Slow Havamal: 3

In the third verse, we are presented with a man who has just come inside after a long journey over the mountains, knees shivering. The host is advised to build him a fire, and provide him with food and dry clothing.

A guest has arrived after many hardships. He is visibly cold and wet, no doubt hungry. The host’s responsibility is to observe his needs and supply what he’s missing—what he needs in order to feel human again. We see an ability to put ourselves in another’s shoes, to pick up on cues, to imagine what we would want in the same situation. These are things the host is currently enjoying: food, dry clothing, a fire. They’ll come from the host’s own stock. The needs listed in this verse are typical of an old traveler, but the point is that the host has made an honest assessment and done his best to attend to the needs of the man before him. Different men will need different things, some of which we may be able to help with.
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006: Organic v. Mechanical Metaphors

Think of a system. What picture comes to mind? A computer, or a roomful of them? A decision tree, with questions and arrows branching to different answers, all of which converge on “Then don’t worry”? What about a lake, the topography that allows it to stand, the rainfall, the vegetation, the things that live in an around it and eat one another? A system to Webster is as simple as a bunch of interconnected parts that form a whole. All of those examples qualify, and many more. What I want to explore is whether we can run into trouble by comparing certain types of systems that aren’t really comparable. A map is a metaphor, and all metaphors break down eventually, but eventually is a lot better than right away for the same reason that I don’t want to pull a new map out of the glove compartment every block. I’d rather a map with mileage.
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