Navigating Quality

We’re inundated with arguments and counterarguments over what are considered facts and counter-facts. There is a scramble to create ever-larger data-farms to handle…, well, all the data. There’s also been a curious turn of phrase used by one buffoon, George Will to describe another, Donald Trump. Will has claimed that “Trump doesn’t know how to

The fantasy of control

So long as we keep expecting that what funnels through public discourse are choices that lead to results we are stuck in the nightmare fantasy of control. Brexit. Trump versus Clinton. All of the day’s public questions are mired in manipulations. We remain complicit so long as we feel we must make the choice our

On Form

There’s a connection and relationship between the way we internalize honesty/deception and how we relate to form. Form is the means by which error is recognized and the means by which correctness is recognized. There are, it seems, two Muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of

Coherent Action, from unintended consequences to catalytic response.

We struggle with unintended consequences. In frustration we turn to chasing after power to force our will to prevail. We enter a spiral of increasing suffering and greater dislocation as the violence this process unleashes destroys every remaining scrap of coherent life. Blinded to our delusion by delusion, we increase our efforts. We twist and

Meaning & Action

” … minor twists of fate and individual decisions very often have much more dramatic consequences in dark ages than they do when the settled habits of a mature civilization constrain the impact of single events.” JMG “Failure provides clarity. We perceive that our knowledge is incoherent.” David Bohm Two comments that circle each other

Beyond Zombies and Vampires

Zombies & Vampires, Oh My! This post, an essay for Vinay Gupta’s The Future We Deserve, delineated the lay of the land today. We are hemmed in by these two types, both of behaviors and of ways of looking at those around us. But, in the end, is there anything to be gained by remaining

Conclusions

Dialogue is an opportunity to proceed as climbers do. We are tied together and are able to alternately anchor each other as we move into precarious territory. We can rely on each other to warn us of dangers beyond our own views. Within dialogue we can go where it is impossible to go any other

The point is… not to build a more just prison…

This paraphrase, taken from the end of Ishmael, continues to reverberate with me. “I have neglected one small point…” Ishmael begins to say, almost as an afterthought. “One of my students was an ex-convict…” “…what is crucial to your survival … is not the redistribution of power and wealth within the prison but rather the

The Currency of Trust

The last post has brought us to the point of examining trust. This phrase, the currency of trust, appears to hold some promise. Let’s begin with another word, seriousness. Serious, trust, compassion; these are among a suite of terms we fear today, or hide our fear behind disdain at their current condition and denatured meanings.

Making Sense

We all know what that means! What does it mean? To make is to put together. It’s not quite the same as create. Not as pedestrian as assemble. It does imply a matter-of-fact doing. The emphasis is on competence and taking things as they are and putting them together so the result will function as

Driven by Fear

Coercion, hostility, anger, rejection; are all signs of fear. They cease to exist when there is no fear. These are paraphrases of points Krishnamurti made repeatedly. The dynamics surrounding fear cannot be ignored. They inflect not only how we react and respond ourselves, but hold some key to how we can find ways to speak

The Purposes of Images

Sometimes a picture just shows too much. Not just pictures, but any presentation. Sometimes we can be too explicit. Not so much that we are too straightforward, or too forthcoming; but that we often tend to say – or show, actually – more than we mean. Not just more than we intend, at least I