Twists and turns…

…the story of a man who inadvertently got into the role of himself. He saw it as a mistake. That is what people say who fall into a hole. “Hell and damnation, I have fallen into a trap and the trap is myself.” They always treat themselves as the greatest mistakes ever made. Carl Jung,

The Consequences of Our Precarity

“Most of all you can break out of your mind’s silo and initiate yourself into the tribe — become one of the people. But however you move, you know you can’t do this stuff on your own. Somehow you have to decipher the law. Our ways of understanding life in graphs and linear narrative are

The Trouble with Routine

Krishnamurti, So let’s come back to the realization that any activity which is repeated, which is directed in the narrow sense, any method, any routine, logical or illogical, does affect the brain. We have understood that very clearly. Knowledge at a certain level is essential, but psychological knowledge about oneself, one’s experiences, etc. becomes routine.

The Trouble with “Uncivilization”

There is a tremendous lurking flaw in any initiative that frames itself as a negative. We know that, yet we struggle with finding a framework, and a simple title for it, that denotes the activities around weening our attention from the grip of civilization without resorting to this awkward and negative term, Uncivilization. This may

Craft’s Collision with Civilization, a starting point

Andrew Taggart recently asked me to clarify how I see the deterioration and loss of Craft resulting from its confrontation with civilization. This is a big question! Let’s begin with a few definitions. I’m beginning to see Craft as a central focal point in examining how our confrontation with civilization has led us to where

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.”

The Real Trouble with Secrecy

Secrecy is an approach to power. It holds that there are short-cuts to achieving one’s will and that they are hidden. It’s followers believe that a self-generated aura of mystery, the tingle of insider knowledge, will put them in touch with the roots of power. It’s a cargo-cult as ridiculous and sad as any other. Too bad it has our entire culture under its sway.

The Nature of Conditioning

Without this insight there can be much confusion between any action we might contemplate or take and striving. This confusion can lead either to paralysis or frustration. By linking striving to the attempt to outrun conditionality connects the futility of an approach to life that sees only division and seeks to find answers to self generated problems with the deepest manifestation of that impulse in the desire to transcend our conditioned natures.

“Movement” toward Dialogue

Along with other actions in which we allow a switch from striving-to-become to simply manifesting an experience of Being, this form of dialogue nurtures the conditions that help us get out of the illusions of Ego and the habits of our brains. Beyond that, it is a fulfillment of our interconnectedness and a refusal to treat the “other” as a commodity, or a means to an end.

“Sentimentality is the superstructure erected upon brutality…”

Sentiment takes any criticism, real or only inferred, and turns it into an excuse for a reaction, anything to return the focus where we demand it belongs.

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.

Pushing Past Futility

I’ve always had a poor tolerance for futility. Faced with a task I sense is futile, I’m like a cat with a sock on its back. I just collapse under the weight of absurdity. This has rarely made me popular. The war of attrition waged by this on friendships forged under the sunny skies of