I drove home breathing in the stench of cooking viscera. I had swerved to miss it, but wouldn’t you know it, the cute, probably terrified little critter turned around and ran in the opposite direction. So I swerved again, leaving black skid marks down the highway. But, for some reason, it turned around again,…
Category: The Meaning of Life: 42, and other thoughts
94) The Day I Saw My Future Unfold
I heard a story once about a girl whose parents were murdered right in front of her. She spent the rest of her life selflessly devoted to one person, with seemingly no will of her own. I knew a man once whose boyhood was robbed by war. He spent the rest of his life addicted…
90) Gratitude Day 8: Loneliness
I am grateful for loneliness. It also sucks. Being lonely isn’t exactly the kind of thing one yearns for generally. Imagine the kid in grade 2, and the teacher, all gung ho to connect with the kids this year and REALLY give them a good educational, inspirational experience. “So what do you want to…
82) A pandemic a day keeps everyone away. But it also might bring us together.
Many of us feel that ‘things are changing’. Like, something is awakening in human consciousness. Or in our collective spirit. Or something…something…. But SOMETHING is happening. People are gaining insights into their vulnerability, right? Into our collective interdependence. Into the sheer, unavoidable fact that when the shit really hits the fan and people are scared…
80) Magic, Motorcycles, and Mandelbrot: Part 4 – A Call for Global Revolution
So, over 40+ years, my thinking has evolved, from Magic, to Motorcycles, to Mandelbrot, as it has passed from naive and wishful hoping, to power-based command & control ways of thinking, to socio-ecological complexity ways of thinking. And this takes us to the present, where an understanding of the direction the world is heading, leads…
79) Magic, Motorcycles, and Mandelbrot: Part 3 – Mandelbrot
Then along comes Mandelbrot. Fractals. Complex dynamic systems. Feedback loops. Self-organization. Resilience. Perturbations. Multi-leveled thinking. Holonarchies. Cybernetics. Nonlinearity. And your world changes. If you have gone through this learning curve, then you know, and I know that you know, that you think differently as a result. (Unless yahyah, you’re a super-genius and you were…
78) Magic, Motorcycles, and Mandelbrot: Part 2 – Motorcycles
If you’ve never experienced the full, bird-like ecstasy of cruising down back roads on a sweet bike, then you’re gonna have to find your own metaphor for ego + pleasure + control + domination + scientific materialism + technology + adrenaline + Good Times. For me, “motorcycle” works fine. As a teenager, around when…
77) Magic, Motorcycles, and Mandelbrot: Part 1 – Magic
“Magic, Motorcycles, and Mandelbrot” This is the tagline to my blog. It’s a TERRIBLE tagline from a marketing perspective. I do know that. It’s almost like I’m hoping people WON’T come and read my blog, b/c you show up for the first time to check out this Dan Dolderman guy, you take a look and…
73) Dear Ancestors,
For most of my life, I have wondered what I would pass on to future generations. Would I leave a legacy for my descendants to feel proud of? Would I have my picture in textbooks that kids would study someday? Would I be some “important figure in history”? Would I write a song that people…
72) Purpose — Part 4 — In Between
“Purpose” seems to involve a lot of striving, searching, tearing down, opening up, trying, growing. It seems to involve a lot of self, of authenticity and humility, vulnerability and trust. And it seems to involve a lot of “other”, of succumbing to fear or of reaching out in love. These are all stepping stones. …