Stone Riley's Blog: Stone Riley's Shoebox - Posts Tagged "climate-change"
Climate Confusion
(C) 2017 by S.Riley
First let's admit that man-made climate change is preposterous.
If the idea is not preposterous then why don't any ancient books mention it? It is not mentioned in the Bible, nor the ancient Greek authors, nor the Norse sagas nor Aztec inscriptions, nor old Chinese scrolls so far as I have ever heard. All of that is a vast and varied catalog of human thoughts where the idea of man-made climate change apparently does not appear. Though I am not a scholar of science fiction, my impression is that it did not even appear in science fiction until it first became well known science. It looks like this possibility never crossed our minds before.
So let's agree it is preposterous even though we know that it is true, and let's admit this is a difficulty.
Next let's admit that for the great majority of Americans today, their personal experience has not yet produced solid evidence. Even if a storm or drought or wildfire has destroyed their livelihood or their home and people, let us admit that a typical American's personal experience does not so far logically add up to this enormous proposition of man-made climate change.
For contrast, consider an old American person who has carefully watched the weather for decades, maybe a wise old farmer, sailor or aviator. I am sure they have personally observed sufficient evidence over the length of their lifetime. Otherwise, most of us in our country are so insulated from Nature that our life experience has not yet been enough to clearly show the climate curve.
Now moving on, let us reluctantly admit that you and I – although we know man-made climate change is real and a pressing threat to humanity's survival – on those occasions when we find ourselves talking with a skeptic, we haven't got the slightest notion of how to be persuasive. We will likely wander off into a vague search for what to say.
One cause of that difficulty can be quite embarrassing. If the skeptic who we're talking with is well prepared, it quickly becomes obvious that we have not kept up with the flood of pertinent information. Do solar panels or fracked gas cost less in dollars now? Does the newest design of windmills still slaughter birds? Given the recent observations in Antarctica, how fast are the oceans rising? What about sun spots? In a conversation with a well prepared skeptic we're always wishing for some piece of information that we haven't got.
Another conversation stumbling block: there are many other apocalypses in America's imagination. So how should we reply when a skeptic mockingly compares climate change with the zombie apocalypse? More seriously, if your skeptic worries most about overpopulation and resource depletion leading to nuclear war, do we have some strategy for adding climate change to their urgent list? What if biblical Armageddon looms large in their thoughts? What if they expect a final race war to solve it all? What if they cherish faith that billionaires will swoop like superheroes to the planet's rescue?
There we've reached the hardest problem: political deadlock. In America right now, the faiths in (1.) Biblical Armageddon, (2.) Total race war, and (3.) The virtuous triumph of greed, are very active political forces. These three old fantasies rise from deep in America's long choosing to be either fascist or free. Currently they are spun into the warp and weft of our urgent struggle between totalitarian capitalism and democratic socialism. And those three fantasies weave a fabric of illusion that resists our demand for America to face reality.
But now, since I'm saying it is good to face reality, then what about the other hardest problem? The one that you and I don't like to talk about: there is a very hard truth that deeply motivates a lot of climate skepticism, a piece of reality which we climate realists almost never mention: the lonely grief of losing Earth.
Many climate skeptics feel we are accusing them of murdering Mother Nature and they deny the charge with any arguments that come to hand. Meanwhile, we realists often react to our growing personal sensation of horrid anguish – and our own personal portion of the guilt – by displacing desperate anger onto our opponents. And overall, America is so divorced from Nature, so unfamiliar with instinctive human pagan animism, that we have no words of our own to talk about this spiritual agony.
What else should I say? Now that some disconcerting difficulties have been listed, what proposals do I offer?
A first suggestion is quite easy: we do not need to convince people that man-made climate change is real. That is not necessary. Let me repeat: it is not necessary for you or I to convince anyone that man-made climate change is real.
Instead, you and I should do this: first study what changes in America the experts on our side are now proposing as response to climate change. Then, do our best to persuade people that those changes will help with America's other urgent problems too.
Check back with the difficulties listed above and you'll see that this conversational gambit would help with several of them. It will also be easy for us to do because it's true. A host of lovely and practical improvements in our country are now being proposed as serious response to climate change, everything from just really practicing democracy wherever we can, to eating good food and being neighborly. We will even be getting with our team when we use the conversational tactic of emphasizing this, because many experts on our side are already using it.
Then what about the flood of climate change factual information, the fact that you and I cannot possibly keep up with it in its huge complexity, and the humiliating way a well prepared skeptic can run rings around us in conversation by using lies and misdirections that are simpler? Is there some way to bandage this embarrassment?
A conversation with my dear father forty years ago – he being then a wise old farmer and aviator – has given me a very simple proof of the reality of man-made climate change. This is not to say it convinces well prepared skeptics, but so far I have found that it has always made them feel a hole has been punched in their carefully polished armor of falsehoods. It is true and it is obviously true and it works like a straightforward end run around their line.
All you say is this: “Ever since modern industry first began – for the last few hundred years – our society has been pumping vast amounts of smoke into the air, and doing so at a constantly increasing pace. Now the idea that ALL THAT SMOKE has somehow NOT changed the weather is ridiculous.” Say that clearly, enunciating clearly, and at least you'll see them stop and catch their breath and suddenly dodge.
Now it's time to bring this little essay to a close. I will undoubtedly find more to say in other places about these perplexing difficulties that I've listed here but at this time I am seeing just one of the items above that must be the subject of this essay's closing paragraph.
The bewildering and increasing spiritual agony of losing Earth: what shall we do with this? This is a subject for the arts. This is a hard problem requiring multiple leaps of deep awareness, exactly the kind of problem of cognition that has forced our species to evolve the ability of doing art. Me, so far I am composing a one-act play, perhaps including music, to explore this foggy ground. I've also written here and there about it, and read a bit of that material with an audience. I hope you will accept this challenge in whatever work you do.
First let's admit that man-made climate change is preposterous.
If the idea is not preposterous then why don't any ancient books mention it? It is not mentioned in the Bible, nor the ancient Greek authors, nor the Norse sagas nor Aztec inscriptions, nor old Chinese scrolls so far as I have ever heard. All of that is a vast and varied catalog of human thoughts where the idea of man-made climate change apparently does not appear. Though I am not a scholar of science fiction, my impression is that it did not even appear in science fiction until it first became well known science. It looks like this possibility never crossed our minds before.
So let's agree it is preposterous even though we know that it is true, and let's admit this is a difficulty.
Next let's admit that for the great majority of Americans today, their personal experience has not yet produced solid evidence. Even if a storm or drought or wildfire has destroyed their livelihood or their home and people, let us admit that a typical American's personal experience does not so far logically add up to this enormous proposition of man-made climate change.
For contrast, consider an old American person who has carefully watched the weather for decades, maybe a wise old farmer, sailor or aviator. I am sure they have personally observed sufficient evidence over the length of their lifetime. Otherwise, most of us in our country are so insulated from Nature that our life experience has not yet been enough to clearly show the climate curve.
Now moving on, let us reluctantly admit that you and I – although we know man-made climate change is real and a pressing threat to humanity's survival – on those occasions when we find ourselves talking with a skeptic, we haven't got the slightest notion of how to be persuasive. We will likely wander off into a vague search for what to say.
One cause of that difficulty can be quite embarrassing. If the skeptic who we're talking with is well prepared, it quickly becomes obvious that we have not kept up with the flood of pertinent information. Do solar panels or fracked gas cost less in dollars now? Does the newest design of windmills still slaughter birds? Given the recent observations in Antarctica, how fast are the oceans rising? What about sun spots? In a conversation with a well prepared skeptic we're always wishing for some piece of information that we haven't got.
Another conversation stumbling block: there are many other apocalypses in America's imagination. So how should we reply when a skeptic mockingly compares climate change with the zombie apocalypse? More seriously, if your skeptic worries most about overpopulation and resource depletion leading to nuclear war, do we have some strategy for adding climate change to their urgent list? What if biblical Armageddon looms large in their thoughts? What if they expect a final race war to solve it all? What if they cherish faith that billionaires will swoop like superheroes to the planet's rescue?
There we've reached the hardest problem: political deadlock. In America right now, the faiths in (1.) Biblical Armageddon, (2.) Total race war, and (3.) The virtuous triumph of greed, are very active political forces. These three old fantasies rise from deep in America's long choosing to be either fascist or free. Currently they are spun into the warp and weft of our urgent struggle between totalitarian capitalism and democratic socialism. And those three fantasies weave a fabric of illusion that resists our demand for America to face reality.
But now, since I'm saying it is good to face reality, then what about the other hardest problem? The one that you and I don't like to talk about: there is a very hard truth that deeply motivates a lot of climate skepticism, a piece of reality which we climate realists almost never mention: the lonely grief of losing Earth.
Many climate skeptics feel we are accusing them of murdering Mother Nature and they deny the charge with any arguments that come to hand. Meanwhile, we realists often react to our growing personal sensation of horrid anguish – and our own personal portion of the guilt – by displacing desperate anger onto our opponents. And overall, America is so divorced from Nature, so unfamiliar with instinctive human pagan animism, that we have no words of our own to talk about this spiritual agony.
What else should I say? Now that some disconcerting difficulties have been listed, what proposals do I offer?
A first suggestion is quite easy: we do not need to convince people that man-made climate change is real. That is not necessary. Let me repeat: it is not necessary for you or I to convince anyone that man-made climate change is real.
Instead, you and I should do this: first study what changes in America the experts on our side are now proposing as response to climate change. Then, do our best to persuade people that those changes will help with America's other urgent problems too.
Check back with the difficulties listed above and you'll see that this conversational gambit would help with several of them. It will also be easy for us to do because it's true. A host of lovely and practical improvements in our country are now being proposed as serious response to climate change, everything from just really practicing democracy wherever we can, to eating good food and being neighborly. We will even be getting with our team when we use the conversational tactic of emphasizing this, because many experts on our side are already using it.
Then what about the flood of climate change factual information, the fact that you and I cannot possibly keep up with it in its huge complexity, and the humiliating way a well prepared skeptic can run rings around us in conversation by using lies and misdirections that are simpler? Is there some way to bandage this embarrassment?
A conversation with my dear father forty years ago – he being then a wise old farmer and aviator – has given me a very simple proof of the reality of man-made climate change. This is not to say it convinces well prepared skeptics, but so far I have found that it has always made them feel a hole has been punched in their carefully polished armor of falsehoods. It is true and it is obviously true and it works like a straightforward end run around their line.
All you say is this: “Ever since modern industry first began – for the last few hundred years – our society has been pumping vast amounts of smoke into the air, and doing so at a constantly increasing pace. Now the idea that ALL THAT SMOKE has somehow NOT changed the weather is ridiculous.” Say that clearly, enunciating clearly, and at least you'll see them stop and catch their breath and suddenly dodge.
Now it's time to bring this little essay to a close. I will undoubtedly find more to say in other places about these perplexing difficulties that I've listed here but at this time I am seeing just one of the items above that must be the subject of this essay's closing paragraph.
The bewildering and increasing spiritual agony of losing Earth: what shall we do with this? This is a subject for the arts. This is a hard problem requiring multiple leaps of deep awareness, exactly the kind of problem of cognition that has forced our species to evolve the ability of doing art. Me, so far I am composing a one-act play, perhaps including music, to explore this foggy ground. I've also written here and there about it, and read a bit of that material with an audience. I hope you will accept this challenge in whatever work you do.
A Roughly Tended Woods
(C) 2017 by S.Riley
This year I was old and it was rainy, so I celebrated Earth Day after the sun came out, alone and one day late, in the 90 acre woodland of our bucolic small old Massachusetts town.
I chose the most convenient spot to walk, not the big tangled berry thicket in the tall trees out behind our house. Instead, I took the car out to a corner of the woods just down our road, which was the Boston / New York postal rider's trail 250 years ago, but now leads past our neighbors' modest houses and the Polish cemetery. Just then there comes an inconspicuous sign in a little spot where you pull off sharply down the roadway's bank then brake and park and stop the engine.
It is a roughly tended 90 acre woods, challenging or even dangerous for a geezer who's gone wobbly around the knees from a winter's close confinement. Even here, in a corner of it designated for the public to go hiking, the trails appear to be simply dragged out by a tractor now and then.
These trails are wide but rocky where they are not mud. They give you curious ways to stride, first down to a big broad green algae pond utterly alive with darting insects and rotting trees fallen in, then round about to the surrounding low ridges of sunlit pale ghostly gray boulder field glacial moraine, a skeletal form of land whereon the trees and shrubberies grow thin.
I have come to love this beautiful and puzzling place. Global warming drives me mad with sorrow. Here there is a plague of ticks.
My habit of this lifetime is to urge children and their parents out toward Nature. I've done that countless times. Now it feels as if the outdoors has betrayed my loving trust.
Further north, up in New Hampshire where we go visiting sweet friends often, there the ticks are killing moose – yes even great moose – the huge wild cattle in their woods. Winters were formerly waves of frigid searing cold that killed the bloodsucking bugs in their hibernation. Now with worldwide climate change winters have become just seasons of cool wet heavy snow. In New Hampshire now, moose with ticks thick as fur on them stumble from the woods and die.
There are not near so many ticks as that with us here, but quite bad enough to worry. Their bite can bring disease, a disease of painful agony that stays for years. Last week we found one on our daughter's kitchen table, brought in on someone's shoe I guess, then climbed up and scampering across like a tiny spider till I crushed it, there with her little children in the room. I feel the outdoors has betrayed my trust.
I have prayed and dreamed on this before. Right now it's night but in the morning I expect to drum and sing and read the cards then write. If I were smoking ganja in these years, I'd take a pipe out to our backyard shed and do the drumming there. I cannot say some other god besides my god is doing this, pretend some other god has interposed itself between my god and I. Nor do I see sufficient cause for blame here in my self.
Back at the car below the road, an hour gone, I inspected my strong old walking stick very carefully for ticks and laid it in the boot. Then all the rest was checked: my scalp and ears, my clothing, arms, legs, shoes.
This year I was old and it was rainy, so I celebrated Earth Day after the sun came out, alone and one day late, in the 90 acre woodland of our bucolic small old Massachusetts town.
I chose the most convenient spot to walk, not the big tangled berry thicket in the tall trees out behind our house. Instead, I took the car out to a corner of the woods just down our road, which was the Boston / New York postal rider's trail 250 years ago, but now leads past our neighbors' modest houses and the Polish cemetery. Just then there comes an inconspicuous sign in a little spot where you pull off sharply down the roadway's bank then brake and park and stop the engine.
It is a roughly tended 90 acre woods, challenging or even dangerous for a geezer who's gone wobbly around the knees from a winter's close confinement. Even here, in a corner of it designated for the public to go hiking, the trails appear to be simply dragged out by a tractor now and then.
These trails are wide but rocky where they are not mud. They give you curious ways to stride, first down to a big broad green algae pond utterly alive with darting insects and rotting trees fallen in, then round about to the surrounding low ridges of sunlit pale ghostly gray boulder field glacial moraine, a skeletal form of land whereon the trees and shrubberies grow thin.
I have come to love this beautiful and puzzling place. Global warming drives me mad with sorrow. Here there is a plague of ticks.
My habit of this lifetime is to urge children and their parents out toward Nature. I've done that countless times. Now it feels as if the outdoors has betrayed my loving trust.
Further north, up in New Hampshire where we go visiting sweet friends often, there the ticks are killing moose – yes even great moose – the huge wild cattle in their woods. Winters were formerly waves of frigid searing cold that killed the bloodsucking bugs in their hibernation. Now with worldwide climate change winters have become just seasons of cool wet heavy snow. In New Hampshire now, moose with ticks thick as fur on them stumble from the woods and die.
There are not near so many ticks as that with us here, but quite bad enough to worry. Their bite can bring disease, a disease of painful agony that stays for years. Last week we found one on our daughter's kitchen table, brought in on someone's shoe I guess, then climbed up and scampering across like a tiny spider till I crushed it, there with her little children in the room. I feel the outdoors has betrayed my trust.
I have prayed and dreamed on this before. Right now it's night but in the morning I expect to drum and sing and read the cards then write. If I were smoking ganja in these years, I'd take a pipe out to our backyard shed and do the drumming there. I cannot say some other god besides my god is doing this, pretend some other god has interposed itself between my god and I. Nor do I see sufficient cause for blame here in my self.
Back at the car below the road, an hour gone, I inspected my strong old walking stick very carefully for ticks and laid it in the boot. Then all the rest was checked: my scalp and ears, my clothing, arms, legs, shoes.
The Future's Past, First Half
(First half of a rough draft of a performance script, seeing Global Warming in a consciousness of Spirit, Heart and Magic)
[Introduction part 1, invoking spirit of tragedy]
Hello folks. Thank you for being here.
“We are the future's past.” Curious title. It's a magical visualization, a confusing magic-mirror riddle kind of visualization. But here it is the title of a serious discussion so will it be meaningful and appropriate for that? Well, it does give an accurate impression. The events we are living in are so confusing and full of riddles.
“We are the future's past.” Want to see it? Try visualizing my vision of it, okay? I'll say this once and won't repeat it. Are you ready?
Suddenly now the future is quite unknown to us because enormous changes are happening very quickly. But we do know this: Very soon the past will be extremely different from the present and we will be that past. And I believe: We can become a richer and more useful past than we will be now.
Did you follow that visually? Well, anyway, I feel like this life now makes my head spin. It's like we are doing fast forward time travel. Whatever this is, it's all true, and yet it's utter confusion. So it definitely teaches me something. It teaches me that I need to think carefully nowadays. I need to mentally penetrate this present in a very truthful fashion so my life will become more useful to the future.
[Introduction part 2: declaring Saturnalia]
[May involve me holding up one hand, then other, then both, or even gesturing wildly.]
Who here can hold up their hand? Please feel free to hold up your hand.
Not now! Hold up your hand when there's something you should say, some serious contribution to the discussion. I'm guessing you can't do that yet. You don't even know what I'm going to talk about. But if there is a contribution you should make at some point, please feel free to signal with your hand or some other body part.
Well, no. Don't do that. That's not going to work. I have three major points I want to make and I'll be much too busy to ever call on you like that. Instead, let's do this: I'll stop and let you have a turn three times as we go along. How's that? It will be your turn three times. And maybe we'll have a few moments for discussion before time's up. Then after that you can go to my website and buy a book.
[Introduction part 3: near term extinction]
Well, I hope you laughed but that's actually a segue, about buying merchandise from a talker. It was a segue because my first big point is going to be money. Yes, money. If we want to mentally penetrate the present, let's talk about money first. Money is a fascinating and mysterious subject, isn't it?
Now, get me straight, I am reasonably well convinced that our Divine Planet's ecosystem is perishing. At this time. That is my very sorrowful and very reluctant opinion, after I have watched this criminal catastrophe of climate change coming toward us for my whole adult life, watched it coming for more than half a century. Now the Arctic is melting and it is now my opinion that this Divine Planet's web of life, where our eyes find love so deeply, this is being loosened and dissolved by global warming. And now finally near the end, that transition is happening very fast. That is the fast forward time travel I am feeling.
Whatever humor you hear from me in this talk today is what's called “gallows humor” or “horror humor” and I believe it's healthy. When Shakespeare used it, it's comedy relief. You might not realize Shakespeare stuck big guffaws into his horror plays – yes he did – hilarious gallows humor scenes just before the terrible catastrophes in Macbeth, Hamlet and others. And no, the humor is not comforting. It's not designed to be comforting.
It turns out Shakespeare understood our minds very well. The laughing is designed to momentarily clear your terror from your mind, and whatever other hope or guilt or whatever other compelling feelings you have experienced so far. Let that go for a moment, long enough that your careful thinking will kick in and you will penetrate the ensuing catastrophe better.
Tell you what, go find the 1996 all‑star movie of Hamlet. Watch all the way to near the end where Robin Williams walks on scene, in costume with a funny walk, and does Shakespeare comedy relief for five minutes. Authentic dialog. Walks back out again. Totally hilarious. Great comedian. See how awake that makes you feel. Then they have the big sword fight where everybody dies.
On the other hand, there is a scientific opinion, part of climate science, which may be comforting to you. It seems like some of the beings in the ocean depths and many of Earth's tiny microscopic life forms will survive this transition. And someday, long from now, it seems certain that the planet will cycle back to cool again. Then we can expect that the survivors will proliferate again into a magnificent flourishing of beauty such as we do love so dearly.
So life on Earth will probably continue to the distant future. And we humans are capable of extending our love in that direction. Many people are finding comfort in that scientific opinion. Perhaps you will.
And I know for sure – or at least I think I do – that life and death in this physical plane are only reflections of life that is larger. We humans know this. When we are sane and our minds are clear, we actually know this just as clearly as the other life forms on this planet know it.
There are definitely other realms of existence. Ask most any physicist. And it does seem like physical existence is a reflection or extension – or choose some other word – of our individual and universal conscious living presence in larger dimensions of existence. Both the Fox Sisters and the Buddha told us that. So do Rembrandt and the painters of the Lascaux Cave. Me, I like the way Jane Roberts says it in those old grainy videos. Also Imam Malcolm X and Reverend King. I will call that the psychic life or the soul life of Earth's ecosystem, which includes our human selves.
That psychic life of ours will undoubtedly continue, and be enriched by these experiences. In my opinion.
But let's get back to that later. That is going to be my big Point Three.
[Here begins Point One concerning money.]
Instead, the first thing I'd like to ask is this: How should you and I feel in our private hearts; how should we feel in our private hearts about the perpetrators; feel about the apparently guilty people who have perpetrated this astounding crime?
But when I ask that question, immediately I find another question. What caused global warming? Why has it happened? And I mean we should examine that question of “What Caused Global Warming?” before we get into assigning any guilt. Assigning guilt will come a little later on my agenda in Point Two. For now I want to ask “What Caused Global Warming?” and work through that to money.
Let's examine the causes of all this before we decide whether there is some guilt in you. Okay? Fair enough? If we're assigning guilt we must see how this happened, then decide if there is guilt in you. Or is there guilt in me, instead of you, or all of us? Or is there guilt in God or Goddess or their Holy Child or the President of the United States? Before we get to that, let's try to know how these circumstances transpired. And I suspect that will bring us immediately to money.
I can even offer some personal testimony on that which will be interesting. Speaking in my official capacity as a Druid. So kindly listen with your ears open when I offer some personal testimony in Modern Druid language.
And yes, I do hereby claim Druidic authority that you will herein listen while I use my Modern Druidic lore to explain an important aspect of global warming. And the object which my true life fable will address is this: “What Is Money?”
So if you will, good friends and friendly strangers, listen kindly while I tell a story. If it is told in proper terms it goes like this.
Lifelong, I had expected that we must finally answer “What Is Money?” For so many years I angrily expected that a deep hoard of Super Secret Money would be discovered deep in the roots of this astounding crime, discovered by us someday. I envisioned this fatal crime as an enormous poison tree with noxious vapors from its blossoms, growing huge with deep roots in our midst, and surely it must have a hoard of Money Super Secret hidden in it somewhere, as its soul and heart, hidden in some place that seemed unseeable.
Now finally we are near the end so this requires that I put modesty aside. I must tell you that I found that hoard. Yes, some years ago I found that hoard of deep money secrets when I was led into a magic journey where I traveled far in a small red boat and spoke with many, always asking “What Is Money?” And so at last, some years along that magic sojourn, I discovered money's secret wisdom hoard. Now I can tell you of it.
But when I'm done telling that, next thing then it will be your turn. So I will ask you what it means. I will ask you “What Do Riley's Patent Money Secrets Mean?” Understand, you are required to give your best considered answer to that question. And I'm warning. This is an official Druid warning. You better give your best thoughts on the current question when your turn comes, or else. If you don't put out serious mental effort, then you'll be cheating.
I am warning, when your turn comes in this conversational philosophy thing, this is a very serious ancient game the Ancient Druids used to play, a game with very strict social pressure enforcement. This is COMPETITIVE conversational philosophy. And you don't want to be a cheater. No chocolate Smores for cheaters. The Ancient Druids loved this more than Quidditch. So pay attention and think ahead.
We must ask “What Is Money?” And I have lived that story that I told you. I have lived a true life Druidic experience like in that story. I was led by unseen forces to a teaching job which I loved at a great museum. It was a magic wisdom journey. This is true. A great museum near our home allowed me take one of their jobs. This is true in physical reality so I've switched back to normal language.
You see, there is a great history museum near our home where I worked for years doing public education. A money free volunteer job. It was one day per week for four years, wearing a historical costume – an old timey business suit – and teaching our museum visitors by means of chat. Your chat would be centered in some particular subject matter and the particular subject matter they assigned me to felt surprising: commerce and money.
I am an anti-money anarchist and the management of an established institution slotted me to teach the history of commerce and money.
You see, it was an emergency. These four years were soon after the monstrous worldwide financial collapse. You remember that. There was a worldwide financial collapse in 2008 that has somehow faded into the background. But now this was the depths of the Great Recession and this famous institution of understanding history did not have a specialist in commerce and money. Until me.
You see, I am a software engineer, a semi-professional artist and a semi-retired business software engineer. An old anti-money anarchist walks in with thirty-five years experience in business consulting and asks for a public education job application. They give it to him.
They definitely needed to fill that slot because it was just after the astonishing financial collapse and members of the public have been led to expect some freaking education when they go in there. All the advertising even says they specialize in concentrated education. And since they didn't have any up‑to‑date curriculum in this vitally important subject, I was even required to develop one. That is to say, I must do research and present my results to the customers.
So you can see, it felt like intervention by some unnamed civic deity. By some means it had suddenly become an anarchist Druid's civic duty to diligently seek the Unseeable Hoard of Money Secret. In this remarkable position it felt like the secret must be very close, if only it could happen that my eyes pointed at it.
And the museum exhibit where they set me to work did feel a lot like a magic boat for traveling time and space. It felt like a real life Tardis if you will. My museum exhibit, that I inhabited one day per week, was an old timey bank building, very small and square, perfectly real in its substance, the exterior painted a curious old Roman Pompeii shade of pastel red, containing a perfect display of authentic documents and furniture. I loved it.
It was built in the early “young republic” period of America where there was a fad for making things seem Roman. With no sense of irony either.
It was a little building, built very cubical, built back in the day from solid stone and iron– to withstand attacks by bank robbers possibly equipped with kegs of gunpowder – transported to our museum's main street from its own Main Street one hundred eighty years ago in a nearby town.
So curious visitors are attracted to that great institution from the whole human world. And those who arrive and wish to penetrate money's mysteries are obviously quite attracted – often with considerable surprise – to my amazing time traveling cubical pink bank building with a big flashy gold sign above its antique pillared porch. So they would climb up the steps beneath its big gold sign, step in the big iron doors, and then they were suddenly pounced upon by the Druid lurking in it.
I'm sure you are not surprised that I started asking lots of visitors about my riddle. I asked many of them, and I tried to lure their best thinking out, on the question “What Is Money?” In the dark days of the Great Recession. And it turns out a lot of people are anti-money anarchists.
It evolved very nicely. I would provide my best thinking from all the previous chats – and from a few fine books which the discussion was leading me to – to stimulate their contribution. And I was unfailingly courteous to them, and kind to their children.
So that was the true life magic wisdom hunt which I traveled on for four years. An official civic duty volunteer public research service. A museum job chatting people up to careful thought about my favorite question.
And here's what I discovered: Money can be explained with evolution science. Money can be explained clearly with evolution science.
Money is a way of thinking and acting that arises from our natural instincts. (Therefore the unreasoning compulsions we feel so irresistibly around it.) We have our instincts from our ancient ancestors who lived a natural way of life. They lived a natural life for a long time, so long that they evolved to do it well in many different ways. The instincts which they developed and elaborated worked well in that way of life. But now some of our instincts are giving rise to this malignancy called money. That is because some of our instincts are working very badly in civilization.
To sum that up, I'm saying money comes out of natural human instincts that are not working right in civilized life. So surprising. Big discovery. So unexpected. I would even say it's maybe common sense now that we have enough evolution science. Please anybody who actually felt surprised by that, hold up your hand! In fact, I bet many of you have strongly suspected it ever since you heard from Jane Goodall about her scientific study results.
But this has value because I am officially verifying that your suspicion was true. You can definitely believe it now because you have received the treasure from a magic journey in a boat. Or else you have received the results of a bona fide, crowd sourced, publicly supported, scientific research project. Field work among primates. Take your pick.
You will not be surprised at this either: Everybody I talked with, from across the world, knew money is a fantasy. That doesn't come up often in ordinary conversation but most everybody knows it's true.
Money is some kind of fantasy where you feel very strong non-rational emotions, and you feel strong compulsions to do things that usually don't work out well. And most everybody everywhere does all that pretty much the same, except possibly a few remaining savages who have managed to entirely evade civilization. Nowadays we understand this is obviously an evolved instinct – a way of thinking and acting – that is not working properly in current conditions.
And of course, being unaware of money's true nature, we always have a strong urge to keep hoping and assuming that it will make sense someday, so then we can make it work right. And so many of us have felt utterly surprised that thieves somehow stole it all, for we feel like money is real stuff and we instinctively imagine all of it as much too large to haul away. Even while we also know it's fantasy.
Of course, since money is inherently crazy, lots of people are quite delusionally money crazy. And since we don't don't teach this in school younger humans are often totally naive to this. So I will say it this way: Every intelligent, sane, and thoughtful adult in the civilized world knows that money is a compelling fantasy which you cannot logically explain.
Well, except for you and me of course. We believe it can be explained quite logically with evolution science.
So finally, let's recap before we move on. Money arises from certain instincts that us civilized people mix together into a poisonous brew. Those particular instincts – those particular ones along with all the rest – were useful and therefore probably wholesome in our natural way of life before civilization.
So if I'm right and this is true, and if I have now decided that it is time to assign blame, then I would like to blame civilization for doing climate change. But I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to logically blame civilization for something.
You might decide that civilization is metaphorically like a big straw man that you might burn down, but I don't see how to logically blame it for something.
I know there was a custom among the ancient Mesopotamians where you would blame your local god when your city did something that went disastrously wrong. I guess we could consider doing that, blaming our gods for climate change.
I also want to quickly list which instincts they are that are going horribly wrong. I'm going to list them. Maybe you will agree or disagree or maybe add to the list.
So, I think these are the roots of money: One: Our instinct for hoarding the necessities of life to save our family and ourselves; the instinct for survival hoarding. Two: Our instinct for hunting which, as you know, includes the instinct for theft. Three: Our art instinct, our instinct to love and create artificial things that are ingenious and exquisite; our art instinct. And four: Our instinct to be sexually attractive.
[Pointing around the audience, as if about to ask for hands.]
Maybe you would like to add some more.
But no! It's not your turn yet. It's not! Your turn will be for Assigning Blame and that's not quite in order yet!
What is in order now? Well, those of you who have followed the logic of this essay – those of you who have not casually discarded the outline diagram that I have distributed – well, the outline was a kind of verbal handout that I told you verbally at the start – you'll remember that right now I am supposed to connect money with global warming. I am supposed to lead from money to global warming in some way that seems logically convincing. I promised I would do that.
So how does this sound:
“Evil human beings have raped Our Holy Mother Earth in a mad erotic fantasy that they are making lots and lots of good beautiful money.”
I think that is logical because it's true.
And furthermore, as you know, this goes back two or three hundred years. Remember the Industrial Revolution? You've heard of it? Many analysts blame the Industrial Revolution for climate change. By some historical coincidence, just about the time someone invented the coal burning steam engine, the United States of America was invented too. Ever since, the owners of the civilized world have been treating our Divine Planet as a sewer.
The U.S.A. First society in the world were people write money numbers in the multi-billions. Every day, if you are an American looking at news, you see numbers in the multi-billions with a money sign attached to them. And what are most of those news stories reporting on? Most of those money numbers in the multi-billions that you seen in daily news are attached to war. If you are here in the U.S.A.
And I say talk of guilt and blame is now in order. So it's your turn to talk. Actually, please change the subject too if there's something else you ought to say.
After that we will explore some personal aspects of the crime for Point Two.
[Now is the first discussion with the audience; it's main suggested subject: assigning blame.]
[Here ends the first half.]
[Introduction part 1, invoking spirit of tragedy]
Hello folks. Thank you for being here.
“We are the future's past.” Curious title. It's a magical visualization, a confusing magic-mirror riddle kind of visualization. But here it is the title of a serious discussion so will it be meaningful and appropriate for that? Well, it does give an accurate impression. The events we are living in are so confusing and full of riddles.
“We are the future's past.” Want to see it? Try visualizing my vision of it, okay? I'll say this once and won't repeat it. Are you ready?
Suddenly now the future is quite unknown to us because enormous changes are happening very quickly. But we do know this: Very soon the past will be extremely different from the present and we will be that past. And I believe: We can become a richer and more useful past than we will be now.
Did you follow that visually? Well, anyway, I feel like this life now makes my head spin. It's like we are doing fast forward time travel. Whatever this is, it's all true, and yet it's utter confusion. So it definitely teaches me something. It teaches me that I need to think carefully nowadays. I need to mentally penetrate this present in a very truthful fashion so my life will become more useful to the future.
[Introduction part 2: declaring Saturnalia]
[May involve me holding up one hand, then other, then both, or even gesturing wildly.]
Who here can hold up their hand? Please feel free to hold up your hand.
Not now! Hold up your hand when there's something you should say, some serious contribution to the discussion. I'm guessing you can't do that yet. You don't even know what I'm going to talk about. But if there is a contribution you should make at some point, please feel free to signal with your hand or some other body part.
Well, no. Don't do that. That's not going to work. I have three major points I want to make and I'll be much too busy to ever call on you like that. Instead, let's do this: I'll stop and let you have a turn three times as we go along. How's that? It will be your turn three times. And maybe we'll have a few moments for discussion before time's up. Then after that you can go to my website and buy a book.
[Introduction part 3: near term extinction]
Well, I hope you laughed but that's actually a segue, about buying merchandise from a talker. It was a segue because my first big point is going to be money. Yes, money. If we want to mentally penetrate the present, let's talk about money first. Money is a fascinating and mysterious subject, isn't it?
Now, get me straight, I am reasonably well convinced that our Divine Planet's ecosystem is perishing. At this time. That is my very sorrowful and very reluctant opinion, after I have watched this criminal catastrophe of climate change coming toward us for my whole adult life, watched it coming for more than half a century. Now the Arctic is melting and it is now my opinion that this Divine Planet's web of life, where our eyes find love so deeply, this is being loosened and dissolved by global warming. And now finally near the end, that transition is happening very fast. That is the fast forward time travel I am feeling.
Whatever humor you hear from me in this talk today is what's called “gallows humor” or “horror humor” and I believe it's healthy. When Shakespeare used it, it's comedy relief. You might not realize Shakespeare stuck big guffaws into his horror plays – yes he did – hilarious gallows humor scenes just before the terrible catastrophes in Macbeth, Hamlet and others. And no, the humor is not comforting. It's not designed to be comforting.
It turns out Shakespeare understood our minds very well. The laughing is designed to momentarily clear your terror from your mind, and whatever other hope or guilt or whatever other compelling feelings you have experienced so far. Let that go for a moment, long enough that your careful thinking will kick in and you will penetrate the ensuing catastrophe better.
Tell you what, go find the 1996 all‑star movie of Hamlet. Watch all the way to near the end where Robin Williams walks on scene, in costume with a funny walk, and does Shakespeare comedy relief for five minutes. Authentic dialog. Walks back out again. Totally hilarious. Great comedian. See how awake that makes you feel. Then they have the big sword fight where everybody dies.
On the other hand, there is a scientific opinion, part of climate science, which may be comforting to you. It seems like some of the beings in the ocean depths and many of Earth's tiny microscopic life forms will survive this transition. And someday, long from now, it seems certain that the planet will cycle back to cool again. Then we can expect that the survivors will proliferate again into a magnificent flourishing of beauty such as we do love so dearly.
So life on Earth will probably continue to the distant future. And we humans are capable of extending our love in that direction. Many people are finding comfort in that scientific opinion. Perhaps you will.
And I know for sure – or at least I think I do – that life and death in this physical plane are only reflections of life that is larger. We humans know this. When we are sane and our minds are clear, we actually know this just as clearly as the other life forms on this planet know it.
There are definitely other realms of existence. Ask most any physicist. And it does seem like physical existence is a reflection or extension – or choose some other word – of our individual and universal conscious living presence in larger dimensions of existence. Both the Fox Sisters and the Buddha told us that. So do Rembrandt and the painters of the Lascaux Cave. Me, I like the way Jane Roberts says it in those old grainy videos. Also Imam Malcolm X and Reverend King. I will call that the psychic life or the soul life of Earth's ecosystem, which includes our human selves.
That psychic life of ours will undoubtedly continue, and be enriched by these experiences. In my opinion.
But let's get back to that later. That is going to be my big Point Three.
[Here begins Point One concerning money.]
Instead, the first thing I'd like to ask is this: How should you and I feel in our private hearts; how should we feel in our private hearts about the perpetrators; feel about the apparently guilty people who have perpetrated this astounding crime?
But when I ask that question, immediately I find another question. What caused global warming? Why has it happened? And I mean we should examine that question of “What Caused Global Warming?” before we get into assigning any guilt. Assigning guilt will come a little later on my agenda in Point Two. For now I want to ask “What Caused Global Warming?” and work through that to money.
Let's examine the causes of all this before we decide whether there is some guilt in you. Okay? Fair enough? If we're assigning guilt we must see how this happened, then decide if there is guilt in you. Or is there guilt in me, instead of you, or all of us? Or is there guilt in God or Goddess or their Holy Child or the President of the United States? Before we get to that, let's try to know how these circumstances transpired. And I suspect that will bring us immediately to money.
I can even offer some personal testimony on that which will be interesting. Speaking in my official capacity as a Druid. So kindly listen with your ears open when I offer some personal testimony in Modern Druid language.
And yes, I do hereby claim Druidic authority that you will herein listen while I use my Modern Druidic lore to explain an important aspect of global warming. And the object which my true life fable will address is this: “What Is Money?”
So if you will, good friends and friendly strangers, listen kindly while I tell a story. If it is told in proper terms it goes like this.
Lifelong, I had expected that we must finally answer “What Is Money?” For so many years I angrily expected that a deep hoard of Super Secret Money would be discovered deep in the roots of this astounding crime, discovered by us someday. I envisioned this fatal crime as an enormous poison tree with noxious vapors from its blossoms, growing huge with deep roots in our midst, and surely it must have a hoard of Money Super Secret hidden in it somewhere, as its soul and heart, hidden in some place that seemed unseeable.
Now finally we are near the end so this requires that I put modesty aside. I must tell you that I found that hoard. Yes, some years ago I found that hoard of deep money secrets when I was led into a magic journey where I traveled far in a small red boat and spoke with many, always asking “What Is Money?” And so at last, some years along that magic sojourn, I discovered money's secret wisdom hoard. Now I can tell you of it.
But when I'm done telling that, next thing then it will be your turn. So I will ask you what it means. I will ask you “What Do Riley's Patent Money Secrets Mean?” Understand, you are required to give your best considered answer to that question. And I'm warning. This is an official Druid warning. You better give your best thoughts on the current question when your turn comes, or else. If you don't put out serious mental effort, then you'll be cheating.
I am warning, when your turn comes in this conversational philosophy thing, this is a very serious ancient game the Ancient Druids used to play, a game with very strict social pressure enforcement. This is COMPETITIVE conversational philosophy. And you don't want to be a cheater. No chocolate Smores for cheaters. The Ancient Druids loved this more than Quidditch. So pay attention and think ahead.
We must ask “What Is Money?” And I have lived that story that I told you. I have lived a true life Druidic experience like in that story. I was led by unseen forces to a teaching job which I loved at a great museum. It was a magic wisdom journey. This is true. A great museum near our home allowed me take one of their jobs. This is true in physical reality so I've switched back to normal language.
You see, there is a great history museum near our home where I worked for years doing public education. A money free volunteer job. It was one day per week for four years, wearing a historical costume – an old timey business suit – and teaching our museum visitors by means of chat. Your chat would be centered in some particular subject matter and the particular subject matter they assigned me to felt surprising: commerce and money.
I am an anti-money anarchist and the management of an established institution slotted me to teach the history of commerce and money.
You see, it was an emergency. These four years were soon after the monstrous worldwide financial collapse. You remember that. There was a worldwide financial collapse in 2008 that has somehow faded into the background. But now this was the depths of the Great Recession and this famous institution of understanding history did not have a specialist in commerce and money. Until me.
You see, I am a software engineer, a semi-professional artist and a semi-retired business software engineer. An old anti-money anarchist walks in with thirty-five years experience in business consulting and asks for a public education job application. They give it to him.
They definitely needed to fill that slot because it was just after the astonishing financial collapse and members of the public have been led to expect some freaking education when they go in there. All the advertising even says they specialize in concentrated education. And since they didn't have any up‑to‑date curriculum in this vitally important subject, I was even required to develop one. That is to say, I must do research and present my results to the customers.
So you can see, it felt like intervention by some unnamed civic deity. By some means it had suddenly become an anarchist Druid's civic duty to diligently seek the Unseeable Hoard of Money Secret. In this remarkable position it felt like the secret must be very close, if only it could happen that my eyes pointed at it.
And the museum exhibit where they set me to work did feel a lot like a magic boat for traveling time and space. It felt like a real life Tardis if you will. My museum exhibit, that I inhabited one day per week, was an old timey bank building, very small and square, perfectly real in its substance, the exterior painted a curious old Roman Pompeii shade of pastel red, containing a perfect display of authentic documents and furniture. I loved it.
It was built in the early “young republic” period of America where there was a fad for making things seem Roman. With no sense of irony either.
It was a little building, built very cubical, built back in the day from solid stone and iron– to withstand attacks by bank robbers possibly equipped with kegs of gunpowder – transported to our museum's main street from its own Main Street one hundred eighty years ago in a nearby town.
So curious visitors are attracted to that great institution from the whole human world. And those who arrive and wish to penetrate money's mysteries are obviously quite attracted – often with considerable surprise – to my amazing time traveling cubical pink bank building with a big flashy gold sign above its antique pillared porch. So they would climb up the steps beneath its big gold sign, step in the big iron doors, and then they were suddenly pounced upon by the Druid lurking in it.
I'm sure you are not surprised that I started asking lots of visitors about my riddle. I asked many of them, and I tried to lure their best thinking out, on the question “What Is Money?” In the dark days of the Great Recession. And it turns out a lot of people are anti-money anarchists.
It evolved very nicely. I would provide my best thinking from all the previous chats – and from a few fine books which the discussion was leading me to – to stimulate their contribution. And I was unfailingly courteous to them, and kind to their children.
So that was the true life magic wisdom hunt which I traveled on for four years. An official civic duty volunteer public research service. A museum job chatting people up to careful thought about my favorite question.
And here's what I discovered: Money can be explained with evolution science. Money can be explained clearly with evolution science.
Money is a way of thinking and acting that arises from our natural instincts. (Therefore the unreasoning compulsions we feel so irresistibly around it.) We have our instincts from our ancient ancestors who lived a natural way of life. They lived a natural life for a long time, so long that they evolved to do it well in many different ways. The instincts which they developed and elaborated worked well in that way of life. But now some of our instincts are giving rise to this malignancy called money. That is because some of our instincts are working very badly in civilization.
To sum that up, I'm saying money comes out of natural human instincts that are not working right in civilized life. So surprising. Big discovery. So unexpected. I would even say it's maybe common sense now that we have enough evolution science. Please anybody who actually felt surprised by that, hold up your hand! In fact, I bet many of you have strongly suspected it ever since you heard from Jane Goodall about her scientific study results.
But this has value because I am officially verifying that your suspicion was true. You can definitely believe it now because you have received the treasure from a magic journey in a boat. Or else you have received the results of a bona fide, crowd sourced, publicly supported, scientific research project. Field work among primates. Take your pick.
You will not be surprised at this either: Everybody I talked with, from across the world, knew money is a fantasy. That doesn't come up often in ordinary conversation but most everybody knows it's true.
Money is some kind of fantasy where you feel very strong non-rational emotions, and you feel strong compulsions to do things that usually don't work out well. And most everybody everywhere does all that pretty much the same, except possibly a few remaining savages who have managed to entirely evade civilization. Nowadays we understand this is obviously an evolved instinct – a way of thinking and acting – that is not working properly in current conditions.
And of course, being unaware of money's true nature, we always have a strong urge to keep hoping and assuming that it will make sense someday, so then we can make it work right. And so many of us have felt utterly surprised that thieves somehow stole it all, for we feel like money is real stuff and we instinctively imagine all of it as much too large to haul away. Even while we also know it's fantasy.
Of course, since money is inherently crazy, lots of people are quite delusionally money crazy. And since we don't don't teach this in school younger humans are often totally naive to this. So I will say it this way: Every intelligent, sane, and thoughtful adult in the civilized world knows that money is a compelling fantasy which you cannot logically explain.
Well, except for you and me of course. We believe it can be explained quite logically with evolution science.
So finally, let's recap before we move on. Money arises from certain instincts that us civilized people mix together into a poisonous brew. Those particular instincts – those particular ones along with all the rest – were useful and therefore probably wholesome in our natural way of life before civilization.
So if I'm right and this is true, and if I have now decided that it is time to assign blame, then I would like to blame civilization for doing climate change. But I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to logically blame civilization for something.
You might decide that civilization is metaphorically like a big straw man that you might burn down, but I don't see how to logically blame it for something.
I know there was a custom among the ancient Mesopotamians where you would blame your local god when your city did something that went disastrously wrong. I guess we could consider doing that, blaming our gods for climate change.
I also want to quickly list which instincts they are that are going horribly wrong. I'm going to list them. Maybe you will agree or disagree or maybe add to the list.
So, I think these are the roots of money: One: Our instinct for hoarding the necessities of life to save our family and ourselves; the instinct for survival hoarding. Two: Our instinct for hunting which, as you know, includes the instinct for theft. Three: Our art instinct, our instinct to love and create artificial things that are ingenious and exquisite; our art instinct. And four: Our instinct to be sexually attractive.
[Pointing around the audience, as if about to ask for hands.]
Maybe you would like to add some more.
But no! It's not your turn yet. It's not! Your turn will be for Assigning Blame and that's not quite in order yet!
What is in order now? Well, those of you who have followed the logic of this essay – those of you who have not casually discarded the outline diagram that I have distributed – well, the outline was a kind of verbal handout that I told you verbally at the start – you'll remember that right now I am supposed to connect money with global warming. I am supposed to lead from money to global warming in some way that seems logically convincing. I promised I would do that.
So how does this sound:
“Evil human beings have raped Our Holy Mother Earth in a mad erotic fantasy that they are making lots and lots of good beautiful money.”
I think that is logical because it's true.
And furthermore, as you know, this goes back two or three hundred years. Remember the Industrial Revolution? You've heard of it? Many analysts blame the Industrial Revolution for climate change. By some historical coincidence, just about the time someone invented the coal burning steam engine, the United States of America was invented too. Ever since, the owners of the civilized world have been treating our Divine Planet as a sewer.
The U.S.A. First society in the world were people write money numbers in the multi-billions. Every day, if you are an American looking at news, you see numbers in the multi-billions with a money sign attached to them. And what are most of those news stories reporting on? Most of those money numbers in the multi-billions that you seen in daily news are attached to war. If you are here in the U.S.A.
And I say talk of guilt and blame is now in order. So it's your turn to talk. Actually, please change the subject too if there's something else you ought to say.
After that we will explore some personal aspects of the crime for Point Two.
[Now is the first discussion with the audience; it's main suggested subject: assigning blame.]
[Here ends the first half.]
Impressions Of Dr McPherson
Impressions Of Dr McPherson
First I now invoke St. Hypatia, a spirit of comfortable digestion, so Dr. Guy McPherson will find nothing, nothing large or small, that offends him in this essay. If such a thing is here, please may he blink and miss it. Amen.
Guy McPherson has been a guiding spirit for me recently, a mentor to me recently, at a particular point in my long waltzing walk with Climate Change. (Elsewhere you'll read how I learned of Climate Change at age 12 in 1958 and have been trying to react to it ever since.) That was a year and a half ago, when I first saw a McPherson video and was impressed.
So how are we now? Well, if you want to imagine Guy and me, you might think of Socrates and Plato, except it's undecided who of us is which because Guy hasn't read my new book which he helped inspire yet.
A year and a half ago, the crucial point where I was, that particular spot was new ground to me, and confusing. True, in marathon waltzing with Climate Change, I had lived multiple cycles of wide and narrow sensations of existence, a wrenching spiritual cycle decades long, which had taught me much, but this iteration recently was different. This time the clock had run out.
I'll tell you the last clear hope I had, when I saw the clock has pretty definitely run out, and by losing that last clear hope I found myself in crisis, but then I watched one of Guy's reviving videos. I'll tell you that clear hope which I lost but re-found, that hope is this…
When the clock so obviously runs out, can the human soul face reality?
I had given up hope that the human soul could. I had concluded that our souls are all to be wretched and stupid and numb at the end. But then I watched a Guy McPherson video.
By the way, here's my new book… www.stoneriley.com/armystories
First I now invoke St. Hypatia, a spirit of comfortable digestion, so Dr. Guy McPherson will find nothing, nothing large or small, that offends him in this essay. If such a thing is here, please may he blink and miss it. Amen.
Guy McPherson has been a guiding spirit for me recently, a mentor to me recently, at a particular point in my long waltzing walk with Climate Change. (Elsewhere you'll read how I learned of Climate Change at age 12 in 1958 and have been trying to react to it ever since.) That was a year and a half ago, when I first saw a McPherson video and was impressed.
So how are we now? Well, if you want to imagine Guy and me, you might think of Socrates and Plato, except it's undecided who of us is which because Guy hasn't read my new book which he helped inspire yet.
A year and a half ago, the crucial point where I was, that particular spot was new ground to me, and confusing. True, in marathon waltzing with Climate Change, I had lived multiple cycles of wide and narrow sensations of existence, a wrenching spiritual cycle decades long, which had taught me much, but this iteration recently was different. This time the clock had run out.
I'll tell you the last clear hope I had, when I saw the clock has pretty definitely run out, and by losing that last clear hope I found myself in crisis, but then I watched one of Guy's reviving videos. I'll tell you that clear hope which I lost but re-found, that hope is this…
When the clock so obviously runs out, can the human soul face reality?
I had given up hope that the human soul could. I had concluded that our souls are all to be wretched and stupid and numb at the end. But then I watched a Guy McPherson video.
By the way, here's my new book… www.stoneriley.com/armystories
Stone Riley's Shoebox
A poet writing essays. Why the title? You know you keep a large size shoe box with all those creative ideas and suchlike stuff scribbled on the back of electric bill envelopes?
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