Earth thought 38 of 365: Environmental problems are well suited to Immanuel Kant's 'categorical imperative'. "What if everyone did that?" is the kind of thought that leaps from S.U.V. driving straight to global warming without any questionable causality in between.
Earth thought 39 of 365: What candle on what boat do you float out into the future? Will the trees be entwined around your love? Lake and shore, forest and night.
Earth thought 40 of 365: A clear face in fresh water, Lake Ontario. She's happier than I've ever seen her. Don't say the elements have nothing to do with this. Don't stop your identity at your body's edge. The lake swells as you in it, and drift clouds shift inside you in the sun.
Earth thought 41 of 365: Believing that virtue will one day bring happiness, for Kant, is an article of rational faith. Being reasonable, we must believe in a world where good people are happy -rather than the irresponsible hedonists. Or reason is senseless. A thought worth holding out as we head into the environmental chaos of this century.
Earth thought 42 of 365: Travel has become about friends and about sights. But what if travel were also an opportunity for world-mapping? Take your maps and internal maps with you next time, and see if you can feel the stretch of the Earth.
Earth thought 43 of 365: I don't know about you, but on very cold nights, I wonder how well the homeless are doing.
Earth thought 44 of 365: Would we be more concerned about our health in the environment if we were less enveloped by machines that make most of our functions seem smooth and effortless? If we had to fix broken things more often with our own hands?
Earth thought 45 of 365: The old, old things will calm you down.
Earth thought 46 of 365: Emotion, and music, and air, and rhythm - these can open a void for words, a ripening void, for words.
Earth thought 47 of 365: "Everything is backwards now. The true life is out there, while in here is the dream." (Avatar). This is the sensibility of someone who becomes aware of his alienation from all of life.
Earth thought 48 of 365: The surface. Human selfishness and self-absorption are a normal part of life. The undertow. No, they are not. They are part of a fundamentally alienated culture, a world of machines bent on exploitation of people, planets, and time. The pebble bottom. What is deepest in being human, our potential for connection with the world of life and with each other...
