Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays.
In search of a better way to live and make a living, and a better understanding of how the world really works.

	July 28, 2007

Saturday Links for the Week - July 28, 2007 - the Cultural Anthropology Edition What's Important This Week: The World Without Us: Alan Weisman speculates on a future world without humans. Wonder how it compares to Ronald Wright's vision? (image above is from Weisman's book) Who Cares About Factory Farmed Animals' Welfare?: The factory farmers say they do what they can. Their customers say they are getting better because customers demand it. The animal welfare groups say it's because of them that the situation isn't worse. Most 'consumers' still don't want to know. Why We Don't Care: Seth Godin explains why we only give a damn about things that we can relate to personally, even when if we all cared, we could make a big difference. That doesn't make us heartless, just human. Thanks to Ed Diril for the link. And the Rosy Futurists Still Reassure Us: ... that technology will save us, and make everything better and better. Jim Kunstler sets us straight. Thanks to Jon Husband for the link. The Care and Feeding of White Folks: Repost of a 1995 article by Earl Dunovant portrays the appearance of whites on the planet as an experiment gone wrong, and suggests what might be done. Thanks to Dale Asberry for this link, and the one that follows. Parallels Between Soviet Collapse and Current-State US: Interesting presentation by Dmitri Orlov, a witness to the Soviet collapse, on lessons in 'collapse preparedness' the US should be learning now. Thought for the Week: Andrew Campbell ruminates on the nature of time: [Dave said:] James Taylor said "the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time". He's exactly right, but it's so very hard to learn to do it, and to get yourself into a situation, by simplifying your life, where you can do it. With my intentional thoughts, I get to enjoy these 'passages' twice -- once as I intend them, and again when they occur. [Andrew replies:] No, he's not exactly right - (is anyone about anything that is complex and living?) but i wanted just to interpose that in the context of stress, life, chance and choice etc, the way to increase awareness and aesthetic engagement (connecting begets fruitfulness) in our world(s) is to come to know through engagements with ideas (concepts) that time is manifolded and that it is best accessed as Beamish knows, through the realization (mindandbody) that there are 'other' (kinds of) times - like Time - i.e. animals under low stress live in that Now Time we used to talk about. I think what being in Now Time does is it affords us an experience of how we might live with more Free Energy (At de Lange) - that is to say, unlike a clock that monotonously unwinds somehow its trapped-stored energy releasing it like a slave works (a.k.a. a machine) - we might enter into a dance with creation itself so that we feel safe to collapse (creative collapse) releasing small quanta of imagination, creativity, creative perceptions from >< with that amount of energy we don't need to uphold the whole system, meaning we let go because we decided (free will) that our deeper connection in such a cycle of Time affords us a reciprocal let come from our world - it is saying in effect - we co-create each other, you and i are mutually engaging - i will heal you (Emerson) - make you 'whole' (Goethe et al to Bohm and beyond) we are not separate -- and if one were religious which i know you are not, then one might begin to glimpse an idea of how 'miracles' like resurrections might happen - and if ever a civilization needed a resurrection of some kind -- it's us NOW. [Dave wonders:] Perhaps "enjoying the passage of time" is really just letting go of linear 'clock time' and living at least in part in Now Time. It's not so much that we enjoy the "passage" as that we don't notice it, we don't 'pay attention' to it. And perhaps then we realize that it is an illusion, a construct. What we enjoy is the 'passage' to Now Time. 1:53:02 PM  trackback []  comment []

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