Tomorrow December 22nd is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere. Tomorrow, the sun will set at the base of the constelation known as the Southern Cross…it will “die on the cross”…there will be three very short days with only a few seconds difference of daylight, On the third day, December 25th, the Sun “Will be re-born and rise again.” The first noticibly longer day, the 25th, has been cause for joyous celebration for tens of thousands of years, for although a long cold winter is upon us, Man has always known with longer days, so too will come spring, and all that is green and good and plentiful on this good Earth will return.

Peace, grim

I had written part of this passage in the past, I was re-inspired while reading Derrick Jensen’s Endgame…so much so that I borrowed a couple of lines from his similar passage…Those quotes appear in italics:

There have been times when I felt despair, times I weary of battering myself against the obstacles of denial, hatred, fear-induced stupidity, and greed, times I want to wander zombie-like through this culture, remaining part of the problem. Get bound up in the ever growing ball of rubber-bands, band-aids, and duct tape tenuously holding together this culture where profits and beaurocracy cure all ills (or at least cover for those ills until they are beyond hope to fix and, in turn,  become ‘how it is’, lost in the sea of denial). I meditate often and always try to break myself out of these funks, and communing with the Earth and my surroundings has a way of “resetting” me and carrying me to the next such communion. Last Summer I spent 5 days camping on some wilderness property that my family owns, it has become my primary re-set button these last few years.  A 50 acre plot nestled in the middle of farmland and game-lands, mostly wooded, a few acres of hay, it has a little of everything, wetlands, little intermittent streams, rock outcroppings, and a fire-pit that my very meticulous brother has crafted and re-crafted over the past several years into its current and epically Neanderthal grandure. “The Property” as we know it, is quite remote for Pennsylvania. There are no houses or permanent structures to be seen from it, a good place for me to just be.  I really needed this particular jaunt, and was secretly happy that I would be there alone (at least with regard to humans) for the bulk of my stay. I had been feeling rather helpless, frightened of a future that looks dark, and darker with each passing species, and lonely because for every person actively trying to shut down polluting industries, stop abuse, lessen their carbon footprint, or otherwise bring about a sustainable and sane way of living, there are thousands who are full speed ahead on this train to oblivion. I ran my own philosophical gauntlet of hate, denial, and fear of what has become of this world, and the direction of our speeding train. My modest brain wrestling with questions…Certainly there are those in positions of power who know how destructive we have become, why do they do nothing? As well as those who simply ignore the destruction, the assault on life itself, the enslavement of all living things, Is ignorance to the reality evil? Can I fault those who have had Mother Culture whispering in their ears since birth that this is the way, the only way, the one right way to live? But as I gazed at my surroundings, I realized we are not so outnumbered. We are not outnumbered at all. I looked closely, and saw one blade of wild grass, and another. I saw the tops of the sugar maples, once shade trees in a now re-wooded pasture peaking above even the hemlocks and swaying in breezes unfelt at ground level. I watched scores of insects skip from goldenrod to grass top to milkweed. I saw ants scramble under the cover of fescue and leaves pondering the single mind of the many. I watched a spider standing sentry above their ranks, apparently ant was not on today’s breakfast menu. I knew in that moment, as I’ve known ever since, that it is no longer possible to be lonely, that every creature on earth is pulling in the direction of life—every grasshopper, every struggling salmon, every unhatched chick, every cell of every blue whale and white shark, every dragonfly—and it is only our own fear that sets us apart.

     Quite flippantly at first, but soulfully as that first morning wore on, I remained naked, bare to my surroundings, my skin warmed by early summer sun, lying in the warm grass and fighting off the occasional urge to put some cotton weave between me and some of the stiffer straw. My reset button was on a whole new plane. On the third day, just before sunset, I was joined by an owl. An owl whom I have heard often but have never seen. Apparently he decided to make his presence known after observing me for a few days. He set himself on a low branch of a leafless section of a red maple just on the edge of the meadow in plain sight a mere 12-15 feet off the ground. At first I admired him in his grandeur as my campfire flickered on waiting for him to spook and fly off. He didn’t, and I am glad that I enjoyed that moment for a good long time, at least 20 minutes, I observing him and he, me, before my mind shot to proof. I had to take a picture of him…otherwise who would believe me (a notion deeply imbedded in my brain in a world of lies and deception). I searched out my camera, all the while figuring he would spook as soon as I drew it out. To my pleasant surprise, he did not, in fact I was able to get quite a few shots of him before he left…likely to get his evening meal now that darkness had fallen. The moral of the story is simple, no fear. There was no fear of me in him as I assumed there would be…if I were an owl, I would not trust a human. The owl, our own metaphor for wisdom, did not seem overly concerned. He knew me better than I did myself, I am on his side. If you think about it, as I did those few days, we are at war with an extremely well armed minority whose tactics are both physical and psychological. They know what works on us…we are easily distracted by sensationalism and shiny things, all you can eat buffets and expensive clothes, the shock and awe at their destructive power and their ability to manipulate all facets of our culture…but not so for all of the other creatures of this world. Our common enemy controls the messages whispered in our ears beginning at birth. Look around, everywhere there is an assault on your senses telling you what to eat, how to dress, where to go, what jobs to hold….How To Live. Those other creatures do not hear those messages. They have no interest in metal, they have no interest in oil or car insurance, they wouldn’t give a pellet of rat shit to help the global economy (a few of them would find more value in that pellet of rat shit than they would for all the gold on the planet, in fact, all of them would….and as the saying goes: that many individuals can’t be wrong). They have no care for what the Kardasians or Snookie are up to this week, they have no icons in their world because they have no need for them…NEWSFLASH: Neither do we. There is far more to be gained from first hand knowledge of the dominant winds, changes in barometric pressure, and what good soil smells like. Our brain possesses all of these traits, yet so few of us use them at all. If you truly want to be a member of the global community you should stop discounting 99.9999999% of that community as inconsequential. Isn’t it obvious? For the most part, it would seem the rest the community has nothing but indifference for us, if they feel anything at all it must be pity, for if it were rage, we wouldn’t stand a chance. If you have trouble believing that, think about the bees. If not for them, our food supply would dwindle and billions of humans would die of starvation. I have long been fascinated by the notion of the hive mind, a trait of hiving insects, bees, termites, ants etc. A single mind spread across many individuals…perhaps they are smart enough to be revolting against us. Look at “colony collapse disorder”. Millions of bees disappearing…not necessarily dying…just gone. All of them being put to work on corporate farms to pollinate the crops that supply the human agro-business machine. Trucked from giant corporate farm to giant corporate farm in mobile hives…and then gone. There are many theories about this disappearance, biological agents, malnourishment from solitary food sources (the only thing that grows in those giant cornfields is genetically modified corn), cell phone radiation…Maybe the hive mind is just telling us to go fuck ourselves. They know how badly we need them and they have simply gone on strike. Small private beekeepers have no such issue, only the giant corporate beekeepers. If the bees started treating the power they wield like any good capitalist, they would hold us hostage. Bees are just one example of this power struggle, so I want to make sure I am on the right side: From now on when I say”We” I do not mean the human race, I mean me and the rest of the resistance, every single organism struggling to just be, living out its time without fear of oblivion, but simply being no matter what their environment happens to be today, and seeking life. A huge notion in this culture is that the rest of the world is here to serve man, the bees may be showing us that that simply isn’t so. We must understand that everything in this community serves the interest of every other part of it. It is a huge web and although all strands are interdependent, it can stand to lose a few here and there. Are we (the humans) next?

More to come…

I apologize to you all who are reading…I have been unavailable for a few weeks.

I am currently working on 2 themes: The Culture of More, and One Foot Out.

The Culture of More will focus on our current cultural motif of eternally seeking more and never stasis or regression.

One Foot Out will focus on living with one foot out of this culture while having only one obligatory foot in it.

I will try to get the first articles in this week.

Why have we not been contacted by an alien civilization yet?  Maybe, because there are no alien civilizations. Not because there are no aliens, but rather, no civilizations. If we were to be contacted by an alien civilization that requires three things, aliens, a means of contact and a civilization. We are pretty sure that the math is solid…given the numbers of stars and planets in our galaxy alone it is highly unlikely that we are the only life in this part of the universe. Any advanced civilization would likely have some sophisticated means of communication…radio waves, microwaves, something that travels effortlessly at the speed of light. So maybe we are begging the wrong side of the question. If there must be aliens, and we have not been contacted, maybe there are no civilizations.

Civilization is a failed premise. Even on this planet most civilizations collapsed after no more than a few generations (Borrowing from Ishmael: Mayans, Hohokam etc.). It’s amazing that after the great collapses: Egypt, Greece, Rome, that we have not abandoned the entire notion here on earth. It may be that the earth is unique in that there are no other planets where resource exploitation on this level is even possible. Who knows? The existence of fossil fuels may be unique to this planet. Without this kind of backlog of available energy resources beyond solar, aliens may not have the ability to engage in civilization building much beyond the Stone Age. The numbers don’t lie, nor does the simplicity of the premises: if you are burning through resources faster than they are being replaced soon enough you run out….collapse. If you are burning through resources that are finite, soon enough you run out….collapse. If you are experiencing exponential growth in any arena, soon enough you are too big and…collapse. If your processes degrade your buffering system (for us earthlings this seems to lie in diversity) soon enough…collapse. And even within civilization, when the distance between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ reaches a certain point (that being when the ‘have nots’ have had enough) …collapse.

The universe is estimated to be about 13 billion years old (give or take a billion), our solar system is about 4.5 billion years old, our civilization (where communication at the speed of light is possible) less than 200 years….and not likely to last another 200 given the rates of consumption. So let’s look at that window of 400 years in perspective, where it is likely possible for an incredibly advanced civilization to have the means of light speed communication and be looking into space for the someone else who is at the same level at the same time. All of a sudden if we assume some time for evolution to do its thing…using our own time frame of 4 billion years give or take, we would be looking at roughly a 10 billion year window. What are the chances that two civilizations would have developed similar technologies at the same time prior to some sort of collapse? Let’s broaden that window to 500 years (in other words, let’s assume we can maintain appropriate infrastructure for light speed communication for another 400 years), let’s say that any possible communication would take place during any portion of that time that overlaps for both civilizations, which then extends the possibility to 1000 years (500 year window for each) that’s still a one in 10 million chance that two civilizations would happen too be at the same level of technology (speed of light communications broadcast outward) so that one could ‘hear’ the other. Even if we extend that window of overlap to 10,000 years, it’s still a one in a million chance that any two civilizations would find themselves in such a window. So you see, since it appears that civilizations are bound to fail, as history shows, the chances of two civilizations occupying the window of speed of light communications broadcast out into the galaxy at the same time are extremely remote….hence, no word from the little green men (Homo photosynthiens?). Or maybe they just think we are  assholes.

 Just something from my brain to yours.

Here’s the skinny: I am not overly sure what i am going to do with this just yet. I am going to post some opinions, some insight, and dare I say, wisdom. Here is a little about me in a series with no specific order, I am a Dad, an athiest, a naturalist, a student, a philosopher, a partner, a reader, a scientist, a cultural anthropologist, an outdoorsman, a human, a carnivore (alright, an omnivore),  an environmentalist, a liberal, a conservative, a thinker, a swimmer, a whiskey drinker, a tribalist, I don’t have a smartphone, and I do have an anvil. I suppose that paints a pretty good picture….or at least starts a sketch.

A very important point, if you choose to read further please understand that my ideas are my own, I do not wish to debate whether they are Socrates, or Rand’s, or Neitchze’s etc. I have read many things, and I have not read many more. The origins of my ideas are a result of more than four decades of observation and learning. Trust me if I have stolen anyone’s philosophy it would be Daniel Quinn and JRR Tolkien’s. That being said, if you have not read Ishmael and The Lord of the Rings I would start there. I also envy you because you still get to experience them for the first time. And rather than start with a reading list, I would rather start with an author list:

Daniel Quinn, JRR Tolkien, John McPhee, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Brian Green, Richard Dawkins, William Least Heat Moon, Derrick Jensen, E.O. Wilson, Barry Lopez, Richard P. Feynman, James Gleik, Neil Peart, Stephan Hawking, Malcolm Gladwell, and of course, Uncle Chuck…Charles Darwin. 

By no means a complete list but a start.

The world needs a cultural change and I am an instigator of that change. Said best by Daniel Quinn “If the world is going to be saved it will not be by old minds with new programs. It will be by changed minds with no programs at all.”

Let me finish this opener with one final thought, I don’t know if you have ever had a truly life-changing event after 40. I did. I read Ishmael.