I'm not going to pretend to know what Wallace Stevens was referring to by the Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is, but it has always reminded me of the fact that there are myriad complex worlds around us to which we are wholly ignorant. Not because we don't pay attention, though that may be part of it, but because we can't pay attention. There are vast existences too small to see with the naked eye. Ponds full of pond scum that have their own version of stressful jobs, political and social situations, and whatnot just as we do. They're just having it all on a very different scale, from us and happen to use chemicals instead of words to communicate. 

For all you know that puddle you didn't even notice on your way into work this morning is home to a population of microbes undergoing an extremely stressful existence which they would desperately like to escape just as much as you would desperately like to escape your cubicle. 

By the same token, the nothing that is has also always reminded me that it's entirely possible, likely even I would argue, that there are some beings out there to which our existence is about the same as the pond scum. Not insignificant or unimportant, just too small to really pay any kind of meaningful attention to. After all, pretty much everyone and everything has its own set of problems to worry about.


Staring at nothing isn't doing nothing. It so happens that watching the world in silence isn't something our culture considers valuable and so you and I have been trained to casually dismiss it as "doing nothing". But the more I've done it, the more I realized that sitting, "doing nothing" is actually, possibly, the secret of the world so to speak. Whatever it may be, I can say from experience that it's incredibly valuable to me now and has helped me grow by leaps and bounds as a person.

I also think it offers a practical, easy way out of many of the social messes we've created for ourselves.

There's a lot of windbags out there criticizing the internet, especially social media, for fostering narcissism, consumer culture, intellectual bullying, and whatever other social ill gets their particular goat as it were. But it's rare that said windbags have any good ideas on how we can counteracting these forces beyond turning off the TV and internet. 

To be fair, that does work. Especially turning off the TV. Few things will improve your life so dramatically as throwing your TV out the highest window you can find (making sure there's no one below). 

The internet though is more neutral in my view. It can be good, it can be bad, it all depends on you and how you use it. In my case I have to use it, it's how I make money to live this way. And sure I can say oh I'm only going to look up whatever technical thing I need to look up to solve a particular problem, but that ideal is very different from the messy relaity that the internet is full of interesting stuff to stare at. 

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Observing nature is not nothing. 

Which is to say all the things we as a culture don't want to talk about right now.

You and I find ourselves born into a declining culture. A culture that is what Spengler would call the end of an abstraction phase that will soon start swinging toward 


is a bit more complex than that. If you want to still use social media, try first developing humility. One easy way to do that is to create an active practice cultivating humility, for example, pending time in quiet observance of nature. Spend some time realizing that most of life care not at all what humans think, say or do, is helpful in 

seems like it would require an active practice.




But as we struggle through this crisis of legitimacy, what is left over when the abstractions start to wear thin? When I decide I don’t want to become an opiate addict and need to find something else? What about when it’s more serious than just a headache – what if it turns out to be cancer, and I don’t want to follow the standard ‘cut, poison, burn’ protocol? For me, it sometimes feels like there’s only a smoking crater where my brain should be. My mind often feels like it’s just a collection of Other People’s opinions and regurgitated sound bites. Even if I do try to pay attention to my own experiences, what I am able to perceive is limited by my analysis of the information coming in to my brain, which is itself conditioned by the habits of thought I learned from other people and my society. I filter out the information to which I am exposed. So there really is no objective truth out there! -https://www.ecosophia.net/the-truths-we-have-in-common/#comment-17128

! It’s when you realize that most of your opinions and ideas belong to other people that you can begin the central work of an age of reflection — the work of learning how to think your own thoughts, and assess other people’s opinions and ideas and your own with a set of critical tools that don’t depend on checking their fit to some collectively approved set of abstract generalizations. JMG

ipalm fronds, whirls, fans, crisp browned tips, peeling trunks as if the whole tree were some giant alien flower, other with trunks smooth and stalk straight leading up to bunches of fronds that look like pineapples on stilts. The can be so absolutely still when the ind doesn't blow.. The slash pine mixed in, it too has a very stright trunk, shedding its lower branches as it grows so that the long, delicate needles grow in tuffs and clumps of needle fans near the top of the tree. Here and there an oak, never a big one in the palm-dominated areas, but vaguely sickly looking oaks scratching out an existence in this sandy soil.

Twilight is soft yellow that gradually fades up to a cool white that gets cooler and cooler blow as it climbs up the sky until it reachs the rich coblant I see up through the faint waiving of pine tops in the wind, the deep rich blue of twilight, the spirit who guides the stars into the night. The sand looks gray and soft when the sun is gone, the coean grows dark and seems to settle it's restlessness a bit as the light disappears.


Moo Krob Nam Ma Prow

having grown up in mid-twentieth century suburbia — and then escaped! — I have a very low tolerance for the kind of boring world that comes from excess conformity and obedience to authorities. As for ways to sort through the abstractions — ah, we’ll be getting to those. - ecosophia, greer


> In a home I need walls, roof, windows, and a door that can be opened and closed. I also need a place to cook, a place to eat, a place to sleep, a place for a guest, and a place to write. More space is not better... more space attracts more stuff which eventually means less space. 

> Some things make life easier, but more things do not make life more easy. More things mean more things that can break down and more time spent fixing or replacing them. 

> Comfort is freedom and independence. Comfort is having the sweat glands and metabolic tolerance to deal with heat and cold. It is not central heating or air conditioning which may fail or be unavailable. It is not plushy seats but a healthy back. Luxury is not expensive things. It is a healthy and capable body that moves with ease with no restraints because something is too heavy, too far, too hard, or too much. It is a content and capable mind that can think critically, solve problems, and form opinions of its own.

> Success is having everything you need and doing everything you want. It is not doing everything you need to have everything you want. If so then you do not own your things, instead your things own you. I do not need to own a particular kind of vehicle. I need to go from A to B. I do not need fancy steak dinners, rare ingredients, or someone else to prepare my meals whether it is a pizza parlor, a chef, or an industrial food preprocessor. I need food to live. Food to fuel my body and brain. Luxury is not eating at 5 five star restaurants. Luxury is being able to appreciate any food. Comfort is eating the right kind and the right amount of food. Not whatever I want. Eating and moving right prevents diseases, pains, and lack of functionality. I am what I eat and I look what I do. Everybody is. It is the physiological equivalent of integrity. To say what I mean and mean what I say. This too makes life more comfortable. Money is opportunity. Opportunity is power. Power is freedom. And freedom means responsibility. Without responsibility, eventually there is no freedom, no power, no opportunities, and no money. More importantly, freedom is more than power. Power is more than opportunity. Opportunity is more than money. And money is more than something that just buys stuff. It is simple to understand but hard to remember, but do remember this if nothing else.

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/manifesto.html


The Labyrinth of Solitude
Juana Inés de la Cruz. Her superb book "Poems, Protest, and a Dream"
Mariano Azuela's "The Underdogs"