The Collective Human Experience

Our fixation on measurable outcomes often leads us to overlook the nuances of human experience: comfort, joy, even a bit of whimsy.

It’s liberation from the idea that we can self-optimize ourselves to the point of not needing anyone else. That if we work hard enough to survive in a competitive economy, we’ll be able to buy, order, or summon anything we might need within 24 hours, and that is somehow progress. That instead of asking for help and support from the people and

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But in excess, self-development can create a world of self-interested individuals and that’s what I’m up against here. I’m against the continual process of self-betterment at the expense of community-betterment. I’m against participating in too much theory and not enough action. We can focus on being more loving and more empathetic and more... See more

caretaking is a kind of liberation

When we can begin to tap into the deep vessel of who we truly are, so many things would end about oppression. I believe the powers that be don’t want us rested because they know that if we rest enough, we are going to figure out what is really happening and overturn the entire system. Exhaustion keeps us numb, keeps us zombie-like, and keeps us on... See more

Contribute your skills to an existing effort – make it possible. Build the website, raise the funds, recruit the talent, plan the events. As Bill McKibben puts it, “Faced with the kind of crises that we face, the most important thing that an individual can do is to not always be an individual.” Move from I to we .

Joy is not a function of a life free of friction and frustration, but a function of focus — an inner elevation by the fulcrum of choice.

“[...] The distinctive feature of the societies to which this historical process [i.e. capitalism and industrialist mass production] gave rise is that productive activity is mostly governed by a logic that tends to strip it of things like meaning, playfulness and sociability.”

Underlying the structural changes was an ideological shift toward reciprocity, an ideal of sharing and balance that undergirded economics, politics, and religion across much of the continent. The Sonoran Desert–living O’odham, for example, developed a himdag , or “way of life,” that taught that people are supposed to share with one another... See more