Following up on my previous post, it’s worth noting that he regards this as a counsel of perfection on the order of “love one another”, that is to say, ideals to be striven after even if never fully attained. Counsels of perfection, of course, bring monastic vows to mind. A lot to think about here.

The heart of Jeffers’ Inhumanist philosophy is the turn away from the human, toward the nonhuman. A shift in the locus of value and attention. From his preface to Double Axe:

Turn outward from each other, so far as need and kindness permit, to the vast life and inexhaustible beauty beyond humanity. This is not a slight matter, but an essential condition of freedom, and of moral and vital sanity.

“The Sun is Alive, and Why That Matters” by Charles Eisenstein. Interesting case for the aliveness of the sun, without making “aliveness” an extra-material property.

A fantastic essay from Paul Kingsnorth that captures so much of my own feeling. It even turns on a poem by blessed Robinson Jeffers. I’ll warn you: it’s a bit gloomy, so if you’re feeling pretty good about the state of the world then you might not want to read it.

The argument against conceptual clarity with regard to Ultimate Things:

The Tao that can be told is not the true Tao;

Names that can be named are not true names.

Keep asking yourself: What sort of person do I want to be? You may fail to reach your goal. No one may ever notice your efforts. What you must not do, however, is allow others to steer your life, thoughts, decisions in directions that are in their—not your—interests.

Today’s solstice celebration food: Swedish meatball soup and pistachio drop cookies. Both highly recommended!

“Ten Theses on Intergenerational Stewardship” by Prince Michael zu Salm-Salm, a German aristocrat committed to long-term care of the land. I don’t hold with aristocracy but this is worth reading.

“Don’t obsess over politics”—click through to read a good quote posted by Patrick Rhone. It’s not healthy for people to think about politics as much as they do. And I understand why: too much is at stake. That’s the problem. Too few people hold too much power. Literally world-changing power. That is the province of the gods, not humans. Our governments and corporations have long since abandoned human scale, and our anxieties have increased accordingly.

Douglas Rushkoff was invited to speak to a group of tech billionaires about the future of technology, only to find out that what they were really interested in was how to survive a collapse of their own making. He’s written a book about it. /via Cory Doctorow