Inmate wisdom
As we wrapped up our potluck lunch, at the request of my co-teacher and mentor, I read this bit from Pablo Neruda’s poem, “Keeping Quiet.” It seems fitting, as I step away from one life and move closer to the land.
As we wrapped up our potluck lunch, at the request of my co-teacher and mentor, I read this bit from Pablo Neruda’s poem, “Keeping Quiet.” It seems fitting, as I step away from one life and move closer to the land.
When there’s no food on the shelves, no gas at the convenience store, and no water coming out the taps, it’s safe to conclude the empire has abandoned you. But if you think an economic recovery is right around the corner, you still will not abandon the empire. By that time, it’s too late to start thinking about other arrangements. Hell, it’s too late to pack the car and hit the road.
Damn the torpedoes. It’s full steam ahead for the idea of economic growth, even though Obama surely knows the days of economic growth are behind us.
We’re due for a massive correction with respect to our hallucinatory economy and our bloated population. Because we’ve run out of inexpensive energy, we’ve reached the end of economic growth. We might be at the end of global population growth, too. If not today or tomorrow, the day is fast upon us. Within a few years, the global human population will shrink by eighty percent or so. When it does, the alleviation of oppression will be profound, with respect to the rest of the world.