INTEGRITY OF LIFE

Disease is not abnormal. The pandemic is not abnormal. The conditions of life right now are normal and have been since the pre-Cambrian era.

On the increasing similarities between fourth-century Rome and the United States in 2020.

What happens to a country that is divided the way we are?

Poetry provides two alternate views of the post-industrial future.

Sometimes there is no happy ending.

Ideas for sustainable living, from simple and inexpensive to life-changing, from things we can do now to things to plan for the future.

We’re not any good at threat assessment. Familiar dangers are ignored, while the most remote ones seem the most fearsome.

Convenience is killing community, and late-stage capitalism is delighted.

Which way will our enslavement to computers go in the next few years?

Are we wasting our human resources by trying to keep them safe?

Who is right? Will staying at home or going back to work result in more people dying? We don’t know.

Ultimately nature will achieve the balance that it is always aiming for – with us or without us.

There is an objectivity, a humble self-forgetfulness, in recognizing the beauty that exists even when life is a wreck.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t know how you can make change happen. There is still great work for you to do.

What concerns me today is who we’ll choose to be, once this has settled down and the prospect for a new normal seems possible.

Solidarity and suggestions.

To encourage alternate ways to approach ourselves and the world, this week I offer two poems rather than an essay.

A review of a book that challenges our assumptions about human and nonhuman nature.

Why is anxiety disorder more common in wealthy countries than in disadvantaged ones?

If water systems collapse, or if we decide to simplify voluntarily, we may be surprised at the lifestyle changes that await us.