Kant - What is Enlightenment?

Immanuel Kant, symbol of German Idealism, wrote an essay in 1784 answering the question: "What is enlightenment?". The text is essentially giving individuals exhortation to use their own reasoning instead of remaining the idle believers and followers of men of authority.

It is a beautiful hymn to freedom.

Short excerpt of the English translation :

"
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!” — that is the motto of enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult. Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts.

Thus, it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out of the immaturity that has all but become his nature. He has even become fond of this state and for the time being is actually incapable of using his own understanding, for no one has ever allowed him to attempt it. Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over the smallest ditch, since he is unaccustomed to this kind of free movement. Consequently, only a few have succeeded, by cultivating their own minds, in freeing themselves from immaturity and pursuing a secure course.
"

Gesundheit! :-s

Market punishes good deeds :(

This is a 'Yes Men' prank, the dude doesn't work for DOW :D The company's stock lost 3 billion dollars when people thought they were going to do the right thing. It went right back up when stockholders learned that DOW wasn't going to pay a cent. Bit of a hit for capitalism if you ask me - nice on paper, not so cool in practice.

more info here: http://www.poptech.org/popcasts/?viewcastid=254

Wendell Berry - Eating is an Agricultural Act

A Canadian WWOOFer introduced me to Wendell Berry. I cannot wait to read his books.

Every once in a while we find people who become spiritual companions and guides, kindred souls who share similar intuitions and thoughts. These people can dispel the ominious sense of isolation arising from the frustration of not sharing the same views as peers or mainstream culture. Thoreau, Spinoza, Epicurus, Patanjali, Masanobu Fukuoka, Michael Pollan, Michel Onfray are a few in my Pantheon. They will certainly have to make a little room for Wendell Berry very soon.

"His nonfiction serves as an extended conversation about the life he values. According to Berry, the good life includes sustainable agriculture, appropriate technologies, healthy rural communities, connection to place, the pleasures of good food, husbandry, good work, local economics, the miracle of life, fidelity, frugality, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life. The threats Berry finds to this good life include: industrial farming and the industrialization of life, ignorance, hubris, greed, violence against others and against the natural world, the eroding topsoil in the United States, global economics, and environmental destruction. As a prominent defender of agrarian values, Berry's appreciation for traditional farming techniques, such as those of the Amish, grew in the 1970s, due in part to exchanges with Draft Horse Journal publisher Maurice Telleen. Berry has long been friendly to and supportive of Wes Jackson, believing that Jackson's agricultural research at The Land Institute lives out the promise of "solving for pattern" and using "nature as model."

The concept of "Solving for pattern", coined by Berry in his essay of the same title, is the process of finding solutions that solve multiple problems, while minimizing the creation of new problems. The essay was originally published in the Rodale Press periodical The New Farm. Though Mr. Berry's use of the phrase was in direct reference to agriculture, it has since come to enjoy broader use throughout the design community."

The teachers are everywhere. What is wanted is a learner.

Eating is an agricultural act.

The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war, but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and less wasteful.

Reductionism (ultimately, the empirical explanability of everything and a cornerstone of science), has uses that are appropriate, and it also can be used inappropriately. It is appropriately used as a way (one way) of understanding what is empirically known or empirically knowable. When it becomes merely an intellectual "position" confronting what is not empirically known or knowable, then it becomes very quickly absurd, and also grossly desensitizing and false.

We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all— by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians— be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.

We need to confront honestly the issue of scale. Bigness has a charm and a drama that are seductive, especially to politicians and financiers; but bigness promotes greed, indifference, and damage, and often bigness is not necessary. You may need a large corporation to run an airline or to manufacture cars, but you don't need a large corporation to raise a chicken or a hog. You don't need a large corporation to process local food or local timber and market it locally.

Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.

What I stand for
is what I stand on.

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

The Problem With Philosophy

What is considered a philosopher nowadays?

1. A person who has read the books on the official syllabus of the department of philosophy of his university.


2. A person who had to clearly define which current of philosophy he belonged to in order to be acknowledged.


3. A person who had to learn how to publish a university paper with the proper form.


4. A person who publishes and teaches.


5. A person who is a philosopher from 8 to 12 and 2 to 5, on week days only, and who stops being a philosopher when he comes home and when he takes a vacation.

"Philosopher" has become a profession/career in academia.

A philosopher is not a person who leads a life of wisdom anymore. He is not a person who tries to embody values or a worldview. He is simply a person who has learned concepts, writes papers for his peers and teaches.

The philosopher has dissociated philosophy - the love of wisdom - from his lifestyle.

In ancient Greece, a Cynic, a Stoicist, an Epicurean, a Pythagorean, a student of the Academy or the Lyceum could be recognized in the streets of Athens. Philosophy permeated all the aspects of their lives. By the way a person was dressed, by the way he made decisions and by his behavior, one could easily identify which school of philosophy he adhered to. Each was free to find a lifestyle congruent with their temperament.

A Stoicist would show rigorous asceticism. An Epicurean would strive for a wise balance of pleasure. A Cynic would show no consideration for social convention. In this way, simply by observing how each would eat, how each would sleep, how each would interact with others, it was possible to determine their worldview.

Families often fail at giving guidance and providing answers.
Schools usually fail at giving guidance and providing answers.
Religion often fails at giving guidance and providing answers.
Ideology fails at giving guidance and providing answers.
Society as a whole has failed at this task.

People throughout the world are aligning their behavior. The way they eat, the way they dress, the type of art they appreciate, what they buy, what they dream about. Uniformity has killed initiative, intuition and creativity in man.
Philosophy has become inaccessible to humanity, it is held hostage by academics. For centuries, Church has hijacked the role of beacon in the West. An intellectual elite has favored the complex conceptual form of philosophy. A form which keeps out all who have not gone through the tedious process of breaking through curtains of concepts and poor syntax.

Philosophy should not be intellectual exercise or a profession. It should offer everybody the means to emancipate. It should help them find balance in their lives. It should give them a coherent way of looking at the world they are living in. It should give them the intuition of what is a proper way of behaving in it.

Most people - at least at some point in their lives - want to learn about philosophy, about psychology, about spirituality, about political science. Unfortunately they do not feel capable to explore these fields. They have been given a complex by their families, their schools, their religion, their society. They end up by rejecting the possibility to emancipate in their frustration.

May the situation change.

WWOOFing Chronicles - Tenth Week Poise

As I am gathering skills and experiencing many new situations, there is an euphoric sense of growth and purpose.

This week, I have been receiving too much attention, too much trust, too much praise. Even April, the stubborn, unpredictable horse is treating me with respect and is cooperatively following my orders. In the fields, Marco and I have been working very efficiently, the farming was late on schedule, we managed to make it so we are slightly ahead of schedule. Efficient coordination of efforts, the proper balance of initiative and caution, a silently shared trial, silently shared satisfaction after work well done. It was supposed to take three days to get the permaculture garden back in shape, he did it one. It was supposed to take two days to plant the amount of potatoes I planted in an afternoon. It was supposed to take several days to sow the seeds we got ready in the greenhouse in a scorching afternoon.

A few nights ago, John, enthusiastic with my capacity to teach him philosophy, organized a "philosophical evening" I was to lead. The next evening, I talked and talked, they listened, took notes, some faces lit up, most seemed deep in thought. At the same time, Tom was improvising on oriental scales with his flute. Then, I listened to them, gave them metaphors, fables, parables and aphorisms to back up or nuance their ideas. We shared laughs, sighs and respect until very late at night.

It is all simply intoxicating. The six young Swedish carpenters left. Men separated by age, language, background, were hugging, dancing, singing, sharing warmth for hour upon hour. We were all filled with a Dyonisiac sense of immediacy. Nietszche makes much more sense all of a sudden.

Is it Spring?

People never really deeply change, I have simply been exposed to new situations. The events we experience reveal aspects of who we are. We are not our minds separated from the physical world. Our minds adapt to the what our senses pick up from what surrounds us. Imbalances are sometimes increased, other times reduced. Many parameters have an influence : season, weather, age, food, people around us, house we are living in, sounds around us, amount of sleep, type of food, physical activity, natural cycles, music listened to earlier, conversations recently involved in, etc.

Finding balance brings poise.

Be Epicureans!

If a man can find a life purpose, if he can be driven by faith or by vision, may he follow his calling as long as his faith or vision respects all life and individual freedom. However, may he never succumb to dogmaticism or ideology.

For the other man, figuring out what provides pleasure without bringing harm to himself, others or nature, can still create a sense fulfillment or at least contentment.

--

The majority of men lead lives of quiet desparation filled with illusions of pleasure - pleasures which bring about harm to their bodies and later to their minds, which create suffering for themselves and in others. To all those : do not surrender, be Epicureans!

Find pleasure.
Find pleasure in the natural rather than in the always artificial.
Find pleasure in moderation rather than in constant excess.
Find pleasure in the present rather than in thinking only about past or future.
Find pleasure in seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, rather than only in possessing.
Find pleasure in sharing rather than only in hoarding.

If you accept your bodies first, you will accept yourselves.
If you accept yourselves, you will accept others.
If you accept others, you will be concerned about mankind.
If you are concerned about mankind, you will respect nature.

The Musician

--0--
It sits in a darkened room.
It gazes in awe at the shimmering reflections of a sun's rays sporadically gracing the cell's door.
"There must be a stream. There must be a window."
No sound, though.
Oh.
It hears a sound.
[--- http://www.deezer.com/track/832031 ---]
Not a mere shiver on the back but a life unveils.
It finds an instrument and it learns.
An orchestra backs him.
He is content.
Lost.
He grows weary.
Bebop.
He morphs.
He plays.
Freedom dazes him.
He begins to melt.
"Why create music when you can just walk out the door and see the world?"
He walks out.
He sees many a dark hall.
He chooses, walks, and finds others.
He is joined by others.
The world has suddenly expanded.

--22--

Now... why did he not climb out the window I ask myself?
Did he not want to see the stream?
Was there a stream?
Climb?
Who?
I?
You?
Me?
Death?
Life?
Age?
Hope?
Fear?
Music?
Happiness?
Family?
Control?
Sheep?
Goats?
Hills?
Freedom?
AI?
Flight?
Dogs?
...to list a few...

--80--

Age?
Too late...

WWOOFing Chronicles - Sixth Week Lessons

Five days before moving to Farm #3, here are a few lessons I've learned so far.

• Humility - A 71 year old carrying heavier logs than me, limberly climbing and balancing on trees like a young man. Driving hours, carrying, pushing, pulling, dragging, rubbing, scratching, sawing, climbing, squeezing. 7 days a week, most of the year with very few breaks and for several decades. Wow! A 33 year old mother of two with remarkable endurance doing gruelling work on the fields while dealing with a very busy schedule and an overall exhausting lifestyle. Some incredible life stories. People with practical skills and a very sharp intuition when it comes to designing, building, fixing, timing, driving, etc.

• Physical Condition - a 78 year old farmer working all day long in the vineyards looking like he barely turned 50. Farming develops a strong back, mostly from handling tools in the field, carrying, lifting and putting down. More sleep and food are required.
  

• Farming equates with scratches, cuts and bruises.

• Intellectual surprises - I have rarely met as many intellectually stimulating people in so little time. Both farms I've been staying in have something in common: no TV. In Ardèche, the radio would usually either be tuned in on France Culture or France Musique. Jazz and classical music were the two main genres listened to. Courrier International in farm #2 and Le Monde Diplomatique in farm #1 were usually thorougly read. Both hosts and many farmers met have travelled extensively and possess a lot of knowledge about cultures and a deeper perspective than most about history, politics etc. I did not expect to meet a farmer who read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason!
  

• Company - a dog, a donkey and a three year old. Three unexpected encounters that have become revelations. A dog can be an amazing companion. Taking care of a convalescent donkey daily has made me want to spend more time with animals. An adorable three year old rekindles hope in mankind.

• Adaptation - It takes a week to get used to a new setting, two to finally feel settled, three to feel as comfortable as at home. Spending an extended amount time with other people makes you adjust to their behavioral patterns, especially on their territory. It makes you morph into a buffer state where you balance with your core set of behaviors and the environment's dynamics to come to a state of equilibrium. You then feel sufficiently self-preserved while not creating too much tension in the host's space. You pick up their communication habits, and tune in to speed and energy levels.

• Responsibility - With experience come skill and autonomy. It is wonderful to nuture those skills and to have people trust you with them. When you receive a person's encouragement to complete a task unsupervised that could mean a lot of damage if badly done, there is a boost in self-esteem - as long as you have managed to do it properly.

• Beauty - There are absolutely gorgeous areas in France. Living, working and hiking in such environments feeds the soul. Common things in a grandiose setting makes them meaningful.
  

• Food - I don't know if any pursuit is more noble than striving to eat like a frugal gourmet.
  

Combattre, Fuire ou Inhiber

1ère partie



2ème partie

WWOOFing Chronicles - Picture of Farm #1

'nuff said

White Trash

From WHFoods.com

Question: "It's great that you have listed all the healthiest foods we should eat. Can you also share with us the "unhealthiest foods," those that we should avoid?"

"The "unhealthiest" foods tend to be those that least resemble their original natural ingredients and those that have the most added refined and artificial additives. Prime examples are the so-called "white foods"-white sugar, white flour, and white fat, and the gamut of foods in which they are the principal ingredients. It's not that these foods are white in color-many of them are actually not. It's that these foods have had many of their natural components-including their natural colors-processed away. "White foods" is simply the shorthand label that we are using when we refer to these heavily processed, nutrient-depleted foods.

* "White sugar" includes refined sugar cane or sugar beets having virtually all B vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other essential nutrients removed. Corn syrup is also a "white sugar," made from processed cornstarch and essentially devoid of other nutrients.
* "White flour," analogously, is whole wheat flour minus its nutrient-packed wheat germ and fibrous bran. Nutritionally speaking, white flour is a ghost-like shadow of its original whole grain.
* "White fat" can include rendered animal lard, vegetable oils "hydrogenated" to make them hard at room temperature, and refined fats such as cottonseed oil. Hydrogenation is a chemical process that transforms natural fats into more saturated trans-fatty acids that do not occur naturally and which are strongly associated with cardiovascular disease.

Foods having "whites" as their primary ingredients are frighteningly ubiquitous! Examples include soft drinks, breads, hamburger and hotdog buns, crackers, pasta, pastries and pastry fillings, pies, cakes, frostings, margarine and bread spreads, jellies, sweets and candies, frozen dinners, pizzas, snack foods, doughnuts, candy bars, and cookies-all of which are common snack and convenience foods. Indeed, many of these combine all three whites together-white sugar, flour, and fat! Furthermore, these foods frequently contain artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, texturizing and processing agents, and other additives that further detract from their nutritional stature and your health. These are among the foods that I would consider to be the unhealthiest and the ones that I would avoid."

--

Beyond white foods, one can add potentially very healthy foods ruined by negative production methods such as meat or milk from unhealthy, intensively raised animals. Also, it is good to remember that certain combinations of healthy food can make the end result unwelcome.

The Essence of PU

This flow chart summarizes it all.

Field tested two days ago. B Target compliance, A2 cleared, receptive to screening, close in sight ~ it's all about kino.

I've felt like writing this in a while, finding it cool that the gibberish actually means something.

WWOOFing Chronicles - Prelude

Contact information of WWOOF hosts is only accessible to WWOOF France members.

Believing it wiser not to reveal the precise location and identity of the hosts, I am only posting a very approximative map of where I will probably be staying from March to October.

Among them :

• Four permaculture farms
• Four AMAP (CSA) farms
• Three market farmers
• One farm for herbs
  
• A Yoga center
  
• A Tibetan center
  

Healthy on a Small Planet

Is there a simple way to evaluate the quality of food in terms of health and sustainability?

In the UK, a traffic light food labeling system was introduced in certain supermarkets to indicate whether levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt where safe, moderately high or very high.

While the label is helpful to those aware of their specific health risks - diabetes, cholesterol and high blood pressure - it fails to give the average consumer an indication of how much "quality" a product has.

The obvious pitfall is to disqualify food on the basis of a nutritional configuration. This type of selection belongs to the realm of marketing, the food and pharmacological industries. Buying food intelligently is not to follow the industry's "health” claims. No natural food is inherently unhealthy.

All natural foods are healthy as long as they are balancing to the eater's constitution, that they are eaten at an appropriate time and season, that they are combined properly, that they are made digestible (with cooking or spices for example), that they are eaten in proper quantity. As a consequence, no "natural" organic food, should be considered unhealthy and attributed a red light. Organic butter might receive a red light in the aforementioned labeling system for its saturated fat content, while it is almost universally life-giving to those eating it in the proper conditions.

Below is an alternative labeling system (open to modifications) which indicates definite risk for health, for the environment or for unfair population exploitation.


Green Light

The Bottom Line:
Healthy. Respectful of the environment. Respectful of workers. Efficient in space and energy. Sustainable.

All foods in this group must be:

• Organic*
• Local
• In Season
• Fair for workers along the entire chain of production and distribution.
• 100% Natural. Without any additives or synthetic chemicals.

List:

• Vegetables
• Fruit
• Whole grains and cereal
• Beans
• Nuts and Seeds
• Oils
• Spices and Herbs
• Beverages
• Unrefined sweeteners
• Eggs
• Dairy**
• Sea Vegetables**
• Honey, propolis, royal jelly, pollen**

Have fresh.
Take into account individual needs (pregnant, diabetes...).
Always include in a varied, balanced diet.

*Organic as in replenishes the soil, respects natural cycles, without chemicals, respectful of the welfare and health of animals, 100% natural, not from large monoculture fields.

**Can have a bad ecological impact, but not as much as “yellow light” or “red light” foods.




Yellow Light

The Bottom Line:
Healthy but either:

• Taxing in resources of space or energy.
• Damaging to the environment or species in excess.
• Addictive.
• Excessively stimulating or dulling.
• Unhealthy when not eaten only occasionally.

All foods in this group must be

• Organic*
• Fair for workers along the entire chain of production and distribution.
• 100% Natural. Without any additives or synthetic chemicals.

List:

• Meat
• Fish
• Poultry
• Coffee, guarana, ...
• Alcohol
• Sweets and candy
• Refined flour, cereal and sweeteners
• All “Green light” foods that are not produced and distributed locally

Red Light

The Bottom Line:
Avoid altogether. Unhealthy, damaging to the environment, damaging to workers, encourages an unethical economy.

• Food grown with chemical pesticides and herbicides
• Genetically engineered food
• Animals fed with food that belongs to this red light list or unsuited for their needs
• Animals not raised in proper conditions for welfare and health
• Fish from polluted water or from intensive fish farms.
• Plants from large monoculture fields
• Endangered species of animals or plants
• Food produced, transformed or distributed in a way that does not respect workers
• Food produced, transformed or distributed in a way that prevents the economic emancipation of poorer countries
  
• Food processed with chemical additives
• Processed oil
• Excessively salty, sweet or fat processed food

Leviathan

WTF!

Maybe

Story about a Chinese farmer

One day, his horse ran away, and all the neighbors gathered in the evening and said ‘that’s too bad.’
He said ‘maybe.’

Next day, the horse came back and brought with it seven wild horses. ‘Wow!’ they said, ‘Aren’t you lucky!’
He said ‘maybe.’

The next day, his son grappled with one of these wild horses and tried to break it in, and he got thrown and broke his leg. And all the neighbors said ‘oh, that’s too bad that your son broke his leg.’
He said, ‘maybe.’

The next day, the conscription officers came around, gathering young men for the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. And the visitors all came around and said ‘Isn’t that great! Your son got out.’
He said, ‘maybe.’

Music for Sun Salutations

Hypnotic drum beats, powerful didgeridoo, infectious percussion overlays.
Sets the pace for shakti-infused sun salutations.

Découvrez James Asher!

Баба-Яга

Baba Yaga.

Old hag found in Slavic lore, flying around on a birch broom with her mortar using the giant pestle as a rudder. She lives deep in the forest in a house resting on giant chicken legs with all kinds of odd and frightful features and occupants.

Baba Yaga is very wise and a precious source of guidance. To seek her out however, is to expose oneself to great risk for she is known to have a wicked streak, eating children and killing visitors.

A story of three young adults visiting Baba Yaga deep in the forest.

"When the first young seeker comes quaking up to the door of her hut, Baba Yaga demands, "Are you on your own errand or are you sent by another?" The young man, encouraged in his quest by his family, answers, "I am sent by my father." Baba Yaga promptly throws him into the pot and cooks him.

The next to attempt this quest, a young woman, sees the smoldering fire and hears the cackle of Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga again demands, "Are you on your own errand or are you sent by another?" This young woman has been pulled to the woods alone to seek what she can find there. "I am on my own errand," she replies. Baba Yaga throws her in the pot and cooks her too.

Later a third visitor, again a young woman, deeply confused by the world, comes to Baba Yaga's house far into the forest. She sees the smoke and knows it is dangerous. Baba Yaga confronts her, "Are you on your own errand, or are you sent by another?" This young woman answers truthfully. "In large part I'm on my own errand, but in large part I also come because of others. And in large part I have come because you are here, and because of the forest, and something I have forgotten, and in large part I know not why I come." Baba Yaga regards her for a moment and says, "You'll do," and shows her into the hut."

-As told by Jack Kornfield