Rain on the Roof

Few sounds comfort with 

the rhythmic efficiency 

of rain on the roof.

The Answer is Attention

The more I consider it, the more I realize that attention, properly directed, is the solution to many of our difficulties. 

We tend to underrate the value of the simple act of attention, but I assure you that Madison Avenue and political propagandists do not.

After all, as the philosopher Alan Watts once observed, “The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.”

And the poet Mary Oliver advised, “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

Merely momentarily shift your attention from your driving to your phone, for example, and a child may die. This isn’t a metaphor, but a memory. The driver was a teenage girl, and the child was an 8-year-old boy.

Guarding the Mind's Eye

Theoretical philosopher Thomas Metzinger warns we are being overwhelmed as “…social media and tech firms aim to maximize user engagement by creating ever better attention sinks and developing pathological, addictive forms of media consumption.”

As New Scientist magazine reported, “Our attention, says Metzinger, is the resource they want, and that entails destroying our mental autonomy — our ability to control the focus of our minds — ceding it to who knows what algorithm.”

And what does Metzinger recommend? “Of course, meditation, which opens up news states of consciousness and provides mental control. He asks whether it should be a standard part of education, and argues strongly for robust intellectual honesty as well as old-fashioned values like integrity and sincerity. We need, he suggests, a fusion of critical rationality with mindful attention to help us grapple with rapid techno-cultural change.”

Back with a Vengeance

“(Trump) bears responsibility for what comes next, as do his allies and supporters,” wrote Timothy Snyder in The New Yorker. “Yet some, and probably more, of the blame rests with our actions and analysis. Again and again, our major institutions, from the media to the judiciary, have amplified Trump’s presence; again and again, we have failed to name the consequences. Fascism can be defeated, but not when we are on its side.”

Donald Trump is not a president at all. He’s the first American dictator, one the corporate news media helped usher into office by drowning us in sanewashing.

In Green Springs Seen

I measure my life

In green springs seen, and in those

I may yet enjoy.

The Misinformation Menace

For a propagandist, news isn’t relevant and/or interesting factual information to which the public is entitled. It’s a weapon to be deployed for the purpose of deception. 

The American media scene in the 21st century cannot be understood at all without constant reference to that fact.

The problem is that at least half the country is being fed a largely fictional narrative, every day, and accepts it to be true. That’s the Fox News Effect.

I realized more than 20 years ago that if lying propaganda could be substituted for news, this country’s ruin would follow in short order.

Determinism? So what?

Whether or not determinism is true in a technical sense, obviously we have free will in a a practical, existential sense. Nothing about the theory of determinism can help avoid having to agonize over a difficult decision. 

As Sartre observed, humanity is damned to freedom. We have it even though we often don't really want it.