Reading: The Efficiency Dilemma (which you can read HERE!)

The better (more efficient) we are at doing something industrial (using coal power, increasing miles-per=gallon), the more we end up doing it. That is, rather than see an overall decrease of gasoline consumption due to more efficient motors, we see a net increase in fuel consumption – more people driving more hours. The more electricity we can squeeze out of coal, the more plants we build, the more power we use.

Here's a picture of Jimmy Carter, for some reason.

There’s just one small neuron that makes this link happen in the brain. Just one tiny bit of information – the better we are, the more we are – is the turning point for the rest of society and civilization. You’re heard me repeat the adage: “If you’re driving to Mexico and you actually want to go to Canada, just slowing down won’t actually help.” That is, if we need to become a sustainable society, simply minimizing non-sustainability won’t actually help – at the very best, you’ve just postponed utter destruction for a while. Where we need to go is in the exact opposite direction, and the only way we’re going to get there is by stopping entirely, turning around, and going the other way.

With the addition of the Jeavons Paradox, we see the worst of it: by simply slowing down, we actually speed our trip up. By conserving fuel, we can drive longer and get more cars on the road, increasing this mass migration to Mexico while Canada slips farther and farther away.

What do you think?

To me, it says one thing: An unsustainable system cannot be retrofitted to sustainability. The very system itself must become something completely different. Anyone who totes themselves as a “green” or “environmentalist” or anything like that, and is all in favor of increasing the efficiency of our current systems needs to stop, read this article, and think very seriously about the wisdom of making a bad machine better at what it does.

In the meantime, the only author I’ve read who actually understands the repercussions of what I’ve just said is Derrick Jensen, and even he stops short of instigating the full-scale revolution that’s needed.

Ah… will I, when that day comes?

 [We apparently have to have a talent show for our Permaculture class. Being rather talentless, I was somewhat inspired to write a poem (in a poor imitation of Blake). I don't write poems often (or at all), and again, this is obviously the first draft of a rough idea... but here ya go!]

Machinated man-made wretched wasteland wrestled my weary mind
and turned my awkward feet towards freedom’s golden lands
heavy, old, unfortunate man-made-man I came to find
no freedom’s land left to find, only dunes of golden sands

Distraught and downtrodden I sat my ass upon a rock
and asked the bright burning solar light above,
‘Where may man find relief for his flock
and enter in God’s sheltering love?’

Sun came down, hard and heated
and spoke not, nor cared
but by degrees my skin beaded
and I to more agreeable company dared

I climbed a sheer cliff face
where cold stones reached the sky
where wild wooly Winds raced
and, unchecked, should cause me to fly

‘Winds,’ I asked, while tears began to streaming,
‘to where should we now turn our heart?
What comfort’s home now opens to being?’
The winds raced on, on and nothing to impart.

Bruised and bleeding, no less in spirit
I came across a tiny cave in a shaded nook
the way dark, I decided not to fear it
and tumbled in, the world forsook.

Cool, not cold, the darkness embraced
the ground soft and supportive
the sheltering cave my spirit encased
and gave me relief from my motive

Enjoying some well-deserved shut-eye
I awoke in a start, surprised by the time
and found myself embraced by
something serpentine

The snake, not fat by fortune’s grace
thin and black and keen and dread
was no less long than a mile’s pace
and held me wrapped from foot to head

‘Sir,’ said I through strangled lips, ‘you’ve much imposed
the length of your body, it holds mine still.
If this is your cave in which I dozed
I throw myself on your goodwill.’

‘If it pleases you to let me go
though my trespass should warrant death
then I alone shall know
that a serpent’s love is best.’

The snake raised it’s skinny head
its eyes dark in the low light cave
its tongue flickering as it said
‘Stupid human, but brave.’

‘Tell me then, I must know,
by who’s love is your measure?
Tell me how you came here below
it would give me some pleasure.’

‘Certainly,’ said I, and began to recall
man’s cruel wasteland, beset by vulture’s stare
the Sun’s indifferent fireball
and the Wind’s callous air

My story seemed to sway the snake
a tear ran down a scaly cheek
and he said ‘Yes, my heart aches
for the world of man is bleak.’

He stood for a time, thinking
and presently loosened his hold
and composed himself, unblinking
among his many folds

‘Mankind cursed snakes,’ said he
‘For some original sin, I guess,
and forever after we are forced to flee
or face our eternal rest.’

‘If some serpent caused the fall,
to which your Jesus paid the price
why live you in wastelands all
and not regain Earthly paradise?’

‘We would’ said I, ‘if we knew the ways,
but at every step we seem to falter
we pray and pray for better days
but our knees bloody upon the alter.’

‘Then let this serpent make amends
for our previous transgressions!’
So saying, the snake took many bends
and made ready his mind’s possessions

Opening his mouth he began to hiss
and sway and swing and dance
and sang a song just like this
which held me in a trance.

‘Contrary to human belief
and may it be of some relief

that man’s greatest effort made
comes from a soil spade

misaligned he pulls apart
what was once nature’s art

but nature’s wisdom now allures
to bring together what occurs

and in sacred wildness find
the truth for all mankind

that a man must break his back
when he his functions forget to stack

and all of nature’s promenade
comes to him, ready-made

and all he has to do is bask
in the sunlight, simply ask

‘What, I wonder, is nature’s plan?’
and in finding answers, simple man

does not push, nor pull
nor take away from nature’s rule

but let’s God own design win
observe, step back, give a grin

for all your work is already done
be smart, design well and have your fun

Permaculture is the key
to mankind’s immortality.’

Thus sang the serpentine snake
slithering along the floor
his simple words put my mind to bake
as he gently showed me the door

Again outside, against the dew
the sun rose up out over yonder hills
my outlook changed, perceptions new
my body shook in wondrous thrills

unfettered, unshackled, fluid and sly
up those steep stone steps skipping
I sang my serpent song to the sky
and danced among the wild wind’s whipping

the hot golden sands I turned to run
between the boulders and dust so fine
I sang my serpent song to the Sun
and soaked in strong, sensuous shine

machinated man-made made ready my early arrival
mind at ease, awkward feet no longer stumbling
I carried with me now Nature’s Bible
and the force of tectonic rumbling

There’s a deeper power in all of this
much more than plants and maps
unending planetary justice
bringing greed to its collapse

Be joyful, friends, but please be wary
bear the serpent’s song in mind
the darkness is not ours to carry
so in wisdom’s light do shine.

I wonder why the word “nature” is used to describe such radically different things.

One definition includes all the trees, rocks, grass, water, animals, sands… those places and things which are least touched by mankind.

But another definition is used to describe the inner behavior of our own selves – our inner nature, what we are compelled to do, those things structured into our own nature.

I would like to reverse these definitions, just to see what happens.

What happens when we talk about the nature (behavior) of nature – how the trees behave, what the grass is compelled to do, how the streams react to the rain on an emotional level. What is the attitude of the forest? What bias does the prairie hold? Does the soil desire something, or is it aimless, even lazy?

Conversely, what does my inner forest look like? Where is my internal river? Do I have plains of the mind, mountains of the soul? Is there a sky of my being, one that storms and rages, only to celebrate sun rises and settings? When do my stars come out, and what mythical constellations are traced upon them?

Can I sit on my beaches, and look out across my oceans that reach far out beyond my sight?

I don’t believe in the arbitrary distinction between man and nature – everywhere is nature, even deep in a classroom or sterile lab, the heat of the city holds just as much nature as a rainforest.

What, then, do my inner cities look like? What kinds of people inhabit them, and what are their professions? What skyscrapers define my skyline? What historic churches sit nestled at special street corners? Are the people happy there?

Switched again – what is the road’s inner nature? Does a house really have a soul, a spirit, a feeling? Does the downtown really come alive? Is it happy that we are there, or do we impose upon it?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but for some reason, just asking them makes me happy.

Final Paper for Deep Ecology, Part 1: Personal Myth

Ron Khare

This is who I was:

When the imagination of the Great Unmanifest stirred and brought forth the potential for all of Creation, I came into existence. I am, or was, the expression of pure geometry, crossing lines inside a perfect circle. For a moment I simply existed, one design out of the nearly infinite possible designs. Then the Creator breathed life into the world, and I began to vibrate – I became alive.

This design is called, among other things, the “sun cross.” Like the sun, it has a radiant center that spreads energy outwards, intense and unrelenting. From a distance, or when it is small, it gives and nourishes life. Embedded in every design was motion; underlining each of my brother and sister shapes were unexpressed values of energy. Mine looks something like this:

The sun cross is a repeating design – at mathematical intervals the circle and cross reappear. Exponentially.

As I became alive, more and more alive, I expanded and grew. My power grew with me, as I began to crowd out my brother and sister designs. Each jump to a larger form expanded my vision – I started smaller than an atom, and soon grew to the size of an ant, the ocean, the planet, the sun, the solar system. My vision became cosmic as I kept growing, expressing my inherit nature, being who I was. My energy became radiant, effulgent, intense, burning. Stars became grains of sand as I hummed, burning brighter. I began to see the edges of Creation, but I grew on – growth was the only thing I knew. I was the Ever-Expanding Sun Cross, and I would destroy all darkness, and with it, Creation itself.

I was close to the Edge, a boundary I had no concept of, when Shiva appeared. He stood, dark and radiant, a terrible and serene mountain, looming like a giant before me. He stood outside of Creation, like it was hardly worth His notice.

I watched in awe – the Divine, the faint light in nothing. He raised his foot and stepped down upon me, like I was nothing more than a tiny pebble or patch of dirt. I was pressed down, down, down…. When He lifted His foot I was the size of a dinner plate. I had become this:

I was stuck! The mandala structure prevented my energy from re-forming in ever-expanding circles. I had known nothing but expressing that value of growth before, but now I simply existed, static but still alive.

I cried, shaken and horrible, and I cried. I went to Shiva and asked to be free of this horrible cage. Why had He done this? What wrong had I committed? I only expressed the potential inherit in my design – if that was wrong, then the fault lay with the Creator, not His Creation! Why should I suffer, being bound forever, for the sins of God?

Shiva sat in silence, absorbed in the Self, and did not hear my cries.

Confusion clouded my being. I no longer knew who I was, and I became muddled. I fell from that lofty realm and began getting mixed up. Who am I, then, if I cannot be who I was? Am I this? Am I that?

I fell into ignorance, and began to incarnate. I passed from rock to rock, plant to plant in what seemed like a blur of lifetimes, each one yielding just one bit of wisdom: “not this.” I lived a lifetime as every plant, and then moved through tiny bugs, ants, spiders.

Each life lived provided more insight, more wisdom: Not this, I’m not this, I’m not this. I moved through the animal kingdom like a joyous race, shedding the skins of misconception. I was not an alligator, not an ape, nor an elephant. I became human after an instant of millions of years, and progressed through humanity, from a crazy beastly person to ever-growing radiance, exploring the darkness of evil and the brightest light of goodness.

I used the last few lifetimes to pierce the veil, to look back upon myself beyond the superficiality of Creation. I explored the forms of the Circle, the Wheel of Dharma. I studied the mysteries of the Cross. I found, in different ways and manners, a way to get back to what I had lost, my Self beyond form. The mandala had prevented me from expanding, so I used my remaining freedom – I turned within.

This could be my final incarnation, as I’ve found my “true” form again. But unlike the mindless expansion when I was young, I carry with me knowledge, experience and wisdom. I have seen this Glorious Creation from every angle, and from the perspective of every living Being.

My lesson, it seemed, was to understand my place and purpose here. I could expand to absorb everything in Creation, but to what end? If Creation brings joy to the Creator, then I should dance in that purpose – I can add to this life by communicating rather than conquering, by playing instead of dominating. Within my form I hold many more, forms that I can nourish and protect inside my circle-with-lines, which is blessed inside of Shiva’s gift.

A coronation occurred when Shiva’s foot pushed me down. My prison was actually a crown, and like a crown it is a symbol, useful but not necessary. The sun cross can safely live outside those boundaries now – I take my proper place among the decorations at Shiva’s glorious Feet.

Final Paper for Deep Ecology, Part 2: Ecosophy Sun-Cross

Without knowing exactly who I am, how can I be expected to know where my place is in the cosmos? Of course, this begs the question: How can you truly know yourself as an independent entity? Arne Naess’ Deep Ecological argumentⁱ about the importance of intrinsic relations between one thing and another (to the point where, without that relationship, those two things are different) seems woefully lacking in the most basic way – that is, what is the relationship between our individual selves and the Unmanifest – the transcendental field, pure consciousness?

Answering such a question is beyond the scope of this paper, but I must insist here that my form, as the sun cross, can exist outside the boundaries of manifest relationships. Now, it does have a relationship with every manifest thing in Creation: Using Naess’ idea of identity-by-relationship, the sun cross has a nearly infinite number of things it could be. Its relationship with the unmanifest, however, shows its purity, and can be summed up thus: “the form is.”

By being confined and made ignorant, and having passed through all the levels of existence (and all the various way of experiencing), the form has matured (or expanded, if you will) into an trans-universal entity. The active memories of being all things may not be present. However, the “proof is in the pudding,” as it were – the design works within itself, radiating power and goodness in a gentle-yet-powerful manner, in harmony with Creation. The fact that such a powerful design has not destroyed the universe is testament to some form of wisdom and self-awareness.

So what does that mean for me? Where do I fit in the human world, and the “more-than-human world?”ⁱⁱ My place is to simply be – radiate light, destroy darkness, protect and nurture the forms I hold inside me, play with those outside of me. I make no real distinction between the natural world (“Nature”) and any other place – Nature is Creation. Man has influenced every bit of the natural world, to greater or lesser degrees – but even then, the sterile lab and the most remote wilderness mountaintop are still Nature, still part of the Creation. Why should I adopt a new “mode of being” between them? Should I be any less myself, or any more myself, in the human or natural worlds? Nonsense.

Understanding this brings me to the true amoral state. The circle is present, fully, in every direction – up, down, left, right, light, dark, good, evil, life, death. Kant’s “beautiful action”ⁱⁱⁱ is beautiful for the Taoist ideal of “wei wu wei”^iv – that is, flowing with the Tao, effortless action. It does not guarantee any particular action, and that is precisely why it makes a terrible basis for solving large-scale societal problems. It’s not anarchy in the truest sense – every individual is bound to the laws of their own hearts. On just the societal level, however, it is pure anarchy.

If I am only bound by my undeveloped sense of self, then I grow to consume the universe. It took an externally-imposed restriction to further my development of self. This external, objective “morality” turned out to be a great blessing, both for Nature (as I would have destroyed Nature without it) and for myself – the universe would not be enjoyable if I was the only thing in it. A similar parallel can be drawn between the undeveloped individual and those externally-imposed ethics as expressed by cultural norms and laws.

The unexpressed morality embedded in trans-personal ecology fails to address this point: some beings are designed, from the start, to kill, to dominate, to grow, to destroy. It seems to be missed on Naess, who, while speaking in Australia in 1984, said “I’m not much interested in ethics or morals. I’m interested in how we experience the world…. Ethics follows from how we experience the world. If you experience the world so and so, then you don’t kill.”^v (emphasis mine) The assumption that we can achieve anything “better” in society than what we have right now by personal “growth” willingly ignores the vast potential in humanity. That is: “I experience the world as such-and-such, and now I kill.”

This is why I agree with Murray Bookchin’s statement: “Nothing could seem more wholesome…. than this “we are all one” bumper-sticker slogan. What the reader may not notice is that this all-encompassing definition of community erases all the rich and meaningful distinctions that exist not only between animal and plant communities but above all between nonhuman and human communities.”^vi This distinction between things is the very essence of life and Creation – everything is One at the Source, so why should we try to merge things together (in a trans-personal sense)? The only reason Creation started at all was to express and explore the concept of duality, of separateness! Laws don’t drive a wedge between man and nature – they serve to highlight the differences.

I believe that we can do more for Nature by strengthening and celebrating these differences, rather than trying to merge and unify under the umbrella of goodness-through-identification. “…it’s certainly possible to provide equality while also living true to your masculine or feminine core.” writes David Deida in The Way of the Superior Man. “For sexual polarity, you need an energetic polarity, an attractive difference between masculine and feminine.”^vii To truly embrace our humanity, however, we have to embrace that destructive tendency to rule and dominate. We have to embrace our isolation, our terrible burden of being Kings and Queens of Nature, if we are to live up to our duality and celebrate Creation as enlightened beings.

Plotkin’s use of Nature as a metaphor for human development seems unfortunate – while we can try to describe an animal’s development in human terms, it always seems somewhat silly, because those descriptions seem to lack a clear understanding of what it is to be that animal. A young cat is just that, not “going through a human-teenager stage of development.” So to describe the transformation process in late adolescence as a “cocoon” may be a somewhat demeaning attempt to artificially merge humanity to the “natural world.” We can use human terms to describe human things.

Humanity is a part of Nature, as much as anything, and I believe it is a disservice to try to fill a perceived lack of connection by attempting to “merge” on a superficial level. The attempt is noble – this is ecology, after all, and we are trying to save the natural world. But moving the heart and mind to a level of identification with the natural world is throwing away our only gift – our very separate and unique individuality.

It is only once this entity we call “me” is strengthened and refined by contrast to the natural world that we come to a place where we can help preserve it. Nature naturally provides the almost endless possibilities, the Other, the vital “I’m not this, I’m not this.” We must fight to preserve the diversity of the natural world – otherwise the ever-expanding humanity will learn the lesson I learned long ago, as Shiva’s foot comes down upon us.

Reading: Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin, chapters 1, 3 and 7

“A man walks down the street   It’s a street in a strange world   Maybe it’s the Third World   Maybe it’s his first time around   He doesn’t speak the language  He holds no currency   He is a foreign man   He is surrounded by the sound  The sound  Cattle in the marketplace   Scatterlings and orphanages   He looks around, around    He sees angels in the architecture   Spinning in infinity    He says Amen and Hallelujah!” – You Can Call Me Al by Paul Simon

Despite the size of the reading, and the author’s tendency to say more when less would do, I thoroughly enjoyed and identified with this reading, and am purchasing the book.

I identify with this adolescent stage, the Wanderer in the Cocoon, as a very real and visceral stage of being. I know exactly when I made the transition from the previous stage (almost down to the day, back in 2002) and I can feel or see when I will step out of this stage (about two years from now). I can see when I embraced the urges of my soul (the world traveling, joining a monastery, turning inward and studying the mystical and embracing the darkness), and I can see when I fought against it (trying to establish a career and publishing too soon, swimming against those currents in my life). I have designed rites of passage that excited me, if for no other reason than I felt their profound lack in my life – rites that require a community built around them, that acknowledge and hold sacred these journeys and ceremonies. I have designed entire civilizations in my mind to fill that deep void inside.

Story: When I first arrived on American Purusha, I awoke one night bathed in terror. Demons were out to get me, I could feel their evil presence, and there was no safety in my room. In a panic I got dressed and ran outside, hoping to get to the only place I might be safe – the Stapatya-Veda correct Meditation Hall. I ran up the street, shivering, swinging my walking stick as I felt “them” get too close, heart pounding. The thickets seems alive with malevolence, and I was so, so vulnerable.

I made it to the building, which was locked, so I walked up the side stairs and sat on the upper balcony. I calmed down, as I sat under the stars, and reflected. I don’t really want to say what revelations I had up there (partly because I can’t really remember).

What I can say is that, after spending some time in that “sacred safe-zone,” some part of me came to terms with the darkness. In that acceptance I no longer saw evil demons, I simply saw the night, like day only darker. I walked back to my room in a peaceful state, seeing for maybe the first time the dark woods at night for what they really were – beautiful, serene, lovely. This did not rule out the idea of demons, or angels, or anything else – they may have be real, and drove me up that building to help me reach this new state of understanding. Or maybe I just reached a spot where my projected fears manifested in my mind. Whichever, whatever – the experience was gained, and the difference was almost literally night and day: I now saw the day in the night – like we see shadows at noon and reach for them for release from the crushing day, the night was that blissful release spread over this side of the globe.

Experiences like that are a dime a dozen in this wandering cocoon phase of life.

Reading: Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology: A Challenge for the Ecology Movement, by Murray Bookchin.

(read it here: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bookchin/socecovdeepeco.html )

I was once contracted to transcribe audio files to text, and the file I received was a talk from the  man who’s mission had been the eradication of Guinea worm. Outright, wholesale destruction of this terrible parasite, which once afflicted most of Africa. Due to dedicated efforts from the Carter Foundation and the World Health Organization, however, transmission rates steadily decreased, and now the final goal (zero cases globally) is within reach: http://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/mini_site/index.html

This is almost universally considered to be a good thing, by nearly every individual and group, with the exception of Deep Ecology (as our reading has pointed out) and other nutjobs: http://www.deadlysins.com/guineaworm/index.htm <— These people are fighting to save the worm, even asking for volunteers to host (or “nurture”) the worm inside their own bodies. By what right do we, as humans, choose who lives and dies?

Should we just let nature “take its course?” The elimination of Guinea worm comes primarily from filtering drinking water – by that alone the worm would be extinct. As it turns out, there was a lot of social bias in rural Africa regarding purifying drinking water – I wish I had the source to refer to, but story told in this speech went something like: A man traveled from his remote village to the city for business, and while there learned about the worm and how it can be prevented by filtering drinking water. He returned and started to do so, but faced extreme prejudice, to the point of threatened violence, from the other villagers. They believed that by filtering drinking water he was “offending the Gods,” and would invite Their wrath upon the village. This, to me, sounds like Deep Ecology at work – a mystical supernatural force that was incompatible with rational common sense. It took the testimony of converted shamans, priests and high-profile political leaders, working together, to dispel these idea and get people to filter the water they drink.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that the supernatural (or any spiritual or religious) can be disregarded in a theoretically “pure” scientific, or even social, ideology. I only see a clash of ideals when the above happens – suffering needlessly out of fear or ignorance. The point here is not one of denying the spirit, but rather one of regulating it to its proper place – as a framework for personal experience and spiritual growth, and NOT as a method of approach to our current ecological crises. Whether or not humanity, in all its complex social glory, is a product of the natural world or not is irrelevant; we have the power to influence “first” nature with our “second,” and that alone is enough.

Of course, Bookchin’s understanding of the distinction between Self and self is woefully lacking – I’m not surprised, as I don’t believe anyone from the Deep Ecology camp gets it either. What I believe, as I pointed out in class, is that any discussion of the spiritual unfolding of self into Self is a useless one; enlightened behavior is, in no way, externally different from unenlightened behavior. To base a movement of thought and action around a state of being that is both poorly-understood and behaviorally like any other state is a very bad idea.

This same mistake plagues Taoism, which Murray was quick to scorn, in that Taoist texts provide a description of the state itself, and offers no real methods for achieving it. We can, by proximity and osmosis, gain insight and feeling, and by those means possibly move closer to the goal, but it is like being given a road map of Manhattan while one lives in Iowa – you’re not there, but you get an idea of what it could be. To base a movement, or a social structure, on these descriptions is a terrible idea – and yet, one of the central points of Deep Ecology is expanding this sense of self into the larger Self! This is either mood making, delusion, or enlightenment. If we could really expand ourselves by just thinking about it and wishing it were so, I would have been enlightened a million freaking times by now.

Personally, then, I base my actions on an overwhelming sense of proper, normal, common-sense conduct. Within this common-sense framework are my ideologies, my religion, my spiritual experiences, and the like. These factors, however, are limited to their proper spheres – I don’t kill people, even though I believe in reincarnation and the like, because that would be horrible. On the other hand, I naturally feel a sense of superiority over the rest of nature in those things I am good at, namely cognitive thinking. Individual facets of nature are “better” than me in every physical manner – running, swimming, endurance, sex, seeing, hearing, and so on. But my ability to think and act on those thoughts far exceed anything else in nature – why not celebrate this fact? Why not embrace the power that this provides? If we are the products of nature, we have been set as Kings and Queens on the top – as a democratically elected King of Nature, it would be an insult and disservice to not act with the authority that position provides.

And, as may be the case, our abuse of that position may result in our overthrowing, a defenestration of King Man – Man, in this case, being our social structure, the collective activity all of us contribute to. Here Murray is exactly right – it is our social structure that must be fixed, not how we see ourselves. Humanity already has enough compassion and empathy with nature IF we allow for it to grow in society. By structuring ourselves in a manner which denies this basic goodness to each other, how much more difficult to find basic goodness towards anything non-human? That is the vital flaw of Deep Ecology, if it is true – we must “be excellent to one another” on all scales, in all counties, and among all people if we are to truly address the Why of our ecological destruction. To appeal to the spiritual gods of nature, and merge with them, while advocating death and destruction to our families, is both counter-productive and truly terrible.

The same dynamics at play in this video work on almost every scale, in practically every aspect of life. Our failings come from stopping too soon, from rejecting those around us, from waiting for better circumstances… when all we really need to do is dance.

It’s a good lesson for me, in any event.

If you don’t, the maniac will shoot you.

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]]> http://forcedsimplicity.com/on-credit-cards/feed/ 1 http://forcedsimplicity.com/rebellious-thought-for-the-day/ http://forcedsimplicity.com/rebellious-thought-for-the-day/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:47:26 +0000 Ron Khare http://forcedsimplicity.com/?p=137 “Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.” ~ John Locke

We live on a beach with a million lines drawn in, and people are stepping over them left and right. Without a clear vision of what we want or where we want to go, these lines are meaningless, and the act of stepping over is void of merit.

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