The Politics of Nostalgia

As any hope of an actual break with business-as-usual fades into the heat and glare of a summer in which discontent does not lead to action to address its causes; but becomes nothing more than a nuisance of disaffected noise signalling on both sides of our political theater that everyone – with the strongest push

“Never Forget!” A recipe for psychosis

Today is an anniversary. A day we have been entreated for fourteen years now to never forget. An insistent cry that was already there, ready-made from previous assaults on American Exceptionalism. A vehemence that has had little to do with remembering the loss of life and everything to do with justifying aggression.

Contempt

Peeling away layers of Ego I found anger and disappointment blocking the way to compassion. There’s another block hiding beneath them, contempt. We see it all around us. This is a society choking on contempt. Every faction and group is held together by the contempt in which it holds the rest. The path to anger,

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

On Responsibility

Another post I’d like to recommend. On Responsibility from cricket7642. My friend shared a memory with me, from years ago, of a doctor she once met. Something he had said at the time has stayed with her all these years: people, he reflected, talk about their rights and responsibilities, but really “we have only responsibilities.” Wonderful

Beyond Zombies and Vampires

Zombies & Vampires, Oh My! This post, an essay for Vinay Gupta’s The Future We Deserve, delineated the lay of the land today. We are hemmed in by these two types, both of behaviors and of ways of looking at those around us. But, in the end, is there anything to be gained by remaining

The Opportunity to Think

Thinking, the active participation in a creative act of thinking, as opposed to being caught up in reactive entanglements in thought and conditioning, requires peace and quiet and a rested state of mind. These have been scarce lately…. In this statement is a key to how this process works. A triggering situation sets off a

Staying in the Drama…

Whew, I’ve spent years thinking what synchronicity might really mean. It is an interesting topic, but difficult to discuss, as language is structured on something like causality. Poetry, maybe… Getting the outside and inside to resonate synchronously: making the outside like the inside and inside like the outside. This actually, is what is irking me

Itching for a Fight!

I keep returning to the centrality of the simple fact that all that we actually have is our attention. The ramifications and repercussions of this realization are profound. This continues to strike at our preoccupation with futures. Seen in this light these are just another set of behaviors that siphon our attention away from the

Disappointment

* We push disappointment ahead of ourselves like a bulldozer scraping earth. * Whatever attracts us is held at arm’s length. Destroyed as it comes into reach. We seek to break from our disappointment. Instead, all is broken upon our desire. * We push disappointment ahead of ourselves like a bulldozer scraping earth. * Desire

The Freedom to Dream Differently

But if it’s all imagination, why not dream terrible dreams with one’s creative power? Many have, of course, and this has had disastrous consequences to life, joy, creativity, and much more. Death, destruction, pain, horror. But these are all forms of idolatry and infidelity, the belief in a limited God, be this the nation, or

Titanic, April 15, 1912

My father was eleven years old when the Titanic went down. He would tell his own simple story of when he heard about it. He was living in Portugal at the time…. Told it as an old man to a young boy around the same age as the boy he had been. There were fifty-one