Our Predicament is Both Tangible and Elusive

We stand at a portal of transition, neither here nor there. The things we do to maintain our selves this day and what will keep us going farther down our track have little in common. Our predicament could be said to lie right at this point of divergence. What works – however poorly – today

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

Misplaced Hygienes

So many of our self-inflicted disasters and catastrophes are the result of misplaced hygiene. A series of instances, and whole segments of our habitual hygienic responses, are wrong. Our inability, unwillingness more like, to see this and adjust is perhaps the final layer of catastrophe, the route to the true Enormity of what we are

Complicity and Contingency

We live somewhere in tension between complicity and contingency. It’s not a linear polarity, this space. These are not categories with any sort of rough equivalency. Complicity is a state. We are within a relationship to the forces that seek to destroy. Some of these we are aware of, others are hidden from us, some

On Being Outside, a meditation on precarity

Vinay Gupta wrote a piece recently, The Subtle Art of Precarity. It’s a nice article, and an interesting neologism, precarity. It relates to a familiarity and even comfort with being on the edge. His thesis, one I’ve long ascribed to, that as we get deeper into collapse the crises of leadership and expertise drive, and

Why I Write the Way I Do

Why do I use this archaic and ponderous style of writing? Why do I insist on trudging along from equivocation to aside? Why do I avoid the stirring hook? I’ve got to say the main reason is because this is the voice that shows me more than I would have found if I denied it.

On Intention, Stumbling towards a Loose Rigor

Here’s a series of statements, let’s see where they lead. My intention is to be effective. To be effective is to avoid futility. Intentional striving is futile. To be effective requires letting go of intention. * Is this squaring the circle? Or describing a paradox?

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

Changing Gears

My pace here has definitely slowed down. In part because of a shift in priorities towards painting and getting my fiction out in front of people. In part it’s also been through a bout of life’s intrusions and the breaking of the fine balance – some might call it obsession – I need to be

Why?

This post began as a response to Warren Draper’s comment on Do we need leaders? Warren brought up B. Traven‘s Death Ship and Robert Shea‘s essay, Empire of the Rising Scum before relating some quotes and insights from Wilhelm Reich. The following began as a response. It moves on to what I think is better

Do We Need Leaders?

Do we need leaders when our most pressing task is to collapse with as much, or as little, grace as we can muster? Do we need to maintain the fiction that leaders are necessary? Movements require leaders to galvanize the masses and run herd on them. Movements are mechanisms to chain us to ideologies, not

Chasing Coherence

What if we remain incoherent when we seek to establish a coherent state? State, a powerful term, one with many resonances. None of them too good…. A coherent condition?