Pieces of a Puzzle

1498b65b6aa051c5c3a90bd5d544a3d1

The crisis before us is the culmination of a 500-year global rampage of conquering, plundering, exploiting, and polluting the earth— as well as killing by Europeans and Euro-Americans of the indigenous communities that stood in their way. The technical and scientific forces that created unparalleled luxury and unrivaled military and economic power for a small, global elite are the forces that now doom us. Ceaseless economic expansion and exploitation has become a death sentence. But even as our economic and environmental systems unravel— thirteen of the fourteen warmest years since weather record-keeping began over a century ago have occurred in the opening years of the twenty-first century— we lack the emotional and intellectual creativity to shut down the engine of global capitalism.

– Chris Hedges,  Wages of Rebellion

Posted in delusions of progress, make your own world, Other peoples words, thinking in words | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Georgia O’Keeffe Talks About Art and Being an Artist.

Georgia O’Keeffe was such a simple beautiful individual. Her images are full of life and nature and glory of being. I love the genuinely innocent way she talks about her work. She was able to keep her childlike nature throughout her life. Listening to her inspires me to look at the world with fresh eyes every day. No matter where I am there is something that needs appreciating for its form and color, its shadows and placement, or its relationship to the world and other objects in space. And she is not afraid to experiment and make mistakes and learn from them. She does all this without a lot of egotism. The art is what is important and her experience while doing it.

Posted in All part of the process, Art in Nature, capturing light, Check this out, make your own world, my museum of inspiration, Other peoples words, paying attention, wonder world | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Resisting the Habits of the Algorithmic Mind

Michael Sacasas thoughtfully suggests that our reliance on machines to make decisions for us may lead us to outsource our moral judgement, With some Heart of Darkness and Hannah Arendt and a few good examples from recent media sources to illuminate his points.

Joseph Conrad, the Heart of Darkness

“I’ve seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men–men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of rapacious and pitiless folly.”

Hannah Arendt

 “absence of thought is not stupidity; it can be found in highly intelligent people, and a wicked heart is not its cause; it is probably the other way round, that wickedness may be caused by absence of thought.”

“If […] the ability to tell right from wrong should turn out to have anything to do with the ability to think, then we must be able to ‘demand’ its exercise from every sane person, no matter how erudite or ignorant, intelligent or stupid, he may happen to be.”

Michael Sacasas

“Perhaps the first, modest step in that direction is simply the cultivation of times and spaces for thinking, and perhaps also resisting the urge to check if there is an app for that.”

Posted in Check this out, mindworks, Other peoples words, thinking in words | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Vacation Alias

Vacation Alias

The old man asked me for my name.

For some reason I said, “Marshall.”

“As in Marshall Dill Pickle?” he said,

Producing a finger gun and

The playful sound of shooting.

I thought, I guess I will be Marshall

For this guy, not that I minded.

But, Marshall Marsh did not seem

Like a good combination.

Luckily, I never saw him again.

Both of us being from different places

Far away from each other.

Posted in conversations, my life, poetry | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Singing From A Place I Recognize

Posted in Check this out, music, my museum of inspiration, Other peoples words, poetry, Singing, thinking in words, visions from the dark side | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment