Dissensus, Hygiene, Quality, Rhetoric, and Integration; a Stab at a Synthesis…

Dissensus is a tough master. If I choose to follow dissensus I pledge that though what I espouse holds no intent to violate any other, I will refrain from destroying anyone, though they espouse my destruction and this refusal might lead to my own death. I see no other way to make a break with

The Proprioception of Power

Finding what needs to be said is a challenge. In large part it requires letting go of reacting to things and getting caught-up in complaining. Chasing disappointment… It requires allowing the force of what is not being said to make itself felt. This is a combination of internal listening with sampling what comes to us

Telling Strength from Power

A useful image occurred to me. Strength is what we use when we break free of a rut. Power runs us harder along the same old trail, bouncing through the ruts until we destroy ourselves. Strength is a capacity. Power is an external source of energy. Power seduces. It gets “results.” It’s just that they

A hint concerning a relationship with power

What if the trouble with power is in our insistence that it can be accumulated, stored, and then controlled by will? If this were the case, the trouble with power dissolves when we accept that it exists. It moves through and around us, and we have access to it, and can influence its direction and

Ecocidal Suicide, Where does the violence begin? The Gulf Between a Trail and a Path

Recent misunderstandings have helped breed a new insight. I’ve been reluctant to post on the subject as I’ve looked for ways to write about it that do not remain focused within the drama that incited them. Driving down what passes for the loveliest lane in the area the other day brought to mind the way

Discover, Find, and Gather

In Qi Gong, at least in the ad hoc mongrel form I practice, there are three opening phases in our relationship to Qi, to the life force. I do not approach Qi Gong, or anything in life, from within whatever might pass for a mystical view. I do not willingly bring beliefs to any confrontation

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

Algorithms and Intention

Algorithms. While teaching a week-long course in half-model making and marine drafting I came across a tangible definition of an algorithm. In drafting we use splines, long, thin wooden battens that we bend around control points held by lead weights called ducks or whales. The shape, density and grain of the wood influences how it

Questions of Conspiracy and Inevitability

We have certain beliefs about conspiracies. There are some we ascribe to, others we reject. Most of us are probably uncomfortable with the whole topic. It makes us squeamish. It is a sign of some sort of weakness. It’s one of the few remaining public taboos. While we’re encouraged to bare all without embarrassment, an

“Well, It Can’t Hurt?” Yes It Can! And Does…

“What’s wrong with striving? How can it possibly be bad to try? Isn’t it irresponsible not to?” We hear these cries, either around us, or internally, whenever we contemplate an alternative to striving. We ‘re tempted. We quaver. We cave in. Of course, “What harm could there be? It’s only prudent after all!” we say,

Anxiety, Trying, and Other Alarms We Might Learn to Heed

What if we saw anxiety not as a condition, but as a useful alarm? First, we would invest less energy in striving to quash it. We would heed its warnings, but then, equally importantly, we would turn it off. Why is this such a hard thing to imagine? When an alarm goes off, it is

Craft and Technique

An aspect of Craft and Strength is the discipline with which their practices demand and develop our abilities to relate to and use Technique and Power without driving us to succumb to their degrading effects.