There is a peculiar form of moral comfort that defines modern societies. We criticize loudly, feel strongly, share indignation generously — and yet continue exactly as before. Outrage has become a psychological ritual.
Not a tool for change, but a substitute for it. We live in a time where almost nothing is genuinely hidden. Corruption is documented, power structures are visible, contradictions are openly discussed. And still, systems persist with remarkable stability. Not because people are unaware.
But because awareness alone does not require transformation. What most societies have perfected is not denial. It is cognitive dissonance management.

— The Virginia Truth, The FIFA Mirror: Why Societies Prefer Outrage to Reflection

I’ve been really enjoying re-watching Veep again.

Seasons 6 and 7 track the rise of proto-MAGA candidate Jonah Ryan and depressingly demonstrates how immune to satire Trump and MAGA were and continue to be.

There was nothing so crazy and insane the writers could put in his mouth that wasn’t already being said seriously in reality.

Funny but futile.

Good afternoon.

Now is simply now. You are simply you. And tell me, since you want to leave the place where you are, where is it exactly you want to go?

— Kodo Sawaki

Good afternoon.

Clouds blow across the sky, a flight of birds sweeps past, the breath moves, the Mars rover inches along in the red dust. Without the words, without labels, without the story, what is all of this? Not to answer that with some word or idea, but simply to be open to the wonder of not knowing

— Joan Tollifson

I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have grown up in a kind of enforced but benign solitude, being an only child and living in a village in the middle of nowhere.

Without realising it, until much later in life, I was taught to be alone (but very importantly, not lonely), to feel comfortable in my own skin and, perhaps most crucially, to be my own best friend and counsel.

One has to discover everything for oneself. And get over it all alone.

— Too-Ticky/ Tove Jansson

There's no sincere path you can take in life without having your heart broken.

— David Whyte

Good morning.

In the event that you wake up and find your soul separated from source and manifest into material form, don’t panic. Your condition is only temporary. You have been selected for the opportunity of human incarnation. This 3D simulation is designed to break up the monotony of eternity by giving you a fully immersive experience as a distinct ego identity…

— Instructions before visiting earth

The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.

— Henry James

I like this from Doc Searls.

See, stories themselves are a problem, both in human nature (we love and live stories) and in journalism, which feeds and is fed on the human appetite for stories, all of which have three elements:

1. Character—a person, country, cause, team, player, whatever, that one might have feelings about (love, hate, anything but disinterest or indifference)
2. Problem—a situation that causes or is comprised of conflict or struggle
3. Movement—whether forward, backward, or sideways, it must maintain interest and at least hint toward a conclusion, even if one never comes

It seems to me there are no meaningful or practical politics remaining in the exhausted left versus right axis. What appears much more fertile is the opposition to the top from the bottom, which cuts across so much more than existing obsolete party political lines.

Nail hit squarely on the head. No wonder she won.

Because life has changed. Instead of working for a nice life, we're working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry.

— Hannah Spencer, new Green MP for Gorton and Denton, Greater Manchester.

See her full  acceptance speech. It rocks.

So I went and tried Terry Godier’s new RSS reader Current.

The only thing I liked about it was it’s lack of an unread count, otherwise I found it waaaay to complicated and over-engineered.

If you’re looking for a beautifully designed, calm RSS reader with no unread count, look no further than Sublime Feed.

The RSS feed reader designed for mindful consumption, a serene interface, and distraction-free reading that puts the focus back on what you love to read.

It does exactly what is says on the tin and doesn’t require a seemingly endlessly scrolling explainer.

I’m also interested to see what Manton comes up with… 🤔

Whatever practice one may be engaged in, I would place one requirement above all others — above habit, endurance, persistence, ritual, technique, and study — and that is honesty.

I remember getting caught in New York during the 1993  Storm of the Century. 

The heating in the apartment I was staying in conked out and I sat at the window, wrapped in blankets, watching New Yorkers go about their business… on skis!

We go on—not upward, not forward, but just on…

— Anon

Out in the wilderness today…

Everything we can know about consciousness is contained within the experience of consciousness itself.

In terms of one’s immediate phenomenological experience in this moment, there is no difference between the memory of an actual experience you once had and an imagined one.

It comes as no surprise that the region of the brain responsible for imagination (the hippocampus) is also responsible for memory.

What stories and narratives of self will you be holding onto as you’re dying?

Which begs the rather more urgent question, what stories are you holding onto right now?

When you try to cover the living with explanations, there is death to the living, and that is what most of us desire – we want to be put to sleep by words, by ideas, by thought.

— Krishnamurti

Back from India there is so much to say that I am struck mute with the task of doing it justice.

Watching Industry Season 4. Like Succession, another great show about awful people.

For a time, words may encourage and inspire, but if you cling too long to a teaching, any teaching, it will blind you to your own life, your own being, your own truth.

— Robert Saltzman

You can be but not know or know but not be. Not both.

Life is life. Stories are stories. The degree to which we confuse and conflate the two is a measure of our contentedness or lack of it.

Watched There Will Be Blood again on the plane 🎬
One of my favourite Paul Thomas Anderson films.

The specific qualities of any phenomena pale beside the fact that anything is happening at all.

Maturity, at any age, is nothing more than realising that both you and life are not what you thought they were and then accepting them exactly as they are.

So back from India, mind duly blown 🤯 in the best possible way!

Good evening.

There comes a time when the pointing stops and you simply find you are what was pointed to.

via graeber.social

Packing for India.

I’ll take that 😊

When attention settles back into ordinary experience without trying to improve it, something lively resumes on its own. Curiosity returns. Interest broadens. The world regains texture. Not because some higher ground has been reached, but because experience is no longer filtered through the demand that it justify itself or lead somewhere else.

— Robert Saltzman, When The Bucket Doesn’t Break

Nationalism, at its root, is a longing for belonging, for being part of something greater than oneself. Fascism exploits this longing, offering the illusion of unity and purpose, while demanding conformity, obedience, and the sacrifice of personal freedom. Those who cannot tolerate their own individuality are often the most enthusiastic supporters.

— Eric Fromm via graeber.social

Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous "I don’t know.”

— Wisława Szymborska

How insidious and mercantile the metaphor of ‘pain being the price paid for love’.

Love and pain are already complete. Nothing has to be lost to gain, nor gained to lose.

The most dangerous systems are not those that lie — but those that no longer need the truth at all.

— The Virginia Truth

Nobody needs to go anywhere else. We are all, if we only knew it, already there.

— Aldous Huxley

In the beginning we consult the great traditions to see if we have got it right. At a certain point we consult the great traditions to see if they have got it right!

— Douglas Harding

A year ago today…

Can’t fault her commitment to keeping the door open rather than relaxing in her bed.

The most confronting truth is this:
Clarity is not born from deeper interpretation. It is born from restraint. From choosing not to fill every space with story.
From allowing moments to remain undefined.
From permitting uncertainty without attempting to dominate it.

— The Danger of Over-Meaning: When Interpretation Becomes Psychological Harm, The Virginia Truth

Good afternoon.

There is no value in trying to transform your experience into something else, better or worse; instead, simply accept its immediate, raw sensations exactly as they are.

There is a there there, but when you’re there, there’s nothing there.

Morning, Agnes Martin