Oh my word, Douglas, you found the words I've been groping for, expressed with such soul. I write every morning at 7 with a group. We meditate and then work. Every day, I find words for something. Today is the first day the sky was light when I sat down. It's that time in the Pacific Northwest when the earth's annual turning seems to speed up, our village putting our face into the sun earlier. The quiet of a snow flurry left a lovely dusting on everything in this gray green blue landscape. This is a reminder. The seasons roll on. The light returns (or seems to from the perspective of life on my patch of earth). Change is all there is, change within larger patterns. And so we learn the lessons of change. I too loved my earlier life of being a "changemaker," really believing we could turn the tide, ooze love and care into every interstice in a brittle world. I wish all young people could taste such times. Glorious. And a success, no matter that love didn't win at scale. But, as you say, love wins in more humble ways. There is a skill to mutual aid. It isn't just showing up for one another in crisis. It's a steady presence in community, becoming the stillness. We are being wrenched from our infancy and magical thinking, if we are willing, and taking our places in the life of the village. And still, today, the harshness of the actions, especially shutting down agencies that, however tainted, provide care around the world, and the summary firing of thousands of workers cast out from the sources of meaning and income, broke me. So I needed this long, thoughtful, soulful sermonette.
There is so much in here Doug. First, absolutely congratulations to your daughter and your family for finally figuring out what was causing her illness.
I also wanted to point out how similar this essay and in particular this quote; "Now I’ve spent most of life and career thinking of myself as an agent of change....I really believed we could use those deliberate mechanisms to create policy, fight the power, and create measurable change. Actual progress. That’s really the premise of prophetic Judaism: that we should focus on making the world a better placeI find myself slowing changing from an agent of change to an agent of care. I’m less confident in the impact my activism might have on policy than I am about the impact my care may have on other human beings, as well as how they might trickle up to the systems that need changing."
This is essentially the work Dougald Hine, author of "At Work In the Ruins" and one of the writers founders of the Dark Mountain Project, has been saying for years now. https://substack.com/@dougald
I want to acknowledge that you have been years ahead of nearly everyone on so many issues related to media theory, social media, and technology in general but this place you have reached, many of us are all coming to together at the same time. Daniel Pinchbeck just interviewed with Paul Kingsnorth who wrote the Dark Mountain Manifesto with Dougald Hine. Now more than ever the scattered pockets of counter cultural resistance must come together for the common good. Work locally, do good and be with our communities, but also connect outside to the others doing similar work and step down a bit from our individual pedestals. Dougald Hine is humble and wise beyond his years.
Lastly this quote; "It’s an interesting metaphor and reality for this moment, no? For becoming distracted by things, and learning to explore the in-between? Of course, the surgeon found a ton of the stuff, fusing things like the appendix, colon, ovaries…. Everything was stuck together down there, but in a way that couldn’t be detected by looking at the things themselves. Connective tissue wasn’t even acknowledged, much less treated as an organ" hits the bullseye on the work of Iain McGilchrist author of "The Master and his Emissary". McGilChrist points how our society has become Left Hemisphere dominant and can only see things, while it's the more important right hemisphere that sees the connections between everything. McGilChrist and Hine are absolutely playing for Team Human and would make excellent guests on your podcast. Much love to you for these words of kindness and compassion.
Douglas - thank you for saying all of this. You've articulated many things I'd been feeling my way around like a blind man trying to figure out the shape of an elephant. Thank you for describing the elephant.
Also - excellent news about your daughter's diagnosis and treatment!
It is not as if there haven't been those of us that have tried to fire directional flares into the night sky to guide those that are currently lost at sea back to the shoreline. I tried to address those issues here:
The Left’s Crossroads: Will They Learn, or Double Down?
The truth is, we need a functional “left” and a functional “right.” This is not about sides to me this is about what moves the needle. In ideal circumstances, the job of the left when operating in a healthy mode is to look at complex systems and the externalities they create that negatively impact people at the lowest parts of the social strata. Their role is to say hey, this needs to be fixed, here are some reforms to mitigate these problems.
The job of the right when functioning in a healthy mode is to say, let's not reform too much, let’s preserve these systems, institutions, and work together to improve them for the greater good because they have value. Then in theory there's a healthy productive conversation, that happens between the left and the right that finds common ground, solves problems, and moves the needle for American society.
On the other hand, when the left is operating in an unhealthy mode. The attitude is let's tear everything down, let's destroy it all because it's all corrupt. The right's response to this is to say, well, no, we're not going to change anything now. In fact, even things that are no longer of use, we're just going to hang on to them forever.
As a result, you get what we have a dysfunctional political environment where each side are now enemies to one another, and nothing changes.
Oh my word, Douglas, you found the words I've been groping for, expressed with such soul. I write every morning at 7 with a group. We meditate and then work. Every day, I find words for something. Today is the first day the sky was light when I sat down. It's that time in the Pacific Northwest when the earth's annual turning seems to speed up, our village putting our face into the sun earlier. The quiet of a snow flurry left a lovely dusting on everything in this gray green blue landscape. This is a reminder. The seasons roll on. The light returns (or seems to from the perspective of life on my patch of earth). Change is all there is, change within larger patterns. And so we learn the lessons of change. I too loved my earlier life of being a "changemaker," really believing we could turn the tide, ooze love and care into every interstice in a brittle world. I wish all young people could taste such times. Glorious. And a success, no matter that love didn't win at scale. But, as you say, love wins in more humble ways. There is a skill to mutual aid. It isn't just showing up for one another in crisis. It's a steady presence in community, becoming the stillness. We are being wrenched from our infancy and magical thinking, if we are willing, and taking our places in the life of the village. And still, today, the harshness of the actions, especially shutting down agencies that, however tainted, provide care around the world, and the summary firing of thousands of workers cast out from the sources of meaning and income, broke me. So I needed this long, thoughtful, soulful sermonette.
There is so much in here Doug. First, absolutely congratulations to your daughter and your family for finally figuring out what was causing her illness.
I also wanted to point out how similar this essay and in particular this quote; "Now I’ve spent most of life and career thinking of myself as an agent of change....I really believed we could use those deliberate mechanisms to create policy, fight the power, and create measurable change. Actual progress. That’s really the premise of prophetic Judaism: that we should focus on making the world a better placeI find myself slowing changing from an agent of change to an agent of care. I’m less confident in the impact my activism might have on policy than I am about the impact my care may have on other human beings, as well as how they might trickle up to the systems that need changing."
This is essentially the work Dougald Hine, author of "At Work In the Ruins" and one of the writers founders of the Dark Mountain Project, has been saying for years now. https://substack.com/@dougald
I want to acknowledge that you have been years ahead of nearly everyone on so many issues related to media theory, social media, and technology in general but this place you have reached, many of us are all coming to together at the same time. Daniel Pinchbeck just interviewed with Paul Kingsnorth who wrote the Dark Mountain Manifesto with Dougald Hine. Now more than ever the scattered pockets of counter cultural resistance must come together for the common good. Work locally, do good and be with our communities, but also connect outside to the others doing similar work and step down a bit from our individual pedestals. Dougald Hine is humble and wise beyond his years.
Lastly this quote; "It’s an interesting metaphor and reality for this moment, no? For becoming distracted by things, and learning to explore the in-between? Of course, the surgeon found a ton of the stuff, fusing things like the appendix, colon, ovaries…. Everything was stuck together down there, but in a way that couldn’t be detected by looking at the things themselves. Connective tissue wasn’t even acknowledged, much less treated as an organ" hits the bullseye on the work of Iain McGilchrist author of "The Master and his Emissary". McGilChrist points how our society has become Left Hemisphere dominant and can only see things, while it's the more important right hemisphere that sees the connections between everything. McGilChrist and Hine are absolutely playing for Team Human and would make excellent guests on your podcast. Much love to you for these words of kindness and compassion.
For anyone who may care:
https://dark-mountain.net/about/
Douglas - thank you for saying all of this. You've articulated many things I'd been feeling my way around like a blind man trying to figure out the shape of an elephant. Thank you for describing the elephant.
Also - excellent news about your daughter's diagnosis and treatment!
It is not as if there haven't been those of us that have tried to fire directional flares into the night sky to guide those that are currently lost at sea back to the shoreline. I tried to address those issues here:
The Left’s Crossroads: Will They Learn, or Double Down?
https://substack.com/@kennetheharrell/note/c-88936105
Others have also tried:
“How Will Democrats and the Left Pick Up the Pieces in Trump's Second Term?”
By NYU professor of sociology Vivek Chibber
https://kasparian.substack.com/p/how-will-democrats-and-the-left-pick
“The Hills the Left Will Die On”
By Ruy Teixeira
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-hills-the-left-will-die-on
The truth is, we need a functional “left” and a functional “right.” This is not about sides to me this is about what moves the needle. In ideal circumstances, the job of the left when operating in a healthy mode is to look at complex systems and the externalities they create that negatively impact people at the lowest parts of the social strata. Their role is to say hey, this needs to be fixed, here are some reforms to mitigate these problems.
The job of the right when functioning in a healthy mode is to say, let's not reform too much, let’s preserve these systems, institutions, and work together to improve them for the greater good because they have value. Then in theory there's a healthy productive conversation, that happens between the left and the right that finds common ground, solves problems, and moves the needle for American society.
On the other hand, when the left is operating in an unhealthy mode. The attitude is let's tear everything down, let's destroy it all because it's all corrupt. The right's response to this is to say, well, no, we're not going to change anything now. In fact, even things that are no longer of use, we're just going to hang on to them forever.
As a result, you get what we have a dysfunctional political environment where each side are now enemies to one another, and nothing changes.
Will anyone listen?