This is a beautiful, provocative video entitled Home, about our planet and the perils we all face in today’s world.

http://youtu.be/jqxENMKaeCU

The link above will take you directly to the page to watch it. (embedding has been disabled)

We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth’s climate.

Whether you agree with the above quote (Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Director) or no, please watch. Our planet is simply breath-taking.

Recently I read a blog — The Scourge of the Internet. Leo Babauta wrote about the appearance and content of a blog. He stressed simplicity with a minimum, if any distractions so you, the visitor can focus on reading the blog, which is the whole point, isn’t it? The gist of the blog, in a nutshell, suggested leaving off advertising, links, tags, social buttons… well, you get the idea. He opens with this telling statement:

I love reading stuff online, and get a lot of inspiration from blogs. I can spend hours reading online. And thus, I’m annoyed for hours, because there are a ridiculous amount of things that bloggers and websites do that are incredibly anti-reader.

I agree, but I don’t at the same time. I have left a couple of items in the sidebar, a favourite text, a calendar (you do want to read my other blogs, don’t you?) and on this site, links to a couple of short stories I have published. I have a whole page devoted to them at my main site, riotthill, and hope to continue to add to publication numbers as time passes.

In the meantime, I am still reading several recently downloaded books, as per a recent blog post, and will comment on each as I finish it.

Here’s a YouTube video I watched last night. Sir Ken Robinson gave this talk way back in 2006, but his message of creativity and education are relevant today. It is very funny, too.

This dovetails neatly with several other sites and videos I’ve visited / watched recently: Everything is a Remix, and The Blank Sheet Project, both of which focus on creativity in a modern context. The videos and interviews are illuminating and inspirational.

Here is an email I received from my cousin recently. Now I understand how bailouts work, especially at the national level.

It is a slow day in a little Greek Village. The sun is beating down.

Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

A  German tourist is driving through the village, he stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to spend the night.

The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna.

The tavern owner slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit.

She then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note.

The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the  traveller will not suspect anything.

At that moment the German tourist comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the €100 note, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything.

No one earned anything.

However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, is how the bailout package in Europe will work…

We can only hope that the  German tourist decides to visit Italy soon!

Right on the money, isn’t it? Pretty much says it all for us 99%-ers who live in the real world.

Here is the original source

http://learningfromdogs.com/2011/12/03/financial-bailouts-explained/

I ended up a little shy of the 17,000 word mark as posted on my site at National Novel Writing Month, but actually completed closer to 20,000 words. I did not upload more word count even though I had plenty of time to do so. ( my site )

Why?

I have come to the conclusion that at this point, a focus on word counts presents more distraction than help. Will I participate next year — that is still to be determined.

But…

As in the blog from The Office of Letters and Light, I learned more from this year’s experience than in past years. As above, and from so many other blogs, the habit of writing is already part of my lifestyle; very few days go by that I don’t write in my journal, both online and the old fashioned way, or play with plot and character ideas, short stories, poetry or blogging.

Passion is a word I’ve come to associate with writing, no matter the content, a sort of new-found awareness that yes, it is a great love of my life, intricately interwoven with reading.

Quality comes of passion, whether it flows directly in first draft or outline, or in later refinements with editing.

This year I discovered something new and significant in my efforts with NaNoWriMo — I found a voice I didn’t know I had. A Major Lesson I have struggled with for a long time.

It has allowed me to break habits and convention and explore story. Free of distraction, I have already returned to my story and with my newly-discovered voice, it flows across the screen. I’ve always envied other authors their seemingly effortless play with words to tell their stories. No, it is not effortless, but it is play with a distinct, wholly natural voice.

Oh, that voice has been there all along, I just didn’t recognize if before, and/or I did not take it seriously. Now that is changed. Thanks NaNoWriMo.

And, congratulations to all participants in this year’s (2011) month of madness.

◊ ♦ ◊ cross-posted at riotthill ◊ ♦ ◊

RELATED ARTICLES

• NaNoWriMo 2011 – The Final Straw (thewillowpapers.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo: Oh, What Fun! (dorchesterpub.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo: Day 23 (ericswett.wordpress.com)
• #NaNoWriMo, I salute you… (lucymillsonlife.wordpress.com)

update

7 lucky gods of Japan

God sleeps in stone, breathes in plants, dreams in animals and awakens in man.

— Hindu proverb

Book recommendations

And, thank you Howard Pepper — for your book, Figuring Out Your Faith, and your recommendation of Professor Ehrman’s latest book, Forged — I have downloaded both and look forward to reading them.

I also have plans to re-read Tom Harpur‘s The Pagan Christ, Lama Surya Das‘ Awakening the Buddha Within, and The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche. I have my work cut out for me, don’t I?

But this is the start of a journey, a quest of sorts, to unravel the mystery of the Hindu proverb above, to understand spirituality in the many ways we have found to express it over millennia.

Of spirituality’s need, I am absolutely certain. Perhaps ‘need’ is the wrong word. It is part of our nature. Yet, how that spirituality is expressed is, well…

I am an atheist, have been since my teen years. I am not a profound thinker, but I have some opinions based on my life’s experiences, education, and curiosity. I have been and will continue to be an avid reader of articles, books and blogs by both those who believe, and those who don’t.

The current debate creates a religious dilemma, don’t you think? Who is right? All kinds of what–if scenarios present themselves. There are fundamentalists, new atheists, apologists, agnostics, not to mention a myriad of religious world views and philosophies that encompass both gods and no gods, spiritual direction and scientific explanation.

Here is what I wrote to a recent post by Godless Girl:

‘ too lazy and allow themselves to be ‘spoon fed’ by an institution ‘ — passing judgement and withdrawing respect is unjustified when you don’t have all the answers; Miss Green does seem elitist and intolerant, the very thing religion is accused and is guilty of as well. I’ve always thought there is a fine line between intolerance and the vigilance to insure that religious belief/practice remains outside the public sphere. You can’t have a democracy otherwise.

‘ nothing to contribute ‘ — if you explore the history of religious practice and the good parts of its contribution to humanity, and its ongoing participation, you’ll discover a less clear-cut story. For example, many women in medieval times entered nunneries and took vows to avoid sexism, rape and exploitation. An abby represented a place of shelter, not repression.

Outside the attention and publicity surrounding fundamentalism, there is quite a different group of people involved with their churches who are not ‘lazy’, are well read and aware of alternate world views. They do not expect a sky fairy to rescue them deux ex machina, they don’t believe the bible literally, i.e. miracles, resurrections, or intelligent creationism, etc., and have no desire to impose themselves or their beliefs on others.

As far as the horror, institutions of all kinds, not exclusively religious ones, are guilty of tremendous atrocities. I believe it is fair to say that it is man’s potential to choose to do harm that frames or governs the institution, no matter religious, government, military, educational… the human capacity for depravity is a difficult concept to confront and explore, one that doesn’t go away if one rejects religion.

I have discovered that religious practice seems to have been part of social infrastructure as far back as we can look with our modern technology. For example, the very ancient city, Catal Hoyuk ( http://http://www.catalhoyuk.com/ ) in modern Turkey, paganism, or the commonality of lore such as flood stories (creationism) offer support that as Voltaire said, ‘ if god did not exist, man would invent him’.

Food for thought, perhaps religion serves more purpose than just a lazy man’s way of answering universal questions or providing codes of conduct or social infrastructure. We do that anyway, so why do we still invent religions?

I am an atheist, but I am also fascinated by what drives us to extend our lives into the imaginative as a source of direction, answers and social comfort, how it has and no doubt will continue to impact our lives, and where/how we cross the line between the fanciful and the concrete when searching for answers. I haven’t figured it out yet.

And here is a recent post which argues quite differently than Godless Girl. It’s from one of my favourite bloggers: http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/atheisms-little-idea-2/

I am not convinced that it matters who is right and who is wrong. I think we all strive in our own ways to be good people, to do right by family, friends, community. I do not care what my neighbour believes or how he practices his beliefs. But I do care if he harms others, and I care (as I mentioned above) when he decides to impose his beliefs on me/others, penalizes me/others in some way for not practicing his beliefs, or uses his beliefs to undermine democracy.

Related articles

• On Godless Theology (resnikoff.wordpress.com)
• The good god guide | The Economist (policyabcs.wordpress.com)
• Is the Issue Religion vs. Atheism? (naturalspirituality.wordpress.com)
• The articles of 21st-century faith | Julian Baggini (guardian.co.uk)

Tibetan Endless Knot

Happiness is not to have more, but to be more.

— Yves Cochet, French Minister of Environment (1991 – 2001)
http://www.workersoftheworldrelax.org/index.php

An interesting concept; less hours worked and more leisure time will help to lower resource consumption and improve the environment. Better technology, more efficiency, higher production actually leads to more environmental destruction, not less. This is referred to as the Jevons Paradox.

I’m still learning about all this bloggy stuff, even after 3+ years.