Striving to figure out the essence of the problems and the solutions
From an early age, an inclination toward feeling that something is very wrong.
A lifetime of reading, writing, conjecturing . . . trying to figure out . . .
Marx? Freud? Sartre? Nietzsche? Kierkegaard? Esoteric, off-base, belabored.
Leftism offered important critiques, but ultimately disappointed (it’s gotten stuck in a paradigm that’s theoretically deficient in a number of ways).
Found some enlightenment in Mumford, Roszak, Bookchin, David Watson, Riane Eisler, Paul Goodman, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Rudolf Bahro, Daniel Quinn, Fredy Perlman, Ted Trainer.
At a general level, a level adequate for deriving “what is to be done” . . . it boils down to some fairly simple essences:
For reasons that are not entirely clear (we can read many interpretations, theories … maybe, for humanity, there were both carrots and sticks) . . . during a crucible period between five thousand and fifteen thousand years ago:
We made a turn . . . toward a direction that involved problematic trajectories.
Surely toward a species bloom; surely toward a modern insanity of hypertrophies and unsustainabilities . . . “gaining” micro-level this and micro-level that . . . but losing some of the most important things at the macro level.
Such that now it would be a good idea to gradually make another fundamental change of direction . . . “back” (see Edward Goldsmith: The Great U-Turn).
Incrementally ( in order to avoid cultural trauma).
Toward decentralization, re-localization, simplification . . .
