Into the Wild

“Wilderness appealed to those bored or disgruntled with man and his works. It not only offered an escape from society but also was an ideal stage for the Romantic individual to exercise the cult that he frequently made of his own soul. The solitude and total freedom of the wilderness created a perfect setting for either melancholy or exultation”.

Roderick Nash
Wilderness and the American Mind.

Time to Pretend - MGMT

I'm feeling rough
I'm feeling raw
I'm in the prime of my life.

Let's make some music
make some money
find some models for wives.

I'll move to Paris,
shoot some heroin
and fuck with the stars.

You man the island
and the cocaine
and the elegant cars.

This is our decision
to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision,
now
let's
have
some
fun.

Yeah it's overwhelming,
but what else can we do?
Get jobs in offices
and wake up for the morning commute?

Forget about our mothers
and our friends.
We were fated to pretend.

I'll miss the playgrounds
and the animals
and digging up worms.

I'll miss the comfort
of my mother
and the weight
of the world.

I'll miss my sister,
miss my father,
miss my dog
and my home.

Yeah I'll miss the boredom
and the freedom
and the time spent alone.

But there is really nothing,
nothing we can do.
Love must be forgotten.
Life can always start up anew.

The models will have children,
we'll get a divorce,
we'll find some more models,
Everything must
run
its
course.

We'll choke on our vomit
and that will be the end.
We were fated to pretend.

Since Feeling Is First

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
-- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

- e.e. cummings.

Developmental Action Inquiry

"Overall, Developmental Action Inquiry strikes a different balance from Wilber's AQAL model. DAI theory and method put primary emphasis on the four attentional and experiential territories of experience we can engage at each moment, rather than on four conceptual fields. DAI puts secondary emphasis on interweaving 1st, 2nd and 3rd-person research and practice in the present, rather than bifurcating attention between the individual and the collective. DAI puts tertiary emphasis on creating communities of living inquiry with single-, double, and triple-loop learning at their heart, rather than communities of shared belief. And DAI puts quartenary emphasis on data-based cognitive maps of developmental action-logics, such as the AQAL model".

From Developmental Action Inquiry: A Distinct Integral Theory That Actually Integrates
Developmental Theory, Practice and Research, by Torbet et. al. Paper presented to the Integral Theory in Academia Conference 2008.

“How did it come to this? did a Government that had created such an Age of Prosperity, such a proud and prosperous country, now find itself in the wilderness?”
Peter Costello, The Costello Memoirs

“September's breakdown in banking markets has left global growth slowing at a scary speed, shattering confidence and commodity prices as it does, giving 2009's global recession unstoppable momentum. Global growth in 2009 will be worse than at any time since the early 1990s, and may well be the worst in several decades”.

Media Release – 19 January 2008 – Access Economics Business Outlook: ‘September's breakdown in banking markets has left global growth slowing at scary speed’.

Libs Need Not Move to the Left

Written by a Lib insider, and clearly positioned to encourage maintenance of the myth that neoconservative worldviews dominante our social centre of gravity... but nonetheless, this article does ring some resonant warning signals around the parade wihch positions Kev as the social democratic savoiur.


Libs Need Not Move to the Left
Tom Switzer - smh.com.au

Since the federal Coalition's defeat in 2007, several commentators have called on the Liberal Party to embrace a progressive agenda. The argument goes like this: From climate change to border protection, Liberals should ditch the conservative shibboleths that defined the Howard era, inch back towards the political centre and demonstrate they are not as out of touch as the critics allege.

The party of Menzies, urges frontbencher Christopher Pyne, "must again be a force for change".

The problem, though, is that, notwithstanding the loss of conservative government, the centre of political gravity in Australia remains conservative. No longer, for instance, is welfare seen as an unconditional right. No longer are activist judges rewriting our constitution. No longer are Australians ashamed of our past, pessimistic about our future and unsure about our place in the world.

In this environment, why should Liberals lurch left when Labor could only win power by moving right? Why should a right-of-centre party run to the left of a church-going, family-values Labor leader almost as conservative as the prime minister he replaced? Indeed, Kevin Rudd - first as opposition leader and then as Prime Minister over the past 13 months - has had a lot more in common with John Howard than he has with Phillip Adams.

As opposition leader, Rudd not only styled himself as an "economic conservative" but also mimicked Howard on virtually everything from opposition to gay marriage and teacher unions to support for anti-terrorism laws during the Haneef debacle and the federal intervention in remote indigenous communities. Such tactics worked a treat. He convinced key segments of the socially conservative working and lower middle classes in marginal suburban and regional electorates to vote Labor again after their 12-year affair with the Coalition.

What about Rudd's record since he's been PM? True, he has jettisoned some of the former government's positions. He ratified the Kyoto protocol, expressed a formal apology to the stolen generations, and he is in the process of tilting the workplace balance in favour of unions. His decision to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, moreover, marked a clean break with what the Australian people regarded as the biggest mistake of the Howard era.

But take a closer look at Rudd's other positions. This is a malleable pragmatist who was far more critical of Bill Henson's so-called art of photographing naked young girls than Malcolm Turnbull; who defied his left-purist base by keeping Howard's citizenship tests; who prefers the teaching of narrative history over the black armband view; and who is contemplating another round of income and company tax cuts. Just this week, the Australian Human Rights Commission's annual report on detention revealed that Rudd is maintaining the very policy of indefinitely detaining asylum seekers, including children, that Howard's foes regarded as cruel and evil. So much for being a change agent.

In this environment, do Liberals win electoral kudos by becoming more progressive? In fact, the most politically important voters remain not the so-called doctors' wives from metropolitan Australia, but the so-called Howard battlers from middle Australia, particularly in outer suburbs of Sydney and Brisbane and sunbelt seats of Queensland. It was these people who formed Howard's core support. It is these people to whom Rudd has appealed in the past two years. It is these people to whom today's Liberals need to appeal in coming years.

They may not read Edmund Burke but they are a temperamentally conservative lot, wary of change, believing that efforts to transform anything quickly will have, as Burke wrote, "pleasing commencements" but "lamentable conclusions".

They were attracted to Howard because he championed Australian values, based on a robust patriotism and the repudiation of Paul Keating's political correctness. They turned off Howard because they believed his Work Choices and the rising costs of living threatened their personal security and prosperity. And they felt reassured by Rudd's conservatism, including his pledge to turn back people-smuggling operations.

Would a progressive agenda that includes zealous efforts to combat global warming really play well with this group? Take the debate over emissions trading schemes. After proclaiming that "climate change is the great economic, environmental and moral challenge of our time", Rudd has significantly downgraded his Government's carbon targets.
This was wise. After all, it would have been crazy for Australia, heavily dependent on fossil fuels, to slash its greenhouse gas levels at a high cost in jobs and cash when no nation that matters would follow our lead.

But in their rush to outflank Labor on the environment, there is a risk that Malcolm Turnbull and his spokesman Greg Hunt could further alienate the party from the very constituency they need to win back (not to mention the energy-intensive industries that will be slugged by the trading schemes).

It is one thing for Liberals to place themselves at the forefront of this debate. It is another for Liberals to insist that a single-income family should pay more to run their air-conditioner, fridge and stove, computer and large flat-screen television. Middle Australia may not understand emissions trading but they understand hits to the hip pocket.

For these reasons, it would be a mistake for Liberals to embrace a progressive agenda in a political landscape that remains conservative. As Peter Costello argued on these pages recently: "The Liberal Party should remember it is the guardian of the centre-right tradition in Australia." If Liberals cede the nation's heartland to Rudd, they might as well kiss the next election goodbye.


Tom Switzer, a former senior Liberal adviser, is a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/01/14/1231608791764.html

.

One Is Called

One is called sage when
Study and contemplation are not unbalanced,
All teachings arise as personal advice,
And one can communicate one's understanding.

One is called noble
When one's delusions have been subdued,
One is able to calm the minds of self and others,
And one has vision and meditation free from confusion.

One is called a sublime being
When one's knowledge does not harm one's humility,
One's humility does not obstruct expression of one's knowledge,
And one works for the benefit of Truth.

(Written by the the Forth Karmapa, Rol-pai Dor-je, Chief disciple of the Seventh Dalai Lama)

Apithology

My friend Will Varey has been in writing retreat for a couple of months preparing doctoral research on psychology of human systems. Part of his work over the recent period has included the creation of a community of practice + scholarly journal serving his conception of Apithology, or the study of the causes, conditions, processes, structures of generative health in human systems (and even that line doesn't really do his work justice). I've really been drawn into Will's vision and writing ability - which is like transrational poerty to my eyes. In particular, I've been trying to find a way to articulate and conceive of a gentle experiential shift in the way I've noticed myself making meaning - that is, from focussing more of my attention on the process of abandoning the scaffolds of the past in search of some transcendent (read:'higher') form of processing, to what he beautifully phrases as "working with, rather than against, this dynamic of human sense-making, familiar conceptions may guide our consideration and understanding of the entirely new". Always nice when someone's so clearly looking in a similar direction and able to translate the experience into language.

The focal direction of the concept and practice of apithology is probably best expressed by Will's paper "Apithgology: An Emergent Continuum" in Vol.1 of his Aspects of Apithology (e-)journal - and I highly recommend taking a careful look at what he's writing. It's truly integral stuff - self-reflective and self-aware writing which requires a minimum of ontological baggage (ie. beyond jargon) and concepts which are introduced lightly without any claim to permanence or metaphysical foundation. Just beautiful.

.

Things Are On The Up!

Tim Ferris' 'Deferrers' v 'New Rich'

I've been working on my 2009 planning over the last two weeks, and came across this handy little reminder of Ferris' distinctions at the start of the 4HWW.

D:To work for yourself.
NR:To have others work for you.

D:To work when you want to.
NR:To prevent work for work’s sake, and to do the minimum necessary for maximum effect ("minimum effective load").

D:To retire early or young.
NR:To distribute recovery periods and adventures (mini-retirements) throughout life on a regular basis and recognize that inactivity is not the goal. Doing that which excites you is.

D:To buy all the things you want to have.
NR:To do all the things you want to do, and be all the things you want to be. If this includes some tools and gadgets, so be it, but they are either means to an end or bonuses, not the focus.

D:To be the boss instead of the employee; to be in charge.
NR:To be neither the boss nor the employee, but the owner. To own the trains and have someone else ensure they run on time.

D:To make a ton of money.
NR:To make a ton of money with specific reasons and defined dreams to chase, timelines and steps included. What are you working for?

D:To have more.
NR:To have more quality and less clutter. To have huge financial reserves but recognize that most material wants are justifications for spending time on the things that don’t really matter, including buying things and preparing to buy things. You spent two weeks negotiating your new Infiniti with the dealership and got $10,000 off? That’s great. Does your life have a purpose? Are you contributing anything useful to this world, or just shuffling papers, banging on a keyboard, and coming home to a drunken existence on the weekends?

D:To reach the big pay-off, whether IPO, acquisition, retirement, or other pot of gold.
NR:To think big but ensure payday comes every day: cash flow first, big payday second.

D:To have freedom from doing that which you dislike.
NR:To have freedom from doing that which you dislike, but also the freedom and resolve to pursue your dreams without reverting to work for work’s sake (W4W). After years of repetitive work, you will often need to dig hard to find your passions, redefine your dreams, and revive hobbies that you let atrophy to near extinction. The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue and experience the best in the world.


I also really liked this little pep talk he offers in the first portion of the book:

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Twenty feet and closing.

"Run! Ruuuuuuuuuun!" Hans didn't speak Portuguese, but the meaning was clear enough--haul ass. His sneakers gripped firmly on the jagged rock, and he drove his chest forward towards 3,000 feet of nothing.

He held his breath on the final step, and the panic drove him to near unconsciousness. His vision blurred at the edges, closing to a single pin point of light, and then... he floated. The all-consuming celestial blue of the horizon hit his visual field an instant after he realized that the thermal updraft had caught him and the wings of the paraglider. Fear was behind him on the mountain top, and thousands of feet above the resplendent green rain forest and pristine white beaches of Copacabana, Hans Keeling had seen the light.

That was Sunday.

On Monday, Hans returned to his law office in Century City, Los Angeles' posh corporate haven, and promptly handed in his three-week notice...

For nearly five years, he had faced his alarm clock with the same dread: I have to do this for another 40-45 years? He had once slept under his desk at the office after a punishing half-done project, only to wake up and continue on it the next morning. That same morning, he had made himself a promise: two more times and I'm out of here. Strike number three came the day before he left for his Brazilian vacation.

We all make these promises to ourselves, and Hans had done it before as well, but things were now somehow different. He was different. He had realized something while arcing in slow circles towards the earth--risks weren't that scary once you took them. His colleagues told him what he expected to hear: he was throwing it all away. He was an attorney on his way to the top--what the hell did he want?

Hans didn't know exactly what he wanted, but he had tasted it. On the other hand, he did know what bored him to tears, and he was done with it. No more passing days as the living dead, no more dinners where his colleagues compared cars, riding on the sugar high of a new BMW purchase until someone bought a more expensive Mercedes. It was over.

Immediately, a strange shift began--Hans felt, for the first time in a long time, at peace with himself and what he was doing. He had always been terrified of plane turbulence, as if he might die with the best inside of him, but now he could fly through a violent storm sleeping like a baby.

Strange indeed.

More than a year later, he was still getting unsolicited job offers from law firms but by then had started Nexus Surf, a premier surf-adventure company based in the tropical paradise of Florianopolis, Brazil. He had met his dream girl, a Carioca with caramel-colored skin named Tatiana, and spent most of his time relaxing under palm trees or treating clients to the best times of their lives.

Is this what he had been so afraid of?

These days, he often sees his former self in the under-joyed and overworked professionals he takes out on the waves. Waiting for the swell, the true emotions come out: "God, I wish I could do what you do." His reply is always the same: "You can."

The setting sun reflects off the surface of the water, providing a zen-like setting for a message he knows is true: it's not giving up to put your current path on indefinite pause. He could pick up his law career exactly where he left off if he wanted to, but that is the furthest thing from his mind.
As they paddle back to shore after an awesome session, his clients get a hold of themselves and regain their composure. They set foot on shore, and reality sinks its fangs in: "I would, but I can't really throw it all away."

He has to laugh.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss on Zionism