“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,

Fighting Injustice/Confronting Abuse, part I

I was recently reminded of the “value of anger.” “How else can we motivate ourselves to fight injustice?” How can anyone be against such a notion! And then to go on and actually question not just the role of anger, but fighting injustice itself? Inconceivable! Yet, that’s exactly where I find myself. I’ve written on

Austerity’s Place

Following the last post, Crafting Awareness, here is a series of statements that arose as the result of that insight. The following is no more than a listing of these points as they came up. They are suggestive of directions of inquiry implied by the assertion that craft has roots beyond civilization and that these

Liberal & Conservative, Bankrupt, empty labels.

Liberal meant freedom-loving once. Conservative meant upholding time-tested values. Their “competition” could be seen, within the noise brought on by corruption and bad-faith, as a way to work out differences held for laudable reasons, a balancing of perspectives. This may never have actually been true, but it was the way the struggles were portrayed, the

The love of the Fire-hose

The sign that we’ve arrived is to be complemented – and self-congratulating – on our capacity to “drink from the fire-hose.” The elite universities are fire-hose drinking academies. Their graduates’ claim to fame, ticket to success, that they can thrive at the fire-hose. The Future! is always seen as a place where even greater fire-hose

What does it mean?

Tying our existence to a belief in destruction as the ultimate good is such a contorted position to be in! How we got here, what it means, where it will all lead; these are also questions whose answers appear in glimmers and hints, passing doubts, premonitions and inklings of what is down there, at least as it all appears from “up here.”

Charmed Particles

I believe that the interleaving ecology of our relationships is one of the mechanisms driving what Jung alludes to in his statement about Fate. The compounding of illusions and denials distorts our relationships; our own, and our partner’s. Each of these brings forth a corresponding error from the other in a cascade of self-fulfilling projections that take us further and further from our intentions and bring us seemingly inexorably towards the outcome we fear most.

Mourning for the World

This has been the most recent example of the machine doing exactly what it does. It was the result of an arrogant and willfully blind way of being and acting, thrashing against very clear and visible limits, working to its fullest capacity to do nothing but lead to disaster. At this level, and coming from such a position of hubris, pleas of intentionality, that this was unintended, can have no sway, just as the pleas of a killer’s intent have no sway in a law-court. These are no more than cries of surprise at being caught-out when the perpetrators had always felt secure. Not secure that they were blameless, doing good; only secure that they were unreachable, that the consequences of their actions would only fall on others.