just keep going- one step (or one word) at a time, it will be difficult, but I won’t let it be impossible. It might be my challenge, but it’s up to me to make it my conquest.
Final thought- just to clarify (Nancy), I definitely wasn’t trying/intending to insult Bob Dylan with my flagrant overuse of (obscure/poor) puns and metaphors, “feeding and patience” was intended to reflect that his absolutely amazing career longevity is the result of him continuously providing artistry for his audience, which unlike those of some other performers (who I will not name), might not rush to scream and applaud, but nonetheless appreciate the true depth of his talent, and his contributory value to American culture.
