Chet Raymo, “New Philosophy”

“New Philosophy”

by Chet Raymo

"It is one of Albert Einstein's most-often quoted quotes: "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible." Is the world comprehensible? Apparently at least partially so. Consider the NASA solar eclipse atlas I referenced the other day. It is possible to calculate the precise locations and times for solar eclipses thousands of years into the future and past. That's comprehensibility for you.

Of course, there are still things we do not comprehend, such as consciousness or the development of organisms, but there is no good reason to suppose those things are intrinsically beyond human understanding. The whole of modern technological civilization and medicine is a monument to comprehensibility.

Why? Why this strange consonance between the world and the human mind? For centuries the answer was simple. God created a world of space and time, a finite mirror, so to speak, of his own intelligence. He created humans in his own likeness. Human intelligence partook of the intelligibility of God. Everything in the closed, human-centered cosmos was ordered in his likeness. The world was comprehensible because it was made that way - for us to comprehend.

Then, in the 16th and 17th centuries, came the great disruption, which Alexandre Koryé described in his seminal 1957 book "From the Closed World To the Infinite Universe." Daring thinkers resurrected the Greek idea that the universe might be infinite in extent and eternal in duration - no boundaries in space, no beginning or end in time. It was a radical thought, heretical really, but it meshed well with what the astronomers and physicists were learning about the world we live in. As the poet John Donne wrote:

    "And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
    The element of fire is quite put out,
    The sun is lost, and th' earth, and no man's wit
    Can well direct him where to look for it.
    And freely men confess that this world's spent,
    When in the planets and the firmament
    They seek so many new; they see that this
    Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
    'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,
    All just supply, and all relation."

Of course, it wasn't as bad as all that. Galileo and Newton provided a new coherence. The physical world itself took on two characteristics of the Godhead - omnipresence and everlasting life. Everything unfolded not in accordance with the divine will, but according to eternal and immutable laws of nature. The Divine Artifex, master craftsman, in Koyré's words, was replaced by the Dieu fainéant, a lazybones God with nothing to do. And the comprehensibility of the world became- well, as Einstein said- incomprehensible. But...things were about to get more complicated. 

Koyré's "From the Closed World To the Infinite Universe" was published in 1957. When I started teaching college in 1964, the required reading for my general studies science course included two articles by two prominent physicists published in "Scientific American" at about the same time as Koyré's book. George Gamow, a principal architect of the big bang theory, made the case for a universe that began billions of years ago as an explosion from an infinitely dense and infinitely small seed of energy. Fred Hoyle, stalwart champion of the steady state theory, took the stand for an infinite universe with no beginning and no end, in which matter is continuously created in the space between the galaxies.

Both theories had strengths and weaknesses. For example, the big bang successfully accounted for the known abundances of hydrogen and helium in the universe but posited an embarrassing beginning that could not be explained. The steady state theory avoided the stumbling block of a universe that seemed to come from nowhere but replaced it with many little unexplained beginnings (those particles of matter appearing continuously from nothing). Yet the big bang theory made one prediction that was testable: if the universe began in a blaze of luminosity, a degraded remnant of that radiation should still permeate the cosmos, and the precise spectral distribution of this microwave-frequency background could be calculated.

Then, that very year I started teaching, the cosmic microwave background radiation was serendipitously discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, with precisely the predicted spectrum, a triumph of comprehensibility. The universe- space and time- had an apparent beginning! For some people, this extraordinary development re-opened the door to a creator God, whose intelligence is the source for the intelligibility of the world. Koyré may have anticipated this. In his final paragraph he wrote: "The infinite Universe of the New Cosmology, infinite in Duration as well as in Extension, in which eternal matter in accordance with external and necessary laws moves endlessly and aimlessly in eternal space, inherited all the ontological attributes of Divinity. Yet only those - all the others the departed God took away with Him."

What others? Personhood. Love. Justice. And intelligence. Intelligence that is the source of the intelligibility of the world.

But for Einstein, and many of us here, the mathematical singularity which is the big bang is an opaque barrier. To say the universe is created by God conveys no more information than to say it is created by X. We learned to live without Koyré's Dieu fainéant, the lazybones God who had nothing to do, and see no reason to bring him out of retirement. So why is the universe comprehensible?

There are reasonable arguments for the incomprehensibility of human consciousness, and some of them were given here the other day in Comments. Let me offer arguments for the contrary.

First, one very important feature of consciousness has already been comprehended. We can say with a high degree of confidence that there is no ghost in the machine, that consciousness is an emergent physio-chemical property of the material brain. Whether consciousness is deterministic or involves some measure of quantum uncertainty remains to be seen, but I find Roger Penrose's argument for quantum uncertainty unconvincing. For the moment, Ockham's Razor rules.

Second, we can study emergent consciousness by observing other organisms, from sea snails to chimpanzees. That is, in principle, we can build up an understanding of human consciousness incrementally. This assumes, of course, that human consciousness differs from that of other organisms only in complexity, not kind. Again, for the moment, the Razor rules.

Third, as I mentioned here once before, a project is underway to fully map the neuronal structure of the human brain, at which point it should be possible to construct an operational electronic analog of the brain. Will such machines be conscious? Google "artificial consciousness" and you'll find arguments for both sides. At the very least we will pare away some of the incomprehensibility.

Fourth, we may already have created a "conscious" machine: the internet, which approaches the human brain in its degree of interconnected complexity. It is continuously "aware," sensitive to millions of sensory inputs- touch, vision, hearing, smell, and for all I know even taste. I can ask a question in human language or tap an icon and instantly have a response from the internet's vast memory. The internet and its myriad of input/output devices mimic enough of the aspects of human consciousness for us to be increasingly confident that consciousness is not intrinsically beyond in principle understanding. And isn't in principle understanding all we ask of science, and Life?"

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Life..."

"Life is painful and messed up. It gets complicated at the worst of times, and sometimes you have no idea where to go or what to do. Lots of times people just let themselves get lost, dropping into a wide open, huge abyss. But that's why we have to keep trying. We have to push through all that hurts us, work past all our memories that are haunting us. Sometimes the things that hurt us are the things that make us strongest. A life without experience, in my opinion, is no life at all. And that's why I tell everyone that, even when it hurts, never stop yourself from living."

- Alysha Speer

"The joke was thinking you were ever really in charge of your life. You pressed your oar down into the water to direct the canoe, but it was the current that shot you through the rapids. You just hung on and hoped not to hit a rock or a whirlpool."

- Scott Turow

"Life's funny, chucklehead. You only get one and you don't want to throw it away. But you can't really live it at all unless you're willing to give it up for the things you love. If you're not at least willing to die for something- something that really matters - in the end you die for nothing."

- Andrew Klavan

"Sometimes..."

 

The Poet: Mary Oliver, “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”

“White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”
 
“Coming down out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful, and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings - five feet apart -
and the grabbing thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys of the snow -
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes
to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows -
so I thought:
maybe death isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us -
as soft as feathers -
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light - scalding, aortal light -
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.”

 - Mary Oliver 

The Daily "Near You?"

Yerevan, Armenia. Thanks for stopping by!

"In the Inbox"

"In the Inbox"

"From: Coordinator of Volunteer Services: We have a young man, thirty-six, on hospice who has a very young child. They want someone to help him do a life review and perhaps put some pictures together for he and his wife so the child will know him. Call me if you are willing to do this."

"The next time, friend, your life seems too hard, check your Inbox."

- Jose Orez

"Big Government's "Smash & Grab"

"Big Government's "Smash & Grab"

by Ben Garrison

"The Smash And Grab Big Government Criminals Are Looting Our Country: We’ve all seen the recent crime sprees taking place in the Democrat-controlled big cities. Acting in concert, flash mobs showed up to smash glass counters, steal the jewelry inside, and then make a quick getaway. They are nothing compared to the smash and grab criminals controlling our country. I’ve drawn three here, but there are many more. The corporate media, for example. They smash and remove the truth and leave lies behind.

Big Pharma is unaccountable and irresponsible. It claims to own science, but what they really own is greed. Pfizer rakes in over $200 million taxpayer dollars per day for their dangerous and ineffective injections. The corporate media does not say a word about those injured or dying from the so-called vaccines. They don’t mention that thousands who are fully vaccinated not only contract Covid, but also die from the Chinese bioweapon.

Big Government makes laws in order to grow their own power as well as to enrich themselves. The so-called “Patriot Act” is a good example. It had nothing to do with patriotism. It had everything to do with stealing our liberties. Big Guv does this as a matter of routine. It keeps taking until it encounters resistance. Unfortunately they rarely get much push back. Too many people still think Big Guv is on their side and out to do good things for citizens. Nope. Big Guv is more concerned in getting reelected and growing more wealthy as it starts new wars. The latest may be against Russia. Yes, Big Guv wants to use US Troops and even threaten global nuclear war in order to protect the borders of Ukraine. Meanwhile, our southern borders remain wide open.

The Federal Reserve is an expert smash and grabber. It steals by means of currency creation at the flip of a switch. It is spent by the top of the pyramid and those at the bottom pay the hidden tax by means of inflation. The IRS makes sure it finishes the job of wealth confiscation, thereby making the working class poorer.

The criminal government gets away with it because they own a monopoly on force. Try and resist and they will send armed functionaries to arrest you. Resist arrest and you could be murdered. Included in the government mob are Big Pharma and The Federal Reserve. The politicized FBI does as it pleases, too. The CIA has been rogue almost from the start.

They will all continue until they are stopped. They will only stop when there is nothing left to grab. When that happens we will have no freedom, no privacy, and no dignity. We will own nothing and live in a technocratic dictatorship unless the war mongers decide to destroy all life on Earth first by means of a nuclear war.

The time to push back against this tyranny is now."

- https://grrrgraphics.com/

"It's Like 'The Purge': Murder Records Are Being Shattered All Over America, And Next Year Could Be Even Worse"

"It's Like 'The Purge': Murder Records Are Being 

Shattered All Over America, And Next Year Could Be Even Worse"

by Michael Snyder

"It is often said that life imitates art, and these days that is particularly true on the mean streets of our major cities. Violent criminals just keep getting more brazen, and murder rates are soaring all over the nation. As you will see below, one official in Los Angeles is actually comparing what is now happening to a horror movie that came out a number of years ago called “The Purge”. But in that movie, violent criminals only had one night each year to run wild. Unfortunately, in America today they are running wild every single night.

Perhaps some of you think that I am exaggerating, and so let’s look at some hard numbers. At this point, there are 12 large U.S. cities that have already broken their all-time murder records for an entire year…"At least 12 major U.S. cities have broken annual homicide records in 2021 — and there’s still three weeks to go in the year. Of the dozen cities that have already surpassed the grim milestones for killings, five topped records that were set or tied just last year.

“It’s terrible to every morning get up and have to go look at the numbers and then look at the news and see the stories. It’s just crazy. It’s just crazy and this needs to stop,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said after his city surpassed its annual homicide record of 500, which stood since 1990. The 12 cities that have already established brand new records in 2021 are Philadelphia, St. Paul, Portland, Indianapolis, Tucson, Louisville, Toledo, Baton Rouge, Austin, Columbus, Rochester and Albuquerque."

And with more than half of December still remaining, more cities will be joining that list by the time the year is finally over. In Los Angeles, violent crime numbers are going up so fast that it is difficult to believe that the figures are actually real… "The LAPD reports that in the first 24 weeks of 2021, reports of shots fired were up 48 percent. The number of people wounded by gun violence was up 50 percent and homicides were up 26 percent.

The environment in the city has completely changed. During a recent television interview, the head of the LA Police Protective League warned tourists not to come to his city this holiday season… “My message to anyone thinking about coming to Los Angeles, especially during the holiday season, is don’t,” Jamie McBride, the head of the LA Police Protective League, the union representing LAPD officers, said in a television interview."

What a thing to say. McBride went on to compare current conditions in Los Angeles to “The Purge”… “We can’t guarantee your safety. It is really, really out of control. I said it to people before, it’s like that movie ‘Purge,’ you know, instead of 24 hours to commit your crime, these people have 365 days days to commit whatever they want,” McBride said." Wow. This isn’t some random guy on the Internet saying this. This is the head of the union that represents police officers in Los Angeles.

Crime is so out of control in L.A. that even people that don’t like guns are arming themselves. The following comes from a New York Post article entitled “Beverly Hills residents arming themselves with guns in wake of violence”… “I’ve always been anti-gun,” said Debbie Mizrahie of Beverly Hills. “But I am right now in the process of getting myself shooting lessons because I now understand that there may be a need for me to know how to defend myself and my family. We’re living in fear.”

Of course things aren’t much different in northern California. In fact, an atmosphere of “lawlessness” is seemingly everywhere in San Francisco at this point… "The pandemic emptied parts of San Francisco and highlighted some of its drawbacks: human and dog feces smeared across sidewalks, home and vehicle break-ins, overflowing trash cans, and a laissez-faire approach by officials to brazen drug dealing. Parents despaired as public schools stayed closed for most of last year as nearby districts welcomed children back to the classroom.

Meanwhile, residents and visitors scurry past scenes of lawlessness and squalor. Just steps from the Opera House and Symphony Hall, drug dealers carry translucent bags filled with crystal-like rocks or stand outside the public library’s main branch, flashing wads of cash while peddling heroin and methamphetamine." It should come as no surprise to learn that the number of people that died from drug overdoses in San Francisco last year was nearly three times as high as the number that died from COVID.

During normal times, we rely on the police to protect us from lawless criminals, but in America today the police are under siege. I really like how Heather Mac Donald recently made this point… “I can tell you across the country in the United States today, when cops get out of their car to make an inquiry, to question somebody who’s acting like he’s pulling up his gun out of his waistband, to go into a drug set, they find themselves routinely surrounded by hostile jeering crowds throwing things at them,” she said. “They’re assaulted.” “This is what it’s like to be a cop in America today,” she added."

Every single day, police officers put their lives on the line when they go to work. 314 police officers have been shot so far in 2021, and the final number for this year will inevitably be even higher. Meanwhile, the mainstream media and many groups on the left continue to relentlessly demonize the police, and this is driving good people out of the profession in record numbers…"A workforce survey released in June by the Police Executive Research Forum found the retirement rate in police departments nationwide jumped 45% over 2020 and 2021. And another 18% of officers resigned, the survey found, a development which coincided with nationwide social justice protests and calls to defund law enforcement agencies following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers."

As the trends that I have discussed in this article continue to escalate, it is likely that 2022 will be even worse. But before I end this article, I want to make a very important point. The worst criminals in America are not the violent thugs in our streets.

Often, the worst criminals dress in suits and walk the halls of power. For example, just check out what a CNN producer was just charged with doing…"The CNN producer charged with luring a mother and her nine-year-old daughter to a rental home in Vermont for ‘sexual subservience’ training also told someone else he’d ‘trained’ girls as young as seven. John Griffin, a producer on CNN’s New Day and worked for Chris Cuomo, was charged last week by federal prosecutors in Vermont who say he paid for sex with underage girls, including one whose mother he convinced into letting her visit him."

Needless to say, his case in not an isolated incident. In all my years, I have never seen such utter lawlessness in America. And if you have read my most recent book, then you know that I believe that things are going to be getting a lot worse. Just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is exploding in our society, and our country has now become unrecognizable. Decades of incredibly bad decisions have brought us to this point, and the years ahead are going to be more chaotic than most people would dare to imagine."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Inflation Soaring... Is The Fed. About To Do Something Dramatic? How About NO! "

Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/14/21:

"Inflation Soaring... Is The Fed. About To

 Do Something Dramatic? How About NO! "

- https://traderschoice.net/

"How It Really Is"

"Is the Economy a Ponzi Scheme? - The Games Continue"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, AM 12/14/21:

"Is the Economy a Ponzi Scheme? - The Games Continue"

"The Fed continues to print money and buy assets. The quantitative easing will not slow down. We have not seen inflation like this since Harry Truman was president. Experts are asking if our economy is a Ponzi scheme."

"Does the Fed Have the Stomach For It?"

"Does the Fed Have the Stomach For It?"

By Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "On Friday morning, investors were tense. The inflation numbers were coming out… Was the fun coming to an end? For the last two weeks, the Biden team had been trying to downplay rising prices. Here’s a Reuters’ report from Thursday: "President Joe Biden, bracing for another jump in inflation, sought to reassure Americans on Thursday that rises in energy costs and other key goods were starting to ease, but said the change might not be reflected in November data due on Friday."

But rising prices are a hard thing to keep under your hat. You can lie about a war in Afghanistan, for example, for 20 years. Who’s to know? But rising prices? Consumers see them every day. And economists were warning that the inflation numbers on Friday could be worse than those of last month. They could show prices rising at a rate not seen for 40 years. Then, as expected, Friday’s report showed inflation at a 6.8% rate – the highest since 1982. The Financial Times reported: "US inflation hits fastest annual pace since 1982." "Consumer price index rises 6.8% in November, intensifying pressure on White House as it seeks support for spending plan."

Mainstream Media Awakens: Inflation is always bad news for a democratic government. They don’t necessarily understand the process, but voters feel ripped off… and they don’t like it. Typically, they show their displeasure at the ballot box. That is why it’s hard to square inflation with democratic, consensual capitalism. Often, you get a coup d’état by the military… or an “emergency” that brings democracy to an end. (Some argue that inflation is a policy tool of the elite, not only to enrich itself… but also, intended to undermine democracy.)

Many times in these Diaries, we have given you our opinion. Push comes to shove, we said… the elite is going to push down hard on the inflation pump… and shove democracy down the stairs. Maybe that's what investors believe too – they bid up stocks to new record highs on Friday.

And a headline from Bloomberg over the weekend gives us a look at where this is going. In it, we see that the mainstream media has finally taken note of the “Inflate or Die” trap: "Massive U.S. Debts Could ‘Trap’ Powell as Fed Fights Inflation." "The U.S. went on a borrowing binge last year and the hangover could make it harder for the Federal Reserve to fight inflation without crashing the economy. Corporate debt has surged $1.3 trillion since the start of 2020 as borrowers took advantage of emergency Fed action as the pandemic spread, slashing interest rates and backstopping financial markets to keep credit flowing. […]"

Powell’s challenge is to try to curb price pressures without large costs to employment or growth, a move that would likely anger both political parties and blotch his record with the first Fed-assisted hard landing since the 1990-1991 downturn.

Hard Landing Ahead: To be clearer about it, the financial markets – and the economy itself – are the grotesque creatures of more than 12 years of absurd monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. It has lent money below the rate of consumer price increases for almost all of that time. Of course, corporate debt increased – by almost 80%. And so did U.S. government debt – up more than $18 trillion (more than 180%) since 2008.

Now, the Fed can’t “normalize” policy without a “hard landing”… in which asset prices return to normal… over-leveraged businesses go bankrupt… millions of people lose their jobs… millions lose their homes… the elite gets about $30 trillion poorer (from lower asset prices)… and the economy goes through a very mean wringer. Do Powell, Biden, et al have the backbone for it? Do they even understand what they are doing?

In any case, here’s our prediction: There will always be something more important than restraining inflation. Here’s a story from England, again from Bloomberg, that gives us a hint: "Omicron Seen Trumping Inflation for Bank of England This Week." Economists expect BOE to hold off rate hike until February. The flu… the weather…and most importantly, a collapsing economy…There will always be reasons not to change course. And when push comes to shove, they’ll find one of them."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

Gregory Mannarino, "The Fear Trade Remains"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/14/21:

"The Fear Trade Remains"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Economic End Of The Road Approaches; Dumb Money Keeps Buying The Bubble"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/13/21:

"Economic End Of The Road Approaches; 

Dumb Money Keeps Buying The Bubble"

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Stillpoint"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Stillpoint"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy are scattered through this eye-catching field of view. From the early hours after midnight on August 13, the 30 second exposure of the night sky over Busko-Zdroj, Poland records the colorful and bright trail of a Perseid meteor. Seen near the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower it flashes from lower left to upper right. The hurtling grain of cosmic sand, a piece of dust from periodic comet Swift-Tuttle, vaporized as it passed through planet Earth's atmosphere at almost 60 kilometers per second. 

Just above and right of center, well beyond the stars of the Milky Way, lies the island universe known as M31 or the Andromeda Galaxy. The Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object easily visible to the naked-eye, about 2.5 million light-years away. The visible meteor trail begins only about 100 kilometers above Earth's surface, though. It points back to the meteor shower radiant in the constellation Perseus off the lower left edge of the frame. Follow this bright perseid meteor trail below and left to the stars of NGC 869and NGC 884, the double star cluster in Perseus.”

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210814.html

"All Of The Available Data..."

"All of the available data show that the typical American citizen has about

as much interest in the life of the mind as does your average armadillo."

- Morris Berman

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "One"

"One"

"The mosquito is so small

it takes almost nothing to ruin it.

Each leaf, the same.

And the black ant, hurrying.

So many lives, so many fortunes!

Every morning, I walk softly and with forward glances

down to the ponds and through the pinewoods.

Mushrooms, even, have but a brief hour

before the slug creeps to the feast,

before the pine needles hustle down

under the bundles of harsh, beneficent rain.

How many, how many, how many

make up a world!

And then I think of that old idea: the singular

and the eternal.

One cup, in which everything is swirled

back to the color of the sea and sky.

Imagine it!

A shining cup, surely!

In the moment in which there is no wind

over your shoulder,

you stare down into it,

and there you are,

your own darling face, your own eyes.

And then the wind, not thinking of you, just passes by,

touching the ant, the mosquito, the leaf,

and you know what else!

How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,

how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,

even your eyes, even your imagination."

~ Mary Oliver

The Daily "Near You?"

Tijeras, New Mexico, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"High End Retail Continues to Crumble - Inflation at a 40 Year High"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, 12/13/21:

"High End Retail Continues to Crumble - 

Inflation at a 40 Year High"

"I am in Newport Beach, California. Retail has continued to crumble even in the best of cities. There is no escaping this crash. Inflation is at a 40 year high while the stock market will continue to rise through the end of the year."

Gregory Mannarino, "AGAIN! More Calls For A Stock Market Meltdown And Crash... Let's Talk About That"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/13/21:

"AGAIN! More Calls For A Stock Market Meltdown And Crash... 

Let's Talk About That"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Corporate Insiders Dump Stocks Of Their Own Companies At Record Pace: Brace For An 80% Crash"

Full screen recommended.

"Corporate Insiders Dump Stocks Of Their Own Companies 

At Record Pace: Brace For An 80% Crash"

by Epic Economist

"No one understands market trends better than its top insiders. They can foresee bullish and bearish developments way before everyone else does. Insiders are corporate CEOs, senior executives, board members, or shareholders who own at least 10 percent of a company. They always come out on top when buying and selling stock. They always reap the biggest profits. They are always one step ahead than everyone else.

What most Americans believe and what many market watchers have been telling us is actually correct: The stock market is a rigged game that benefits corporate executives who can hide behind trading plans as they buy or sell stock, sometimes based on nonpublic information. That's what ZeroHedge analysts have been warning their readers for years. And now, they're inviting the public to see what those insiders, executives and CEOs are doing right now and what that means for the future of the stock market.

A disaster is looming -- and corporate executives are already looking for ways of protecting their wealth before things get out of control. Recently, we have been hearing stories of billionaire executives massively dumping their company's stocks. That's actually been happening at a much faster rate than we've seen in over a decade. The twist is, as ZeroHedge analysts explained, that they're ramping up selling while their own companies engage in record stock buybacks.

Last month, insiders dumped a total of $15.59 billion -- an absolute all-time record. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing data from the research firm InsiderScore, 48 top executives have collectively disposed of over $200 million each in stock sales in 2021. That's nearly four times the average of stock sales from 2016 through 2020. The avalanche of insider selling includes the two richest men in the world, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, as well as Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder, Walmart's Walton family, and Facebook and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, among many others. In recent weeks, they have significantly accelerated stock sales.

InsiderScore data reveals that corporate insiders sold a whopping $63.5 billion in shares in November, a mind-blowing 50% increase compared to all of 2020. This selling trend is developing as major equity stock indexes are signaling peak levels and stock buybacks are occuring at breakneck speed. The largest share of insider dumping is happening in the technology sector, which recorded a staggering $41 billion in sales.

Stock buybacks are an alternative form of wealth protection. CEOs sell their stocks to raise cash, but instead of using this cash to expand production, increase sales, acquire competitors, or buy new products or services, they use it to reduce the outstanding share count of their company and artificially inflate earnings per share. That's what Real Investment Advice Chief Market Strategist Lance Roberts has explained in a 2019 article. "The reason that companies do this is simple: stock-based compensation. Today, more than ever, many corporate executives have a large percentage of their compensation tied to company stock performance," Roberts highlighted.

That's to say, when things are about to fall apart on Wall Street, a way to reduce the damages faced by a company is to decrease the amount of this company's shares in the market. In that way, when the market goes down, the impact on the company's stock price is far more manageable. "Share buybacks only return money to those individuals who sell their stock. This is an open market transaction, so if Apple buys back some of their outstanding stock, the only people who receive any capital are those who sold their shares," Roberts explained.

If it wasn't for stock buybacks, all of these insiders wouldn't be able to sell off their stock at record-high valuations without suffering major losses. Today, at least 40% of the current bull market is entirely due to buybacks. That's a Ponzi-like scheme that allows corporate insiders to prepare a financial cushion before the market takes a turn for the worse. This insider selling wave accelerated in recent weeks because, as Goldman warned, the buyback open window for 2021 ended on December 10.

If we take a deeper look in the current market, we can see that damages are not superficial, as some are choosing to believe. This sell-off madness is proof that a much more devastating stock market crash is fast approaching. Investors betting on higher stock prices will be bitterly disappointed. Even the dotcom crash wasn't recognized as such until it was too late. It's time to wake up now. Otherwise, you might be left scrambling when all of these stock market crash predictions become a reality."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"Flood-tide of Darkness"

"Flood-tide of Darkness"

by Jim Kunstler

"The frenzy around the Christmas holiday conceals deeper currents running through advanced techno-industrial societies like froth on the surface of a raging river that surges with dangerous, hidden flotsam. We’re informed that the next James Bond might be a transsexual. But, you see, it’s not just that Hollywood is running out of gimmicks for its floundering “franchises,” but rather that there has been no place for men these days in the struggle to prevent civilization from drowning. The lifeguards are cancelled. All that’s left in the commotion of the flood is the shrieking of women.

Thus, the hysteria over Trumpism. America actually needed a rescue operation and, defective as he was personality-wise, Mr. Trump rose above the surge and called for exactly that, and was pulled under for the effrontery of saying so. It was a bad time to be a man standing out among men. The torrent is in charge now, not the people bobbing and flailing in it. Ride it out, if you can. By and by, the flood will subside and the survivors will be cast back on shore. The shrieking women will also subside, because the men will tell them to cut it out. And then the men and women will go forth reconstructing the human project here in North America.

The landscape will not look the same and we will not act like we did before, when we were just carried along helplessly in the flood. There will be fewer of us. All the giant things, too large to save themselves — the corporations, the institutions, the agencies — will be swept away, but we’ll back on dry land, with a lot debris to sort through, some of it useful for rebuilding a way of life. We’ll be too busy for any more shrieking and hand-wringing, and crybabies will get whapped upside their heads.

That is what you can expect in the decade ahead. For the moment everything is just froth and noise, and most everybody is in too much of a panic to make sense. Humans don’t do well without sense-making. What makes sense is having a roof over your head, something to eat, some purposeful activities to provide those things, some other people to exist with and care for, and some ceremonies to honor our efforts and declare our gratitude for being here in the first place.

Christmas, most of us understand, is as much about the world descending into cyclical darkness as it is about the birth of a religious figure who signifies our recognition of the very light that makes darkness visible. You also understand, of course, that demons and monsters dwell in the darkness, that they spawn in it. This year, the darkness seems darker than any darkness we remember, and so we may be astonished when the light returns to our world. Eventually, we’ll memorialize the monsters and they will frighten children for generations to come.

I know it’s hard to even imagine generations to come at this moment in history. There is even some question whether human beings will able to reproduce after the dastardly things we’ve done to our own chemistry. But this isn’t the end of us, not yet anyway. Let’s act as if it’s not, at least. We don’t know for sure where our story goes from here, but we have some say in it depending on what we do. Just knowing that there is a difference between story-telling and story-making is a good start in rediscovering what men are for.

One thing men are responsible for is bringing order to the world. They don’t always succeed, but it must be their duty to make the effort, and it’s not wise to distract them with histrionics when they attempt to do that, or shame them for trying. You are not excused from your duty in any case, American men. It’s not okay to pretend to be women to escape your duty. The women must not allow the men to hide among them and pretend to be them. They must insist that you be men.

One of your duties as men is to oppose false realities to preserve meaning, and you do that first by insisting on being upright yourself and speaking of things as they really are so that you can do with them what you must do. And this is the meaning of authority, which has been submerged in the flood we’re riding on, this flood of false realities drowning the meaning of everything.

I know this makes for a harsh Christmas. It is where we happen to be: the flood-tide of darkness. Do what you can with it, knowing that it marks some kind of turning. I promise you, the light is coming."

- https://kunstler.com/

"Get in Crash Positions"

"Get in Crash Positions"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Everyone with some gray in their ponytails knows the stock market has ticked every box for a bubble top, so everybody get in crash positions. Let's run through the requirements for a bubble top:

1. Retail investors (i.e. dumb money) are all in and buying the dip with absolute confidence. As the gray-ponytail traders know, there are many moving parts to the retail dumb money going all in:

● The pain of the last bubble bursting has finally faded and been replaced by greed as retail punters watch everyone else mint fortunes by buying the dip and gambling with abandon at the casino's trendy tables: crypto, NFTs, Mega-Tech, EVs, uranium, etc.

● Prudence and caution (i.e. holding cash in low-risk accounts) are thrown to the wind as the more money you put into the bet, the bigger the rewards.

● Punters realize the key to the really big gains is maxing out margin and leverage, preferably by owning the underlying equity in favor of options and futures contracts.

● Confidence in the Federal Reserve's god-like powers and determination to never let stocks decline more than a few percentage points over a few hours or days is off the charts.

● Confidence that this is a new era and so old rules no longer apply is in the stratosphere. Retail punters believe that cryptos, NFTs and blockchain are can't-lose bets as these are A) unstoppable and B) revolutionizing finance and the economy. As for stocks, retail traders have discovered the power of the herd: if the herd all buys call options by the thousands, this forces market makers to buy the underlying stocks, pushing the price higher in a self-reinforcing feedback loop that is guaranteed to succeed.

● Retail investors view all these bets as extremely low risk and so there's no financial sense in hedging bets or limiting margin debt, leverage or risk, because risk has been abolished by the Fed Put.

2. Insiders (i.e. the smart money with asymmetric knowledge of what's actually going on beneath the surface PR) are selling with unprecedented enthusiasm: "Ponzi? Insiders Dump Stocks To Their Own Companies At Record Pace." The gray-ponytail traders know the only way to anticipate the next trend change and benefit from this knowledge is to follow what the smart money (insiders) are doing, not saying, because they know the smart money will always talk their book, i.e. promote a confident happy story about future prospects even as they're dumping their own shares as fast as they can without crashing an increasingly precarious market.

3. Market leadership shrinks from 50 to five companies even as the majority of stocks are faltering. The absolutely classic sign of a bubble top is the indices continue rising even as the majority of stocks stagnate or enter Bear Market territory with stairstep declines.

How can indices continue marching higher if 80% of stocks are falling? Easy: big gains in a handful of mega-cap stocks. The current concentration of market-moving heft in a few mega-tech stocks is unprecedented. Last week all three market indices - Dow-30, S&P 500 and the NASDAQ - were all led higher by one company, Apple, which added hundreds of billions of dollars in capitalization in a few days. When the market depends on a Nifty Fifty for the vast majority of its gains, it's already getting toppy, but when it's entirely dependent on a Fabulous Five for gains then the top is in.

4. Short sellers give up and short interest falls to multi-year lows. The gray-ponytail traders can savor the irony: as short-sellers give up and the percentage of shares sold short dwindles, the retail Bulls declare victory: haha, we've wiped out the shorts and Bears! We won! What the jubilant Bulls don't understand is the hated short-sellers were the last line of defense against a market decline gathering momentum into a crash, as shorts covering their bets by buying stocks are a reliable source of buying when greed turns to fear. Wipe out the shorts and there's nobody left to buy as stocks tumble and margin calls proliferate.

5. Buy-the-dip euphoria continues sucking in money even as market internals weaken and extremes of risk are ignored. When gamblers are putting all their capital on the table and boosting the bets with margin and leverage, the dumb money is all-in; not only do they not have any cash left, their sky-high margin debt guarantees even a modest dip will result in margin calls and forced selling: the self-reinforcing momentum everyone assumed could only be bullish reverses into selling that begets more selling.

6. Punters are confident that the Federal Reserve will manage to tamp down inflation while keeping the stock market at a permanently high plateau. Never mind rising real rates, never mind the need to reduce monetary stimulus as the only means to take the air out of inflation -the Fed will never let stocks decline. The Fed Put is unbreakable.

And so here we are: every box of a bubble top about to burst with unimaginable force is ticked. Traders sporting gray streaks in their ponytails know from experience that every bubble pops, and all the endless analysis after the fact boils down to: things changed. Timing is everything in a crash: as Thomas Hobbes is reputed to have observed, "Hell is the truth seen too late." Well said, T.H.: when the market goes bidless, it's too late to preserve capital, never mind all those life-changing gains."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"The Horrifying Inflation Crisis That You Were Warned About Is Here"

"The Horrifying Inflation Crisis 

That You Were Warned About Is Here"

by Michael Snyder

"All of a sudden, inflation is one of the hottest political issues in America. Most people seem surprised that inflation has gotten so wildly out of control, but the truth is that this should not be a surprise to any of us. We have been warned for years that this was coming. Whenever our corrupt politicians in Washington authorized trillions more in spending that we couldn’t afford, we were warned that this would eventually cause extremely painful inflation. But it didn’t happen immediately, and so most Americans didn’t take the warnings seriously. And as the “experts” at the Federal Reserve kept pumping trillions of fresh dollars into our financial system, we were warned that there would eventually be severe consequences. But those consequences did not arrive immediately, and so most Americans didn’t take the warnings seriously. But now a day of reckoning has arrived, and conditions are only going to get worse from this point forward.

On Friday, the Labor Department informed us that the inflation rate is rising at the fastest pace that we have seen since 1982…"Inflation accelerated at its fastest pace since 1982 in November, the Labor Department said Friday, putting pressure on the economic recovery and raising the stakes for the Federal Reserve. The consumer price index, which measures the cost of a wide-ranging basket of goods and services, rose 0.8% for the month, good for a 6.8% pace on a year over year basis and the fastest rate since June 1982."

Things sure have changed since 1982. Back then, the average price of a new vehicle was $7,983 and the average price of a new house was just $82,200. And the way that the inflation rate has been calculated has changed dramatically since then as well. In fact, the way it is calculated has literally been changed more than two dozen times since 1980, and every time the goal was to make it look even lower. As John Williams of shadowstats.com has pointed out, if the annual rate of inflation was still calculated the way it was back in 1980, it would be about 15 percent right now. But the formula was certainly not perfect back then either.

During one of his recent shows, Tucker Carlson explained that the official rate of inflation has become completely divorced from the extremely aggressive price increases that U.S. consumers are wrestling with on a daily basis…"In fact, there’s only one accurate way to measure inflation, and somehow the Fed has not yet figured this out. Here it is: You ask yourself, what does it cost you to live in this country compared to what it cost you a year ago? It’s not complicated. Do the math, and you will see that the actual number, the rise in inflation is not even close to the seven percent that Washington is claiming.

In the last year, the price of a used car, for example, is going up by more than 30%. Beef prices have risen by 21%. Crude oil up 55%. Dimensional lumber, 35%. Wheat, 37%. Sugar, 33%. Corn, 39%. Palm Oil, 43%. Do you drink coffee in the morning, ever? Oh, too bad. The price of coffee has risen 108% in the last year. Do you like breakfast cereal? Oh, sorry. Oats are up 114%."

You know what? He’s right. Tucker Carlson is such a gifted communicator, and he hit this one out of the ballpark. Later on in that same segment, he played clips from various reporters talking about painful price increases that we are seeing all around the nation…

"REPORTER: "Americans are seeing the effects of inflation in their budgets. General Mills even announced they’re raising the prices of their cereals by up to 20%."

REPORTER: "The grand total for our Thanksgiving dinner was $51.25. More than 20% over last year’s list."

REPORTER: "The Dollar Tree is hiking prices from $1 to $1.25 for most items."

REPORTER: "If you’re lucky enough to find ammo, you’ll pay more for it."

MAN AT THE GUN RANGE: "You’ll see this on the store shelf for $0.65 a round. It would normally be around low $0.20 a round."

If you have been waiting for “the coming inflation crisis”, you can stop waiting because it is already here. Yes, wages have been going up too, but not nearly as fast as the cost of living. Needless to say, this is putting a tremendous amount of stress on average Americans…"Over the past 12 months, the costs paid by a typical American family have surged by roughly $4,000, according to calculations by Jason Furman, a Harvard economist and former Obama White House aide.

Though Americans’ overall income has also increased since the pandemic, a new poll found that far more people are noticing higher inflation than higher wages. Two-thirds say their household costs have risen since the pandemic, compared with only about a quarter who say their incomes have increased, according to the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research."

If you are angry about inflation, you are definitely not alone. All over America, people are deeply frustrated with our leaders for creating so much inflation, and Americans now have a new “number one concern” for the very first time since the pandemic started…"A CNBC All-America Economic survey released on Friday found that inflation has “firmly eclipsed” coronavirus as the No. 1 concern. Nearly half of Americans say that inflation has caused them “financial hardship,” according to a Gallup poll released earlier this month. A Yahoo News/YouGov survey released last month said that 77% of Americans say inflation has personally affected them. A clear majority - 57% - blame President Joe Biden for the high prices caused by inflation."

So what are our politicians in Washington planning to do to get us out of this mess? Well, the Biden administration wants to spend trillions more. They just can’t stop. And every time a new crisis suddenly erupts, their “solution” is going to be to spend even more money. So this is it. The endgame has arrived, and a whole lot more inflation is on the horizon.

If the American people wanted to avoid this mess, they should have listened to the warnings a long time ago when we still had an opportunity to turn the ship in another direction."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"The Air Coming Out"

"The Air Coming Out"

by Jim Kunstler

"Has the illustrious Dr. Fauci not just plumb shot his wad now? Made himself — how do you put it delicately — something less than…uh… helpful… in the public health sphere? Worn out his welcome, a little bit? We have been a kind and generous nation through our history, after all, patient to a fault with all sorts of public rascals. I’m sure you would agree: an apology and discreet withdrawal from the scene might buy him a few years of elder peace at some ocean or desert retreat, dandling the grand-kids on his tender lap, even while the prosecutors construct their case… and by then, of course, the spike proteins moiling in the conus arteriosus of his shriveled heart — gift of his own marvelous science project — will have worked their hoodoo and punched his ticket to the great gain-of-function Palookaville up yonder.

Or is he, rather, begging for the rope at the end of the lamp-post now (along with a few thousand other public figures around the world)? I mean… moving the goal-posts yet again the other day right there on CNN with the ever-glowering Kate Bolduan, saying it was “not a matter of if but when” conscience would provoke him, Dr. Fauci, a.k.a. The Science, to declare the already-vaxxed, even the multi-vaxxed and once-boosted, unvaxxed! The horror! I’d calculate that the internet campaign to purchase the aforesaid rope would take about ten seconds flat, including the log-in.

It’s beginning to look like Americans have had enough of this monkey business, losing their livelihoods, their futures, their reasons to live. And now this malignant dwarf of a government witch-doctor wants to come for their children? Homey don’t play that. And, by the way, Omicron is no Darth Vader and Dr. Fauci is no Obi-Wan Kenobi. Omicron is a punk-ass computer iteration of the original “SARS CoV-2” computer model of a frightful pandemic agent engineered to drive the Western advanced nations batshit crazy (literally) so as to distract them from the criminal ineptitude of their financial managers. And now that the virus narrative is unspooling it’s showtime for the terminal financial follies of the age.

How long could the folks over in accounting hold back the tides of default and bankruptcy? How many millions of fingers would you have to find to plug all the holes in that dike? For many years — probably as many as Kate Bolduan has been scowling — the damage has accrued as the industrial nations grappled with the conundrums of wealth production vis-à-vis the decline of primary energy resources, and they are fresh out of tricks. All that legerdemain with the suppression of interest rates and self-dealing in bonds, gaming the equity markets with surrogate shadow-bidders, playing hide-the-salami in structured investment vehicles and special purpose entities, and kiss-the-lizard with collateralized debt obligations, leveraged ETFs, credit default swaps, interest rate swaps, commodity swaps, currency swaps, binary options, subprime this-and-that, National League RBI futures, gentlemen’s bets and side-bets on bets, and plain old thieving bought the advanced nations a few decades of breathing room before the whole reeking scaffold of folly groaned and blew.

CBS-News reports this morning that “household wealth has surged an astonishing $36 trillion.” Our Federal Reserve says so in a 205-page statistics dump. Oh, really? Do you know what that is? It’s called air. Something you can see clean through because the thing that is supposed to be there is not there, namely, what money is supposed to represent. This is the financial narrative, cousin to the virus narrative — making manifest the non-manifest… a ghost story around civilization’s campfire. Any minute now, the air is going to come out of the family rooms in these hypothetical millions of suddenly rich households and the people within will suffocate financially. The New York Times will report them as Covid-19 deaths, I’m sure.

The now-notorious Chinese real estate giant Evergrande missed the coupon payments on its bonds the other day. Evergrande builds sixty-story apartment towers made (mostly) of sand. Somehow, the bag-holders even in China, where buying real-estate has enjoyed the rush of novelty in recent years, begin to scent the odor of failure in that bloated corpus of fraud. Who among the twelve regional Federal Reserve bank presidents here in the USA happened to short those bonds, I wonder, and is the Biden family operation sitting on any of that paper? Hunter would be dumb enough to take bundles of it in lieu of cash payment for, ahem, services rendered. Does Evergrande’s distress set off a financial contagion in China now, and does it spread around the world like a novel coronavirus?

Anyway, there’s enough foul air coming out of America’s own overleveraged house of financial horrors and Europe is a veritable Hindenburg of flammable gas waiting for a mere spark of static electricity to go kerblooey — even while it ramps up an epic persecution of its unvaxxed populace, at Christmas-time no less. What geniuses!

The authorities everywhere in Western Civ are suddenly short on legitimacy and at every level of every department and agency. What happens when nobody believes any of their bullshit anymore? I’ll tell you what happens: Hillary Rodham Clinton gives a “Master Class in Resilience” on YouTube. (Check out the “trailer” for it here.) Weep along with the old gal as she marinates in her special puddle of narcissism. She’s aiming to come back into the arena, you see, just as the phantom president “Joe Biden” fades into the woodwork, moaning as he vaporizes like Jacob Marley in chains. And so HRC seizes opportunity, emerging like Rodan the Flying Reptile from her smoldering volcano of political slumber. She wants to share with you the heartwarming victory speech she failed to deliver in November of 2016, when Russia cheated her of her grand prize. She’s as sincere and authentic as a loaf of Velveeta. Her stepping on stage like this signals the end of something big. Batten down your Christmas tree. It’s going to be a bumpy ride into the holiday."

- https://kunstler.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Banking Crisis Imminent, Protect Your Money Now; Payday Loan Danger"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 12/12/21:

"Banking Crisis Imminent, Protect Your Money Now; 

Payday Loan Danger"

"As U.S. Cities Crumble, Demand For Rural And Suburban Properties Is Soaring"

Full screen recommended.

"As U.S. Cities Crumble, Demand For

 Rural And Suburban Properties Is Soaring"

by Epic Economist

"The streets of America are getting more and more chaotic. The rate of offenses has alarmingly spiked in recent months, and millions have decided to relocate from crowded urban centers to rural and suburban areas in an attempt to find safety and comfort as conditions worsen in our major cities. This year's events are making many people consider moving elsewhere.

Since last year, booming real estate markets such as New York, San Francisco and Seattle started to cool down as migration trends shifted. Now, small cities across the country are seeing housing prices skyrocket to levels never before seen as demand for these properties has absolutely soared over the past year. On the other hand, those who own homes in big cities are seeing the value of their properties sharply drop since demand is significantly slowing down in our core urban areas, which are currently being torn to pieces by offenders.

As an increasing number of Americans seek to get away from such crowded and turbulent areas, a new Redfin report found that page views for homes in rural communities and small towns were way, way up this year than when the virus began to spread aggressively all over the nation last year. Compared to one year ago, page views of homes in rural and small towns jumped by 115% and 88%, respectively.

Of course, now that worsening social tensions, riots and civil unrest have been added to the equation, it's only normal that more city dwellers start considering a change in residence. In fact, one recent poll found that disorder in our streets is one of the main factors making people want to live in a rural area. Meanwhile, urban real estate markets that once were red hot like San Francisco have been slowing down in a major way.

According to Bloomberg, amid growing fears of another economic slump and a financial meltdown, the demand for real estate is unexpectedly rocketing in regions outside San Francisco. Agents say that this new migration trend may become the norm for a long time. In the good times, our major cities had plenty to offer. But these times are long gone, and at this point, most city dwellers have become entirely convinced that their communities are simply no longer safe places to live.

Sadly, lower-income workers cannot afford to move to an isolated haven with their families. Some argue that this trend is only exacerbating the wealth divide. “This is an example of another way the most advantaged, the most affluent have isolated themselves from this latest crisis,” Patrick Sharkey, a sociology professor at Princeton University, told Bloomberg. “It’s a very small segment of the population that has another home that they can go take off to.”

In several states, and particularly in California, people are being stolen and physically assaulted on the streets. For example, in Los Angeles, over the past two years, delinquency rates drastically surged all across the city, and now, even upscale neighborhoods are being affected. Residents are freaking out after a spate of 'flash mob' lootings at high-end retail stores have been accompanied with a disturbing increase in physical aggressions in the suburbs, according to the LA Times.

Sadly, our leaders are only paying attention to these issues now that rich people are being affected. For a long time, alternative economists have been warning about the looming decay of our major cities, only to be left unheard. Now, this is where we are. America is facing a mass exodus from the cities that used to represent us as a strong, healthy nation. That image of power and prosperity is rapidly changing as our urban centers crumble. Those who have the means to move are doing it and not looking back, but millions of others may find themselves trapped inside an orderless atmosphere as things start to collapse all around us."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Musical Interlude: 2002, "An Ocean Apart"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "An Ocean Apart"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“First came the trees. In the town of Salamanca, Spain, the photographer noticed how distinctive a grove of oak trees looked after being pruned. Next came the galaxy. The photographer stayed up until 2 am, waiting until the Milky Way Galaxy rose above the level of a majestic looking oak.

From this carefully chosen perspective, dust lanes in the galaxy appear to be natural continuations to branches of the tree. Last came the light. A flashlight was used on the far side of the tree to project a silhouette. By coincidence, other trees also appeared as similar silhouettes across the relatively bright horizon. The featured image was captured as a single 30-second frame and processed to digitally enhance the Milky Way.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150525.html

"Ill Bet..."

 

Chet Raymo, “Trying To Be Good”

“Trying To Be Good”

by Chet Raymo

“A few lines from Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese":

    "You do not have to be good.
    You do not have to walk on your knees
    for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
    You only have to let the soft animal of your body
    love what it loves."

"I've quoted these lines before, if not here, then elsewhere. When I first read them back in the late 80s, they resonated with what I felt at the time. I had spent part of my earliest adulthood walking on my knees, both literally and metaphorically, seeking to tame what I took to be the animal within. Saint Augustine was whispering in my ear, and Bernanos' gloomy country priest walked at my side. I was ready to follow Thomas Merton into the desert; indeed, I once took myself briefly to the monastery at Gethsemane, Kentucky, where Merton was in residence.

That was a journey of more than a hundred miles, and I was busy repenting, although of what I don't know.

As I read those lines from Mary Oliver in middle age, I had long been cultivating the "soft animal" within, immersing myself in the is-ness of things, the flesh and blood, the gorgeously sensual. No more walking on my knees, repenting. I walked proudly upright, with my sketchbook and my watercolors, my binoculars and my magnifier, sniffing the world like an animal on the prowl. I was letting my body learn to "love what it loves." Those were the years I wrote "The Soul of the Night" and "Honey From Stone" - the most intensely creative years of my life. The world offered itself to my imagination, if I may borrow another line from "Wild Geese."

And now, another half-lifetime has passed. The soft animal dozes, the body seeks repose. And I think of the first line quoted above: "You do not have to be good." What could the poet have possibly meant by that? Of course one has to be good. In a cell at Gethsemane or on the bridge over Queset Brook, one has to be good. And so one tries, one tries. The soft animal of the body that nature has contrived for us is not fine-tuned for goodness.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

•

“Wild Geese”
by  Mary Oliver

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

"Assumptions..."

William Stafford, "You Reading This, Be Ready"

The Daily "Near You?"

Yorba Linda, California, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Lemons..."

"When life hands you a lemon, say

"Oh yeah, I like lemons. What else you got?"

- Henry Rollins