An Illusory Economy

We are caught between beliefs that are untenable and hard limits that will not go away. Let’s look at what falls under the name economy. It is a mental construct that has been accepted as the rational way to organize how we interact to meet our physical needs within what is now described as a

I only exist in so far as I intrude into your view…*

To you I only exist in so far as I intrude into your world-view. As an acquaintance, someone you barely know – we do not share much of a history – I’m; someone who does not appear particularly physically threatening; my existence – in your eyes – is a fleeting and transient phenomenon; my hold

Consuming the Internet

We consume the internet. A movable feast. Lights kept on by a belief that someday it will “pay.” Or. that it is just too good an attention trap to let it go. It’s supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to provide visions of “freedom.” Where free means there is no up-front cost to us. Somebody

An extended reply…

John Cline commented on the last post, Coherence is Provisional: I really like what you are saying. I wonder, though, what would happen to human personality if this model of thinking was the norm. We are mostly tribal in our actions. We gravitate too easily toward charismatics, and like lemmings will follow a bad idea

Reflection/Projection

I’m not sure what to call this post, even of what to say. It’s time for introspection and time to reflect on media. People whose thoughtfulness matter to me are struggling with the form their expression should take. “We” – an amorphous “group” that might only exits as a projection in my head! – are

Not Individuals, Not Groups

One open question around the brain/mind formulation is what it does to our conception of individuals and groups. It seems easy to criticize a practice of attention that opens us to mind and sees the conditioning of the brain – thought in Bohm‘s characterization – as an impediment; either as swallowing up the individual into

Berger’s “Moment of Cubism,” part III

Berger’s essay explodes with the import of rediscovery of what had been lost in a stratification of layers sedimented over as the years passed. When I look at where I now stand, I see this essay and its insights as essential elements of my foundations. Berger shows us that there is a curious parallel here to our moment in the close synchrony between their moment of realization and the latent consequences of mounting conditions that made it too late to avoid their tragedy.

Three Posts on Fine Lines

We tap out our signals and we listen for a response. That is the fundamental preparatory act of community. Let’s not forget that in the end any viable communities will be local once again. This is a stop-gap, not a goal. Unless this effort brings us real connections within the scan of our physical horizons it will in large part have been just another exercise in futility. Our own communities will not be brought to us, they must be carved out of the wreckage that surrounds us. Urgency and patience are both open to abuse. As our circumstances tighten around us there is a danger in relying too much on one or the other. We need both. The beauty of our internal faculties is that this is the one and only realm beyond limitations outside of those we impose on ourselves. We tend to forget that even as we continue to insist that the outer physical world is infinite and able to stretch or contort to our wills. Letting go of that murderous assumption requires us to pick up a belief in the resilience of our spirit.

The Search for Hope without Control

“The Search for Hope without Control” The title of this post is a quote from the most recent entry on the Dark Mountain Project’s Blog. Dougald Hine’s conversation with David Abram is a treat to watch and a treasure trove of insight. You’ll have to see the video to find out which one of them

The Confusion Between Collapse and Failure

As more and more people begin to show an awareness that civilization is in danger of collapse, we are still struggling with what I think is an important conflation of two different mechanisms as if they were the same. Civilization is indeed in danger of collapse. I agree with those who say it’s been collapsing

Futility, the chasm between efficiency and effectiveness

In the tension between our immersion in the fabric of being and the atomized self’s struggle to achieve a stasis, a utopia, not of richness, but an illusory concretion of wealth, in which we wish to stop without falling; we define the human condition. The workings of consciousness are so easily misunderstood as signs of separateness from the rest as epitomized in Cogito Ergo Sum. Yet consciousness, our phenomenological embededness in experience is the only window we have through which to glimpse an awareness of our integration into greater systems and structures.

Zombies & Vampires, Oh My!

Zombies want nothing more than to be made into concrete and vampires are desperate to maintain their un-Dead powers. We want to be well, we want to heal, ourselves and our world. We want to experience life in all its particularity.