Those who had wanted to go home would never get there now. Wendell Berry, “The objective” There are many people in the industrialised world who currently have no fixed address – some of them voluntarily, but most of them not. Exactly how many depends on who you believe. Government statistics will naturally understate the figuresContinue reading “On homelessness”
Tag Archives: emotional issues
On my favourite Tarot trump
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations If you know nothing else about the Tarot, you will have seen this card. It is the one that the gypsy fortune-teller always picks out in every cheesy horror film or TV show since theContinue reading “On my favourite Tarot trump”
On blame
It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as oneContinue reading “On blame”
On desperation
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays Desperation is not, of course, to be confused with despair. Both are marked by the absence of hope, but whereas despair is passive, desperation is active. People sunk into despair tend to do nothing; desperate people will doContinue reading “On desperation”
On human exceptionalism
Modern man does not experience himself as a part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side. E F Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if PeopleContinue reading “On human exceptionalism”
On hatred
Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure. George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan, canto xiii Hatred gets a very bad press, and on the whole deservedly so. It is often opposed to love, and given how depressing it would be to suppose love other thanContinue reading “On hatred”
On hope
Hope is being able to see the light despite all of the darkness. Desmond Tutu The turn of the year is a season when people naturally turn their thoughts to the future, as well as looking back on the year just passed. (Hence the appropriateness of naming January for Janus, the two-faced god of boundaries.)Continue reading “On hope”
On being overwhelmed
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. Wilkins Micawber in Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist This is where we are: we have a wide range of urgent problems which all need to be solved, and the resources toContinue reading “On being overwhelmed”
On death
Tʜᴇʀᴇ’ꜱ ɴᴏ ᴊᴜꜱᴛɪᴄᴇ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ’ꜱ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ᴍᴇ. – Death, in Terry Pratchett, Mort Death has become rather topical these days, what with the pandemic. At the time of writing, it’s difficult to assess the actual level of excess mortality globally, given the paucity of data and the variability from country to country in such data asContinue reading “On death”
On the collapse of civilisation
We’re doomed! – Private Frazer There is much talk on the interwebs about the imminent fall of civilisation. There’s an entire subreddit devoted to it, whose membership has increased dramatically over the last twelve months, not that I would necessarily recommend it. I’d like to spend this week’s post unpacking this idea of civilisational collapseContinue reading “On the collapse of civilisation”
The sound of falling leaves 