By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 19 Feb 19
I had a conversation with my brother yesterday about Thom Hartmann’s Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. John is a farmer with sophisticated literary tastes and a refreshingly unconventional, earthy perspective on the issues of our time. Since he doesn’t use the Internet or read newspapers or magazines, the echo chamber of public discourse cannot distort his powers of discernment. He is one of my main allies reminding me that I am not, in fact, crazy.I’d read parts of Last Hours maybe ten years ago, and since then one or two of Hartmann’s essays, and I’m familiar with his reputation as one
I had a conversation with my brother yesterday about Thom Hartmann’s Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. John is a farmer with sophisticated literary tastes and a refreshingly unconventional, earthy perspective on the issues of our time. Since he doesn’t use the Internet or read newspapers or magazines, the echo chamber of public discourse cannot distort his powers of discernment. He
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 18 Feb 19
More than any other species, human beings are gifted with the power to manipulate their environment and the ability to accumulate and transmit knowledge across generations.The first of these gifts we call technology; the other we call culture. They are central to our humanity.Accumulating over thousands of years, culture and technology have brought us into a separate human realm. We live, more than any animal, surrounded by our own artifacts. Among these are works of surpassing beauty, complexity, and power: human creations that could not have existed — could not even have been conceived — in the times of our forebears. Seldom do we
More than any other species, human beings are gifted with the power to manipulate their environment and the ability to accumulate and transmit knowledge across generations.The first of these gifts we call technology; the other we call culture. They are central to our humanity.Accumulating over thousands of years, culture and technology have brought us into a separate human realm. We
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 15 Feb 19
Photo by Martin AdamsIf I say, “The reason the hawk circled over me nine times and headed East was to tell me to begin my return journey,” does that sound scientific to you? Or am I projecting meaning onto a world that is essentially random?Do the events of our lives have any meaning, or do they just happen to us? Do we create the reality we experience, or is reality something already out there, that we move through? Which answer seems more “scientific”? The difference between these two belief systems is more than a mere matter of philosophical opinion. Each actually
Photo by Martin AdamsIf I say, “The reason the hawk circled over me nine times and headed East was to tell me to begin my return journey,” does that sound scientific to you? Or am I projecting meaning onto a world that is essentially random?Do the events of our lives have any meaning, or do they just happen to us? Do
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 14 Feb 19
Photo by Colton SturgeonOnce upon our time, our distant ancestors were animists who believed in the innate divinity of all things.Spirit was a property of matter, and all things possessed it: not just plants and animals but also rocks, clouds, lakes, wind, places, and every natural thing and process. I said all things possessed spirit, but that isn’t quite what the original animists believed. Spirit was not something separate from matter, to be possessed or not. Matter was inherently spiritual.As the human realm gradually separated from the natural (in perception if not in reality), we began to separate spirit from matter. The
Photo by Colton SturgeonOnce upon our time, our distant ancestors were animists who believed in the innate divinity of all things.Spirit was a property of matter, and all things possessed it: not just plants and animals but also rocks, clouds, lakes, wind, places, and every natural thing and process. I said all things possessed spirit, but that isn’t quite what the original
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 13 Feb 19
Photo by Drew HaysThis article has been translated into Portuguese. Originally published Friday, December 9th, 2005.Did you know that right now, we are in the midst of a disease epidemic that is already at least 100 times more prevalent than the feared polio epidemic of the 1950s?Most people don’t know it. Their ignorance testifies to the novel character of this disease, the lowered expectations we have for human health, and the atomization of community that has rendered sickness into a private affair.The myth of ascent would have us think that medical technology has largely conquered the great viral epidemic diseases that once held humanity
Photo by Drew HaysThis article has been translated into Portuguese. Originally published Friday, December 9th, 2005.Did you know that right now, we are in the midst of a disease epidemic that is already at least 100 times more prevalent than the feared polio epidemic of the 1950s?Most people don’t know it. Their ignorance testifies to the novel character of this disease, the lowered
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 12 Feb 19
Photo by Shaun SalmonIt all started when I was living in Taiwan, 21 years old, having just graduated from Yale with a degree in mathematics and philosophy.Of course I did what most people do with such a degree — I got a job in a bar. One day on my way to work I attempted to kick-start my motorcycle. After several unsuccessful tries I have it one final frustrated stomp with all my strength. The starting lever jammed and sprang back, severely spraining my ankle. I took a cab to work and by the time I arrived my ankle had ballooned to twice
Photo by Shaun SalmonIt all started when I was living in Taiwan, 21 years old, having just graduated from Yale with a degree in mathematics and philosophy.Of course I did what most people do with such a degree — I got a job in a bar. One day on my way to work I attempted to kick-start my motorcycle. After several unsuccessful tries
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 11 Feb 19
Photo by Martin PermantierA main theme of The Ascent of Humanity is an Age of Reunion that is to follow the Age of Separation whose end we are witnessing today.In this transition, the converging crises of the planet are the birth pangs. Like a newborn coming to the breast, our species will experience a Reunion with each other and with Nature, yet at a new level of consciousness. We will recover the harmony and authenticity of the hunter-gatherer era — the womb of our species — at a higher level of organization and awareness.Part of this organic transition is the emergence of new modes
Photo by Martin PermantierA main theme of The Ascent of Humanity is an Age of Reunion that is to follow the Age of Separation whose end we are witnessing today.In this transition, the converging crises of the planet are the birth pangs. Like a newborn coming to the breast, our species will experience a Reunion with each other and with
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 22 Jan 19
This post will be an extension and update to the model first shared in Situational Assessment: 2017. Some familiarity with the concepts developed therein and continued in Situational Assessment: 2018 will be assumed. If you have not read those two posts, it will likely be useful to do so. As was noted in the past, please take this effort as a lens — not as an effort to tell the whole story. It is only one of many lenses, indeed, only one of the many lenses that I, myself, use to make sense of the world. It is not and cannot be
This post will be an extension and update to the model first shared in Situational Assessment: 2017. Some familiarity with the concepts developed therein and continued in Situational Assessment: 2018 will be assumed. If you have not read those two posts, it will likely be useful to do so. As was noted in the past, please take this effort as
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 13 Jan 19
Big Ben is not the only thing in the UK that requires maintenance. Image sourced via https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/uk-world-news/big-ben-scaffolding-14826151We are told the army is preparing to be on standby for a No Deal Brexit, which signals incipient social breakdown. Our Health Secretary is buying fridges to store medicines, reminding millions their health relies on contingent imports from the EU. We are assured there will be adequate food, which is not really funny. We are advised that our default scenario of leaving the EU without a deal would not be ‘the end of the world’, but not why that should be viewed as
Big Ben is not the only thing in the UK that requires maintenance. Image sourced via https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/uk-world-news/big-ben-scaffolding-14826151We are told the army is preparing to be on standby for a No Deal Brexit, which signals incipient social breakdown. Our Health Secretary is buying fridges to store medicines, reminding millions their health relies on contingent imports from the EU. We are assured
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 9 Jan 19
Big Ben is not the only thing in the UK that requires maintenance. Image sourced via https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/uk-world-news/big-ben-scaffolding-14826151We are told the army is preparing to be on standby for a No Deal Brexit, which signals incipient social breakdown. Our Health Secretary is buying fridges to store medicines, reminding millions their health relies on contingent imports from the EU. We are assured there will be adequate food, which is not really funny. We are advised that our default scenario of leaving the EU without a deal would not be ‘the end of the world’, but not why that should be viewed as
Big Ben is not the only thing in the UK that requires maintenance. Image sourced via https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/uk-world-news/big-ben-scaffolding-14826151We are told the army is preparing to be on standby for a No Deal Brexit, which signals incipient social breakdown. Our Health Secretary is buying fridges to store medicines, reminding millions their health relies on contingent imports from the EU. We are assured