Special Season

Special season is upon us. All I want for Christmas is A Pattern Language (Christopher Alexander). I don’t need much.

Discover that the more we reduce consumption the happier we are. I can prove it. Now that I know this, I can get on with the special season. You’re all getting wine corks for Christmas. Hallelujah!

Every so often I torture myself with a trip to the mall at x-mas time. It’s great imagery and food for thought on the commercial designs for life. The happy, beautiful, people on display in the storefronts remind us we are ourselves the gods of shopping. Not Santa as the Chinese have come to believe.

He’s the coca-cola god.

I love how men, myself included, often whistle grotesquely over the holiday tunes on the Public Address (PA) system. Like noise canceling headphones.

It’s almost like being here gravitates me back to the earth from the lofty place of design oriented intellectual thinking. Successful places have a popular appeal. And they have a photocopier within a stones throw of a comfy chair to make a copy of your personal low-action climate plan survey for the city.

I mean, personal climate action lowering plan.

Also, we are engaged in the sometimes blatant such as in the case of the Bell phones kiosk attendant named Scott appeal to let our consumer choices be influence by inner wants and emotional need in the image of modern designed individualism. We do the work the companies might once have. I appreciate the Telus Kiosk attendant’s appreciation of the human scale.

I don’t intend to foretell of the consumer beast unleashed. Rather, I want to share the sense of place enlightened by the designs of City planners that would see the mall go elsewhere and residential mixtures of uses replace it.

On a messy precipitation day like today, folks sure seem to appreciate the climate control and the design of being catered to. What a space to congregate, chat, people watch, walk and shop. This for obvious reasons is a successful place-making endeavour. A dead mall doesn’t need a PA.

What sort of design would provide a replacement that responds to the current bustle of activity, with as much public appeal?

Publish Post

heavy rains

I hope this bridge I built over the flood prone Saunder's Brook is doing well after the heavy rains this November in Southern New Brunswick. Something like 150mm fell over a weekend in some places.

It's flood prone because the catchment area (the watershed) has less and less forest to slow the movement of surface water movement. It's due to development. So what happens is rainfall rushes right to the brook without delay by trees and the like. It also receives the storm sewers of a number of subdivisions.

It's an increasingly impacted watercourse. Could it someday be put into pipes and paved over like so many others?

From the planet

Commenter Commenter, affairs junky man, make me a post as fast as you can

Do we really want to be a clean energy super power and a dirty one at the same time, as one can extrapolate on the clean energy claim by this Canadian Press article?

NS is working on a problem of fossil fuel dependence for generating electricity. Many stand to benefit from the modest clean energy fund. It would be positive if tidal generation where found to be acceptable (to Bay stakeholders) in terms of ecological impact at the level of future expansion. Positive IF it offsets the dirty generation. NOT meet increasing demand. See what I mean? Paramount is the need for reducing need. Why?

It's no plan for new green generation to be installed to keep up with a burgeoning electricity draw. 'green' generation will litter the landscape soon enough. The problem for everyone is how to develop so as not to depend on/demand increasing amounts of cheap electricity, and of course, other forms of energy.

Increasing scarcity of easily accessible liquid energy enters in to this. How? For those not blessed (or cursed, whichever the case may be) with plentiful hydro-electric, clean burning gas could be fueling thermal electric plants instead of getting piped to growth markets or making steam for extracting syncrude.

Does the challenge of meeting our needs warrant a serious look at the converging problems of increasing scarcity of cheap oil and climate change? I argue yes, there is an elephant in the room.

Sometimes I just can't let people have the last word. The 'fact' that the world needs new sources of power, according to WilliamStevens in their comment, and fast, is a real indication we're hell bent on maintaining a particular notion of progress (for the whole world?), more than it is an indicator of actual needs. What the world needs now is not power, sweet power. We need food and the means to make it where we live. We need transportation. Streets need to move people and goods, not necessarily cars.

Why can't people talk openly about the downward trajectory of energy consumption we're facing in the developed world? We're going to need more are we? More (clean) energy is being used to extract the dirty energy to keep our oil underpinnings standing. We use natural gas to make the steam that liquefies the syncrude. More energy to squander on luxuries we've come to expect?

We need less energy. Less is more as we go into the future. I'm not interested in helping a floundering notion of progress pin down our prospects for prosperity in the future.

Peak oil is hooey, but we like soft things

Shanna got them all going with her comments denying peak oil and expounding on conspiracies and assassination theories around those challenging the oil industry and it's capillaries, here.

Good point Shanna! There have been some major discoveries oil deposits all over the world. Most notable are those found very deep under the ocean floor. Peak oil must be a lie especially when they have to drill several Kms below the surface of the ocean to access deposits that don’t bubble up in farmer’s fields. After all there’s no major difference between drilling at the bottom of the ocean or in Leduc, Alberta… unless there’s a little leak or something? But hey, it’s not like we’re fishermen or ducks or anything!

I, of course, had to weigh in with my own brand of sarcasm:

Peak oil exists because I will it with my powers of attraction (there also being a sort of consensus), and I think it is senseless to attempt to do anything but responde by ramming that wall at full speed. No half-ass’ed attempt at collapse for me. It is more power I need and to quit this waste veg oil fuel business forthwith. It's my energy destiny! Soo sad if you’re left behind in the rubble.

Really, I can’t think of an energy machine conspiracy. I feel it’s favourable to some to keep conspiracies alive for the distraction – they’re attractive thoughts: "the good hand that feeds us knows what's best and will surely step in with alternative energy machines if there's ever a problem with meeting our needs". ’cause we all savour this unlimited growth. It's a pretty good thing we've got going here. Catch my drift?

‘SPIN’ could be lurking anywhere. The you-tube viral ‘plastic to oil machine’ would be GREAT if we could just fuel it on abiotic plastic or an endless supply of recyclable petro plastics. Here, by golly, is an example of keeping faith in our ‘progress’ alive, aimed at those on the edge of a conscious reduction in energy intensity. No wonder they go viral.

I don’t believe in all the official stories. Like 9/11. It’s true. I don’t believe. I said it.

People and persons under the law just have interests to maintain. That’s all. And they’re willing to massage things into position. It’s called community design. The foremost designers are those with the foremost interests. It's the nature of the creature: it is willing to act to a degree commensurate with its level of investment.

Hmm, what has changed fundamentally in the way we move in the last 100years? the way we eat? The way we build? Oil got us here. And some powerful interests have sold us on a progress that’s made oil the architecture of our age. Indications are it’s time to change up, even if it’s only an exercise to shore up our confidence.

And the only viable alternative oil is the oil we don’t consume. It’s the only soft path. And we like soft things. Right?

the Greensnake trail, Alma NB

If you've been looking for the Greensnake Trail site, here's an update on the situation.

Domain wise, greensnaketrails.ca has seen its demise as the Grensnake trail web home. I'm no longer interested to pay for web or domain hosting.

The Greensnake trail itself exists in administrative ether-space. It's accessible to the public, like any crown land, but there is no official trailhead. the Fundy Recreational Trails Project is long since defunct and the Village of Alma is most of the time reluctant to take any ownership on the problem. It remains accessible via the 45 road access.

My suggestion that we the Village Council put the map up on villageofalma.ca site got marred in uncertainty over who's trail it is. But a letter from the land owner who no longer wants to provide public access from the Village sealed the proposal's fate.

Was the Green snake a Village project? Louise refutes it was ever a Village project. I however confirmed from DNR it was a Village license of occupation (LOO) during construction in 2003. She hardly shrugged at this. And, the Village acted to the contrary when Greg, the property owner allowing Village access to the trail, asked Council to no longer allow trail users access.

The property owner wrote a letter to Council saying he was concerned about liability and that he plans to develop the property and asked signs be removed. The mayor went to talk to him and asked if he didn't want the business at the store, not knowing the store had sold. Everyone knew this! The signs are now in the possession of the Village.

Prescriptive rights could likely be argued successfully if a trespass ever saw court. It's been many years in use. I mean heck, the atv's are using the access across Greg's. Don't know if the atv clubs and federation got the same letter. The village access issues abound. Turns out, RCMP don't make exception for OHVs on highways, even in Alma, NB.

I am frankly quite appalled by the immature and vindictive role staff and the mayor had taken on trails related assets and development. Council fussed their way out of a seat at the Fundy Biosphere Reserve trail project out of spite, just as they reacted to the biosphere reserve project at the onset.

My opinions of Village administration aside, good things continue to happen. So the challenge is "can anybody officially advertise the trail". I've been hoping that the Chignecto Ski Club group could pick up the slack in some capacity. And may be a regional trail group could step in.

Here is an idea: Get public access and move forward on trails in the Village. the Ski Club group can lobby the Village, who ultimately needs to partner, to agree to provide access via mill walk then design a project and get a LOO for an event like a trail building day to build it.

Ciao

PS Check out IMBA Canada's blog post and its comments on the Greensnake trail. Way to go Fundy park!

Learning optimism from the Greens

The election results came as a bigger surprise than I might have expected. Many predicted the PC majority and yet there was an optimism needed to grow the fledgling Green party. We candidates knew it was just the start. Optimism was required in order to step up to the plate, but it leave a mild depression in the aftermath. If there was a hope in hell, it was a long stretch for me.

Albert Riding's MLA Waynne Steeves was the first to be declared elected by CBC in their televised coverage of the election. And this meant that my mug shot made it on to screens as the third place candidate. Someone said this was after two polls reported. He walked away with the lion's share of the votes. "Give you head a shake", some had said about running for the Greens.

What had I hoped for aside from a distant third place? Well, I hope for a change. I hope discussions keep going. I hope for the exchange of ideas on their own merit. I hope the Green party becomes a bigger part of the discussion so that we may we can shake what it is that keeps a natural development in New Brunswick at bay. I hope we can confront the things that are easier to see "just ain't so".

Will Rogers said, "it ain't the things we don't know that trouble us, this the things we do know that just ain't so."

We showed it's possible to speak openly about the challenges facing NB communities i.e. media concentration, unbalanced policy, broken bureaucratic attitude towards local government organization, etc.. We've shown there is a way to be hopeful while in full recognition of these challenges. By sticking out our necks, we've put a name to it.

Tossing your vote to the Greens

The 57th New Brunswick General Election is upon us without a clear front runner and we've got lots to mull over about our future.

Unprovoked, I’ve had long time faithful Liberals say they would vote Green. When a retired Albert resident who’s husband raised hogs and who’s family continued in the beef business had told me she’d vote Green or spoil her ballot, I decided I would see to it she had the opportunity to vote Green. I’m aware that people can step out of conventional thinking when in the company of unconventional thinking, but I’m confident it’s genuine. And all sorts of people are saying the same things.

Albert is a unique riding. Recall the COR party. A green vote no matter the caliber or riding makes a statement. New Brunswick’s vested interests are clearly not in sea change, and the front-runners in the election aren’t talking about this with its citizens. However, accountability and breaking the cycle are a big part of the weight on voter’s minds in my opinion. We’ve got a good thing going in Albert, but those willing to make a statement by ‘throwing their vote to the Greens’ are asking for a greater stake in NB’s future.

In my experience government lead involvement of NBers exists at the bottom of the scale, with rural planning, with resources, with community development. At the bottom is placation and slightly better is keeping us informed. At the top is partnering and engaging participation. For example, youth want a seat at the table in this province. Not just a handshake and a “welcome aboard”. It was a little more than a year ago that an exceptional cluster of New Brunswicks from the Fundy region attended a Youth Forum hosted by Fundy Enterprise in Picadilly. The event netted energetic discussion and timely debate facilitated around youth questions. Some of the things I took from the discussion include the need for increased opportunity (and not just the paid kind) and feeling valued, an unease (even knowledge deficit) surrounding the structure of rural local government, a shroud of conservatives and apathy. These continue to be timely. You can help by voting Green.

My experiences in municipal government and ‘keeping my ear to the S. NB ground’ have hardened my case for a need for action to address what is ‘unique’ about NB’s political climate. In the last few moments leading up to casting your ballots, please use your informed opinion, plus a view of the future NB landscape, to make your decisions. Don’t succumb to an inclination to be on the winning team. It’s time for action. “Tossing” your vote away to the Greens is a way to take that action.

Green wave

Hello! This is my first video post! I'll share this short video I made with footage I gathered when the NB Green Party gathered in Moncton to watch the CBC leaders debate. We hopped around 'Mainstreeting' with our special guest, Elizabeth May.
Jack MacDougall, party leader, did very well in the debates.

Concerned Rural Residents of NB

I've been following the developments in the community of Penobsquis with interest. This is an unincorporated part of NB that is experiencing major growth with the expansion of Potash exploitation as well as the fast paced development of natural gas.

This resource rich area is clearly undergoing the changes wrought by the mining and gas development. The truck traffic is enough to make you crazy if the draining of the aquifer, the subsidence, and the olfactory stimulus aren't' enough. And these New Brunswickers living in Penobsquis Centre overtop the underground 'waterfall' have varying opinions of the situation due to the various relationships with the mine (Potash Corp of Saskatchewan) and gas company (Corridor Resources).

But the two are not distinct. The companies work collaboratively on gas exploration and both have gas rights and are working together trying to plug leaks into the mine workings. Gas appears naturally in association with potash. This is the ancient aquatic environment afterall that leaves both salt domes and oil/gas deposits (potash is a salt). My environmental geology text shows this association of potash with the oil and tight gas very clearly.

It's clear to me these developments happen in some ways at the expense of the community. They don't receive any royalties. And without a plan, the community goes by the wayside. I can appreciate that there is a need for the Concerned Citizens of Penobsquis, and a need for concerned citizens of rural New Brunswicker's everywhere our resources are being expoited.

Holding the ACE

Returning from Albert County Exhibition where I was given and took the opportunity to take the stage tonight makes me think of the greats I was in the company of.

Rob Moore opened the fair, MLA Rob Moore, reps of municipal councils, Exhibition queen and Ms. NB, and candidates in the upcoming election. Each of us was there but for the NDP candidate, Tony Crandall. I met PANB candiate Lucy Rolfe, of course incumbent Wayne Steeves, and was especially happy to meet Claude Curwin, who I spoke with in depth. In his address, he felt it worthy to mention sitting between the green and purple.

I had to say to everyone that it's a privilage to have been asked to speak at the veriatable instition nearly a century old, and that it is a bit emotional because of the attachments there. Claude and I talked the hollowing out of rural NB amoung other things, and as the stage anxiety wore off, I saw how sparse this years fairgrounds looked. Far cry from bumper car days I remember. The rural roots are the cement for the event along with the dedication of the Committee, organizers, and ofcourse the participants and competitors.

The youth are hooting it up like I did. The 100 is going to be awesome.

Will you go to the Fair?

It's the time of year marked by the turning of the leaves and ushered in by the institution known as the Albert Cty. Ex.

This 97th annual exhibition brings it another year closer to a tradition a century in age. Wow. That will be a milestone. And despite all the challenges for rural NB, it has held fast. It offers inspiration for hollowed out rural NB.

Let the A.C.E. stand as testament to the tenacity and resurgence in vibrant rural traditions.

Now can we bring back the dances?

(here is the events schedule for the Ex. online: schedule

Sense of Pace

I’ve lost someone. I’ve lost someone I want back so very badly. Not far from the dairy town is a small place called Picadilly that, for a landmark, has a mountain by the same name. This is her home. The Picadilly Road wraps around the mountain like I feel she winds around my heart. I’d like to tell you about part of my trip walking from Alma to Picadilly, some 50 km give or take a few, to see this special someone off.

Most of the walking behind me on the highway, I changed into my running shorts and began a jog of the Negro Bk. Road. The weight my clothes added to the hydration pack made it swing more than I liked so I tightened things with my thumbs as I ran. I ran past the Whaeghlenbrauh farm without stopping to talk to the farmer in the field along his dirt road. This is the last residence on the road for a long stretch, and I ran on under early afternoon shade from the tall maples along the road.

The ascent began in earnest when I turned on to the Thompson Road. This was the beginning of the least certain part of the trek. All I had to go on was my memory of the aerial photo on Google maps I’d studied. It’s an even less traveled road as was apparent from the grade and water runouts. I gained a couple of hundred meters of elevation over the stretch of this climb before dropping off into a clearcut and down over a cliff to meet the Law Road. Not far from there is where the Urney Road meets the Picadilly road.

After the descent and walk through the nearly dry riverbed, past a pond, along some tended trails, and on to the Law Road, I walked on dirt, a stretch of pavement on the Urney Road, and then back to dirt on the Picadilly road.

As I was walking the road that would take me to her farewell, I was wondering all along what I was going to say, and what to write for a farewell on the card in my pack. The pebbles had accumulated in my shoes, and when the Picadilly road turned to pavement again, I stopped and rested. I snacked, drank and changed into acceptable visiting clothes again. At this spot is where she and I had done a snowshoe trek the previous Christmas holiday. There was nowhere comfortable to settle in to writing a card so I carried on.

The road gets more densely populated the closer you are to town, as roads do, and It wasn’t long before I was flanked by close mown grass shoulders. When I realized I was within view of the farewell festivities, I set down on a nice grassy shoulder looking into the valley, my back to the mountain, and set to focus on the card. I had made it and could make out the children playing on the road at the party.

I wrote about journey, experience and sharing them, since this is what was on my mind. What a rich experience to be in all the places you would only see at high speed, places you would not have seen at all, were surprised to learn you could navigate.

It feels remarkable to connect to places by a different route. It also is remarkable to do so at the human pace. Those for whom ‘super-human’ comes to mind, you need just ask an old-timer about walking treks. Do bring a compass like I did, just in case.

Voters in Albert County can vote Green

I’m a candidate in the Albert riding for the Green party in the upcoming general election. I had been asked to run well in advance of the election at which time I had said I wouldn’t, as I wasn’t up to the task. That didn’t stop the party from pestering.

I rescinded when party leader Jack MacDougal took up the campaign to bring me aboard. He’s a successful campaigner! With his blessing, I agreed to run knowing that I mightn’t be present for the entire election. I am what you might call a paper candidate.

What swayed me was lunch with a fellow constituent who, unknowing of any potential candidacy, said she would vote Green or spoil her ballot. I didn’t want her or anyone to have to spoil ballots, and without a Green candidate, this is what she was saying she would do. And this comes from a former staunch Liberal.

For some, being a paper candidate is not acceptable and I would wish to impress upon anyone with this outlook that it is still important to grow the things we believe in.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t take the job lightly. For, if voters choose to give me the job, I am more than happy to take my seat in the legislature and give it my 100%.
I have a lot to offer New Brunswickers and those in my riding and I agree whole-heartedly with the Green Party of NB platform. Our vision just makes good sense for the rational and equitable development of our province.

Also running in his riding of Quispamsis is my dad, Mark. We are the only father/son combination in the province that I know of! Go dad!

And, We have a higher percentage of women candidates running in the election than ever before, in all of Canada!

Going for broke in gas rich NB

Yvonne was puffing along triumphantly nearing the Chignecto coast as we ended the 2000k journey to VT. He seems to like sea level atmosphere.

Before leaving NB, I gave as a birthday gift enough carbon credits for a trip to Chicago by plane. It’s not exact or even entirely serious, but there’s something to burning carbon neutral waste cooking oil that changes the name of the game. I ducked out of the party early to make the dusty drive over Caledonia mountain where a public talk was taking place on oil and gas developments in NB. Some are concerned with the boom in unconventional gas, i.e. horizontal drilling and ‘hydro-fracking’.

Questioning myself for leaving an amazing display of tasty offerings and conversation, I drove by the wind farm, the forestry activities and the blueberry fields and the farming operations as I neared Elgin. Two exploration drill pads are setting up in Elgin and this brings the hydrocarbon exploration back to Albert County.

We have a history of the petro- resources exploration here abouts. It was lake albert that left the gypsum deposits and hyrdrocarbons in the late carboniferous, that fresh water marine environment responsible for the Albertite and the Stony Creek oil ‘play’. Much of the exploration was abandoned for the lack of feasibility. It’s only a matter of time before it makes sense to go for the small stuff. At some point we’ll reek of desperation in our pursuit of the stuff, and more and more the sense, given my haughty position, is that they, and I mean energy developers including ourselves, are going for broke.

My first stop upon returning to Albert County was an open house put on by Southwestern Energy, a utility turned exploration company who flew spectral photography and has started up geochem and 2d- seismic in a vast part of NB.

They were awarded licenses based on a successful bid for the province’s auction of exploration rights to the land. Don’t be confused, oil and gas has separate legislation than other mineral exploration, so mineral exploration isn’t inhibited. Nor is forestry. I went because I wanted to be informed, and there seemed to be some mystery around this. I don’t know if anyone else attended the open house, there wasn’t a soul outside of the organization while I was there for the hour and a half.

For example, the company has been advertising as SWN. Don’t bother Googling it. It’s the trade name on the stock exchange. Southwestern Energy should net some info. They’ve experience is in Arkansas, NE and I’m curious to learn more about that.

And why is the province so much facilitating the development of these resources? Are things on the table we rural residents aren’t being made aware of? I don’t feel concern is unjustified. For some including myself, the provincial regulatory context and relationships with local entities are problematic. It was interesting to see in the communities in VT, NH, and ME that I visited a comparatively extreme level of local control.

Oh, did you know, stateside, the abbreviated New Brunswick is NK? May be we should do the same with all the US firms going for broke. My petition to John, a SWN geo-analyst, was to set up office in Albert County. Keep it local!

Can I be your imploding star?

I feel as if I'm an imploding star

I think somewhat that is's all of ours

and to see all the time we're closer to the hour

Makes me want to be your meteor shower.

I feel inspired

and overtired

hopeful someday I won't need to be wired

The cartoon expression of being mired

the hero is a little bit oven-fired

But if I were to be your imploding star

We might just find we' could see far

My inertia might be tempered by your four door car

Or all might prosper from the 'passing of the bar'

Oh, restraint.

Where's it found?

The beat of love's drum is a powerful sound

Dear heavenly body

secret and haughty

I AM GOING FROM ZERO TO DOTTY

With regard to humanity

My father made an admission to me the other day that I am only beginning to try to appreciate. He said I've already become a better person than he. Do we struggle to be good people, to be human?

Powerful words to recon with as I encounter challenges in relationships in particularly with one that's failing. I don't know what it is to be truly human and I fear what happens to men in Hobbes' state of nature, where it is (if it is) a "war of all against all".

There are the monsters in us that allow for the release of arrows and ignition of TNT. Tragic events are oft the trajectory of bruising and anger. Why do we yell when we feel pain? It seems a natural response and the well adjusted temper their reactions with civility and - what - is it humility?

Why do we cry when we feel anguish? Why the flight from the undesirable?

I don't know. My uncle told me the story of USAmericans in Argentina who stuck to their own kind. He noticed that the locals who he became part of were very willing to agree to do things, to sign on to a collective idea or activity, unlike the US culture he was used to where everyone's individual needs would need to be accommodated somehow. He remembered how this was too much for many of the USAmericans who banded together in their ghetto.

He likened the resistance to cultural difference and new ideas to an acceptance of humanity, or what I might extend to include the greater constituency. That is, the living world around us. “I wonder if THOSE people are like us?”

I shared with my uncle my thinking that it could be a difference in individual v. community focus. That we have become very much focused on the individual, the ethic of ourselves, as apposed or coincidental to an ethic of the greater constituency. It is the core of advertising that works at the sense of self in pursuit of personal preferenced consumers. It is encouraging to me to see those who treat their actions as if volumes.

I don't know where this leaves the question but I have to share that I see a need for a diversity of approaches to being human, that one species and only one species may be disadvantageous.

Who the American?

Like New Brunswick, place names in Minnesota including the state itself originate with first nations. Cree and other first people are mostly disappeared but their names remain.



The plains of the mid-west USA retain a number of first Nations, or indians as a some prefer to call them, on and off reservation. We passed a reserve marked by a casino billboard where on the highway travelling west of Minneopolis they meet the Minnesota River .



To call them first peoples would seem to be too much of an admission for many I meet and talk with on the subject. Or may be it's just an unfamiliar term. And we here know the common reaction to things unfamiliar.



These are the people who call themselves Americans with whom I've been amoungst for the past 4 dayd. But it was residents of the USA that pointed out to me while visiting the NB Canada café I work in that we are all Americans. Clearly so in the geographic sense.



I don't want to push the envelope on the question and it's desire for an answer - How best to refer to people of the United States of America, but what do we call them if not Americans? It's important it's something appropriate we/they decide upon ourselves..



If people from the USA epitomize what is America, Joan Armatrading is a cynic when in her song she uses the words "U. S. and A", as if the United States and America are distinct.



It's quite clear to me that we are all American. The Halifax, NS band Caledonia in their WE are America album title track possibly sing it best.



"We are America. We are everything she does.."

be as much as possible a non-subscriber? Participate by not participating?

Thinking now of the kinds of questions we ask about personal challenges in our lives, it seems rare to be in the position of looking very broadly into the point of this existence - at least publicly.

What goals do I have for a livelihood. What do I want in a partner. Who is your city? These questions tailor our choices and directions almost like a consumer makes shopping choices. Not to belittle the magic of our lives in the slightest.

But we need to have a knowledge and understanding of the world that can allow us to frame our existence and make the choices that will allow us to prosper. A sort of operating system that values and orders the efforts we make. If it is truly a human need to have a sense of belonging, I find this missing as more and more I take the liberty to discount a culture apparently run amok. WHere does one look for a replacement?

Mostly, it seems we are responding to the best options that exist. Everyone has the challenge of functioning, no matter how well adjusted or mature, right? So how then do we bring those who would design the best options in to line with maturing operating systems?