Green Fire

Written September 22, 2006 near a small forest in Pennsylvania:

Sometimes when I go out, standing at the edge of the forest, I feel it. There's a warmth that wells in my chest, just below my sternum.. It's a warmth, the warmth, I think we spend our lives searching for but come upon only rarely. I think it's the warming of completeness, the warmth of entirety.

I feel it when I am truly happy. And when I am sad, my chest feels like an empty cupboard and I seek to fill it with food.

Sitting at the edge of the forest, surrounded by the all-encompassing hug of crickets, cardinals singly chirping, at the same time it is both within me as I am in it. It silently accepts me, and if I get quiet enough, sometimes I can hear it marvelling back at me. Our souls lying together in perfect unity on the forest floor.

Many times, though, this energy is dead set on spreading itself from me; it radiates and reverberates in others. It is an offering, complete in all its intricate, innocent beauty.

It is so disconcerting the many times I've set out searching for it, only to feel as if I am running after my own shadow. Sometimes I run so fast I fall and as I'm picking myself up I remember to be patient, stand still, and let it come out of its hiding place.

And it does. It winks at me if I pay enough attention.
"I'm still here," it beckons.

Sometimes it hides in the eyes of others, looking out at me. These days I am happy, we are complete.

I try to live my life with an absolute intention to one day come to see the peace beneath the war we so often delude and lose ourselves in, the busyness we put ourselves through, trying to ignore what we cannot avoid.

I long for the day when we can be open enough as a people to see it in ourselves, to accept it and embrace it. Sometimes when I go out, I can feel the promise.

gender & womens studies

originally written to noah, but worth sharing:
sitting on a bus trying to read by gender womens studies assigned readings but i'm particularly moved by this quote and wanted to share it with you. it's from an article by hazel v. carby entitled "postcolonial translations."

"in the north american imagination the caribbean is overwhelmingly located in relation to two dominant discourses, tourism and an unwelcome source of migrants. the first reduces the region to america's backyard - a paradise for the realization of hedonistic desire; the second positions its subjects as abject, as 'boat-people' in a common, hateful euphemism. the aim is to explore the ways in which what has been represented as "caribbeanness," is not, in fact, fixed in relation to any particular geographic space but, on the contrary, is a condition of movement over-determined by global forces enacted at a local level."

first - i wonder if you find this interesting. i realize this is kind of out of the blue for you, relative to the context in which it's been placed for me (i.e. 1/3 through a semester in a class about these kind of topics). more importantly, i hope, is the discussion it could generate. here goes: i think she does a superb job of breaking down the labels and constructions of nationality. we americans relate to caribbeans and the caribbean in an extremely exploitative way (tourist industry) but refuse to grant them any rights in "our" country. the paragraph is lined with detailed examples and craks open a space for new discourse - a discourse of redefinition, of, possibly, self-definition. the class that i'm reading this for is different than most of my other classes. the readings, for one, elicit new discourse - spaces to talk about concepts previously hidden by current discourses...which is what most of my other classes focus on (and praise) - the learning and reinforcement of specific and particular theories, which are, in most cases, archaic and cliche. this class is radical. rather than reading aristotle and kant to get a better understanding of ethics, we push our own boundaries - boundaries we didn't know we had - to feel what ethics means, to feel out the space it fills. (not necessarily to say anything bad about studying aristotle or kant) back to the quote. i find it interesting that these people (caribbeans) are not defined by where they're from (the caribbean), but rather the movements of which they're a part. i realize most of what i've said are only basic comments, but i'm interested to hear what you have to say.

are you empowered?

what is it to be empowered? what is "power" in this sense?

here's a quote from a class i'm in now:
"power works in intimate ways - what we eat, what we wear, what products we use"

i've really never thought to use the word power in this way. though, from the frame of empowerment, this does make a lot of sense. i guess this discourse of power includes oppression, both self- and institutional (and other forms, i'm sure), and, having power, one becomes free from these forces (partially at least).

A great quote

Imagine this design assignment: design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates microclimates, changes colors with the seasons, and self-replicates.

Why don't we knock that down and write on it?

-William McDonough (Cradle to Cradle)

i'm tired of feeling like everything here sucks and writing about it, and mulling over it, being stuck in it like a fly in drying caramel. i can't do anything about it. well, not from here, not from this perspective. this has got to stop.

where's the power? where's the potential? why, it is within us! we must set out on a quest to discover it. it is our duty as human beings.

analysis: what is empowerment? what is it to "feel empowered"? what are the effects?

what makes you feel empowered? when are you at your best?

regina spektor

this is how it works
you're young until you're not
you love until you don't
you try until you can't
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breathe
until their dying breath

no, this is how it works
you peer inside yourself
you take the things you like
and try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into some
someone else's heart
pumping someone else's blood
and walking arm in arm
you hope it don't get harmed
but even if it does
you'll just do it all again

on sadness

it is nighttime. i am walking across a plot of land without grass, without trees, covered in deep tire tracks. the earth has just been cleared for the destruction of a house. the tire tracks a remnant of the destruction. it is cold and poorly lit. the land is barren and lifeless. i wish i could cry, but i am unable. i am numbed. unable to be happy, unable to be sad. drugged either way. i wish i could feel.

on happiness, part II

i feel like i should write about this somewhere or other, and i'm feeling the blog over the journal for this one - it should at least be available for someone to read sometime. i suppose that is the purpose of all this nonsense, anyway, right?

well, here goes, happiness, part II:

i'm in a class about "Conceptions of Human Nature" - basically talking about how/if humans are unique, and what we should do about this. we talk about rationality and the potential for "happiness" a lot.

about a month ago i came up with this:

if -
the goal of human life is happiness
and -
we've been knowingly evolving

why aren't we all the happiest yet?

either we're confused: happiness isn't our goal (maybe it's the pursuit that we want), or we've never explicitly set out and consciously evolved with this aim, or there are other forces that have come between our evolution and ultimate happiness.

why are they called "intentional communities"? what are the rest? would this suggest that evolution (social evolution) is not guided (i.e. by people)?

it seems like we're lacking an explicit collective social consciousness, but [[i think]] we rely on it nonetheless.

today, march 5th, as i was walking to my spanish class i was thinking:
this place makes my stomach hurt. it makes me sad - but i don't even know what that means anymore. walking to class all i see is destruction, sadness, death. i see no value. i see a system where replace this notion of value with an idea of money, a set of numbers and unintelligible rules. i am ashamed. i am ashamed of my part in it all. for i no longer know what to say - how to relate - how to relate to someone so used to being left alone, blinded and convinced that consumption, an iPod, a cell phone will solve these problems. institutions have become the community. they must - how else will we find ourselves, others? who works for whom? am i a slave to institutions - or otherwise? why is it this relationship: master & slave? in communities there is no such thing, no such potential.

later, we were talking about nihilism in class. basically it's like "why don't we all just kill ourselves..." and there is no answer. or, well, the answer is like this: if we killed ourselves it wouldn't matter anyway, so what's even the point of that. if it happens it happens.

right.

and in the class right after that, Social Cognition (300 level Psychology class), we're talking about "Subjective Well-Being" (the measure psych'ists have come up to approach what normal people call happiness)...

here's some scary shit:

-in 1940, only 40% of houses had showers or baths, and only 35% had toilets.

between 1957 and 1998 in America:
-"real wages" (i.e. spending power, adjusted for inflation) doubled

-but subjective well-being basically stayed the same. 33-35% of people report themselves as, "very happy"

what does this all mean? that money, and/or quality of life doesn't make us happy?

what is the purpose of life, if not the pursuit of happiness? are we moving closer to this ideal collectively? do we have any hope as a species?

needless to say, today was kind of a depressing day.

Deep Ecology - Ecosophy

Deep Ecology sounds really cool (Syn: applicable, necessary, practical).
How about this "...to the extent that we perceive boundaries, we fall short of deep ecological consciousness."

From http://home.clara.net/heureka/gaia/deep-eco.htm :

*(Self-realization"can be summarized symbolically as the realization of "self-in-Self" where "Self" stands for organic wholeness. The proces of the full unfolding of the self can aalso ber summarized by the phrase, "No one is saved until we are all saved," where the phrase "one" includes not only me, an individual human, but all humans, whales, grizzly bears, whole rain forest ecosystems, mountains and rivers, the tiniest microbes in the soil, and so on." From book: Environmental Ethics, ISBN: 0195139097)

Arne Naess formally defined deep ecology as Ecosophy T (N - norm, H - hypothesis).
N1: Self-realization!
H1: The higher the Self-realization attained by anyone, the broader and deeper the identification with others.
H2: The higher the level of Self-realization attained by anyone, the more its further increase depends upon the Self-realization of others.
H3: Complete Self-realization of anyone depends on that of all.
N2: Self-realization for all living beings!
H4: Diversity of life increases Self-realization potentials.
N3: Diversity of life!
H5: Complexity of life increases Self-realization potentials.
N4: Complexity!
H6: Life resources of the Earth are limited.
H7: Symbiosis maximises Self-realization potentials under conditions of limited resources.
N5: Symbiosis!


Foundations for Deep Ecology, Arne Naess and George Sessions

1) The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: inherent worth; intrinsic value; inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
2) Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.
3) Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.
4) Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
5) The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
6) Policies must therefore be changed. The changes in policies affect basic economic, technological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.
7) The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent worth) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.
8) Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes.

back in the groove...

so i'm back at school. back in the groove of real life, the track i'm supposed to take, etc etc. it's still confusing and so profusely overflooding with knowledge and the like. i wonder if the menial things i concern my every day life with are meaningful. does writing this paper about socrates arguing with some athenian matter? in what way?? i don't even know. but i write it. ok, well i'm writing to say i should be writing more. to say that this is a start.