(no subject)

The journeys are mostly metaphorical. :-) My disabilities place a fair amount of restriction on how much I can travel, and in any case part of what I have been learning over the past months and years is that it's what we do *here* that counts.

But they are real, for all of that.


As for kindness, I mean in the sense of tenderness, love, compassion and helpfulness - towards Life, towards the Earth, towards the Universe. But also in the sense of kinship, of being one "kind". Of reaching towards community, losing what Bill McKibben describes as "hyper-individualism" and moving on to something better.


( There are some assumptions that lie behind this journal, and some religious beliefs I should probably 'fess up to. :-) )

So, what of this? Well, what follows. :-) There is only a very little, little that I can do. But finding ways of travelling with kindness along the paths I have found, of doing my little but sincere best to improve the effect I have upon the world and the living things I encounter with it - these are important. A lot of it is going to be a learning process. Learning new skills that will help me lower my carbon footprint and eat more ethically, learning (greatly) from the examples of others. Learning, at least a little, to erode both my anxiety disorder and my natural shyness to help me connect more with people in the world around me, to be less afraid, to nurture love and to put it into practise.

Let's see how we go. :-)

Book recommendation 1: Deep Economy

Bill McKibben: Deep Economy: Economics as if the World Mattered.

(I believe it may have a different subtitle in the US.)

---

Am too tired to do a proper or even a mini-review, but I this book delighted and enthused and inspired me. I finished it earlier this evening, despite being barely able to hold it at the time. (It's not that heavy but it is a hardback, and my disabilities are playing up!) Am now passing it on to eithin to read.


As with a lot of things I've been reading and encountering over the last six months especially, the emphasis in this book is on the power of communities, of local, friendly action to start gradually usurping an economic doctrine which advocates efficiency at all costs to people and planet. And above all questioning what economics is *for* and working out ways of making it actually do that.

His arguments are frankly best put by himself rather than summarised, so I do suggest taking the time to read it yourself, if you are able to. As it happens the prose style is a joy: clear, easy, frequently entertaining, often moving or funny, but never losing intellectual rigour or the strong arguments. There are one or two points where I could see flaws in what he was saying, but these were on minor matters. I chose this book deliberately as my first full text exploring the new economics, and I'm glad I did so. It was a fine book to start with, and has given me a lot of motivation to go forth and read and learn more. :-)