Monthly Musing - July/August

Hiking in Scotland, Thinking About Connections and Alternative Ways to Organise Society

Note: This post is normally for paid subscribers, but because I because I think that the topics I bring up are so important, I have decide to open this post up for everybody. Looking forward to seeing you join the discussion!

It has been quite a month for me, although not in the usual sense. Where I normally feel like I’m figuratively running around, my mind racing this way and that, I was now literally walking around, through the vast and majestic landscapes of Scotland, my mind uncharacteristically empty. Putting some distance (both in the literal and the figurative sense) between yourself and your life from time to time can help you reflect on what you have been spending your time and energy on and gain perspective on where you want to be going with your life.

I can’t say that I did not miss the time to sit down and write, as I was forced to spend my limited non-hiking time on trivial things like making meals and putting up a tent so that I would have a place to sleep. Yet there was this profound sense of empty-mindedness, that of course was not really empty-mindedness, but an intent focus on what you are doing in the here and now. In many ways, the contrast could not be larger compared to those last few weeks of July before I left, where I was really pushing to get as many things done as I could, from trip-related preparations to finishing articles. Looking back on it, I’m not even really sure why I was doing that. I guess part of it has to do with the fact that I really have to force myself to finish the final few courses for a degree that I have found myself caring less and less about as time went by. Higher education has an insipid way of grinding you down until you don’t care about the thing you’re studying anymore, at least for me. Combine that with the degree you’re studying for not really being the thing you want to do with your life, and motivation to get things done becomes a sheer act of will. Anyway, as I was saying, with this undistracted focus on taking one step, then another, and another, catching your breath, grabbing a rock, climbing that rock, all the way uphill, and then downhill, and then uphill again, and so on, there is not really much room in your brain for much else. I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be, at least most of the time.

As I wrote about in the post I wrote while I was away, our modern way of living does not give us what we really need to live a healthy, fulfilling life. It constantly distracts us with meaningless information, seduces us with the lure of instant gratification at the cost of spiritual fulfillment, and preys on our every desire in a self-destructive pursuit for endless profits. That is not to say that we cannot live a healthy, fulfilling life in our society, only that it takes a lot of effort on our part to lead one in spite of it. I have long been fascinated with people who decide to get away from all that and start a bed and breakfast in the middle of a Thailand jungle, or create a community in a Spanish cave – I encourage you to find out more about this amazing initiative, called the Catalan Integral Cooperative, whose main objective is “to build an alternative economy in Catalonia capable of satisfying the needs of the local community more effectively than the existing system, thereby creating the conditions for the transition to a post-capitalist mode of organization of social and economic life.” I think the first example is one of escapism, of a trying to get away from the destructive influence of our society that might work on an individual level, for a time at least, but that does not address or help solve the issue for the rest of us. The second example, however, seems to show a hopeful way out of the crisis-fuelled exploitation and forced competition of our current system, and is something that might offer a real alternative if enough people participate in it. It is definitely worth studying these examples, if only to free your mind from the unconscious belief that has become so ingrained in all of us that our system is the only way to do things.

There are quite a lot of examples that demonstrate that it is unwise to rely on the global financial system when you go against prevailing narratives, whether around the war in Ukraine, COVID, or something else. With frightening ease, you are locked out of social life, labelled as a spreader of ‘misinformation’ and ‘conspiracy theories’ and your content suppressed and demonetised by algorithms, and you are locked out of financial life, your bank accounts and money frozen. Only recently, GoFundMe froze donations made to independent news platform the Grayzone, as they have done before with money donated to the Canadian truckers protest (where they even intended to “send all remaining funds to credible and established charities”. Infamously, when WikiLeaks publicised extensive evidence of U.S. and Western war crimes, MasterCard, VISA, and PayPal all stopped processing donations made to the media organisation, undoubtedly under massive pressure from those same governments.

While I am certainly not yet in any position to be able to rely on an income from my journalism and my writing, examples like the ones I mentioned are fresh in my mind as I try to build and grow this newsletter. Watching what I say and write about, and which facts I do and do not mention, out of fear of not being heard or not making enough money to eat, is exactly what the goal of those kinds of actions is. With the steady erosion of hard-fought freedoms imperilling our right to self-determination, with the restriction of online speech undermining our shared humanity, and with the many existential crises facing our society, that is simply not an option.

Let us share our insights and life experiences with one another. I would mean a lot to me if you shared some of your thoughts on the following questions with me in the comments:

• In what ways do you think about keeping of a sense of direction in your life?

• How do you stay afloat in the maelstrom of chaos of your regular life?

• How do you think our society could better accommodate human needs (physically, mentally, spiritually, politically, you name it)?

Additionally, if you feel comfortable with sharing your thoughts on a more public forum, it would be great if you also posted them as a reply to this post on Notes (check out this post if you don’t know what Notes is):

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