The way

On certain days, powers converge and a theme emerges. A couple of days ago, something decided that it was going to be a day where people from out of town continually approached me for directions. First, two young Japanese ladies on W. Burnside asked about how to find the stop for the #56 bus. At Powell's an older gentleman in the coffee shop wanted to know how to get to OMSI. Then, on the streetcar, two greyhaired grandparents who were confused about where the shopping districts were were dissuaded from debarking at the Good Samaritan Hospital stop (where there are no shops) and instead exiting at NW 23rd & Marshall and walking south. If I hadn't gone home then there would probably have been more. I picture them wandering about downtown Portland looking for yet another person whose unofficial duty of the day is giving directions.

The Culture of Make Believe

Earlier this year, David Edwards, the author of Burning All Illusions, said to me, "If the first rule of a dysfunctional system is 'Don't talk about it,' then our primary goal should be to tell the truth, to be as honest as we can manage to be. When I read something truthful, something real, I breathe a deep sigh and say, 'Fantastic - I wasn't mad or alone in thinking that, after all!' So often we are left to our own devices, struggling in the dark with this external and internal propaganda system. At that point, for someone to tell us the truth is a gift. In a world where people all around us are lying and confusing us, to be honest is a great kindness."

The primary point is this: I now understand that the dissonance I felt for so long is a natural step in rejecting one's socialization - a less refined term would be brainwashing. It is not possible - at least in my own case - to move from one way of perceiving the world to another without a transition of confusion, loss, even hopelessness. Had I known this earlier - had I an understanding of how transitions occur - my period of questioning my sanity may have been shorter, my desperation less deep. This may have been a good thing. Or it may not have been a good thing: My search for a community of like hearts and minds (in books and in person) may then have been less intense, less immediate.

I don't suppose that at this point it much matters. That particular transition is over for me, and so far as the other transitions and transformations that take place now, more or less routinely, I have come to accept dissonance - confusion, contradictory impulses, fear - as something not to be feared in and of itself, but in a sense to be welcomed and entered into as a necessary doorway to new understanding.

-- from The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen

"If I were permitted to write all the ballads I need not care who makes the laws of the nation."

-- Andrew Fletcher

Two recent Oregonian headlines . . .

. . . that might be (but aren't) related:

"Seaside man arrested in I-205 hit-and-run"
and
"Woman who hit dead horse wins $2.7 million"

Seen on Tri-Met Tales

"An elderly fellow once sat next to me. He smelled like a box of crayons and it was quite pleasant."

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

– Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964
Mario Savio, "Bodies Upon the Gears" speech

The Absurdity of Debt

"When a person with spare money helps an entrepreneur start a business, it should be seen as a risky investment, not as a loan. Entrepreneurs should be financed by investors who stand to lose their money if the business fails — it should not be seen as a repayable loan. No debt! This approach will massively reduce malinvestments because it will encourage high levels of due diligence. Moral hazards are eliminated when people have skin in the game. A reduced incidence of malinvestments will in turn make the inevitable recessions mild and brief, as opposed to the economic meltdown we are currently living through (and which has barely begun). For the situations in which borrowing money is inevitable, the borrower should resort to peer-to-peer lending and let the lenders compete on interest rates. Additionally, debt should be seen as a temporary measure, not as a permanent feature of life."

For more on "The Absurdity of Debt" click here