I am grateful to Substack for exposing me to your particular organic consciousness. I am a food systems thinker who teaches “Eat like a planet, Think like a microbe” You make my job of ‘splainin’ what I mean by that so much easier.
Such a lovely and intriguing comment, Odessa. Thank you. I think I understand "eat like a planet" (organically, without waste), and am curious to hear more about "think like a microbe". Something about fermentation, perhaps?
As a side note, I wrote about deeply unsustainable foodways in my book on the history of "Antarctic cuisine." I'm neither a foodie nor an historian, but found an interesting way to look back over the brief history of human experience in the Antarctic. It's not pretty, but it is wild.
Exactly Jason, waste doesn't exist in nature. Everything is exquisitely part of everything else's cycle. I think it's high time us humans look to planetary systems for guidance and start the long return to re-nature our foodways. Climate change asks nothing less from us.
I am finding 'Think like a microbe' is more of a word-lift. I think it belongs with Eat like a Planet, the way that micro and macro ultimately are just point of view.
Think like a microbe has to do with the amorphousness of 'self' and how our partial understanding of our miraculous bodies is making it hard to see how we also function collectively. We are composed of symbiots and are ourselves symbiots of our planet. The humble microbe is a profound guide. It can't effect without its community. Not the microbe itself, but different concentrations and/or imbalances, determine benefit or harm. I really appreciate how you put things. I will look into the Antarctic piece. Finally, I would take a different tack on consciousness, but that's for another day!
Excellent. That's good stuff, Odessa. I've written a bit on the nonexistence of self, i.e. how it's communities within communities, and we're somewhere in the middle of the chain, which is contained within the circle, etc.
For what it's worth, I did a two-part piece on the microbial Anthropocene a while back, if that interests you.
Re: Hoosh, my Antarctic book, you'll have to be ready for lots of dead penguins. It's not a gentle history.
And yes, I'm sure I'd write about consciousness differently if I came at it from a different inspiration. Writing about the mind is a hall of mirrors right from the start.
“Mind as hall of mirrors” nails it. Look forward to reading deeper into your writing on consciousness- in the mean time have you encountered Iain McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis? It helps me tackle the paradox of human thought processing- that one sphere is adept at synthesizing ‘certainty’ from
algorithms (aka hall of mirrors) while the other holds the kyros field of relations, anceatral knowledge and uncertainty. (McGilchrist observes that both
spheres do both, but our over reliance on the grasping,
algorithmic loving function of our mind has been at the expense of our functioning as deep time and nature. He’s not saying anything we don’t already know but I feel his approach can speak clearly to neuro science and modern humans and help us understand how to reconnect to our planet.
Too much of society is lost in algorithms- churning out ultra processed food, hyper processed medicine, social media, etc. All this un-grounded speed is resonating polarization rather than integration; the ability to live in paradox which would restore us.
I don't know McGilchrist's work, but what you say here is interesting, Odessa. I'll take a look. As for being lost in algorithms, too true, though I see the newer machine/AI algorithms as a new application of Anthropocene thinking, the impoverished dreams of efficiency reinforcing a diminished landscape of thought and empathy. As you say, there's not much room in an algorithmic existence for paradox. I'll be impressed with AI when it can think like a forest.
Jason, what a fantastic piece. So full of gold that I know I will have missed parts, so this is one of those rare essays that I'll enjoy reading again and again. I recently purchased a loupe (on the advice of the great Bryan Pfeiffer) and I'm a bit obsessed with it, I want to look at everything through it, seeing it in finer, more complete, detail. If I could use it to read this essay without giving myself an extraordinary headache, I would.
"We need the right blocks, and the right kindergarten. And we need time, time we may not have." Oof, what a truth to have to sit with...
Such a kind note, Chloe. Thank you. I'm glad to hear that the piece found an audience in you.
Yes, please save the loupe for the moss and lichens. The pixels here get too much attention already... Heather (my better half) loves her loupe. So much of the beautiful world is finer-grained than our vision or perspective account for.
Since I tend to read quickly, last night I read this quickly. Since I always value your thoughts, this morning I walked slowly through your essay, dropping my philosophical baggage at the trailhead. Looking at each tree, feet on the pine needle floor, no sounds of any human manufacture- just the forest of your thoughts filled with birdsong.
For the first time I think I glimpsed your organic worldview and why you and I often are in concert and where we sometimes see the same valley but different hilltops. Love and Compassion, Telos and Anarchos, Time and Timelessness.
This was a challenging essay. I think I should walk through it again though the trail is steep at times, the forest is filled with life and gives life. What vast beauty emerges from those three words on a scrap of paper!
Thank you as always, Michael, for taking the writing seriously and for paying attention. This may not be one of my clearest pieces, but I do like some of the hilltop views. Happy to be on similar paths.
Thank you Jason,
I am grateful to Substack for exposing me to your particular organic consciousness. I am a food systems thinker who teaches “Eat like a planet, Think like a microbe” You make my job of ‘splainin’ what I mean by that so much easier.
Such a lovely and intriguing comment, Odessa. Thank you. I think I understand "eat like a planet" (organically, without waste), and am curious to hear more about "think like a microbe". Something about fermentation, perhaps?
As a side note, I wrote about deeply unsustainable foodways in my book on the history of "Antarctic cuisine." I'm neither a foodie nor an historian, but found an interesting way to look back over the brief history of human experience in the Antarctic. It's not pretty, but it is wild.
Exactly Jason, waste doesn't exist in nature. Everything is exquisitely part of everything else's cycle. I think it's high time us humans look to planetary systems for guidance and start the long return to re-nature our foodways. Climate change asks nothing less from us.
I am finding 'Think like a microbe' is more of a word-lift. I think it belongs with Eat like a Planet, the way that micro and macro ultimately are just point of view.
Think like a microbe has to do with the amorphousness of 'self' and how our partial understanding of our miraculous bodies is making it hard to see how we also function collectively. We are composed of symbiots and are ourselves symbiots of our planet. The humble microbe is a profound guide. It can't effect without its community. Not the microbe itself, but different concentrations and/or imbalances, determine benefit or harm. I really appreciate how you put things. I will look into the Antarctic piece. Finally, I would take a different tack on consciousness, but that's for another day!
Excellent. That's good stuff, Odessa. I've written a bit on the nonexistence of self, i.e. how it's communities within communities, and we're somewhere in the middle of the chain, which is contained within the circle, etc.
For what it's worth, I did a two-part piece on the microbial Anthropocene a while back, if that interests you.
Re: Hoosh, my Antarctic book, you'll have to be ready for lots of dead penguins. It's not a gentle history.
And yes, I'm sure I'd write about consciousness differently if I came at it from a different inspiration. Writing about the mind is a hall of mirrors right from the start.
“Mind as hall of mirrors” nails it. Look forward to reading deeper into your writing on consciousness- in the mean time have you encountered Iain McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis? It helps me tackle the paradox of human thought processing- that one sphere is adept at synthesizing ‘certainty’ from
algorithms (aka hall of mirrors) while the other holds the kyros field of relations, anceatral knowledge and uncertainty. (McGilchrist observes that both
spheres do both, but our over reliance on the grasping,
algorithmic loving function of our mind has been at the expense of our functioning as deep time and nature. He’s not saying anything we don’t already know but I feel his approach can speak clearly to neuro science and modern humans and help us understand how to reconnect to our planet.
Too much of society is lost in algorithms- churning out ultra processed food, hyper processed medicine, social media, etc. All this un-grounded speed is resonating polarization rather than integration; the ability to live in paradox which would restore us.
I don't know McGilchrist's work, but what you say here is interesting, Odessa. I'll take a look. As for being lost in algorithms, too true, though I see the newer machine/AI algorithms as a new application of Anthropocene thinking, the impoverished dreams of efficiency reinforcing a diminished landscape of thought and empathy. As you say, there's not much room in an algorithmic existence for paradox. I'll be impressed with AI when it can think like a forest.
Jason, what a fantastic piece. So full of gold that I know I will have missed parts, so this is one of those rare essays that I'll enjoy reading again and again. I recently purchased a loupe (on the advice of the great Bryan Pfeiffer) and I'm a bit obsessed with it, I want to look at everything through it, seeing it in finer, more complete, detail. If I could use it to read this essay without giving myself an extraordinary headache, I would.
"We need the right blocks, and the right kindergarten. And we need time, time we may not have." Oof, what a truth to have to sit with...
Such a kind note, Chloe. Thank you. I'm glad to hear that the piece found an audience in you.
Yes, please save the loupe for the moss and lichens. The pixels here get too much attention already... Heather (my better half) loves her loupe. So much of the beautiful world is finer-grained than our vision or perspective account for.
Nice! Agree 100%. I just wrote a similar perspective essay I will post for you called the Polarity of Progress.
Since I tend to read quickly, last night I read this quickly. Since I always value your thoughts, this morning I walked slowly through your essay, dropping my philosophical baggage at the trailhead. Looking at each tree, feet on the pine needle floor, no sounds of any human manufacture- just the forest of your thoughts filled with birdsong.
For the first time I think I glimpsed your organic worldview and why you and I often are in concert and where we sometimes see the same valley but different hilltops. Love and Compassion, Telos and Anarchos, Time and Timelessness.
This was a challenging essay. I think I should walk through it again though the trail is steep at times, the forest is filled with life and gives life. What vast beauty emerges from those three words on a scrap of paper!
Thank you as always, Michael, for taking the writing seriously and for paying attention. This may not be one of my clearest pieces, but I do like some of the hilltop views. Happy to be on similar paths.