Reading as Writing

But there’s something deeper going on. Even before we actually tell any stories, the language we use teems with them in embryo form. There are words that simply denote things in nature: a pebble, a tree. There are words that describe objects we make: to know the word chair is to understand about moving from standing to sitting and appreciate the match of the human body with certain shapes and materials. But there are also words that come complete with entire narratives, or rather that can’t come without them. The only way we can understand words like God, angel, devil, ghost is through stories, since these entities do not allow themselves to be known in other ways, or not to the likes of me. Here not only is the word invented—all words are—but the referent is invented too, and a story to suit. God is a one-word creation story.

                                                                      Tim Parks

I do read a lot.  It is getting harder and harder to hold my attention with the difficult and the boring, but I still try to plow through these things.  The act of reading allows me to better understand the world, to try and place myself in another's place and understand the complexities of another's life.

I think that I tend toward the fiction end of things because, when they teach me something, they do it on the sly, leading me toward a solution space.  Non-fiction is the work of people like my Professors, outlining a region of the solution space and bludgeoning it until it submits to their worldview.

Lately, my reading has been two remarkably different non-fiction books:

1. Limits to growth : the 30-year update / Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows.
2. Where I'm reading from : the changing world of books / by Tim Parks.

Bouncing back and forth between these two has been very enlightening,  By interleaving my reading back and forth, I can definitely get the real sense of the difference outlined above.  A search for the truth versus an explanation of what the truth consists of.

Limits to Growth was a seminal book in my early education.  It is now thoroughly vilified by anyone who measures with money and power.  The newer update I am reading now is from the turn of the millennium with much of the same as the 1972 version, albeit with more "I told you so's" and the requisite babble about how, if the greater bulk of humanity would just change their ways, the world can achieve the true millennium and live in a peaceful and stable world of ..... well...good things.

In a way, they are close relatives to the Christer's out there selling their brand of millennium.  A small sect, telling everyone to just set up a system where evil is constrained by good and all will be well.

But Qui Bono lives on, and people every, I repeat, people everywhere have wants which are simple.  They want what they want. And they want it now, and fuck anything that gets in their way.  So, the simple idea that just laws can tamp the urgency of peoples wants and needs and reproductive capacity are, while an excellent idea, just not going to work.

Nope, folks will drive their SUV's until they are empty.  They will stripmine heaven and earth for their toys and vittles, and they will look surprised when the pumps no longer work down at the gas station and they are looking at another plate of beans.

Now, you may think that the above rant was a digression from the original intent of this article.  No buckaroos, it was just a setup for the main point.  Reading is the real story of the article.  Jorgen and Donella and Dennis didn't write a story that was new.  They wrote a story that was old, as old as the lead in to the golden calf and to Ragnarok and to Kurukshetra.  Hubris and Nemesis have always been excellent story lines.  And no one ever listened to Cassandra.

So what story are we starting to write now?  The story line of population reduction by passivity and marginal malnutrition seems to never have been used before.  And this is with a good reason.  Because it is a lousy story.  What I am interested in is what old story are they going to recycle for this next go around?

Well, that is strange.

Even though I have made innumerable claims about not caring about who reads this blog, I must confess that I am not completely without my vanity.  So in the Blogger woodshed that holds my pending files I, not all that infrequently, check out the "Stats" to see how I am doing (in case you are curious, about 1,700 a month, well down from the old days of around 10,000 a month).

Now, don't get me wrong, I really don't especially care other than the internal preening à la Sally Fields (you like me, you really like me!).  But lately, one of my big traffic sources (7-8 a day!!) has been bigboobsdaily@blogspot. 

Well, far be it from me to judge, but this seems to be an odd intersection.  Myself, I approve heartily of large breasts in tight clothes.  Matter of fact, this (these?) is (are?) one (two?) of my favorite thing(s).

So, thank you, unknown benefactor for the shout out and the smile that I was allowed

An aside note:Since I cast Hexagram 5 two days in a row now, I think that I will pay greater attention. 

There was a moving line in the beginning both times.  Here is the line commentary.

The danger is not yet close. One is still waiting on the open plain. Conditions are still simple, yet there is a feeling of something impending. One must continue to lead a regular life as long as possible. Only in this way does one guard against a premature waste of strength, keep free of blame and error that would become a source of weakness later on.

This also appears to be my 1,500 post

Cri de Couer

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,” ....Samuel Johnson

I am not feeling that one at all.

Look, this little affectation under Alphabet's watchful eye has never made me a dime.  The chances of me writing something that will spin me into the lottery system that is the publishing industry is only marginally more achievable than winning PowerBall.

So why do I do it?

I think that simply put, it is a diary.  Now if I were a 17th century man, I would probably be doing the same, merely with a wastepaper book and a quill, rather that tapping away at little beveled plastic squares and watching the letters appear on an LED.   But the process is the same.  Just write down what is passing through my brain that day.

The only difference is there are some odd souls and friends dropping by occasionally.  By intenet standards, I might at well be tacking a piece of paper on a bulletin board in downtown Milwaukie and I would probably get greater readership.  So, the question comes back, why do I do this.

I have been pondering this a lot lately.  I can't really explain this.  I just need to write something every day or I get crabby.  Whether or not people read it is secondary to the act.

I think that more and more it serves as a means for me to point things out.  We live in a society of people who, to me, appear to spend the bulk of their lives in quiet desperation.  The way that they get through the day is to ignore the impending and place all their hope in the idea that it will be better tomorrow.

So this little bit of nothing, tucked away in the belly of the beast, allows me a free rein to my worldview.  Where the Everyman on the way to work or the everywoman trying for something better is out there chasing yesterdays dreams are in their shiny new car, I sit here in my apartment writing.  They are looking toward a better future.  I am looking for a changed future.

Dead Ends

Chatted with Locutius today, always a good thing.  I was thinking about going to pay a visit and drink his overpriced whiskey, but he pointed out that there was snow on the ground and further voiced his hopes that it would stay there.  That blew my desire to visit the Methow Valley anytime soon.  Maybe in May.

One of the things that we discussed was the seeming dead end where physics has seemed to arrive.  The background for this view can be found here:

http://nautil.us/blog/the-present-phase-of-stagnation-in-the-foundations-of-physics-is-not-normal

Overall, I tend to agree with the article:  But there are caveats.  I am in awe of the Michelson Morley experiments, but Michelson had to open his yap in 1894 and come up with this exemplar of stupid:

While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. It is here that the science of measurement shows its importance — where quantitative work is more to be desired than qualitative work. An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.

But truthfully, you really can't blame Michelson, Einstein was 10 years away and the theoretical basis of the twentieth century "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies" was nowhere to be found.  Physics was going nowhere fast.

I kinda agree with all the points brought up in the article with one caveat:  But it ain't just physics that has this problem, it is the project of science.

Physics is the easier problem to see, all the hoopla lately has been a bunch of big talk about the Higgs Boson.  Well fuck, that took several good hard shakes of the money tree to come up with that expected result.  The LHC is a hell of a deal, one could argue that it is the most expensive and complex technology in the history of the planet, but the expected results that the physicists are crowing about kinda lead exactly to nowhere.

Now is where I will show my weirdo credentials.  I think that the reason that physics is in this straits are twofold:

1. Too many fucking physicists
2. Too narrow of a view of what science really means

Science is stuck because it sees itself as a separate priesthood (yes, I was a scientist and I was guilty as charged).  In my dotage, and while licking my wounds following my failure and exit from the field, I have had way too much time to think about this.  The cult of science cannot advance because it has become too intent on home run results in tightly constrained fields.  But the real problem is that the constraints of the individual hyper-specialized "fields" cannot create anything new.  Because they have "defined" their way out of any advance worthy of the name.  

I think that perhaps a return to the role of "Natural Philosopher" will allow renewed growth.  But I doubt in my soul of souls that such a thing can ever be possible in the governmental/educational/capitalist arena that currently defines the goals and roles of science in our world

Return and Structure

I am sitting in the cold light of morning on a Saturday.  I am looking at a bunch of half-naked trees and the leaves on the green grass surrounding them.  We have a month to go until the solistice and things will be getting progressively more dreary for over a month yet.  But, such is life.


Just got back from Cicero's today.  An excellent haul of conversations, book recommendations, and new music.

Today, I will be working to get supplies and needs taken care of and getting ready to return to my low impact lifestyle (some would use the words "poor white folk" but they are just being crude) I will be working out those details today with Castor and Pollux.  As the younger now has his driver's license, I am letting him use the old kid-hauling pod to run around this coming week so the vehicle will be out of the state for a day or two. This absence is not at all a problem, but not having the convenience of having the "white whale" available at a whim requires greater pre-planning for supply.

While this may seem to be a non-sequitor, yesterday, on the way home from the family-hookey escapade, I stopped by and picked up some of the #10 cans from my ill-fated and poorly managed plan to escape the zombie apocolypse (ZA).  I am now of a sufficient age to realize that, in the case of a zombie apocolypse, I ain't gonna make it anyway.

Now this is all rationalization, but I am coming to the conclusion that things like my ZA experience were just good ideas in general, that things that I thought of as "Survivalist/Prepper" are just sensible ways to live in a world entering an era of decline.  So why not use up the pantry foods that I bought at such expense years ago.  Integrate them into my cooking.  I think that the easiest way to survive ZA is to stay home and keep your head down

For the most part, when one looks at the basics required to live a good life, the actual needs are fairly minimal. For me, it is

1. shelter,
2. electricity,
3. food,
4. water,
5. spices,
6. a used and ancient laptop,
7. books,
8. some "get loose"
9. and music. 

I guess that what I am doing here is working through in my head what I have to keep and what requires further purging.  Purging alone cannot allow one to work out a decent method of living in a world defined by less.  But keeping things that aren't truly important to one's happiness is a fools game.


I am currently evaluating and re-evaluating my need for a screen to watch football.  I am also looking at my communication needs, but my cell phone is enough to provide for voice and internet.

The Second Question

The second core question is what are the benefits conveyed by taking a risk?  

Also to be determined is what should be the rewards for risk? 

Qui Bono

(just a heads up, nothing to be posted on Turkey Day.  BTW:  America would probably be a better place if the pilgrims and their religious fanaticism would have went elsewhere)

It's really one of the two core questions. Is the world a zero-sum game as I believe, or is it a expanding pot of possibilities where more is to be had today than yesterday.

I was subtly chided over at Colonel Lang's place the other day, it was announced that my thinking was that of a person who viewed the world as a zero sum game, with the  unspoken, yet quite obvious assertion is that one who believes in the zero-sum game is somehow less than one who doesn't.

But in this world of Archdruids and Astronauts, I suppose that I tend to come down on the side of the perception of those of us deemed less superior.  Because a finite world, with finite resources and finite intelligence, zero sum is the only game that is real.

Now, this is going to come as an uncomfortable assertion for those on the side of the growth model.  Because usually, the better off a person is, the more they need to believe in the infinite growth model.  This is a societal thing here in the West, where the core belief in the equality of all butts head-first into the reality of not enough.

Our society has always believed fervently in the idea that there will always be more available tomorrow than is available today.  In truth, that core belief is almost the political and psychic definition of what it is to be an American.

I can't imagine that there are many out there who are willing, or even capable of changing their point of view on this subject.  There are myriads of reasons, all safe and comfortable, which argue against such a rash decision.

All I am asking people is the socially awkward and decidedly unwelcome question, what do you do when you have been wrong?

Post Minimalist

Chatting with C-C-Claudius yesterday got me to thinking about the "bricks and sticks" of my life.

When I made the decision to run away from Vancouver and set up here on the shores of the Willamette, I did a major purge of the material accoutrements of my prior life, you know, the ones that I acquired in my maybe ill-advised plan to raise my children in a reasonably normal middle-class lifestyle.  It was only too late that I realized that I wasn't doing them any favors.

Now, my chilluns is out, and it appears that they are trying to figure out how to run their lives.  It also appears that they tend to be leaning toward the middle class American idea of stuff and mobility.

Hence the desire to write this post, as the chillun's is looking at entering the workforce, it appears that their goals are the same as the relative opulence that they see as "normal" and their due.

I, on the other hand, have reduced my load of the material a lot lately, I am now looking at reducing it a lot more.  Now, this shouldn't take too much effort.  There really isn't all than much left to get rid of.  I don't quite fill a 525 square foot apartment, so the selections for my purging seem to be getting scarce on the ground.

Furniture is down to three or four major items, bed, sofa, table, bench/chairs.  There are some smallish things like stainless steel shelves and end tables, and one has to keep fans to move air in a non-flow-through air environment, but that is still pretty scarce stuff.

I am having a serious problem deciding whether to keep the TV.  The only thing that I watch on it is football.  Seriously, I just turned it on last week to watch for the first time this season since the Eagles won the Super Bowl.  So, Do I need to keep this 42-inch anchor for a viewing pleasure that I am obviously losing any kind of serious interest in.

Clothes are an interesting problem right now.  I have a bunch of shirts and levis and socks.  I probably have too many pairs of shoes, but that problem is self solving as I continue my walking.

I need to sit down and go over my kitchen stuff.  Lord, I got a problem here.  I wrote a post in the long ago about my unnatural leanings in the direction of rubbermaid, I need to revisit this.  I am thinking that my shelf of cheap disposable food-storage dinguses need to be recycled.  Clear up a full shelf in the kitchen.  Pans and such are a little out of hand, but not much.  I am thinking that I need to sit down and ponder what I need to get rid of, but this is just a trimming, it is not a purge.

Books are a problem/gift.  I have actually begun to prefer reading on e-ink readers over paper books.  These old eyes like bigger fonts and backlighting.  Paper just doesn't provide these luxuries.  Right now my inventory is at a historic low, I foresee this going down from here.  I am guessing that I have around 50-60 books, I think that they need to go to Vintage books for credit.

Will keep you up to date.

Cicero: The Root of the Problem

Another Discussion by Cicero

I am not blaming the non-elite working people for anything, nor am I defending the so-called elite; I am only looking logically.

What will happen in the consumer culture of the USA in the future is not what citizen Mr. Smith (or his representative in congress) decides is best for the USA, it is what consumer Mr. Smith believes will provide the highest quality of living for Mr. Smith. Each generation must be “better off” than the last and to support this goal the economy, like a tumor, must grow no matter what. These are the fundamentals of our capitalism.

It does not matter whether that which is good for Mr. Smith is good for others or the country as a whole; Mr. Smith will not vote for a candidate who does not promise to improve his standard of living and support the idea that any problem Mr. Smith has in obtaining a better lifestyle is no fault of Mr. Smith himself. If Smith is a coal miner, he will vote for the politician who denies global warning and changes the energy policy of the entire country accordingly - to give Mr. Smith the lifestyle he deserves. 

American factory workers who lose their job to the effects of globalism want to blame the elite for making greedy business decisions, but all the business decisions made by the elite are based on the actions of the factory worker him/herself - as a consumer, not a worker, not on the actions of the elite. Other than trying to determine what blue-collar/typical consumers will buy when given free choice, the elite have no interest whatsoever in the economy cars, or cheap food, or cheap anything else that will be assembled or grown in Mexico or China versus in the USA. The only people who care about products built/grown in Mexico and China, etc., is the blue-collar consumer. Thus, the people who determine the result of this despised globalism are the workers/common people themselves, not the elite. Before they can be labeled workers or any other classification of human being, workers are now, first and foremost, consumers - this is the victory won by our capitalism.

H L Mencken said the central belief of every moron is that they are the victim of a vast conspiracy against their common rights and just deserts. This is the belief that supports Trumpism and it is pure bullshit with regards to the loss of American jobs.

The real issue of import in this tremendously wealthy country of ours, is how the vast wealth is distributed; obviously - and since money is for spending, the issue is how do people spend their money. When factory workers spend their hard-earned money, they universally support globalism and the forces that will ultimately eliminate their job. When the elite spend their money, they are not motivated to support the forces of globalism because, for the most part, they do not care what the products they buy cost. If the theory is that the elite are causing the move toward globalism, then the complaint must be that the elite are too cheap - not willing enough to spend more than they need to spend. I do not think this is the problem. It is the working-class consumer that will never pay a premium to save an American job in the future. People may say that they will pay more for American-made products when a phone bank caller asks, but they will never follow through in real life - zero percent will and this defines the relevant characteristic of our culture; does it not?

-

Idea Seed: A different way of posting and discussion

To:  Claudius, Degringolade

RE:  Magic and other such fripparies

I haven't really discussed this much during our recent conversations, but I have been outlining a book about magic coming back to this world after a long banishment.  I realize that you tend not to want to read JMG anymore, so this may not be all that welcome a reading pleasure, but since I am turning this little piece of screed into a post, I thought that I would use the e-mail format to attempt the "kill two birds with one stone" trick to get your opinions along with getting the screed up in the drafts woodpile up on blogger.

https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/39410.html

Now, there have been a couple of posts over there at Degringolade I have been working on, just an open kinda woolgathering effort of ideas and half-baked themes to work on and maybe lash together into something that I could submit to a publisher for immediate dismissal. 

https://mightaswellliebackandenjoyit.blogspot.com/2018/11/idea-seeds.html

https://mightaswellliebackandenjoyit.blogspot.com/2018/11/idea-seed-2-underlying-causes.html

https://mightaswellliebackandenjoyit.blogspot.com/2018/11/idea-seed-3-magic-as-ability-to-access.html

So, today's efforts and reading are a discussion of the current "magic" community and the motivations and politics therein.  What I am thinking of exploring is the all-too-human capacity of people everywhere and of every ilk to manage to miss the point completely.  JMG's article over at Dreamwidth seems to support this idea.  But if magic did come back, what would the current people trying to utilize the "technology" think of the process of it's return?

Most people who dabble in magic and magical thinking in today's world are pretty damn "fringey" people.  Doesn't mean that they are wrong, it just means that their thoughts and pre-existing mental states are conditioned by a society unused to, and perhaps hostile to the magic that they will encounter upon it's return. 

So, long and short of it, this is a test, this is only a test, there is no required reading, there is no required response.  If you do wish to chime in....well, I am not at all certain how that will work right now/

Idea seed: 3, magic as an ability to access the polycosm

Holes in sides of the tunnels of time was the phrase that I laid down in an aide-memoire for another post about writing.   Now, this may sound somewhat kitschy and maybe even serve as a working title, but I think that I will spend some time writing more about the nature of magic in the world that I am imagining.  

OK, the firs thing is that the world this is being written in is effectively ours, with all of it's warts and inconsistencies.  But the basis of this story is that magic, having been pretty darned near killed through a combination of technology, Christianity, and booze, is beginning to get some traction on its return.  The return is by no means assured.  The things that depressed it are still there and active.

Now, magic isn't all that impressive.  For the most part it appears to be the ability to channel a smallish portion of the magic field to change the consciousness of yourself and the people around you.  Most of the time the changes are trivial and don't involve anything difficult.  But sometimes the changes are serious enough to shift the user out of this "world" world and into a parallel track where the changes are possible.

Most of the big changes are precluded by the "big three" magic depressors.  But now that the depressants are beginning to lose their efficacy, magic is starting to happen. 

Idea seed: 2 Underlying Causes

The past 300 or so years have been ruled by the odd marriage of science and Christianity.  Christianity is dying out in the west, and the American flavor is kind of tainted irreparably by the peculiar devotion to Ayn Rand that serves as an addition pillar of "Christianity" here in the good ol' USA.  Let's posit that one of the reasons that it hung on is that alcohol served to depress that part of us that might attune us to magic.

Hence the importance of wine in the Christian Ritual. Christ's first miracle was turning water into wine.  I have almost no doubt that other drugs were available and their effects known, but the long history of Greek and Roman boozing is still with us.

Now, we weren't the only major culture that likes their booze.  The Persians are fond of their Shiraz, and Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan invented the alambic in the long ago.  But the technology didin't really take off until nearly eight centuries later with the advent of the industrial revolution and the need for more.

So, just to make it clear, I am by no means going to stop my long-standing love of the booze due to this odd-ass writing seed, I am just curious as to what depressed the knowledge and use of magic in the last three centuries.  I am thinking that the depression of magic might be multivariate in nature.  I am thinking through a bunch of different changes that could be shanghaied by fiction to support a strange story.  Possible candidates for this are:

1.   Booze as a depressant and magic suppressor
2.   Newtonian thinking as a way to not focus on the courtesy required to work with the magic "vectors"
3.   Population as a thinning agent for the medium of magic, there is a certain bandwidth available for the actual medium of magic, and everyone has some ability to access the bandwidth.  Also, everyone has limited use of magic (hence dreams and serendipity) but in population concentrations, the ability to access gets badly diluted.

More to come on this, I figure that I have to work out the "magic" system prior to get going on characters.

Cicero's Response

Sent originally by Cicero in response to my linking the original article over at Ecosophia

Good stuff for sure. I like Oswald Spengler's mind and ideas, but I am a modern American looking toward immediate results and winning, so analyzing the cycles of world history can only go so far toward adequately explaining what is going on. A general change from A to B can be caused by completely different phenomenon in one case/time versus another. At some point, the details become important to understanding the causes. For the relevant details today, I am wondering if it is necessary to go beyond Marx.

What is the most de-humanizing type of job? How about the examples of coal mining and factory jobs - mind-numbing, brainless work where a person is required to act just like a machine and no more; day in and day out - until the end. This is what we are shooting for apparently. Why? Is this are far as Manifest Destiny and the great American vision takes us?

Other than racism, the fuel for Trumpism is ultimately American consumerism. Trumpism is at root a political sales/con instigated by a salesman who cannot possibly fulfill the order he has taken from the working-class voters. The working classes don’t want factory jobs for any reason other than their will toward better stuff - which, in their cases, must be inexpensive.

What those who have more than enough money (Intelligentsia) want from the economy is essentially less, not more, than the working classes. The rich want for better stuff, while the working classes, in their lives/worlds, want for better and less expensive stuff - the latter requirement being all-important. Where did all the wonderful neighborhood book stores go? They went out of business. Why? Because the people who loved neighborhood book stores preferred to buy better (sooner in hand) and less expensive books when given the opportunity. If those who loved having neighborhood book stores could do the last 10 years over again with the benefit of hindsight, the same fucking result would occur. There you have it.  

It is the working classes that are demanding and getting the so-called globalism phenomenon and the associated loss of jobs, not the Intelligentsia who have no personal motivation to globalize other than what is demanded by consumers. This may sound improbable/wrong, but it is not - the ultimate driver is the consumer. Unlike the working classes, the Intelligentsia will pay more than necessary for products they consume (for many reasons), but the working classes will never be willing pay more than necessary; if they do, then in their mind, they have been conned and they are unhappy.

The percentage of working-class Americans who are willing to pay $2000 more for a $30,000 car/truck, or $250 more for their $2,000 heater/air-conditioner, or $50 more for their weekly groceries - for the purpose of providing good-paying jobs for American workers, is not 100% or 50% or 10% or 5%; it is zero percent. The enemy is us - not the Intelligentsia.           

Trump is a self-extinguishing flame - he is a con man whose plan must always include the final step of getting out of town at the right time. Trump has no sensible plan to help the working classes - everything he has done so far is destructive to creating long-term employment opportunities. Trump cannot survive beyond the point where American consumers realize that the benefits they have been blindly consuming from the global trough (see Walmart prices for example) have been lost. This may take a while - maybe a few years, but it is inevitable.