Category Archives: Our Culture / Ourselves

Links of the Month: February 2024

no cats were harmed in the making of this Midjourney AI image; not my prompt I think I have run out of outrage. I’m becoming immune to it, rather than inured. The outrage serves no purpose. I try to understand … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 12 Comments

What Third Culture Kids Might Teach Us About Coping With Collapse

my own diagram of what Jim Kunstler calls “The Long Emergency” — a gradual multi-stage collapse over an extended period My new adopted community of Coquitlam is an exceptionally ethnically and culturally diverse one. It also has a much larger … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 5 Comments

Tiny Perfect Songs

my own photo Every once in a while someone produces a song that is just a tiny perfect thing: Tight, poetic, with a flow, a clever story or message, no ‘lazy’ rhymes, a well-crafted melody, interesting harmonies and engaging instrumentation. … Continue reading

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 1 Comment

War, Peace, and Human Nature

Cartoon from Tom Gauld, seen on the memebrary. Thousands of books have been written about why we go to war. I’ve been trying to explore whether my evolving understanding of basic human nature offers any insights on this subject, particularly … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will, Our Culture / Ourselves | 4 Comments

Work That Doesn’t Work, and Work That Does

cartoon by the late New Yorker cartoonist Robert Weber, one of the few cartoonists who worked mostly with charcoal Every year we hear about workplace surveys that say that most employees are “satisfied” with their jobs, which would, I think, suggest more … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Working Smarter | 5 Comments

The Weather Under the Weather

This is #26 in a series of month-end reflections on the state of the world, and other things that come to mind, as I walk, hike, and explore in my local community. “Under the Umbrella”, by Midjourney AI; not my prompt “My … Continue reading

Posted in Month-End Reflections, Our Culture / Ourselves | 9 Comments

Coping With Trauma

… in which Dave reveals some unhappy and mostly politically unacceptable truths about our having no free will, and about aspects of Christian moralistic evangelism that permeate our western ways of thinking about ‘good and evil’, ‘healing’, and trauma. In … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Illusion of the Separate Self and Free Will, Our Culture / Ourselves | 2 Comments

On the Dangers of Labels

image by Midjourney AI; my own prompt Fascist. Terrorist. Racist. Any other —ist. Addict. TERF. Anti-Semite. These are labels — nouns — we apply to others, that essentially equate their (often merely alleged or assumed) beliefs, situations, and behaviours with … Continue reading

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 10 Comments

Links of the Month: January 2024

cartoon by the extraordinary Will McPhail I love Will McPhail’s work. The mole in this cartoon could represent any of the ‘sides’ or actors in any of the current wars. Of course there are atrocities, and it’s tempting to take … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 3 Comments

A Succession of Failures

Trump as Canute, ordering back the waves; my own prompt* Aurélien has written a series of articles recently on the subject of competence, or, more specifically, its absence in our globalized civilization culture. As many of our political, economic, social, … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse Watch, How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 5 Comments