Strangest recent symptom of something: I more and more a little each day actively don’t want to write in tablets, as in with pencils on paper, I’m still in the It’s OK to Take a Day Off, Dude stage, and it is ok to take a day off, isn’t it? Reading’s weirder: while I’m failing a novel I’m thinking about next novels and when I find the one I’m most thinking of and start it within ten pages I’m thinking this is not working, what does it have to do with this current life, and start thinking about the next failure. Weirder still: I *can* still read non-fiction which I don’t, exactly: introductions only, thank you, please give me your thesis and outline for proof, I’ll skip the proof, except with Hobsbawm, in this case, a segment a day starting today and especially when I’m in Maine with L, two weeks from today we will be there, two weeks there, his *Age of Extremes.* Lots of people whose opinions on music I value lauded Cindy Lee’s *Diamond Jubilee,* I got what they got the first four or five listens but past weekend listening one more time I now get what they get
And have listened two times more. No more 100 link grids for now for me: if I’m hammering the same issues daily I don’t need to do dozens on that issue daily especially if it’s a daily duh, maybe? Currently attempting to not click through on every link I see verifying what I think myself, it's hard not to. I've been reminded why I don't copy/paste from ggl files to ggl blggr now that I'm typing again, you'd think they'd talk but they don't. Tomorrow I dress up in a cat suit and dance with Bjork for the 37th time, so have a more constrained grid than usual I am pleased to abandon below before the links that are stale go stale below (think about the adjective *stale,* there is nothing staler than stale)
The failure to see God is not a problem
God has a problem with. Sure, he could see us
if he had a hankering to do so, but that’s
not the point. The point is his concern
for us and for biscuits. For the loaf
of bread that turns in the night sky over Stockholm.
Not there, over there. And I yelled them
what I had told them before. The affair is no one’s business.
The peeing man seemed not to notice either.
We came up the strand with carbuncles
and chessmen fetched from the wreck. Finally the surplus buzz
did notice, and it was fatal to our project.
We just gave up then and there, some of us dying, others walking
wearily but contentedly away. God had had his little joke,
but who was to say it wasn’t ours? Nobody, apparently,
which could be why the subject was never raised
in discussion groups in old houses along the harbour,
some of them practically falling into it.
Yet still they chatter a little ruefully: ‘I know
your grace’s preference.’ There are times
when I even think I can read his mind,
coated with seed-pearls and diamonds.
There they are, for the taking. Take them away.
Deposit them in whatever suburban bank you choose.
Hurry, before he changes his mind – again.
But all they did was lean on their shovels, dreaming
of spring planting, and the marvellous harvests to come.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/stale
ReplyDeletein the spirit of the non-fiction summary, some remarks from https://medium.com/@elisabethrobson/racing-to-extinction-915972014fd8
ReplyDeleteThe best book, by far, that I read in 2024 was Lyle Lewis’ Racing to Extinction. It explains how we got ourselves into our current predicament (catastrophic ecological overshoot and the sixth mass extinction), and, as the book’s subtitle states, why humanity will soon be one of many casualties of this extinction.
Lyle recently recorded a description of why he called his book Racing to Extinction, and the six major waypoints so far on our path to our own extinction. [20 minutes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAaFwI6ZQHE&t=35s] I’ve summarized these points here:
Waypoints in human history
“If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.”
1. Developing a shoulder that we could throw with (developed over millions of years). This allowed us to separate ourselves from killing.
2. Our ability to use fire (50,000–1,000,000 years ago). This allowed us to become an invasive species.
3. Our ability to imagine things that don’t exist (35,000–40,000 years ago). This allowed us to work together in larger groups without knowing each other. (E.g. the shared myth of money allows global trade.)
4. Advent of agriculture (10,000–12,000 years ago). It spread quickly and in a fairly short time, agricultural practices were happening almost everywhere. This gave rise to civilizations, and this is when we began to have a huge impact on the biosphere.
5. The beginning of industrialization (250 years ago). This allowed us to easily go to places we’d never been before. It also supercharged our impact on the biosphere and the resulting loss of productivity of landscapes all around the planet.
6. The advent of chemicals (1950 or so). Plastics and other chemicals become huge industries. This allowed us to begin poisoning ourselves and the entire planet.
The timeframe between waypoints has shrunk dramatically; they all continue to precipitate an effect on our biosphere. They are all cumulative, and all are leading to our extinction.
Lyle occasionally posts excellent articles expanding on his book on topics including the natural world, human behavior, and extinction, on his blog.
[end of quote from Elisabeth Robson]
lewis's date for industrial chemistry is clearly much too late, and not having read the book, i am not sure if he means "language" when he says "imagine things that don't exist" - maybe i'll know more later
an LLM pointed me to elisabeth robson, by the way, and another one cited
https://medium.com/%40elisabethrobson/why-are-we-not-talking-about-ecological-overshoot-f174a53756a5