I blew up today. I mean, I got really mad. People who are unreasonable can do that to me. So can people who are unfair, cruel, dishonest, greedy, intolerant, or relentlessly negative. I suppose those are my seven deadly sins of other people, the qualities I just can’t bear in those I deal with personally or professionally. I won’t bore you with the trivial details, except to say I got threatened with bodily harm, threatened with arrest, and almost run over by a tractor.
While trying to cool down, I compiled my own list of seven personal deadly sins. I’ve resolved at various times in my life to overcome these character flaws, but so far without success. I suspect I’m in good company with many of them. If anyone has any self-improvement ideas for these, please let me know:
I don’t think my personal deadly sins are as bad as the seven I can’t abide in others. But thanks to personal deadly sin #7, that’s small consolation. Anyway, I’m calmed down now. (Can’t remember where I snatched this remarkable picture from. It was an online gallery of art works, and if I remember correctly the original was for sale. When I find the reference I’ll put it up here.) |
Navigation
Collapsniks
Albert Bates (US)
Andrew Nikiforuk (CA)
Brutus (US)
Carolyn Baker (US)*
Catherine Ingram (US)
Chris Hedges (US)
Dahr Jamail (US)
Dean Spillane-Walker (US)*
Derrick Jensen (US)
Dougald & Paul (IE/SE)*
Erik Michaels (US)
Gail Tverberg (US)
Guy McPherson (US)
Honest Sorcerer
Janaia & Robin (US)*
Jem Bendell (UK)
Mari Werner
Michael Dowd (US)*
Nate Hagens (US)
Paul Heft (US)*
Post Carbon Inst. (US)
Resilience (US)
Richard Heinberg (US)
Robert Jensen (US)
Roy Scranton (US)
Sam Mitchell (US)
Tim Morgan (UK)
Tim Watkins (UK)
Umair Haque (UK)
William Rees (CA)
XrayMike (AU)
Radical Non-Duality
Tony Parsons
Jim Newman
Tim Cliss
Andreas Müller
Kenneth Madden
Emerson Lim
Nancy Neithercut
Rosemarijn Roes
Frank McCaughey
Clare Cherikoff
Ere Parek, Izzy Cloke, Zabi AmaniEssential Reading
Archive by Category
My Bio, Contact Info, Signature Posts
About the Author (2023)
My Circles
E-mail me
--- My Best 200 Posts, 2003-22 by category, from newest to oldest ---
Collapse Watch:
Hope — On the Balance of Probabilities
The Caste War for the Dregs
Recuperation, Accommodation, Resilience
How Do We Teach the Critical Skills
Collapse Not Apocalypse
Effective Activism
'Making Sense of the World' Reading List
Notes From the Rising Dark
What is Exponential Decay
Collapse: Slowly Then Suddenly
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Making Sense of Who We Are
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Post Collapse with Michael Dowd (video)
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Requiem for a Species
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
If We Had a Better Story...
Giving Up on Environmentalism
The Hard Part is Finding People Who Care
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
A Short History of Progress
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture / Ourselves:
A CoVid-19 Recap
What It Means to be Human
A Culture Built on Wrong Models
Understanding Conservatives
Our Unique Capacity for Hatred
Not Meant to Govern Each Other
The Humanist Trap
Credulous
Amazing What People Get Used To
My Reluctant Misanthropy
The Dawn of Everything
Species Shame
Why Misinformation Doesn't Work
The Lab-Leak Hypothesis
The Right to Die
CoVid-19: Go for Zero
Pollard's Laws
On Caste
The Process of Self-Organization
The Tragic Spread of Misinformation
A Better Way to Work
The Needs of the Moment
Ask Yourself This
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
May I Ask a Question?
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
Learning From Nature
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
Making Sense of Scents
An Age of Wonder
The Truth About Ukraine
Navigating Complexity
The Supply Chain Problem
The Promise of Dialogue
Too Dumb to Take Care of Ourselves
Extinction Capitalism
Homeless
Republicans Slide Into Fascism
All the Things I Was Wrong About
Several Short Sentences About Sharks
How Change Happens
What's the Best Possible Outcome?
The Perpetual Growth Machine
We Make Zero
How Long We've Been Around (graphic)
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
Loren Eiseley, in Verse
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
The Gift Economy
The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self, and Free Will:
No Free Will, No Freedom
The Other Side of 'No Me'
This Body Takes Me For a Walk
The Only One Who Really Knew Me
No Free Will — Fightin' Words
The Paradox of the Self
A Radical Non-Duality FAQ
What We Think We Know
Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark
Healing From Ourselves
The Entanglement Hypothesis
Nothing Needs to Happen
Nothing to Say About This
What I Wanted to Believe
A Continuous Reassemblage of Meaning
No Choice But to Misbehave
What's Apparently Happening
A Different Kind of Animal
Happy Now?
This Creature
Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
Glimpses
How Our Bodies Sense the World
Fragments
What Happens in Vagus
We Have No Choice
Never Comfortable in the Skin of Self
Letting Go of the Story of Me
All There Is, Is This
A Theory of No Mind
Creative Works:
Mindful Wanderings (Reflections) (Archive)
A Prayer to No One
Frogs' Hollow (Short Story)
We Do What We Do (Poem)
Negative Assertions (Poem)
Reminder (Short Story)
A Canadian Sorry (Satire)
Under No Illusions (Short Story)
The Ever-Stranger (Poem)
The Fortune Teller (Short Story)
Non-Duality Dude (Play)
Your Self: An Owner's Manual (Satire)
All the Things I Thought I Knew (Short Story)
On the Shoulders of Giants (Short Story)
Improv (Poem)
Calling the Cage Freedom (Short Story)
Rune (Poem)
Only This (Poem)
The Other Extinction (Short Story)
Invisible (Poem)
Disruption (Short Story)
A Thought-Less Experiment (Poem)
Speaking Grosbeak (Short Story)
The Only Way There (Short Story)
The Wild Man (Short Story)
Flywheel (Short Story)
The Opposite of Presence (Satire)
How to Make Love Last (Poem)
The Horses' Bodies (Poem)
Enough (Lament)
Distracted (Short Story)
Worse, Still (Poem)
Conjurer (Satire)
A Conversation (Short Story)
Farewell to Albion (Poem)
My Other Sites
hmm… only 7 and 3 seem bad. 3 because you say you cannot do something! you should think higher of yourself. 7… uhmm good luck with that one.i made threaded comments on my site if anyone cares to know, some of us were discussing that a few postings ago on here.
Well, and I used to think I had exclusive rights to those 7 sins. Seems I have to share …
Hmmm, great. Just came here after having vented on http://www.synesthesia.co.uk/blog/ with regard to some ” Seven Survival Tips for Knowledge Managers” and realize a profile like mine here. So well – some t_h_e_o_r_e_t_i_c_a_l cure ad 1) avoid pressure (see 5.) – use your breathe to take control – this is generally a good thing that from my experience seems to work finead 2) take a different general stance – deaccelaratead 3) question yourself whether it is indeed the type of idealism as describedad 4) perhaps train self-awareness firstad 5) try to make a schedule and cling to it (I continuously fail on that one); work sequentially, not in parallel if at all possiblead 6) perseverance – it is easier if the goals are set in a time frame tuned to avoid conflictsad 7) separate work from sparetime (here I still fail here catastrophically); again – deaccelarate; go for s.th. like Tai Chi or whatever lookalike suits youYes, its all trivial and way not original – but I say so. Add value to seemingly trivial things you cannot handle, e.g. it is an achievement if you manage not to run into time pressure.See a coach if you not already do so (the bias is that you do – if so, change the strategy)Beware of getting workaholic and prevent burnout.Yes, it is all theory — grim grin.CC.
Mmm, I can help with one of these, gracelessness… I have been able to overcome that. I realized that it arose from my need to see myself as superior to others – not only to see it, but to project it. I think it can be solved by seeing others as their own unique being, their own little planet in their own little orbit. Not that it’s a planet you necessarily want to visit, but it does have a right to exist. And I’ve gotten in the habit of asking myself, before saying something negative, ‘What purpose does it serve’.Of course, that’s only one of about a thousand negative personality traits I’ve resolved.
I recommend Rush Dozier Jr.’s “Why We Hate” book. I’ve found I’m far less likely to get angry after reading the insights in it.
I have to add “aceptance” to the things that make me boil. And by that I mean acceptance as stated in that horrid prayer about “things I can change, things I can’t and wisdom to know the difference.” I meet so many people who are really, really unhappy about something and are in total denial about the importance of expressing concerns personally, by mail or by a phone call. A minimum of Canadians ever write their MLA or MP. Most complainers do their carping to radio talk-back shows – which is about as useful as saving snow in a furnace.
I like David J’s comments. While I agree wholeheartedly with Dave Pollard’s dislike of unrelentibg negativism, I also find myself wondering quite often why there seems to be such a taboo against pointing out that things don’t always seem to be “going great”, and that maybe, just maybe the systems in which we live need some deep looking at. At the end of the(judgment ;-) day, I’ll bet there’ll be a wholesale realization that the planet is first and foremost a human and natural system, not a first-and-foremost economic system.I think people (esp. consultants, of which I am one) go to incredible – and devious -lengths to be accepted, focus on “solving problems”, and appear as if they are challenging and confronting the conventional wisdom, the status quo, while not really doing anything of the kind. I think blogs are popular ’cause they’ra about the only place left, except for your own bedside journal, where you can say what you really think/feel – everywhere else is subject to “the market” and the niche you can create or find. I cry sometimes for our society – debate is getting ridiculous – Janeane Garofalo guest-hosting CNN’s CrossFire so that the electronic version of the Forum’s gusets can watch her and Tucker carlson insult each other – it’s WWF with clothes on – while real dialogue is pushed into little cafes in houses, where earnest and concerned people can console each other that they may be doing something. The only show I enjoy watching is Charlie Rose, and I was suroprised by him as well, when he had paiul Wolfowitz on recently and didn’t test him at all.Canadians – ever-polite and ever-accepting, and as long as the loony stays down, able to continue as we have been since the US is next door.
If you get any hot tips concerning the eradication – or at best moderation – of your list of 7, let me know, Dave. They’re all mine too…Dick
Bryan: Interesting website you have there — like the threading of comments blended right into the body of the blog. As for your advice — most people would say I think plenty highly of myself already. ;-)Markus: You’re actually welcome to have them all to yourself, if I could find a way to get them to stop sticking to me. BTW, how do you get the text to change on your website by merely passing the cursor over a hotspot instead of clicking, and does it affect the number of hits, or is it actually all one ‘page’ and the cursor merely ‘unhides’ one particular section?Quux: Great advice, except that I’ve already tried it all, and because of #6, haven’t stuck to it, even though I know it works. It just isn’t ‘me’.
Mark: That would work if we weren’t actually superior to most people ;-) I love the fact that your spam-mocking contest has attracted entries so realistic that you’re mistaking the satire for the real thing!Steve: Hey, a self-help book that makes sense and doesn’t just state the obvious — thanks for the reference and to the precis of the book on your site. It’s great advice. I’m pleased to say that part of my problem is I get angry so rarely (a half a dozen times max in the last decade) that I get out of practice dealing with it, and hence tend to overreact more. I’ll definitely check this book out.David: You’re right — there’s a big difference between ‘acceptance’ (being too lazy or resigned to challenge something wrong) and ‘acceptance’ (acknowledging that there is really nothing that can be done, or need be done, to deal with an annoying situation). I’m in the midst of a fight with my MPP (who happens to be the premier) that others think I can’t win, but is so important that I won’t accept defeat. At the same time, the ‘tractor’ issue I was blogging about is one that I have to confess has no satisfactory resolution — I’ve logically (if somewhat passionately) analyzed and proffered all possible compromises and all have been rejected, so there is no recourse left but to accept that I did my best and the individual concerned is just an asshole.
Jon: Very good point, and I confess that sometimes lack of imagination, and lack of courage, have us putting up with situations we shouldn’t and needn’t tolerate. And don’t give up on Charley — he doesn’t have carte blanche and sometimes there are compromises just to get an interview at all, and for every weak interview he has a dozen strong ones.Dick: The book Steve mentions (his site has an extensive summary of it) might help with #1, #3, #4 and #7 by dealing with one of the underlying causes (tendency to fly off the handle) of all four of them. I think if there were true silver bullets for any of these they’d have been found and publicized by now.
And why is that it was your sin when you were the one threatened? Perhaps you were inexperienced in dealing with this particular kind of situation, but now you know what you need to learn. And you can learn things, can you?
Yeah, Camilo, I can and do still learn. But you’d think that with more learning and more understanding would come more patience, and with me, alas, it seems to be the opposite.