Continued from Uprooting Civilization (Part 1) “There were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane” Francis Ford Coppola The Non-Evolutionary Perspective We now know, perhaps with some relief, that evolution was not a key factor in creating a form of humanity […]
Category Archives: Essays
I have a great fear. It has been with me for years now, haunting the background to my thoughts. This fear surmounts climate change, deforestation, peak oil, global pandemic, soil depletion, indeed any worry that any reasonable person might keep at the very top of their worry-tree. It surmounts, but also encompasses these things, and […]
There is a school of thought that claims Western industrial nations are democratic. The main proponents of that school include politicians, the mass media, corporate heads and most academics. Now, I don’t know if that school really understands what “democratic” actually means, I assume they think it means it is representative of the wishes of […]
I haven’t been feeling too happy recently. With a busy break, many comings and goings, perhaps a little too much alcohol and nothing like a routine I put my grumpiness in late December down to essentially that; but then I snapped and uncoiled like a watch spring. After some soul-searching I realised the real reason […]
This is an experiment. I am going to write this essay straight-off, with no edits except for obvious spelling and grammatical errors. In a sense, writing like this is itself a form of self-liberation. Prior to written communication human beings communicated at a far more immediate level with little opportunity for correction at a later […]
“At birth we are connected to the real world and then, subtly, without our nascent consciousness even being aware of it happening, a veil is slipped over our minds. As we proceed through our lives layer after layer is wrapped around us to suppress any inquisitiveness we may have…We are enmeshed in lives that leave […]
It’s been five months since I last wrote for The Earth Blog; to be honest I’ve been doing better things, like working within my community, enjoying my family as they grow up, keeping the house and garden ticking over in the frigid winter months and welcoming the perfections of spring days with a wonder that […]
I hadn’t exerted myself until I felt sick for quite some time: the rasping breath, accompanied by the gag reflex as each shallower gulp of air oxygenates the blood just a little less each time – halfway towards the crest of the hill and heading into a fierce headwind; but there’s a little more story […]
It took me a long time to realise that what I thought was my own free will was actually a mercilessly manipulated and largely predetermined way of living my life: “free will” was whatever this civilization told me was the “right” way to live. It took me even longer to accept that I didn’t have […]
I fear I cannot do this river justice. You can’t taste words or hear what they try to convey; yet as I sit on a bank of the Tweed, a few metres to the north of, and below the house we have just moved into, I feel I have a story to tell. Pity the […]
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