Normalization

The parallels between abusive families and the culture of civilization illuminate why protest has become futile. Futility is not to say that something is difficult, verging on the impossible. Futility arises when an action makes the condition it is meant to ameliorate worse. When unintended consequences pile on, blocking any possible benefit from making a

Sufficiency without number

Sufficiency is an attitude not a quantity. Chasing after desires we have lost any sense that happiness can be anything other than a list checked off. Pursuit. Nothing could be more destabilizing. Either for an individual or a culture. And, before we get caught up in some form of zealotry…. Yes, the desire to control

Notes

Genetic Engineering is Creationism’s Doppelganger. Neither trusts that what is does not need, is in fact gravely harmed by, attempts to control it. One does this directly. The other displaces the power onto their Ego’s reflection in a projected sky-god. Abuse, violence, are features, not bugs. They underlie and best express what we strive after.

Communication, driven by assumptions

We cannot connect or communicate intentionally without some assurance of common assumptions to buoy us through the effort. I find that through subtle hints – the sort of unintended communication that takes place whenever there is one organism perceiving another and “making sense” of what they see. Through these hints, if I feel the gap

All of our myths

It strikes me that today all of our publicly accepted myths are propped up and support profit, for someone, some entity, institution or other. As we fear the commodification of everything, everything, as can be found in the stories we turn to to give our lives meaning, has already been commodified. All the bluster that

Is there a Structural Continuity Between denial and a lack of sensitivity…?

There is denial. There is the way in which we purposefully maintain an unwillingness to see what is visible to us. There is also a range of sensitivity. Some of us, some of the time, are more sensitive, and therefore it could be said, see more than others, or ourselves, can see at other times.

Is Wild Willful?

Is wild willful? This question came to mind reading this essay. Is it willful in the same sense as we know wilfulness to mean acting out however we please? I don’t know. I don’t think so. We used to talk about acting out of our “natures.” This seems closer, though whenever we turn to that

Cost/Benefit

Central to the way we function in the world is the idea of cost/benefit. We turn this measure on everything. There was a story my uncle Lionel used to tell. He was a dapper European Bourgeois of the mid-twentieth century. He had all the accoutrements: A position, he was a “Head of Department” in the

Coherence

I’ve recently come upon Peter Kajtar‘s work and then I had a wonderful opportunity to talk to him over Skype. His site, The Order of Thought, covers his work in progress, a book by that same name on the work of David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti. It cannot be a surprise to anyone who’s read

Respect

Is respect for a situation bound up with recognizing its – and our – limitations? This question can be more complex than it appears at first glance. – Once we decide, “I’m gonna hit that tree!” It ceases to be an open question. We will hit that tree. This isn’t “mind over matter” or “predestination.”

Catalytic Conversation, a Concentric Approach to Dialogue

There is a vacuum of attention as we persist in focusing on our perceived problems. We are trapped within our confusion that arises around our conceptions of clarity. We arrive at clarity. It cannot be manufactured. How can we find/create a portal, a place through which we might pass and come together in dialogue? –

Isaac Newton Wasn’t a Newtonian, Socrates wasn’t Plato…

Perhaps a little one, as insights go, the title of this post came to me last week. I’ve long railed at the power of a reductivist, Newtonian world view that has given those who see the world as a series of problems to be solved the tools, from ballistics to The Calculus, to run down