The Right Way to Flourish

Before you read this, you should read the prior post, if you haven’t already. What I say below requires that you have looked at the two tables and the previous discussion. I do believe that the categorization of the behaviors is consistent with the brand features of the divided-brain-model (very left-hemisphere comment). The idea of self (singular) would signify some unitary being, acting metaphorically like a machine, run by a program that can produce a variety of distinctive behaviors. Distinctive according to some criteria that an observer might use to describe an action, but arising from a common mechanism. One’s… Read More

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I have just completed a course at the lifelong learning institution I belong to about three novels of displacement. Basically they are about how people respond after suddenly being transported from a world in which they have been acculturated to a completely different one. One was The Hunger Angel, by Herta Müller, a Nobel laureate in literature. It’s about an ethnic-German Romanian man who is removed to a Russian labor camp during WWII, and describes how he survives there during the 4-5 years he is interned. Another is Primo Levi’s, Survival in Auschwitz, an actual recounting of his experience. Other… Read More

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I can’t escape, but can reflect. Election Day Fears (A Villanelle) The evening news is full of doom and gloom. Our country may be coming to an end. Each founding father bestirs in his tomb. It doesn’t help to sit around and fume And get disturbed by the latest trend. The evening news is full of doom and gloom. My rising angst pervades the living room As I think what does that report portend? Each founding father bestirs in his tomb. A new forecast shows up. My spirits bloom, But I need be careful and not pretend. The evening news… Read More

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The promises of virtual reality are coming slower than expected. Even Metaverse (formerly Facebook) has reported poorer than expected progress. As well it should because we are not at all ready for such new technologies. We have yet to learn how to cope with real reality, much less something beyond it. If new technology could ever be the answer to dealing with large and significant social/environmental problems, it must first enable us to see the world and ourselves as they really are. What we really need is a clearer understanding about how we humans perceive and act within the world… Read More

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For those who come looking for something new, I apologize for the long absence. I have been working on some new stuff and have been buried in the process. But just to make sure you now I am still up and about, here is a poem that I recently wrote. As it tells, I am in a pretty down mood about the state of the world. Love to have your comments. No Tears Left As I walked, I saw a tree cry. A maple waking up, I thought. No, it was a great oak’s sadness. I passed by a rock,… Read More

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This post expands upon the previous one. Justice cannot be found in a text. Neither originalism nor textualism can result in justice, except by chance. Full stop. Justice cannot be found in the past. It lives only in the present moment. Justice exists only when the right systemic conditions allow it to come forth. Justice belongs to the same class of qualities as does beauty or fairness. Justice always depends on the contextual whole of the place and time it is to be found. Further, what is right cannot be found wholly in a text, Rightness, like justice, is a… Read More

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Amy Coney Barrett said in her Senate testimony that the Constitution has “the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it.” No. The Constitution Document and the words it contains have no meaning at all. A piece of text has as many possible meanings as there are people reading it. Only humans can create meaning from texts or spoken words. That is true of individual words and the sentences made from them. Much mischief has been done by conflating the written or spoken word with some inherent or essential meaning. The founding document “doesn’t change over time,” Barrett… Read More

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I have recently done a podcast and will be streaming an interview tomorrow. The podcast was done by Futurizer and can be heard on Trond Undheim’s website. https://trondundheim.com/podcast/ The direct link to the podcast is https://www.futurized.org/the-real-world-beyond-sustainability/ Tomorrow,, June 17th, I am streaming a conversation, sponsored by the International Humanistic Management Association. The live link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5102359757?pwd=MXhDdEJqVjVNWlE4S2JrcmxyTWVSdz09 I will post a link to the video after the event is over. This event is tied to the publication of an article in the periodical magazine, Amplify,  of Cutter, a member of the Arthur D Little Community. The article can be downloaded here.

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“The world is running out of options to hit climate goals, U.N. report shows” Is this headline from the WaPo (April 4, 2022) correct? I do not believe so. This old “joke” may help understand why. A policeman goes to help a drunk searching for something under a streetlight and asks what he has lost. He says his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes, the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, “No, I lost them in the park.” The policeman asks why he is searching… Read More

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Still batting zero in getting my opeds published. I thought this one was pretty timely. Even if the title seems nonsensical or blasphemous, it is a valid question. Whether or not “God” exists, some human being invented the word, “god,” or its equivalent in other languages. I can think of a few ways that this happened. One is as a neologism to explain something that was inexplicable, but important enough to require naming. I suspect this is how it happened because we know that early cultures showed signs of something we would call “god” or “gods.” Many natural phenomena would… Read More

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