Edit [minutes later]: here's a best of the photoblog, if you never checked it out:
- Genocide pt. 1: smitten with a cross
- Genocide pt. 2: some amateur photoshopping
- Can a sphere be upside down?
- My favorite map
Thursday, February 9
photoblog? why not here?
For some reason, when I had a need to post a lot of pictures on the internet following my trip to honduras, I felt I had to create a separate blog for such activities. But that blog and those pictures mostly just sit there, and I hardly ever update it (today being the first day since october). So I think I am going to discontinue my use of that blog and just post pictures on this blog like I should have done from the beginning. Sometimes I am too picky about what I put up on this blog for some reason. So those pictures from honduras and the start of college will still be there, I just will never ever put any more pictures there. To celebrate, I will repost the comic I posted over there earlier today (which my dad sent me via email).
Edit [minutes later]: here's a best of the photoblog, if you never checked it out:
Edit [minutes later]: here's a best of the photoblog, if you never checked it out:
No Sweat?
My will finally broke down, and I bought the No Sweat red high tops that I've been lusting after for what feels like years. I could resist such consumption no longer because, alas, they were on sale. I had been planning to wait until I actually needed new shoes. I have one pair of old running shoes that I wear almost every day. Occasionally, I wear my dad's old boots, but I have quickly realized why he stopped wearing them - the heal is rubbed raw somehow whenever I walk for a long period of time. Regardless, I didn't really need new shoes yet. The sneakers do fit me (not too big or too small), but I have not yet had the chance to test them out to see how comfortable they will actually be. Part of me is ashamed for finally caving in to pressures to consume unnecessary things, and another part of me is happy to support a union-made product.
It's a paradoxical situation for me, and such a situation exists because I am trying to live in two worlds at the same time - the Christian liberal world (which consists of my immediate family, and most of my friends up until recently, but especially friends I have made at college) and the anarchist world that I am slowly introducing myself to through things like food not bombs. The liberal world focuses on trying to change existing institutions to make them more just, and the anarchist world recognizes that the injustice of this economic system cannot be remedied - it goes all the way to the root of the institution, and therefore, a whole new economic system is needed, not more of the same. I highly doubt that all factories will ever unionize, ridding the world of sweatshop labor, because most Americans simply care more about buying things cheaply at walmart than worrying about the workers in China who are exploited to allow for those always low prices.
Even if all factories would unionize, the fact is that such copious amounts of work should not be necessary for survival. Private property (ownership by right, not by use) is an illusion that everyone buys into. Food kept under lock and key is the only thing that motivates people to toil and sweat, but food was not always kept under lock and key, and people did not always have to toil and sweat so much. Allow me a moment to wishfully daydream about the life of a forager...
But there are still ways possible to live without toiling and sweating my whole life away. I know they're out there. The site I just linked to is a good place for me, and anyone who wants to join me in my search for freedom from further slavery to capitalism, to start looking and thinking. I like the quote the site has as its motto, so I'll end this post with that:
"In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do." -- Henry David Thoreau
It's a paradoxical situation for me, and such a situation exists because I am trying to live in two worlds at the same time - the Christian liberal world (which consists of my immediate family, and most of my friends up until recently, but especially friends I have made at college) and the anarchist world that I am slowly introducing myself to through things like food not bombs. The liberal world focuses on trying to change existing institutions to make them more just, and the anarchist world recognizes that the injustice of this economic system cannot be remedied - it goes all the way to the root of the institution, and therefore, a whole new economic system is needed, not more of the same. I highly doubt that all factories will ever unionize, ridding the world of sweatshop labor, because most Americans simply care more about buying things cheaply at walmart than worrying about the workers in China who are exploited to allow for those always low prices.
Even if all factories would unionize, the fact is that such copious amounts of work should not be necessary for survival. Private property (ownership by right, not by use) is an illusion that everyone buys into. Food kept under lock and key is the only thing that motivates people to toil and sweat, but food was not always kept under lock and key, and people did not always have to toil and sweat so much. Allow me a moment to wishfully daydream about the life of a forager...
But there are still ways possible to live without toiling and sweating my whole life away. I know they're out there. The site I just linked to is a good place for me, and anyone who wants to join me in my search for freedom from further slavery to capitalism, to start looking and thinking. I like the quote the site has as its motto, so I'll end this post with that:
"In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do." -- Henry David Thoreau
Wednesday, February 8
Thursday, January 26
How to save the world
This is a really good (but openended) answer to the question of how to save the world. (It's a lot shorter than the Thirty Theses I linked to a little while ago (less than a half hour to read the whole thing), and I thought it was worth it. That's why I'm linking to it.) He gives a list of concrete things to do, which I really like (especially the last comment):
The answer to the question of how to save the world I tried to give a few days ago is just a small part of the picture, but it is also a very important part. Human population needs to greatly decrease. We can attempt to choose to do this gradually (and less painfully) or let it happen to us very quickly (which would be more painful). But for the most part (other than my own childbearing decisions), that is out of my control, and I'd be better off focusing on what I can control and what actions I can take to help regenerate the vitality of my home. Some ways I am looking to do that right now are are working with food not bombs. And in the future (perhaps this summer) I would like to get involved with an urban farm in north city. My mom has also suggested looking into an interesting place called Enota, an eco-village in Georgia. Hopefully, you can see how through these things I hope to pursue, I will be doing my best to fulfill some of those 15 things. Hopefully, I'll discover someday how my college education will help me in this way as well, because this is what I want to do with my life- save the world, or at least do as much as I can towards that end. I don't know how useful this will be in regard to that end, but I'm finding that I am most interested in taking those classes that will broaden, at least intellectually, my understanding of people different from myself. This is why I am taking intro to women's studies and intro to anthropology. And next semester, I want to take intro to african american studies. I don't know if something like that can be translated into a major, but I might just try. Or I might just drop out, because broadening my own intellectual understanding doesn't do shit. I need to hook myself up with some homemade internships and figure out how to apply myself usefully somehow somewhere. Because I have the somewhat irrational fear that I will not be useful somehow somewhere, and that kind of self doubt is rather disheartening. All I know is that I have gone through 13 years of institutionalized education, and I am not any closer to figuring out what I will be doing, in specific terms, during the course of my life. Again, the only thing I can control is what I am doing right now at this moment. The future is unwritten.
Edit [1/27/06 2:40pm]: This is another article by the same guy that goes into detail about the 15 things, if you are interested.
There are a lot of things that everyone can do, and should do, to make the world better. Here's my latest list of 15 things: Trust your instincts; Listen, learn and teach others; Learn and practice critical thinking; Re-learn how to imagine; Use less stuff; Stop at one child; Become less dependent; Become an activist; Volunteer; Be a role model; Be a pioneer; Find or create a meaningful job; Share your expertise; Be good to yourself; and Infect others with your courage and spirit and passion. It's the least we can do. It's necessary that we do these things to be clearer about what else we need to do, because these things by themselves won't be enough.
The answer to the question of how to save the world I tried to give a few days ago is just a small part of the picture, but it is also a very important part. Human population needs to greatly decrease. We can attempt to choose to do this gradually (and less painfully) or let it happen to us very quickly (which would be more painful). But for the most part (other than my own childbearing decisions), that is out of my control, and I'd be better off focusing on what I can control and what actions I can take to help regenerate the vitality of my home. Some ways I am looking to do that right now are are working with food not bombs. And in the future (perhaps this summer) I would like to get involved with an urban farm in north city. My mom has also suggested looking into an interesting place called Enota, an eco-village in Georgia. Hopefully, you can see how through these things I hope to pursue, I will be doing my best to fulfill some of those 15 things. Hopefully, I'll discover someday how my college education will help me in this way as well, because this is what I want to do with my life- save the world, or at least do as much as I can towards that end. I don't know how useful this will be in regard to that end, but I'm finding that I am most interested in taking those classes that will broaden, at least intellectually, my understanding of people different from myself. This is why I am taking intro to women's studies and intro to anthropology. And next semester, I want to take intro to african american studies. I don't know if something like that can be translated into a major, but I might just try. Or I might just drop out, because broadening my own intellectual understanding doesn't do shit. I need to hook myself up with some homemade internships and figure out how to apply myself usefully somehow somewhere. Because I have the somewhat irrational fear that I will not be useful somehow somewhere, and that kind of self doubt is rather disheartening. All I know is that I have gone through 13 years of institutionalized education, and I am not any closer to figuring out what I will be doing, in specific terms, during the course of my life. Again, the only thing I can control is what I am doing right now at this moment. The future is unwritten.
Edit [1/27/06 2:40pm]: This is another article by the same guy that goes into detail about the 15 things, if you are interested.
Tuesday, January 24
Pantheism links
Myopia
I was at Sts. Clare and Francis Ecumenical Catholic Community this past saturday with my family for the second weekend in a row, and I noticed how comfortable I still felt in that environment despite not even actively participating in the service. It is comfotable for several reasons. First, it is a Catholic liturgy at its root, which is what I grew up with. Second, all the little things that bugged me about the Roman Catholic Church are put right with ECC. Third, it is part of the fundamental function of religion in our society to comfort, and it is very successful at that.
As I was standing there during the liturgy of the eucharist, I asked myself why I couldn't just go along with this and believe.
If my primary concern was finding more comfort, I would most probably be able to allow myself to blindly believe again. But I am not concerned primarily with comfort. I am concerned with agency. I am concerned with action. I am concerned with honesty.
With my broadened perspective of what constitutes the history of the human species, I can't help but see ECC and all of the modern organized religions as faulty by their extreme myopia, the same myopia that shapes (or mishapes, rather) our version of history. The shortsightedness of each religion's salvation story is insulting to the majority of humans who have lived on this earth before us and were not privy to this supposed chance at eternal life or enlightenment or something or other. Religions of this nature developed along with civilization and are a product of civilization, both responding to some of the ills that civilization created and working right along side civilization to instill the importance of progress and justify all the shit going down as being part of human destiny. Religion and the notion of a special afterlife reserved only for humans, being so far superior to the rest of the world, is the epitome of anthropocentrism. The idea that there is something more to humans, that there must be some separation between humans and other animals (not to mention the rest of the non-human world), is the most fundamental belief that friends of mine who are christian hold onto when I am talking with them about the new story that I am trying to live in. I do understand that humans have the ablility to reason and that no animal quite equals us in that capacity. Yet. I contend that we developed the ability to reason by evolution, just as with every other aspect that makes up the human person. And there is nothing to keep other species from evolving in a similar manner eventually. The ability to reason allows us the ability to ask an infinite number of questions, to contemplate our existence, and to have and express complex emotions. I don't see how any of these things that supposedly separate us from non-human species actually prove some unique quality like an eternal soul.
I've grown up believing that I am an eternal being. It is, to me, a very new idea indeed that this might not be true, so I am just trying to explore the concept and perhaps invite responses from others to see why people believe they are eternal, or why they don't. Thanks in advance for contributing to the discussion.
As I was standing there during the liturgy of the eucharist, I asked myself why I couldn't just go along with this and believe.
If my primary concern was finding more comfort, I would most probably be able to allow myself to blindly believe again. But I am not concerned primarily with comfort. I am concerned with agency. I am concerned with action. I am concerned with honesty.
With my broadened perspective of what constitutes the history of the human species, I can't help but see ECC and all of the modern organized religions as faulty by their extreme myopia, the same myopia that shapes (or mishapes, rather) our version of history. The shortsightedness of each religion's salvation story is insulting to the majority of humans who have lived on this earth before us and were not privy to this supposed chance at eternal life or enlightenment or something or other. Religions of this nature developed along with civilization and are a product of civilization, both responding to some of the ills that civilization created and working right along side civilization to instill the importance of progress and justify all the shit going down as being part of human destiny. Religion and the notion of a special afterlife reserved only for humans, being so far superior to the rest of the world, is the epitome of anthropocentrism. The idea that there is something more to humans, that there must be some separation between humans and other animals (not to mention the rest of the non-human world), is the most fundamental belief that friends of mine who are christian hold onto when I am talking with them about the new story that I am trying to live in. I do understand that humans have the ablility to reason and that no animal quite equals us in that capacity. Yet. I contend that we developed the ability to reason by evolution, just as with every other aspect that makes up the human person. And there is nothing to keep other species from evolving in a similar manner eventually. The ability to reason allows us the ability to ask an infinite number of questions, to contemplate our existence, and to have and express complex emotions. I don't see how any of these things that supposedly separate us from non-human species actually prove some unique quality like an eternal soul.
I've grown up believing that I am an eternal being. It is, to me, a very new idea indeed that this might not be true, so I am just trying to explore the concept and perhaps invite responses from others to see why people believe they are eternal, or why they don't. Thanks in advance for contributing to the discussion.
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