A sense of place

I periodically have these dreams where I stayed on at the University of Chicago.  I would very much like to say that I have a Ph.D from there, but the fact is I did not want to do the work.  I got tired of smelling like old books, which by and large smelled to me like irrelevancy.

And I was right, of course: nothing I could have done there would have made much of a difference.  Nothing I have done since has made much of a difference either, but at least I can pursue varied paths at will, like a dog on a scent, and I do think the scent of relevancy is getting hot.

But last night I was dreaming of the gorgeous scenery outside the school: the mountains and streams (which of course don’t exist: it is a highly urban campus, which when I was there was suffering the inevitable effects of long term Democrat governance, most notably an exceptionally high crime rate despite the largest private university police department in the country; I personally heard one shooting, and another happened a block from my place at 3pm), the colors of fall.

I spent yesterday reading Wendell Berry, and everything I touch rubs off on me, and much of it winds up in my dreams.  I feel everything.  I can’t process everything, which is why I have to dissociate, but I feel everything.  It is mine to reject, consciously or unconsciously.  I am very sensitive.

And so I had in my dreams the comparison of a classroom, where we might have been attending a lecture on the medieval Hindu Bhakti movement, and a world outside of light and movement.  And it became obvious to me the world outside was the better teacher, but that fear kept me inside the classroom with so much less to offer.

Here is what I would like to propose: a sense of place is a foundational element in Goodness.  Morality is what we choose to do.  Goodness is what comes naturally.  And when we are relaxed, when we feel a sense of belonging, when we don’t need to justify our existence or our presence in any way–as we so often do in the modern world (I will note that to call this the result of “Capitalism” is ludicrous and patently superficial to the point of farce, and that a great deal of modern anomie comes from REMEDIES, so called, to “Capitalism”)–then we are naturally open, naturally kind, naturally friendly, in the ways which Lao Tse described over two millenia ago.  Nothing needs to be taught.  There is no need for wise men, outside of the transmission of a healthy cultural tradition.

True Goodness is impossible in conditions of chronic tension.


Tension is the enemy–chronic tension in any event.  And what does our media build?  The Walking Dead?  Stranger Things?  And what does porn build but frustration, by and large?   You can’t masturbate enough to equal love.  Everything all around us, the economic desperation made inevitable by our diluted money supply, our media, and ideas we are taught, such as YOLO and fuck everyone else, and that salvation can be found by voting Blue:  all of this works to build monsters, and that is what we are building.

My planning and work continue.  I have some new things I am going to try, and will advise.