Who may want to read this blog?

I seem to want it to have a special local value here in Dayton, but my political thoughts now aren't focused much on things local.

In spite of this, I just finished my page about the relationship of Dayton and me up until now: For locals: my past Dayton involvements

I see the present as a collapse of everything collective about humanity, at least in the US. Once it's complete, individuals will need to re-build from the rubble.

Nothing could be more local than that, so, eventually this blog will probably be all about the local.

So I may try soon to let some local contacts know I started this blog.

I'm not sure yet.

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The blog will be for people that love what I love rather than for argument.

But it will not attempt to analyze the present assaults on the things I love (community, nature, beauty, truth, caring, etc.)

When behaving collectively, Americans and most of the rest of the world in 2010 are completely insane, and that's all that needs to be said.

There is nothing constructive about trying to analyze insanity.

That sounds like an oversimplification but it is not.

One thing that may be constructive instead is discussion of bad turns that got us here.

That's why I think a lot about anthropolgy and earth history and human history right now, and expect to learn more about them, and maybe discuss them here.

As far as talking about the insanity around us, defense from it is relevant. For example, if you are going to want to read this blog, you are a person horrified by last month's Citizens United decision, and you know it will directly impact your life.

The way that impact will unfold is relevant for this blog.

If you are a potential reader of this blog you already keep well informed about peak oil and climate change.

I will not dwell on the current clash between peak oil and industrial civilization.

It is relevant, but many others are already blogging about this.

And, industrial civilization is part of the insanity I have been referring to, so the clash is too, thus not very constructive to analyze.

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This leaves psychological coping as fair game.

You are NOT a solitary creature but a social one.

And yet your society and culture are insane, and always have been to a lesser extent.

The severe sense of loneliness this causes can be lessened if it is discussed openly I believe.

And, I have been feeling this intensely since I was sixteen, probably longer, so I have at least forty years of experience with it.

So younger people with less chance to heal may get real value from what I might write.

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And, I have been practicing something called "mindfulness" for almost two years.

This is just a bare-bones simplified kind of meditation.

I am too hyper to sit still and meditate, but I have learned to do it while walking and during other activities.

It is supposed to help me have more moments of calm hapiness and less moments of fear and dread, and it is also supposed to help me think more clearly, and to not over-conceptualize.

It works.

I now think of my daily life as a kind of open monasticism.

I love to explore far and wide outdoors, which is the opposite of being in a monastery.

But monks love simplicity like I do.

Some of my simplicity is just because I love it, and some of it results from disinterest in the "stuff" around me, because it is part of an insane culture.

Perhaps this mindfulness and open monasticism will produce thoughts about coping that are really important.

Or they might paint a really exciting picture that I can share about a completely different future.

These seem like great goals for a blog.

A Good Place to Start

A good place to start is with the question, "What good is another blog of another man's opinions?".

Well, right now collective consciousness seems to me to be a huge parallel processing effort, and every mind that is part of that processing is valuable.

I know that when I read the blogs of others lately, I am gaining as much insight from the comments at the bottom as from the articles, sometimes even more.

These comments are NOT all repetition and circular thinking.

And, even for those like me, who have been trying to pay attention to reality all our lives, rather than succumb to the national disease of distraction, there is a degree of confusion now.

This is because even we are shocked and surprised at many recent things.

So we have a strong urge to process our new realizations with each other, hoping to get some sense of what is ahead next, and what chances we have if any to affect the future.

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I also added three links today, to three people I think are in front of this effort to correctly clarify what life is about now.

James Kunstler changed my life thirteen years ago by saying things about America I too had realized. I remember before I read his book "Geography of Nowhere" I thought I was the only person on earth becoming alarmed about what was happening to the US.

Now he is still saying the same things in the same ways, and many more people see the world the way he does now, but others are still discovering him for the first time every day.

Second, I have added Thom Hartmann, who is quickly gaining radio audience in the US, finally becoming a formidable counter force in some markets to Limbaugh and the other unchallenged right-wing voices.

His shows are not cluttered with the harsh noise and efforts to be funny and entertaining that make all other talk radio intolerable for me.

I didn't completely realize how important he is until 2009.

Finally, there is The Archdruid Report, by James Michael Greer, who's weekly articles I have just become a fan of.

I may expand this list beyond three whenever I think it makes sense.

But every voice that becomes important you will eventually discover anyway, with or without links from me.

an extension of my journal

For about three and a half years, I've had an online journal, and it has been a good thing, which I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy posting entries and photos to.

Originally, I expected to comment more about political and spiritual things there than I have.

I've always had multiple things that I wanted that journal to be, and I always sensed that spiritual and political talk beyond what ended up being expressed there would conflict with some of those things.

For example, for some people I just want my journal to be a way they can know I'm still alive and around.

Some rants did enter the pages there, and I don't apologize. Actually, because of the meltdown of the world around me that is ongoing since 2008, and since I was one of those who foresaw this, I am amazed I didn't fill the journal with lots of rants.

Instead, I just had a few, and also wrote two little essays in 2007, that I linked to at the right top of the journal.

The countervailing force to the emotions the meltdown is causing has been the "mindfulness" I've been learning.

If that force loses out to the emotions in the future, this new blog can be the place that happens.

A nice separate blog will be better anyway for many reasons, so my journal can stay the pleasant place that I think it is.

So, welcome to that separate blog.

Let's see if it will last very long, and if so, let's see what it will become.