It doesn’t take any great perceptiveness or astute powers of observation to notice that a lot is wrong with the world today. But if those loudly reporting the “wrongness” aren’t also aware of the root causes, and what can be done to actually change things, then mostly the message just becomes frustrating and depressing to listen to. And if people continually express righteous anger and indignation at the injustice they see, only to then propose pointless, worthless solutions—or no solutions at all—that doesn’t really help.
Tag: health
Con Trolling
Here’s how it works: a troll preys on your need to be affirmed. Nearly everything that a troll does is to signal a message to you that says “I don’t like you and I’m not going to grant you the gift of my approval.” Once you start using arguments as a means of begging the troll to become your ally, the troll wins. Now he/she can simply play the easy and endless game of using everything you say as a basis for offering responses that make you feel more desperate for their acceptance and more frustrated for not receiving it.
“Spanking” Children Is Domestic Violence
While the average American would look at you like you were crazy if you said it was okay for a man to hit his wife if she didn’t obey him, that same person would likely argue that hitting – or “spanking” – children is not only acceptable, but advisable for producing “well-behaved, functioning” members of society.
This not only defies logic, it defies science.
How to Cultivate a Year of Mindfulness
In 2016, I practiced mindfulness more than I ever have before, after 10 years of sporadic practice. I meditated regularly, practiced with a local Zen group, did a great one-day sitting, went on a retreat, took courses, read books, practiced mindful eating and exercise, learned some great new practices, and taught several mindfulness courses. I learned a lot about how to cultivate a more mindful life, and I’d like to encourage you to try it this year. Why? A few good reasons.
Bad vs. Worse: Welfare Statism and Tribal Statism
Practically no one believes that so-called welfare states have the right to invade non-welfare states and remake them in their image, so that no one in the world is deprived of state welfare. Likewise, practically no one believes that so-called welfare states have the right to impose special taxes on their citizens with the purpose of creating welfare state systems in those countries that cannot afford to do so by themselves.
Sea Change Program: Change Your Life in 2017
I believe the freshness of this year brings a renewed energy for changing our lives. I believe 2017 can be great for all of us, with a bit of focus and effort. So I’ve created a revised Sea Change Program that’s geared to creating a great 2017 for all of you, full of positive life changes. How can Sea Change help you change your life in 2017?
Voluntaryists are Moral Agents, not Soothsayers
As a Voluntaryist, I do not claim to know how society will work without the state. I am not a central planner, fortuneteller, oracle, or soothsayer. The anarchist stance is only proclaiming that nobody has the moral right to rule and that my life is not owned by any politician or state. I live my life of my own accord and accept the consequences of my actions.
Filter Out the Noise
It can seem like our lives are filled with busyness, noise, distractions, and often meaningless activities. What if we could filter out all that noise, and focus on the meaningful? What if we could find stillness instead of constant distraction? I believe that most of us have that power. In my experience, most of the noise is there by choice, but we’ve fallen into patterns over the years and it can seem like we’re not able to change them. Let’s talk about ways to filter out the noise, then how to find stillness and meaning.
Nobody Owns Anything
Throughout my tenure as an anarchist one thing has always set me apart from everyone else: my beliefs around the concept of property and ownership. These are some real foundational beliefs for me, because it is based on them that I evaluate various things like “capitalism”, “socialism”, “communism”, even “economics” writ large. My beliefs on ownership are ones that I have largely kept silent about, but recently I have been feeling the need to sit down and elucidate my thoughts on the subject. So here it goes.
Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple
I’ve been called a crazy optimist, a Pollyanna, a romantic idealist. How can I believe that our system of compulsory (forced) schooling is about to collapse? People point out that in many ways the schooling system is stronger now than ever. It occupies more of children’s time, gobbles up more public funds, employs more people, and is more firmly controlled by government—and at ever-higher levels of government—than has ever been true in the past. So why do I believe it’s going to collapse—slowly at first and then more rapidly—over the next ten years or so?