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.
Image: Suicide by Scandinavian artist Joakim Back.
In May 2006, in a review of Nick Hornby's book A Long Way Down,
I concluded with a synopsis of three important questions Hornby poses
in the book, questions that are critical for us all to ask and answer
for ourselves:
If we have no choice,
how can we best stop fighting the inevitable, stop wasting time trying
to be what are not and cannot be (and trying to make others what they
are not), get real about our hopes and dreams, and accept and
understand the way things are and why, and make the best of who we are
and what we are inevitably going to do and be anyway?
What is holding us back?
What is keeping us from being what we are going to be and doing what we
are going to do? Why is it holding us back? Unless it is self-delusion
(the dangers of idealism
again) that is holding us back, there may be no changing these
restrictions, no loosening of the ropes, but at least we should be able
to recognize them and understand their purpose. In Jess' 'stupid dog'
analogy, we can accomplish a lot within the constraints of the leash
without unnecessarily and foolishly choking ourselves all the time.
What happens when we suddenly lose our lifeline?
There is a terrible story in today's Toronto Star about a water-loving
dog who slipped his leash, ran off, and ended up drowning in a
municipal reservoir whose sides were too steep to climb. Some lifelines
are useful, even essential to our health and sanity. Others merely hold
us back, delay us from being who we really are and doing what we are
meant to do, waste our lives away in illusionary imprisonment. What is
frightening is that we don't know which is which, and we don't know
what we will do, and feel, if we suddenly lose our lifelines. But
perhaps by imagining what would happen if we did lose them, we might
free ourselves from the ones that are merely unhealthy, merely holding
us back from being something more than who we are.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts
MY GRAVITATIONAL COMMUNITY
People
who have inspired or informed me frequently over the past few months.
For my full blogroll/online reference library, see
here. [* indicates
people I connect with in real time, f2f, via IM, Skype or SL chat.]
- original research,surveys etc.
- original,well-crafted fiction
- great finds: resources,blogs,essays, artistic works
- news not found anywhere else
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- clever, concise political opinion consistent with their own views
- benchmarks,quantitative analysis
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Blog writers
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- comments that engender lively discussion
- guidance on how to write in the strange world of weblogs
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
