The Meaning of Life to an Armadillo

by Geoffrey Chia

The genesis for this ancient essay arose during internet discussions with the “meaning of life and everything society” or MOLES chat group under the pseudonym Gandalf. Many years later his essay was published in the Australian Rationalist journal (whose old web archives have unfortunately not been maintained). This article may be of some philosophical interest to NBL readers.

Full essay is here, in pdf.

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McPherson’s latest essay for Transition Voice was posted 13 January 2014: Only geo-engineering can reverse climate change — too bad it won’t work (permalinked at Transition Network)
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Please limit yourself to two posts daily. Additional comments are welcome at the NBL Forum.

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Please join me in supporting our friend OzMan as he literally walks away. Click here for more information.

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The Next Step: Living Courageously in a World of Transition, a 14-day seminar, 12-25 March 2014, Izabal, Guatemala, Central America.

The Next Step: Living Courageously in a World of Transition, a 7-day seminar, 24-31 May 2014, Moho Creek, Belize, Central America.

The Next Step: Living Courageously in a World of Transition, a 14-day seminar, 12-25 June 2014, Izabal, Guatemala, Central America.

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Going Dark is available from the publisher here, from Amazon here, from Amazon on Kindle here, from Barnes & Noble on Nook here, and as a Google e-book here. Going Dark was reviewed by Carolyn Baker at Speaking Truth to Power and by several readers at Amazon. An excerpt follows.

Among the consequences of taking down a few hundred species each day: at some point, we are the species we take into the abyss. The vanishing point draws nearer every day. Our response, in the industrialized world: Bring on the toys. Burn all fossil fuels. Harvest the rain forests and stripmine the soil. Pollute the water, eat the seed bank. Foul the air.

And, most importantly, figure out how we can make a few bucks as the world burns.

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A modified classified ad hit the top of that page yesterday, and is posted below.

SEEKING like-minded folks in St. Louis, Missouri.

My wife and I are both 38 years old and civil engineers by profession. In the last decade, our world view has profoundly shifted from the conventional “you are born, go to school, work, work, work, retire and die” to life is meant to be lived NOW and not deferred to the future.

Not being born in wealthy families, we have had to work to build a small nest egg. I work as an environmental engineer (Note: my job has nothing to do with protecting the environment, only abusing it more while filling out paperwork appropriately) while my wife is a stay-at-home mom, having worked as a structural engineer for 6 years.

We have a 5-year-old daughter to whom we do not want to pass on the cultural messages we were exposed to growing up. Rather, we want her to grow up in as close to our prehistorical ancestral setting as is possible.

We have (more so I than my wife) come to believe that the only truly sustainable way of life is what we arrogantly and derogatorily call the “stone age”. But for various pragmatic reasons, including the fact that we are vegetarians and essentially have no wilderness survival skills, we are trying to find balance in voluntary simplicity and living as close to the land as possible.

We firmly believe in the healing powers of nature and the company of other like-minded people.

We find joy in natural parenting (non-coercive, co-sleeping, extended in-arms phase) and watching our daughter growing up into a happy, quasi-wild child and desperately seek for her the social nurturing that can only come from living with a varied group of people of all ages.

My wife and I are originally from India where we spent the first 22+ years of our life and have mixed feelings about the manner in which we were raised. While we grew up in the typical informal social setting widespread in India, we do not have extensive experience in communal living.

We are big believers of our experiences and have no patience for politics, sky-god(s), sin, reincarnation and the like. If forced to label our views, would call ourselves agnostic-animists.

We believe that health is wealth and consider organic/whole foods a wise investment.

We are getting very dispirited by the apathy and willful ignorance around and within us.

If you are interested in an alliance, please email us at rschwarzg@gmail.com.