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BoureeMusique
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Name: Emily
Location: College Station, Texas, United States
Birthday: 7/31/1982
Interests: laughter, books, music, mysticism, comparative religion, singing, card and board games, writing, puzzles, friends, family, bicycling
Expertise: egocentrism, listening, asking questions
Occupation: Communications Specialist
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
5/17/2005
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SubscriptionsSites I Read
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| This is a wonderful article that has a quick recap of the problems of civilization we face now. That's not it's purpose, though. This article talks about why resisting extinction is important. It flies in the face of the "Sacred Demise" book I'm reading, which is wonderful in its own way. I think it's important to keep fighting injustice and to be angry but to find joy and peace at the same time. Is such a dichotomy possible? The English Romantic poets would agree that it is. I can hold competing thoughts in my head. I have the technology 
In other news, my weekend was full and wonderful. Friday night I got to attend the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of an old couple I know through my church. Later that night I spent some quality time with friends and my beloved. And made a sweet deal to sell my washer and dryer. Saturday morning I helped move that W&D, spent more time helping move my beloved out, enjoyed a sweet good-bye (for now), hauled more furniture and animal feed, spent quality time with friends and puppies, and then had a delicious dinner.
It was a Cinqo de Mama party. One of the members of my church created a new ministry of sorts. Every month she hosts a Family Dinner at the church and several dozen people show up to potluck and dine together. Saturday's theme was a combination of Cinqo de Mayo and Mother's Day. There was a photo contest (a picture of my mama drinking with her grandmother won) and a story contest (again, a double story about my mom fighting with nuns and eating a candy cane off the tree came in second), and I wound up winning two jars of mayonnaise and several nice gift cards. Friend M reminded me that I can use some of the mayo as a hair treatment. Yay!
Later Saturday the young adults went to one of their homes where I made chocolate chip banana bread and we all played Scattergories and had a few beers for a few hours.
Sunday was four hours at a church without air conditioning. The service went well and I got to meet a couple of new people in person. Then we had the annual congregational meeting, which was long but quite productive. The afternoon involved me firming up plans for moving in with friend G in August after my cat-sitting stint in June and July. Then I went back to see friend LL with the four great Great Pyrenees. I brought her Chinese food from our favorite place and did a load of laundry and brushed Pearl, my favorite dog. After that I went home and gave away my bookshelf and did a little resting and cleaning and chatting online with friend W. I have a lot of good friends, which always fills me with joy. Talked a bit with my beloved on the phone. He has a phone interview in just over an hour. I'll be thinking about him.
This week has a lot of excitement in it, too, but I'll save the mundane details for another day. | | |
| Here's an excellent discussion on rationing.
I agree with some of the guests's opponents who say that intentionally removing oneself from the grid and the system are great ideas, but I don't think they're sufficient. Nor do I think that technology will save us all, at least not at this late date. For myself, I'm trying to move further and further from needing to rely on the system, and for the health and lives who are unable or unwilling right now to make these steps, I think rationing will be necessary in the near future. We can either choose to ration and/or whatever benevolent or malevolent powers that be will do the rationing for us.
*I don't trust the government to do a good job rationing for us. Just as an example, when the government chose not to deliver a balanced budget and entered into sequester mode, it only took a few days for the powers that be to decide that air traffic workers, especially TSA agents, would *have* to be exempt from the furloughs and cut hours because it was hurting their livelihoods (or the livelihoods of their bankrollers) too much.
Solution: It's become my solution for everything - smaller, intentional communities that are interdependent on each other but are as a whole less dependent on The System from which we are already so far removed. | | |
| Here's a really long article, and it was tough for me to stay focused, but I really did appreciate the author's distillation of three basic and amoral (meaning without moral judgment; neutral, if you will) needs we have as humans beyond our human needs:
- Power (efficacy, agency)
- Meaning (purpose beyond survival)
- Connection (both to each other and wider nature)
These are things it is tough for a lot of us to think about if our physical needs are not being met. Or they're things we ignore if we think that acquiring more physical status symbols is important.
How can we have power in our own lives? How do we share that power? How do we keep that power in check with a moral understanding of our responsibilities (and our connections to others)?
Do we have a meaning? Is it something that is created by us or discovered as we learn about our connection with the planet and the living beings on it. I know that my marriage failed in part because we had lost a sense of shared values and, more concretely, of shared goals. It is always easier to be in community and in covenant with someone when you are working together toward something.
The communication, the connection, is imperative to expressing both power and meaning and making sure they are used for good instead of otherwise. Power and agency are important, but taking too much without understanding the connection of community is life- and self-defeating.
This is just another framework for how to think about the world and my place in it. I hope it's helpful to you and not just an exercise in sophistry. | | |
| not compulsorily but voluntarily. It's subversive, indeed. What? There's value outside of the money/market economy?
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