fw

the copy-paste above of an image from Twitter links to the article referred to here:

John McPhee reflects on “the many writing projects that I have conceived and seriously planned across the years but have never written.”*

from the article:

I decided to describe saved-up, bypassed, intended pieces of writing as an old-man project, the purpose of which is never to end.

…

George H. W. Bush jumped out of airplanes on his octo birthdays. Some people develop their own Presidential libraries without experiencing a prior need to be President. For off­spring and extended families, old people write books about their horses, their houses, their dogs, and their cats, published at the kitchen table. Old-­people projects keep old people old. You’re no longer old when you’re dead.

2023-06-21 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

McPhee (!*) / results of a site search on miscellany

further notes are not appended to posts on fw

Ted Kaczynski in 1996 – image via NYT obituary author Alex Traub on Twitter*

from the tweeted obituary, archived:

In the same interview, Mr. Kaczynski described how he had felt goaded to violence. His favorite part of the wilderness had been a two-day hike from his shack — a plateau with steep ravines and a waterfall. In 1983, he found a road paved through it.

“You just can’t imagine how upset I was,” he said. “It was from that point on I decided that, rather than trying to acquire further wilderness skills, I would work on getting back at the system. Revenge.”*

2023-06-15 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

“rather than trying to acquire further wilderness skills” (!?)

further notes are not appended to posts on fewer wurdz

book review by Tim Harford

Tim Harford:

Say what you like about Lord Byron, he knew how to turn a phrase. Here he is, speaking in the House of Lords in 1812. His topic is the foolishness of the factory-storming, machine-breaking Luddites: “The rejected workmen, in the blindness of their ignorance, instead of rejoicing at these improvements in arts so beneficial to mankind, conceived themselves to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism.”*

sarcasm alert: Byron supported the Luddites*

2023-05-30 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

it’s clear to anyone paying attention to the state of the planet and of the people on it that Homo sapiens must adapt or go extinct in this (anthropogenic) sixth extinction (!?)

to adapt means to let go of illusions and to adopt universal selflessness, universal peace, universal love, universal education, universal healthcare, and UBI (!?)

/ “To state the task plainly is to see how hard it is likely to be.” (!g)

further notes are not appended to posts on fewer wurdz

enabled by consent, disabled by dissent

screenshot above links to original Glenn Greenwald tweet retweeted by Matt Taibbi*

mainstream media are in thrall to power and serve it by manufacturing consent (!*)

power decides what happens and decides what people think about what happens*

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2023-05-22 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

what (most) people think about what happens / “the narrative,” the dominant narrative

power manifests as – and cannot exist without – hierarchies of enablers*

further notes are not appended to posts on fewer wurdz

miserable souls

The existence of a soul or self […] is not only firmly denied in Buddhism; belief in it is identified as the source of all our misery.*

the awakened see this and – when doing so may help – point it out*

2023-05-16 / notes

*a link; see the about page for how posts – and copies on fw – use links

buddhas / those awakened – from Pali, past participle of budh “to awake”*

the screenshot is from the front cover on Google Books*

anyone anywhere in a hierarchy is at risk of corruption – “power corrupts” – as is HH*

power manifests as – and cannot exist without – hierarchies of enablers*

emptiness (sunyata) is bedrock Buddhism / see helpful essay by Barbara O’Brien*

emptiness (sunyata) … is not nothingness but a vast creative potential / Nagarjuna (!?)

/ see also nothing – and a note there on belief in a separate self as delusional (Einstein)

further notes are not appended to posts on fewer wurdz