Man

The Western binary man, for so long bequeathed the unreflective and externalizing faculty of power projection, has destroyed the possibilities of communication and feedback. Now he thrashes about, growing angrier and more bewildered in the face of his growing impotence, and the simultaneous growing instability of his surroundings. He can no longer hear the cries of those he smothers with his overbearing and tottering weight.

Alas, he has existed so long without those cries that when someone actually does call out for justice, whether in rage or agony, he only doubles over and projects his power with more force than before. Those whose voices can lead him to salvation have become demons in his eyes. Though after all, this may very well be the unfolding of what has long been an essential aspect of his character: of the simplifying and separating instinct that seeks to cast complex social and ecological relations in a simplified light, so as to manipulate those relations easier in an increasingly differentiated and divided sphere of human efficacy.   

Breathing Again

The clarity and vibrance of the color on the mountains, and the rising mists coming up off of the valley as the sun comes up, are potent reminders of what was regularly stolen away from the landscape by the fire smoke. One breathes in the fresh, crisp air: the season is turning, the first rains are coming in, and the early frosts are gradually lifting some of the weight off of the local farmers’ backs. The necessity of the coming winter puts local farming to rest in the region, to be put off until the sun’s intensity comes back in the coming spring, with the fires soon to follow. Of course there are the winter snows to keep in  mind now, as the surplus moisture set in motion by climate change can still be counted on to make its appearance. Still, there is joy in the valley as the various burdens of high heat are lifted.  

On a personal note, whooboy that smoke was grim: it even turns up in the writing, as if my fingers were turning to stone as I tried to get the ideas out. Breathing fresh air for the time being, and the mind is somewhat clear and fresh again. More to come.

Aftermath

The natural disasters are causing a breaking up and a deterioration of the instruments of production and reproduction, causing an outpouring in compensatory processes, themselves generating the energy being put into an increasingly unstable system.  Much has to be rebuilt, and transportation is worked into a frenzy through evacuations, rescue efforts, and reconstruction. In turn, all of the victims of the various natural disasters are generally tossed willy-nilly into the jaws of disaster and finance capital. Though of course one can catch wind of various stories of human connection and self-realization, as is the case when crisis strikes.

Housekeeping

I've been given a moment to once again consolidate all of my notes and get some writing up. As long as I feel the need to post - which doesn't seem to be going away - I'll be putting out occasional collections of posts at irregular intervals.

This can be attributed to spotty and unpredictable Internet access. Still thinking, experiencing, learning, taking notes, and writing all the time. Have some planned pieces on food considerations and how to come to terms with the progression of this era that we find ourselves in. Heady stuff to say the least. More to come in time.

Natural Disaster

The fires continue on, producing towering thunderheads above them, leaving weak rains, winds, thunder and lightning, which only end up prolonging the fires. The land is cooled for some time by the thick smoke, but not for long. After the air is cleared by the wind and rain, there is a moment’s respite until the region heats again and the fires rage on. The smoke fills the air once again.

Fire aircraft are grounded by visibility changes and weather patterns. Disaster relief budgets balloon as federal budgets contract under the weight of private greed, financial machination, and political superstition, among other things.  

Besides the actual destruction wrought by the fire – and all of the hazards for local populations that such destruction poses – it can’t be emphasized enough that the lingering effects of smoke in the atmosphere have palpable and lasting consequences. One becomes inundated with smoke, and resigned to the appearance of it in the air, the dulling of the landscape that it furthers. It becomes a part of the landscape and enters oneself physically. One can't get away from it, and through fatigue, one succumbs to it.

The smoke involves a denial of oxygen to one’s body, the constant irritation of the throat and eyes, and the general dulling of the spirit, which on an individual basis interacts with other individuals and amplifies the effects all around. As the days wear on for each fire season, the effects accumulate and new qualities are formed: whole regional cultures may be generated on the basis on living through the smoke.

Given a certain average of temperature and the weather conditions in the region, the minor fluctuations in smoke are set to continue, with no real abatement in its effects. It can only take a greater cooling attributable to a change of seasons – attributable to planetary movements – to put an end to the fire. We wait for the temporary end of the growth of life to put a temporary end to the growth of destruction, which is set to come back in another wave, greater and stronger the next time.

Here it is a gradual environmental weakening: a form of destruction that deteriorates ecosystems, food crops, water sources, daily social interactions, and other baseline resources and interactions over time.

For others, the literal end of the world is already here. The hurricanes grow larger, and this season's wave of storms has taken on a surreal quality of destructiveness, with whole cities flooded and islands wiped out.

Meanwhile a monstrous earthquake strikes off of the coast of Mexico. One is tempted to suspect the work of some intelligence or deity, that divine retribution does exist after all. But really such calamitous movements can be seen to be coordinated with the advent of a profound epochal change, made up of emergent patterns of interrelated phenomena.

What to Value?

How perfect should your product be? How refined should a given social act, or performance be? To reject a product of work, or social act on account of perfection or propriety is to devalue the sources of that product or act, the people themselves.

But this gets very complicated very quickly, as low standards lead to shitty products and bad social acts, which devalues everyone involved.

Production and Desire

Part of what keeps us bound together in a destructive society is desire. Whatever society produces, the more complex and dependent on the division and mass of labor that thing is, the more that thing is laden with a constellation of values that is spread across the society that produces it.

If one wants big and heavy things, like shelter and transportation, one has to assent to the values that come with its ultimate productive process, whether one likes it or not. It takes a lot of power, and a lot of energy, to change the nature of society, power and energy that is already bound up within the production process.

Coiled Up

Much violence is compulsive in nature; it is a response to waning energy, energy that is local to the perpetrator of violence. Explosions of violence then can be seen as coiled up lack, which as it happens, can take centuries to wind down.

Administration

Part of the problem of a rapidly expanding population is that its centers of administration very quickly retreat from their local sources in time and space, and continue down paths of development that increasingly separate from the bodies they administrate. The administrative bodies communicate and experience only themselves, while exploiting the bodies of production for resources to perpetuate themselves. In this way, an administrative body becomes a foreign and alien presence in its own society.

Shame

Shame itself can said to be a sort of weapon. Linked back to emotional or physical punishment, and possible violence, shame acts as a weapon implanted in the individual, ready to be marshalled to reproduce the original violence from an external source, or even an internal one.

Turbulence

American culture - and possibly other advanced industrial cultures experiencing similar problems that we are - is inundated with a strange and perpetual bickering of egos, in which one person will put another down simply by virtue of the other person having a different functioning style, or a different personality.

It is as if one part of a river - a swirling eddy - gazes over at its bubbling brethren which curls around a risen rock and dubs that region of the river inferior. It seems like nonsense to us, because we view the river as a unity, but then each of us as individuals wants to view our own individual locality as a unity which supersedes the unity of us as a collective.

And this then produces a culture that determines the way in which we reproduce ourselves.

Mass Movement

One theme that we’ve touched upon several times before is the general movement of mass, which manifests in humans as a constant expansion of population and material power and the destruction and displacement of everything around it, increasing a general instability.

These movements can have interesting and unpredictable effects. For example, a rapidly expanding human population also carries with it a rapidly expanding food supply, itself a form of life co-evolving with the human population. Rows and rows of crops provide plentiful fuel for not just humans, but insects and other animals which happen to seek out a particular crop.

In turn, the instruments of destruction expand to exclude unwanted competitors to the foods. Pesticides are developed on a mass scale to wipe out the scores of insects that now occupy mass rows of crops, and so the pesticides themselves disperse en masse into the environment, generated cumulative effects that induce mass movements of their own.

One mass necessarily depends upon another. A population is displaced to accommodate another, and this displacement generates another mass, which encourages accumulation in another mass to consume or destroy what has been created. Round and round this energy goes, relieved only by mutual destruction. Consider the biblical plague imagery: the waves of attacking locusts, which are grasshoppers set free in a warlike milieu of expansion and pillage after having their populations exposed to drought, or water displaced en masse by an expanding human population, which itself has readied the fuel necessary to perpetuate the locust swarm in the form of mass crops.

Outhouse Thoughts

Within the compartment of the composting toilet lives a population of orb weaver spiders. These spiders are huge, and are generally the stuff of nightmares, particularly when you have to use the toilet in the middle of the night, and are waving around a harsh blue LED light to show the way, and you suddenly discover that they are everywhere around your head.

However, the spiders tend to withdraw at certain times of the day, especially in the morning, so if you have a regular bowel movement schedule that angles towards morning duty, you're good. The spiders eat the flies, which  tend to gather at the toilet. Too many flies and you also have the stuff of nightmares, or at least you have a constant nuisance.

Making choices in this way - allowing the spiders to stick around for instance - alters the immediate environment, sometimes in dramatic ways. There are also different ways to handle bodily wastes. The point is that there are other ways to alter the environment as a living thing, to make that environment more amenable to one's sensibility. One doesn't have to seal everything up in life-proof boxes, or expel and destroy all forms of life deemed out of place in one's space.