The animism hidden behind cutting edge technology

In an echo of Bruno Latour’s “we have never been modern”, David Abram argues “we are still animist.” We have built devices that speak to us, even have conversations with us, in an attempt to find our way back to the living landscape of our ancestors. Yet these devices are not radically other; they are only extensions of human consciousness. Our living landscape is thus only ever human, thinning our experience, dulling our senses, and pushing us deeper and deeper into artificial environments.

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The future is always unknowable but sometimes its impenetrability is tangible. As I plan for my mom, I have literally no idea how her life will proceed. My accountant brain wants to lay out the possibilities. Yet at every approach to the granite block of the future, it gently but firmly tells me no.

My responsibility in a full cosmos

Robinson Jeffers: As for us: We must uncenter our minds from ourselves; We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident As the rock and ocean that we were made from. How does living in a full cosmos affect my daily life? As dear old Robinson says, it unhumanizes my views a little; it de-centers me. In an empty cosmos, humans alone have agency. Humans can be acted upon by impersonal forces, certainly, but those actions are definitionally meaningless.

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One week ago, at about this time of day, our lives went topsy-turvy. I took mom to the ER for treatment of a serious fall and it became clear as we’ve stayed with her this week how weak she has become. That, plus several other issues, have resulted in her qualifying for hospice care. We’ll also be moving her into assisted living in the coming days.

I’ve had so many surreal, hard conversations this week. Rachel has been amazing, pushing herself past her comfort zone in physical care and pushing me past my comfort zone in those difficult conversations.

It’s shocking how fast everything has changed. “Trust the unfolding” has become my mantra.

Fascinating visualization of the change in how 25-35 year olds use their time over the past century

The land of God

Wendell Berry, “Two Economies”: Some time ago, in conversation with Wes Jackson in which we were laboring to define the causes of the modern ruination of farmland, we finally got around to the money economy. I said that an economy based on energy would be more benign because it would be more comprehen­sive. Wes would not agree. “An energy economy still wouldn’t be comprehensive enough.” “Well,” I said, “then what kind of economy would be comprehensive enough?

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Unfolding

I write to you from within a constrained world. Caring for my elderly, injured mother, thinking only of the next task, I make phone calls and listen for her stirring in the night. What do I have to do with the world of presidents and wars? I dimly recall the Strait of Hormuz as I fill my gas tank and worry about Medicare coverage. There was a spot on Stumphole Bridge Road where long ago (last week?

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Now that offices have re-opened, it’s been a day of phone calls and a visit to a new doctor for mom. Note-taking, list-making, and plenty of stress. On the way to the doctor I thought, “I’m trusting the strong powers.” At which point I drove past a handmade roadside sign: “We are not alone.”

I’d appreciate prayers, etc., for my mom, Rachel, and me. Mom has been falling increasingly often, culminating in a serious fall yesterday that required an ER visit. Rachel and I have been staying with her since then. Mom needs to recover and we need to figure out how to get her more help.

Three years ago today I posted on carceral environmentalism and I still like that phrase.