We’re living in the age of Trickster—and The Emerald podcast has re-issued an episode on that subject that is worth your time. As discussed in the episode, when Trickster is not ritually recognized as a necessary renewing force, he shows up in more destructive ways. The repressed returns as symptom.
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The meditation app Headspace has added an AI therapist to help you process your emotions. And, again, we see promoters of these services saying they should be used “with care”–as it rolls right along. My employer provides a subscription to Headspace and it’s a cheap way not to cover therapy.
Dismay at irrational human behavior is a mistake rooted in two false beliefs:
- That rational abstraction is or ought to be a normal mode of human thought, and
- That any of us ever engage in such a mode more than occasionally, for ends other than self-justification.
French chicory as a decaf coffee substitute
I love coffee. I could easily be one of those people drinking pot after pot, but I limit myself to one or two (large) mugs per day. On the two-mug days, I can tell that it makes me a little buzzy; probably not good for me. I started buying decaf but heard that there may be health concerns with the chemical used in decaffeination. Recently I bought a bag of French chicory, which is often touted as a naturally caffeine free coffee alternative.
A footnote in the book I’m reading led me to The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, an academic work currently on sale in Kindle format for $3.99. I hate reading on Kindle but if the subject matter interests you, it’s hard to pass up that deal.
It is a well-established pattern with advocates of new technology to answer all critiques with an acknowledgement of the need for careful implementation alongside an insistence on its inevitability. In every case, the implementation moves forward unchecked, because inevitability abolishes consent.
One thing I learned from my fundamentalist upbringing, which has served me well: I have never expected or needed the world around me to live by my values.
Erik Davis has a worthwhile piece on the supposed trend of a Silicon Valley Christianity. He calls it Christian transhumanism. When I read things like this, I feel that same discombobulation I felt when I first learned of The Church of the Papal Mainframe in Doctor Who.
In the course of a tariff discussion with friends in a group text, I threw out this statement of political priorities and, on reflection, I do think it captures most of what I care about at the moment:
In any case, my preferred outcome is not on the table: managed degrowth of the economy; discrediting and banishing the American dream of increasing consumerism and reliance on personal debt; and breaking up Big Tech and fundamentally slowing and limiting technological advancement.
We have some severe weather headed our way so we’ve been watching Max Velocity live on YouTube. His coverage is so much better than traditional media. It’s strange, watching this shift to new media. And sometimes it really is an improvement.