April 19th, 2020
Quote of the day
“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
― C.S. Lewis
I don't know

Right now, there's an almost volcanic explosion of opinion and advice on what we need do after this pandemic has run its unremitting course.
It's premised on the idea that this 'shock' is of such epic proportion that we'll be woken from our pre-Covid19 torpor and begin not only to reimagine a more beautiful world, premised at least on a few things that are happening now, but we'll actually change our moribund, earth-eating ways.
We won't.
Oh no we won't.
How do I know?
I don't.
I don't know what the future holds — mine or anyone else's. Oh sure, that doesn't stop me wishing that we'll wake up to a lifestyle more restorative of the planet, but do I seriously think that all of us, or even a majority, will want to live with less travel, less consumerism, less freedom and less of anything?
No.
Not in the slightest.
I mean it's pretty sad — no actually, it's 10x worse — that we have to have this pandemic ripping its way through the population to suddenly think, "Oh shit, look how we've messed up", let alone to conceive a new actuality in 2020ish and beyond.
( Collapse )Postscript
...if I was going to take up the cudgels against big business, given the way Steven Donziger has been treated, I'd think very, very carefully before putting myself and my family in harm's way.
Nobel laureates condemn 'judicial harassment' of environmental lawyer.
My tweets
- Sat, 17:17: I've started "In Search of the Miraculous" by P D Ouspensky at least three times and never got past the first 50 pa… https://t.co/kRWJvj1kDv
- Sat, 17:32: Mrs S has made a few comments about my beard suggesting, I'm quite sure, that it's too long and not a little unruly… https://t.co/i4qpZPAkUs
- Sat, 17:44: One for you Twitter. If I'm going to read any of Daniel Quinn's books, where should I start? (cc @chrisnicholsT2i… https://t.co/TyBAoPINzx
- Sat, 18:23: Jimmy Somerville - Smalltown Boy Reprise 2014 https://t.co/22BOJqIMiY / back living the 1980s dream.
- Sat, 18:25: My kids don't get the 1980s (or much of my music). But at least I've got something to remember. I fear that their g… https://t.co/4aSnVtW3Dz
- Sat, 18:56: I've now found a brilliant playlist of Thin Lizzy. I'm in heaven.
- Sat, 19:16: Please Twitter, don't become like that god-awful platform LinkedIn. Keep it real and stay off the puffery, vitriol… https://t.co/bmcPj0bGnQ
- Sat, 19:36: This man needs a bigger stage... https://t.co/0MaRqzz0u9
- Sat, 19:39: @tom_peters keep striking whilst the iron is hot my friend. Right now (as always) you're the only voice of reason U… https://t.co/F3aZFybXCO
- Sun, 05:29: “I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.… https://t.co/C5R2MEW8Yw