Posting will be sporadic for the next month. I need to work and listen. Read on, and I’ll be happy to explain!
This business has three parts…
First, the work: I simply must complete my ebook projects and need to clear some space. Stating up front that I’ll be busy takes some of the pressure off, and I’m confident that most of you will be back. What you ought to do, of course, is sign up for emailed announcements of new posts so you won’t miss anything I do put up here in the interim. (You can always unsubscribe with a single click from that same link.) I also suggest exploring the archives and using “Search This Site” to see what you can find here: there are over 1,300 posts, including some true undiscovered gems.
The second reason is deeper and more serious. For some time now I’ve felt unaccountably disturbed and ill at ease. Rather than talk about it now, I want to see how best to handle the intuition, so I can speak from greater depth. In the meantime, I’ll point you to this modest blog by author Joe Bageant, especially his latest essay, “Lost on the Fearless Plain,” which I could easily republish here in full, standing by every word. In it he writes of the systemic crash that’s underway, quietly emphasizing the accompanying opportunity for spiritual evolution and adding:
My advice is to resist pride in anything said to be national, whether it be prosperity, healthcare, culture, competence, social cohesion and identity, or whatever. Pride and courage do not live in the same house. Courage, which has little to do with blood and guts, but everything to do with sacrifice, chooses to dwell alongside humility.
My wife will hear no apocalyptic brooding, nor will most of you. But I can’t shut down my awareness and owe it to you to be frank. I suggest we all read the above quotation once again and meditate!
Finally, the answer lies within, thank God. Something deep inside wants my attention. This might be strictly personal or have a broader context. The only way to find out is to shut up for a while.
(Don’t worry, I’ll be back. And in the meantime, have at it in the comments…)
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
dude, stupendous thanks for turning me on to Joe! seriously, that was *so* just what i needed to read right now!!!!
“The avalanche has already started – it is too late for the pebbles to vote.” -Vorlon Ambassador Kosh, “Babylon 5″
He’s tuned in, isn’t he? About my age, so he’s done a thing or two!
The trouble with those words, my friend – and with Joe’s whole piece – is the sentimental delusion that human beings are in their essence good, uncorrupted, humble, sacrificial, etc etc., and that it is something modern and horrible imposed upon us by wicked outsiders that has changed all that. This kind of thinking has a sophisticated lineage – beginning with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is especially appealing to youngsters. I once bought it hook, line and sinker. I once thought that I and a few favored kindred spirits were free of all that tainted modernity. (Joe, like me, excepts himself, his own family and forebears from the general taint.) That isn’t very honest. We forked creatures are all compromised from the very beginning. Rousseau sent all his illegitimate children to the foundling hospital and never cared a whit about them, though he wrote one of the greatest books ever on childhood education. We all prate far too much about morality. I got a bellyful of that in Sunday School in Abilene in the old days. Free me from preachers! Some of them are in pulpits, some of them write blogs. Live and think unapologetically. Free yourself from cant. Honesty and clear-mindedness are hard but noble.
What did you think of the “American Hologram” metaphor?
Maybe you’d like Chris Hedges better. His latest column starts like this: “Cultures that do not recognize that human life and the natural world have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic value beyond monetary value, cannibalize themselves until they die.” He had me there, boy howdy. The rest of it is excellent as well, though kinda blood-curdling too.
I’ll be praying for you. You too, Kenneth.
Thanks, Sherry! I never turn down a blessing, and I do believe in the power of prayer, absolutely.
Doing very well now, actually. This break will give me time to get my ebooks online at Amazon and the Apple iBook store. BTW, the very best thing I’ve done in YEARS was to quit Facebook. Something to consider…
simplify, simplify, simplify – sounds like a good mantra for you at this point. Concentrate on what is important for you daily life, your work, your relationships, grow some food…………I’ve got an overabundance of lettuce if you could use some
. As to Facebook, I refused to signup until a few months ago when all my cousins I hadn’t talked to in years showed up there. I check on them about once a week and that’s about all I log on for. Sounds like you made a wise decision.
You’re on the money with that one! Precisely what I’m doing, too.
The Facebook thing is two-fold: a), being inside the FB bubble is emotionally/spiritually debilitating, and b) FB management is corrupt, mendacious, etc.–just like some other institutions we could name–and not being connected to that is such a moral relief…
Pursue the inner peace
In agreement with Sherry above…..and to quote our pal in Taos….ROBERT…..”Grow some corn….it will set you FREE” !!
Good luck with your ‘sabbatical’ John….and MORE Blessings directed your way…..and thanks to ALL for the interesting links pertaining to your blog…..I need all the help and direction I can get!
HA! (or as my Grandmother used to say…”It’s no laughing matter….but no matter if you laugh” !!! Think she was right!
Just an Okie’s perspective….and we know what that’s worth…
Will be missing ya and thinking of ya…..
I’m not going anywhere, just not posting much until the middle of June! Sign up for emailed updates.
I GOTTA get my ebooks online. This is the only way. Plus that other stuff…