Yesterday I didn’t post.  Regret that I was defeated by circumstances.  Defeat always occurs in the mind.  External circumstances, in my case a disabled snow blower, projects awaiting my attention at work, etc. in concert constituted a mental squall, and I lost my heading.  Writing is a discipline that serves to clarify a direction for one’s life.  I write because I must.  There are other motivations of  course.

The snow blower is on the way to the repair shop.  Those projects that appeared daunting are in process.  The forest which appeared dense and dark, presents itself as opportunity when one masters the anxiety and enters the woods.

After serving an early morning customer I take some time to read and write at the Starbucks in Park Ridge.  Park Ridge is a land of Audi, Lexus, BMW automobiles.  These high-end vehicles are not remarkable because they are common here.  Park Ridge is an “old” money community, where wealth is passed on generation to generation.  The people who live here would say without hesitation, “Capitalism has been very good to me.”

From my vantage point that perspective is the crux of the problem.  Wile making preparation for my day I listened to NPR interview of an author who was detailing the consequences of a two degree increase of global warming.  This threshold will likely be reached by 2050, within the life times of many who were listening

When the planet warms another two degrees Farenheit wide swaths become uninhabitable because of heat and the extremes of weather which disrupt systems necessary to our way of life.  No one needs to be told that refugees will number in the millions.  The old way of life will be in full-fledged collapse.

I think about this while surrounded by luxury vehicles costing as much as a working class person will earn in 3 years.  Capitalism is an extractive state of mind, that despoils the earth, literally burning up our home planet.  The prime value is profit, which in the main is derived from imbalance of compensation for the value of labor performed by the working class.  Capitalism has a predatory relationship to the earth and to those who labor.

And that’s how you can afford your Lexus or a BMW.

What is to be done?  I think that we must start by recognizing the awful truth that we need help.  We are creating a future apocalypse.  Not unlike a person who subjects him or herself to psycho therapy,–we must believe that  a different future is possible, and that it’s shape will emerge in the process of self-reflection.

This is what we must do for a beginning.

Whenever art happens—that is,
whenever there is a beginning—
A thrust enters history; history either begins or starts over again.
History here means not a sequence in time of events,
of whatever sort, however important.
History is the transporting of a people
Into its appointed task
as entry into that people’s endowment.

—-excerpt The Origin of the Work of Art
By Martin Heidegger p. 202