A miserable joke of a "billionaire" announced his candidacy for the presidency. He deserves to be ignored, but we should look and marvel at his smallness.
I'm not saying it was intentional, but it was no accident that my sweet basset hound threw up within minutes of hearing that person's voice. Dogs know stuff!
I struggle with the question of how much attention to pay to these people. Now they've got Congress, so we can expect a two-year clown show with non-stop hearings on Hunter Biden's laptop and Rand Paul's "lab leak" theory. And it seems smart to ignore all that, but at the same time, these people are fascists, and it's never smart to ignore fascists.
Truly beautiful essay, JYSEXTON. Thank you. I’ve also watched your first video from the Midnight Kingdom, and recommend it to everyone. I think you are right about what is going on, and I hope you are right about our ability, in this magical, malleable space, to rise into our better selves. I’m up for it. And I know many, especially in the Regenerative movement who are working hard to help birth the changes you articulate, and we so desperately need to make. You see our human potential, and I want to believe you are right.
Powerful and profoundly true. Last bourbon talk was moving and inspiring.
It is so weird that the fans and followers of these people don't ask why nothing is ever enough for them. Living in luxury, enjoying life and family, etc. Instead they are miserable and all these people treat them like gods. F-ed up.
“We can build a better world on the ruins of this one.”
Can we?
As we are, we most certainly cannot. As long as we believe and act in this world as if the thoughts in our heads are knowledge—and that we are these thoughts—we can accomplish nothing of the kind. I say this not as an indictment of any individual or group, small or large, powerful or not, but an indictment of what has become of Western civilization (the whole planet now in its death-grip embrace) over the course of the past two millennia.
Fortunately, the wheels of genuine revolution turn far beyond our (Western *cum* globalist) comprehension or control. They will inevitably grind this long, errant enterprise first into ruin, then into dust, and finally back into the realm of potentiality from which it arose. There is no way “a better world” can be built upon any of it that will escape that ultimate fate.
Yet, from within that same potentiality, “a better world” may be found. Indeed, it is already emergent. Its early felt transformative effects are already unbinding the webs of words we’ve mistaken as knowledge of our world and ourselves for so long. In reaction, we may cling to them—much as the Trumps, and Musks, and Putins frantically cling to their evaporating fantasies of wealth, prestige, and power. These are distractions, delusions, and pretenses—as you point out—meant to beguile and entrap our attention, and thus keep us from seeking, let alone finding and knowing, that truth quietly abiding beyond words.
Yet it is only from within that—that “a better world” may arise.
Can’t wait to read the book. My daily outrage is knowing I, a middle class professional, have to pay thousands of dollars in taxes every year while wealthy people in the US do not. It’s a rigged system. I wish more Americans would wake up to that fact and we would all be a lot happier and prosperous...
I'm not saying it was intentional, but it was no accident that my sweet basset hound threw up within minutes of hearing that person's voice. Dogs know stuff!
I struggle with the question of how much attention to pay to these people. Now they've got Congress, so we can expect a two-year clown show with non-stop hearings on Hunter Biden's laptop and Rand Paul's "lab leak" theory. And it seems smart to ignore all that, but at the same time, these people are fascists, and it's never smart to ignore fascists.
Truly beautiful essay, JYSEXTON. Thank you. I’ve also watched your first video from the Midnight Kingdom, and recommend it to everyone. I think you are right about what is going on, and I hope you are right about our ability, in this magical, malleable space, to rise into our better selves. I’m up for it. And I know many, especially in the Regenerative movement who are working hard to help birth the changes you articulate, and we so desperately need to make. You see our human potential, and I want to believe you are right.
I feel like Trump exacerbated all of this unresolved trauma I've had since my childhood during the Reagan era.
Powerful and profoundly true. Last bourbon talk was moving and inspiring.
It is so weird that the fans and followers of these people don't ask why nothing is ever enough for them. Living in luxury, enjoying life and family, etc. Instead they are miserable and all these people treat them like gods. F-ed up.
“We can build a better world on the ruins of this one.”
Can we?
As we are, we most certainly cannot. As long as we believe and act in this world as if the thoughts in our heads are knowledge—and that we are these thoughts—we can accomplish nothing of the kind. I say this not as an indictment of any individual or group, small or large, powerful or not, but an indictment of what has become of Western civilization (the whole planet now in its death-grip embrace) over the course of the past two millennia.
Fortunately, the wheels of genuine revolution turn far beyond our (Western *cum* globalist) comprehension or control. They will inevitably grind this long, errant enterprise first into ruin, then into dust, and finally back into the realm of potentiality from which it arose. There is no way “a better world” can be built upon any of it that will escape that ultimate fate.
Yet, from within that same potentiality, “a better world” may be found. Indeed, it is already emergent. Its early felt transformative effects are already unbinding the webs of words we’ve mistaken as knowledge of our world and ourselves for so long. In reaction, we may cling to them—much as the Trumps, and Musks, and Putins frantically cling to their evaporating fantasies of wealth, prestige, and power. These are distractions, delusions, and pretenses—as you point out—meant to beguile and entrap our attention, and thus keep us from seeking, let alone finding and knowing, that truth quietly abiding beyond words.
Yet it is only from within that—that “a better world” may arise.
Can’t wait to read the book. My daily outrage is knowing I, a middle class professional, have to pay thousands of dollars in taxes every year while wealthy people in the US do not. It’s a rigged system. I wish more Americans would wake up to that fact and we would all be a lot happier and prosperous...
Great excoriation of capitalism and malignant narcissists.
“Midnight Kingdom” ordered.