jabel

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 09:03:34 -0400

I have no knowledge to evaluate the “ten percent” claim but this quote seems entirely plausible because we have done this before, most notably with nuclear arms:

At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first — they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.

There is so much money being made on AI. Piles of it are being forked into the frontier labs and Nvidia is growing its revenue by astonishing percentages every quarter. Everyone in this industry has every reason to ignore the danger. We have done this before and I am quite sure we’re doing it again. It may not result in the literal destruction of humanity but there’s no way this rolls on forever without something bad and big.

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:58:08 -0400

Nothing makes me feel more out of place than the chit-chat of CPAs at professional education events. I’ve already brushed off conversation with one shiny man saying something about fractional finance. Dude, did you hear me say I’m from Bedford? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Working and remembering

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 18:07:23 -0400

Well, Dad, I tuned up our truck today. It’s the first time I’ve tried that in the twenty years since I inherited it from you. Replaced the fuel filter, spark plugs and wires, distributor cap and rotor. After I was done I drove it for a few miles through Oolitic and Bedford and thought about you.

I decided this year to start working on the truck, now that I have the new job and can drive it more regularly. As you know, I’ve never been a “car guy” and I’m still not. I’ve taken this up in the spirit of repair and self-reliance. And YouTube really, really helps. I think your DIY attempts when I was a kid would have gone a lot better if you had YouTube.

But some things never change. I had to go to O’Reilly’s and Harbor Freight three or four times today. Whenever that happens I think of you working on a plumbing problem at the house and going, over and over, to the hardware store in Oolitic. It was aggravating for you but fun for me. I wish we still had a hardware store like that. That wonderful smell. The owner who always knew what you needed and where it was in that infinity of small bits of American manufacturing.

I picked up a few tools for the job: a click-type torque wrench (they had digital but who wants that?), two spark plug sockets (the second because the first was the wrong size, despite the insistence of the guy at O’Reilly’s), and an impressively long extension bar (YouTube guy said I’d thank him, and I did). I probably used some of your tools at some point; your tools have been mixed with mine for so long that I sometimes forget which is which, except for those few you engraved your initials into.

Remember when I took your brand new set of punches and–for reasons unknown to me even at the time–sunk each one into different parts of the yard with a hammer? I remember you being more confused than angry. Looking back, I know that was more of a hardship than you let on, since you needed those for work.

The truck is running better. It starts a bit slow but it was doing that in the days before the tune-up so I’m hoping it’s unrelated. I’m glad Rachel talked me out of selling it a few times over the years. Well, I say she “talked me out of it”; what happened is she told me no.

There’s plenty more work to do and I’ll be thinking of you now and then as I do it. I hope you’re well, or getting that way. Drop in anytime.

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 20:18:23 -0400

It is heartening to see all the people writing remembrances of Wendell Berry and posting quotes from his work. But the question presses forward: what are we going to do in response to such a life? Words alone are empty.

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 05:19:17 -0400

It’s good to hear, from the people who knew him best, that your hero was a truly good man.

Sauron: “I’m helping”

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 08:08:00 -0400

Tolkien, The Fall of Numenor:

[Sauron] did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with it. He still had the relics of positive purposes that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and coordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction.

Dividing the year

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 06:53:41 -0400

We’re in a heat wave right when the Abel house wants to start feeling spooky, so I’m thinking about seasons again. Here in southern Indiana, we have a relatively balanced year. Our summers are hotter than our winters are cold but such is the world at this point. I divide up the year in the following way, based on natural patterns rather than holidays or equinoxes/solstices.

Spring
March through May
March is when the spring ephemerals start popping up in the woods. It’s tempting to mark spring by the sap flow, which begins in February but February is clearly–and harshly–a winter month. March is transitional, marked by winds and continuing winter weather but also by days when you can tell the year has turned. By May, the threat of frost has passed and the garden can be fully planted.

Summer
June through August
June is, for me, the most beautiful month of the year around here. It’s fully warm, not hot, and the days are long and hopeful. (October–the other candidate for most beautiful month–loses because of its deep melancholy.) Once July hits, though, the heat is on. July and August, generally, are suffered rather than enjoyed. The heat index is consistently above 100 deg F. Hot as it is, though, it still beats the depths of winter because of tiger lillies, honeysuckle, brown-eyed susans, and sunflowers.

Fall
September through November
Here we call it fall, never autumn. By September, it’s still quite hot but signs of change have begun. In our garden, the showy sunflowers have finally bloomed, a beautiful sign that the growing season is drawing to a close. Then comes October, the peak of fall. Spider webs, wind blowing through the coloring leaves, the quality of the light, the scent of decay. It’s a wonderful, sad month. This continues somewhat into November before the leaves begin to fall. By Thanksgiving, the garden is prepared for winter, the leaves have fallen, and we’re resigned to the coming cold and dark.

Winter
December through February
The winter dark is fully set in December, though the weather isn’t as bad as it will be. In January and February, the wind burns your face and freezes the snot in your nose. The sunsets, though, they can be special. And the silence after a heavy snowfall is reverential. The shortest month of the year is the longest emotionally, as cabin fever sets in.

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 17:35:55 -0400

Me, four years ago: “Unknown/Unknowable”

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 06:32:52 -0400

Well what can I say? No one apart from immediate family has shaped me more than Wendell Berry. He’s been a part of my life for over twenty years and, for the last several, I’ve thought about him nearly every day. He did a lifetime’s worth of good work, the public face of which he left for our bookshelves. What worked in him still works in us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“I saw him as I was able to comprehend him.”

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 07:03:01 -0400

Henry Corbin:

It goes without saying that the form in which each of us receives the master’s thought conforms to his “inner heaven”; that is the very principle of the theophanism of Ibn ‘Arabi, who for that reason can only guide each man individually to what he alone is capable of seeing, and not bring him to any collective pre-established dogma: Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui. The truth of the individual’s vision is proportional to his fidelity to himself, his fidelity to the one man who is able to bear witness to his individual vision and do homage to the guide who leads him to it. This is no nominalism or realism, but a decisive contemplation, far anterior to any such philosophical choice, a distant point to which we must also return if we wish to account for the deformations and rejections which the spirituality of Ibn ‘Arabi has so often incurred, sometimes for diametrically opposed reasons, but always because men have sidestepped the self-knowledge and self-judgment that this spirituality implies.

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 22:04:04 -0400

A wonderful story from Alone with the Alone.

It was actually in Tunis that one evening, withdrawn in a prayer niche of the Great Mosque, [Ibn ‘Arabī] composed a poem which he communicated to no one. He did not even commit it to writing, but registered the day and the hour of his inspiration in his memory. A few months later, in Seville, a young man unknown to him, approached him and recited the verses. Overwhelmed, Ibn ‘Arabī asked him: “Who is their author?” And the other replied: “Muhammad Ibn ‘Arabī” The young man had never seen Ibn ‘Arabī and did not know who was standing before him. Then how did he know the verses? A few months before (the very day and hour when the inspiration had come to Ibn ‘Arabi in Tunis) a stranger, an unknown pilgrim, had mingled, here in Seville, with a group of young men, and had recited a poem which they, delighted, had begged him to repeat in order that they might learn it by heart. Having done so the stranger had disappeared without making himself known or leaving any trace.

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:48:09 -0400

Dolly and family singing “In the Pines.” Fantastic!

Her vast artistry was rooted in family, and place, and time, and time vimeopro.com/dollypart…

Matthew Battles https://mbattles.micro.blog/2026/08/26/her-vast-artistry-was-rooted.html

Allegory and symbol

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:03:10 -0400

Henry Corbin, Alone with the Alone:

At this point we must recapitulate the distinction, fundamental for us, between allegory and symbol; allegory is a rational operation, implying no transition either to a new plane of being or to a new depth of consciousness; it is a figuration, at an identical level of consciousness, of what might very well be known in a different way. The symbol announces a plane of consciousness distinct from that of rational evidence; it is the “cipher” of a mystery, the only means of saying something that cannot be apprehended in any other way; a symbol is never “explained” once and for all, but must be deciphered over and over again, just as a musical score is never deciphered once and for all, but calls for ever new execution.

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 12:28:52 -0400

Chocolate gravy was a success! My uncle mentioned it recently. When he was an older teen he was not required to go to Saturday night church (like he was on Sundays) so he would sneakily make himself chocolate gravy while the family was away, all for himself. A luxury in a family of nine children.

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:56:07 -0400

Finished reading Ann the Word by Richard Francis. The writer was a bit snarky in places but it was an engaging biography. I’m a bit sad it’s over. I’m done with Shaker reading for the moment but I wouldn’t be surprised if I come back to it. There’s plenty more.

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 17:13:39 -0400

It’s been a really good year for goldfinches here. Multiple daily appearances as they chow down on coneflowers. Beautiful little critters.

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 12:23:31 -0400

I think that about sums it up.

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 09:05:11 -0400

Sometimes I follow a link over to Mastodon and see the insane way people talk on social media, or I read an article about cash drops and other trends, and I thank all the powers that I am blessedly out of touch. I may be online a lot, but I spend that time very differently.

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 17:21:23 -0400

I still really like this post from three years ago, in which I did some investigating/speculating into the impact “new” highway 37 had on our town.

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:33:56 -0400

I’ve been having fun researching a Civil War letter written by my great-great-great grandfather on my dad’s side. Also, in preparation for a possible road trip, I’ve been researching my mom’s family’s migration from Kentucky to Indiana. So expect some blog posts of interest to no one but me!

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 08:33:22 -0400

One of my epiphanies when I left Big Tech social media in 2020 was how the timeline had come to dominate my mind. The (little) writing I was doing at the time was dictated by the topics discussed in my timeline. Freedom from the timeline meant freeing my mind, in some small way. Writing for engagement can feel, in the moment, like writing about the most burning issues of the day–and to some degree it is. At the same time, writing for engagement is self-limiting. “Hot takes” feel a bit less hot when you realize you’re only thinking about those things because the timeline told you to. The best way to gain perspective is by being irrelevant.

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 08:02:27 -0400

To repurpose a familiar line: be not conformed to technology, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Perspectives

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 17:41:26 -0400

Rachel and I were talking about near death experiences (NDEs) some time ago when we came to the question: should these accounts be understood as what will actually happen after death? To be clear, many of the experiencers do seem to believe everyone will experience something substantially similar to their NDE. At the time, I said to Rachel that I can believe NDEs are “real” (i.e., not hallucinations or lies or delusions) while also not believing they are photorealistic depictions of the afterlife.

This is related to the rule I proposed in my post on speaking in tongues: never believe an experiencer’s explanation of their extraordinary experience.

I’m circling around a way to understand strange experiences that:

Rejects materialism (obviously!)
Resists psychologizing
Holds them to be true
While rejecting any absolute truth claims made by the experiencer

One way to do this might be through something like Amazonian perspectivism. Warning: my knowledge here is shaky. I first heard about it from Gordon White, who does have a lot of knowledge on the subject. But my personal reading is limited, so any mistakes in the next two paragraphs are my own.

Perspectivism is an anthropological theory developed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro to understand the worldviews of various Amazonian peoples. It states that different beings inhabit differing perspectives, yet all experience themselves as persons. A human with a human perspective sees themselves living in a house in a village, engaged in hunting and social life. An anaconda with an anaconda perspective also sees themselves living in a house and engaging in hunting–it’s just that their house may be a hole in a river bank and their game might be the same animals hunted by humans. Personhood is distributed across species. At the same time, it is experienced differently by each species because of their perspective.

This is where shamans come in. Shamans are humans who can move between perspectives. Once they have inhabited those perspectives, they can bring back knowledge, properly translated. To use Viveiros de Castro’s famous example: for the jaguar, blood is beer. If a shaman watching (from afar!) a jaguar consuming its kill inhabited the jaguar’s perspective, they would see the jaguar enjoying a refreshing, intoxicating beverage. The shaman who comes back with this knowledge would be wrong to say “jaguars drink beer,” which is nonsense literally. Instead the shaman translates across the perspectives by saying, “for the jaguar, blood is something like what beer is for us.”

Here is where something like perspectivism could be helpful in understanding strange experiences. In these events, the experiencer undergoes something like a shamanic journey. They are experiencing the world through a different perspective.

When someone is speaking in tongues, they are experiencing the perspective of a spirit. From its perspective, the spirit experiences itself as a person, which includes speaking and language. Yet that language cannot be understood properly by someone standing next to the experiencer in a state of ordinary consciousness. It also cannot be carried back across the perspectives without translation. This is why those who trying to explain speaking in tongues by way of human languages are breaking the experience; they are failing as shamans.

NDEs are the experience of discorporated human beings. This is, needless to say, a perspective very different from that of an embodied human being. And, again, it would be a mistake to bring information from that perspective back to the waking world without translation. NDEs are not daylight truth, like GPS directions. They’re also not metaphors to be handled like some hack dream interpreter. They are reports of a strange country, and must be told slant.

These strange experiences must pass through the chest, not the head. The proper organ of translation for them is the heart; they must be felt into, not explained.

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 10:24:11 -0400

Remember the scene in Testament of Ann Lee where John Hocknell chases his own finger and it leads him to their settlement site? I am pleased to report that he was not the only one to experience that among the Shakers. A convert named Aaron Wood was known for doing the same thing. Richard Francis:

On one occasion a young boy from the area, who had been entrusted with the task of delivering corn to the local miller, failed to arrive on time. Aaron’s pointing finger led the concerned locals to the spot where the boy’s horse was waiting by the river, still loaded up with corn. The boy was nowhere to be seen, though, and Aaron and his fellow-villagers came to the conclusion that he had drowned crossing the water. Ever practical, the miller took the corn off to grind it anyway.

Turns out the boy was fine, just distracted by another errand. Aaron wondered why his arm led him to the corn but not the boy. Maybe his arm knew it was the corn, not the boy, that needed finding!

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 19:46:05 -0400

Gordon White tells a story at the end of this episode about a co-worker whose mother had died. She went back to Yorkshire to be with her sister on Christmas when, on Christmas Day, they found a butterfly flying around the kitchen. The sister said, “That’s mom!” Gordon’s co-worker said, “That’s just a butterfly.”

She went back to work and told Gordon this story, to which he replied, “No, that was your mom.”

You want a more enchanted cosmos? Do not be the voice of reason.