Are you having difficulty managing the stress of COVID-19? Staying at home with your kids, your family, unable to leave the house, unable to socialize in person, maybe unable to work, maybe you’ve lost your job, your stress is mounting, the bills are mounting, the feelings of powerlessness and worry are nagging away at you. …
Category: d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts, g) And Now For Something Completely Different
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…
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts, g) And Now For Something Completely Different
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…
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts, g) And Now For Something Completely Different
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…
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts, g) And Now For Something Completely Different
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…
a) My Personal Fav Posts, d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts
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. …
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts
71) Purpose — Part 3 — I hate you.
(Trigger Warning: all the triggers, seriously, don’t read this if you are not prepared to be upset.) If I met you on the street, or at a party, or in a class, or at a job, there is a very, very, very good chance that we would get along just fine. Or at least would…
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts
70) Purpose — Part 2 — Why the Environmental Movement has Failed (so far) — Act III: Full Circle
The Environmental Movement HAS failed. Not entirely, of course. Changes have been made. Ideas have been planted and taken root. Species have been protected. Legislation has been passed. Global movements have arisen. But we have still failed. Because after all the progress, the passion, the tear gas, the signs and chants and songs and sit-ins…
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts
69) Purpose — Part 2 — Why the Environmental Movement has Failed (so far) — Act II: Change or Die
“Change or die” I want to help make this world a better place. For you. For your future, and your loved ones’ futures. You and I might have different beliefs about how to get from “here” to “there”, from this current somewhat-troubled world to something better in the future. Or we might have identical beliefs,…
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts
68) Purpose — Part 2 — Why the Environmental Movement has Failed (so far) — Act I: Me & You
I love you. You might be thinking….”Really? That’s creepy.” Or you might be thinking….”Really? We’ve never even met!” Or you might be thinking…..”Why, what’d you have in mind?” 😉Or you might be thinking…..”Huh? I thought this was about why the environmental movement has failed.” Please let me explain. I believe you’re great, at least potentially.…
a) My Personal Fav Posts, d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, e) The Meaning of Life and related thoughts
67) Purpose: A Four-part series — Part 1 — “Tearing Down the Wall”
This title comes from Pink Floyd’s brilliant album, The Wall. The Wall is a 3-level album. At the first level, it is a personal narrative, a musical autobiographical allegory of Roger Waters himself, centered around a fictional character named, appropriately enough, “Pink”. At the second level, it is a narrative of the experiences of…
a) My Personal Fav Posts, d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity
65) Protesting: What’s the point? It’s just a bunch of ‘activists’ getting arrested and stopping traffic or some shit, amiright?
Extinction Rebellion Bridge Shut-down, October 7, 2019 Sitting on the Bloor St Viaduct, my ratty brown long-sleeved shirt folded up beneath me to use as a meditation mat, I closed my eyes. The woman leading us through the group meditation was talking about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, asking us to appreciate things like…
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, f) Jordan Peterson's BS - 'a few' key points of contention
64) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 7 — The Rebel Alliance
The Rebel Alliance depended on a dead dude, a quixotic Elf who talked like Grover, a wannabe hero with an inferiority complex, an arrogant smuggler, an incomprehensible BigFoot, an annoying and basically useless robot, a super-cool robot who looked like a futuristic garbage can, and a bitchy, bad-ass princess. So to Jordan, I ask you…
a) My Personal Fav Posts, d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, f) Jordan Peterson's BS - 'a few' key points of contention
63) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 6 — Lived Experience
You know full well, that if the protest community, or any members of it, begin to see the Matrix for what it is, see the absurd charade that they are perpetuating with their news-friendly parades and speeches, and decide to step outside the box, go outside the lines of ‘acceptable’ that have been drawn for…
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, f) Jordan Peterson's BS - 'a few' key points of contention
62) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 5 – Love vs. Fear on the Protest Lines
My #1 recommendation for people who are skeptical of protesters and SJWs and everything is, go to some protests about global issues or social justice issues. Go to several of them. Not to stand back and judge all the “weirdos” who seem so different from you. Go undercover, and pretend to be “one of them.” …
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, f) Jordan Peterson's BS - 'a few' key points of contention
61) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 4 – Scandinavian Atheist Indigenous Immigrant Women Should Rule the World
I have no problem accepting the statistical inevitability that some people in what I’m loosely calling “the oppressed communities” or “the protest communities” are coming from a place of resentment and bruised egos over-asserting themselves. When they “speak truth to power” surely SOME of their motivations are ego-driven attempts to feel better about themselves, to…
d) Saving the World: Environmental and other Challenges of this Age of Humanity, f) Jordan Peterson's BS - 'a few' key points of contention
59) Jordan Peterson, Part 5: The Perfect House Problem; Subsection 2 – In Jordan’s Own Words
Now, I expect a person’s first response to the previous post (#58) might be skepticism. Like, did Jordan really say something like that? All that “shut up” and “crawl back to your holes” stuff? Of course, the answer is no. He said it a lot more nicely. You could say I’m “spinning” it in…
57) The bleeding hearts and the artists: ‘Requiem’ for a species
A personal confession. I have largely failed to communicate effectively about what I feel, so strongly, from what I know so thoroughly (albeit from a second-hand perspective). I had three experiences, all as a mere observer, that planted an urgent concern in me that I have never known how to express properly, or wave the…
55) The Wind of Change
The world is closing in And did you ever think That we could be so close Like brothers The future’s in the air I can feel it everywhere Blowing with the wind Of change … Taaaaaaake me to the magic of the moment On a glory night Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams …
48) citizens > politicians
Why do we elect a person, be it a drama teacher, real estate developer, business owner or community organizer, and then care excessively about what they say? We have legions of experts who study things for their whole lives and could communicate directly to the public. Instead of us arguing about what some politician said…