The energy and attention required to cooperate is fundamentally different — usually, at odds — with the energy and attention it takes to dominate. This is why overtly domineering leadership […]
Journal
The magic of meaninglessness
There’s an intriguing quote attributed to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola related in a review of the new book The Grammar of Angels: “Voices that mean nothing have more magical power […]
Article - Journal
Le Guin’s notes on fantasy tropes
I’m grappling with how to avoid formulaic fantasy tropes in my fiction writing. I lean into a nuanced character-centered novel with depth, set in a fantasy milieu, vs. a violent […]
Journal
Fantasy challenges
As I’m working on some fantasy fiction, a friend asked what was the most challenging part. I said: trying to balance buoyant imagination and believable realism. But maybe there is […]
Journal - Meditation
A Meditation for Election Day
I visualize and affirm the triumph of Wisdom, of Love, of Democracy over lesser impulses and coarser currents in my country.
Journal
It’s editing season!
It’s editing season! When the words are threshed for their nutritious nuggets and the verbal husks are given back to the fields. My first full-length poetry collection is now in […]
Journal
Two sides of the void
I have always written in journals and notebooks, but since 2011 I have been keeping separate journals of spiritual practice. A single journal might span years (dependent on its heft), […]
Journal
Local-Culture Power (4)
Local culture focus can:— make abundant and diverse creative arts with less energy and lower marketing, travel, and similar costs than national/global entertainment and media— establish a field of growing […]
Journal
Time-fires
A headline in Nature today reads: “You’re not imagining it: extreme wildfires are now more common.” Also more common: time-fires which consume hours of your life, hours that might have […]
Journal
Local-Culture Power (3)
By adopting local culture as the natural environment for creativity, we can— lessen the child-prodigy requirement for fine arts that can make a 17-year-old believe it’s “too late”— dismantle the […]