#philosophy of change

[falseandrealultravival]

Reading "Who Moved My Cheese" (Essay)

I hear that this book has sold 28 million copies worldwide. My impressions are briefly as follows.

1. It never matters who put the cheese in the maze, two characters and two rats. Is it an exaggeration to call it "God"?

2. The description is too simplistic for the theme of "change". When it comes to "change", the Chinese "I Ching" is elaborately summarized. (“Philosophy of Change”)

(2022.11.29)

“Who moved My Cheese”を読んで　（エッセイ）

この本は、全世界で２８００万部売れていると聞く。私の感想は、簡単ながら、以下の通りである。

1.誰が迷路にチーズを置いたかは、登場人物の２人と２匹は決して問わない。「神」とするのは大袈裟か。

２．「変化」というものを主題にするにしては、記述が単純すぎる。「変化」というなら、中国の「易経」が精緻にまとまっている。（「変化の哲学書」）

　（２０２２．１１．２９）

[howdoesone]

How does one upcycle a broom while contemplating the sweeping changes in life?

Life is a series of transitions, marked by moments of upheaval, growth, and transformation. In the midst of these sweeping changes, we often seek solace and reflection in the mundane rituals of daily life. One such ritual is the act of sweeping – a simple yet profound gesture that embodies the metaphorical journey of clearing away the old to make room for the new. This article explores how one…

[theabigailthorn]

NEW EPISODE IS HERE!

It's about death, including mass death (Gaza, COVID, climate change) and why we ignore it. And it's a collab with Caitlin Doughty AKA Ask A Mortician!

[philosophybits]

Keep changing your style of doing things. Vary your methods. This will confuse people, especially your rivals, and awaken their curiosity and attention.

Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

[spotsupstuff]

On the Echoes, cosmology, Saint's quest(/inner identity) and the Rubicon. Half of these are from February...

bonus Théta doodles:

[nillia]

Trust

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you. I'm sorry.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[kakapim]

Shinichi angst is so damn good. He's in his own body but it doesn't feel like himself. His life is "dead" even though he's alive. When he comes back he will never go back to his old self. He can go back to his body but his life will never be quite the same (for better or worse)

He was just a 17 kid who had dreams ambitions friends he had to "abandon". Imagine putting up an act 24/7 and not being truly able to say the things you actually want to. And yet- this false identity of his started to blend in with his "authentic" self.

He will have to "kill" Conan like he did with himself eventually. Like I know this this is the whole point of his character but I feel like it's easy to forget due to everything going on, and every so often I'm reminded of this and go bonkers over it. Does anyone get me 😭

[palatinewolfsblog]

“Keep me away from the wisdom

which does not cry,

the philosophy

which does not laugh

and the greatness

which does not bow before children. ”

Khalil Gibran.

[constarlations]

Pokémon Timeskip Series: Champion Dawn 🌸❄️

Known as Sinnoh’s Ice Queen, Dawn is best known for her intimidating yet caring nature. She’s fierce and calculating, never leaving any room for error especially when it comes to battling. On her off days you can find her in the contest hall, a hobby she picked up from her mother, or in the Battle Frontier/Pokémon Lab to catch up with her best friends. It is said she was recently engaged to a certain johto boy (Ethan. It’s Ethan.) however they will not publicly revealed their plans for the wedding as of yet

Made a timeskip adult champion Dawn design a while back! It’s still my favorite of my timeskip series hehehe I hope you enjoy!

Twitter link

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Existence Value: Why All of Nature is Important Whether We Can Use it or Not

I spend a lot of time around other nature nerds. We’re a bunch of people from varying backgrounds, places, and generations who all find a deep well of inspiration within the natural world. We’re the sort of people who will happily spend all day outside enjoying seeing wildlife and their habitats without any sort of secondary goal like fishing, foraging, etc. (though some of us engage in those activities, too.) We don’t just fall in love with the places we’ve been, either, but wild locales that we’ve only ever seen in pictures, or heard of from others. We are curators of existence value.

Existence value is exactly what it sounds like–something is considered important and worthwhile simply because it is. It’s at odds with how a lot of folks here in the United States view our “natural resources.” It’s also telling that that is the term most often used to refer collectively to anything that is not a human being, something we have created, or a species we have domesticated, and I have run into many people in my lifetime for whom the only value nature has is what money can be extracted from it. Timber, minerals, water, meat (wild and domestic), mushrooms, and more–for some, these are the sole reasons nature exists, especially if they can be sold for profit. When questioning how deeply imbalanced and harmful our extractive processes have become, I’ve often been told “Well, that’s just the way it is,” as if we shall be forever frozen in the mid-20th century with no opportunity to reimagine industry, technology, or uses thereof.

Moreover, we often assign positive or negative value to a being or place based on whether it directly benefits us or not. Look at how many people want to see deer and elk numbers skyrocket so that they have more to hunt, while advocating for going back to the days when people shot every gray wolf they came across. Barry Holstun Lopez’ classic Of Wolves and Men is just one of several in-depth looks at how deeply ingrained that hatred of the “big bad wolf” is in western mindsets, simply because wolves inconveniently prey on livestock and compete with us for dwindling areas of wild land and the wild game that sustained both species’ ancestors for many millennia. “Good” species are those that give us things; “bad” species are those that refuse to be so complacent.

Even the modern conservation movement often has to appeal to people’s selfishness in order to get us to care about nature. Look at how often we have to argue that a species of rare plant is worth saving because it might have a compound in it we could use for medicine. Think about how we’ve had to explain that we need biodiverse ecosystems, healthy soil, and clean water and air because of the ecosystem services they provide us. We measure the value of trees in dollars based on how they can mitigate air pollution and anthropogenic climate change. It’s frankly depressing how many people won’t understand a problem until we put things in terms of their own self-interest and make it personal. (I see that less as an individual failing, and more our society’s failure to teach empathy and emotional skills in general, but that’s a post for another time.)

Existence value flies in the face of all of those presumptions. It says that a wild animal, or a fungus, or a landscape, is worth preserving simply because it is there, and that is good enough. It argues that the white-tailed deer and the gray wolf are equally valuable regardless of what we think of them or get from them, in part because both are keystone species that have massive positive impacts on the ecosystems they are a part of, and their loss is ecologically devastating.

But even those species whose ecological impact isn’t quite so wide-ranging are still considered to have existence value. And we don’t have to have personally interacted with a place or its natural inhabitants in order to understand their existence value, either. I may never get to visit the Maasai Mara in Kenya, but I wish to see it as protected and cared for as places I visit regularly, like Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. And there are countless other places, whose names I may never know and which may be no larger than a fraction of an acre, that are important in their own right.

I would like more people (in western societies in particular) to be considering this concept of existence value. What happens when we detangle non-human nature from the automatic value judgements we place on it according to our own biases? When we question why we hold certain values, where those values came from, and the motivations of those who handed them to us in the first place, it makes it easier to see the complicated messes beneath the simple, shiny veneer of “Well, that’s just the way it is.”

And then we get to that most dangerous of realizations: it doesn’t have to be this way. It can be different, and better, taking the best of what we’ve accomplished over the years and creating better solutions for the worst of what we’ve done. In the words of Rebecca Buck–aka Tank Girl–“We can be wonderful. We can be magnificent. We can turn this shit around.”

Let’s be clear: rethinking is just the first step. We can’t just uproot ourselves from our current, deeply entrenched technological, social, and environmental situation and instantly create a new way of doing things. Societal change takes time; it takes generations. This is how we got into that situation, and it’s how we’re going to climb out of it and hopefully into something better. Sometimes the best we can do is celebrate small, incremental victories–but that’s better than nothing at all.

Nor can we just ignore the immensely disproportionate impact that has been made on indigenous and other disadvantaged communities by our society (even in some cases where we’ve actually been trying to fix the problems we’ve created.) It does no good to accept nature’s inherent value on its own terms if we do not also extend that acceptance throughout our own society, and to our entire species as a whole.

But I think ruminating on this concept of existence value is a good first step toward breaking ourselves out first and foremost. And then we go from there.

Did you enjoy this post? Consider taking one of my online foraging and natural history classes or hiring me for a guided nature tour, checking out my other articles, or picking up a paperback or ebook I’ve written! You can even buy me a coffee here!

[twst-mer]

[caeslxys]

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but it feels relevant again in light of the most recent episode. Something that’s really fascinating to me about Orym’s grief in comparison to the rest of the hells’ grief is that his is the youngest/most fresh and because of that tends to be the most volatile when it is triggered (aside from FCG, who was two and obviously The Most volatile when triggered.)

As in: prior to the attack on Zephrah, Orym was leading a normal, happy, casual life! with family who loved him and still do! Grief was something that was inflicted upon him via Ludinus’ machinations, whereas with characters like Imogen or Ashton, grief has been the background tapestry of their entire lives. And I think that shows in how the rest of them are largely able to, if not see past completely (Imogen/Laudna/Chetney) then at least temper/direct their vitriol or grief (Ashton/Fearne/Chetney again) to where it is most effective. (There is a glaring reason, for example, that Imogen scolded Orym for the way he reacted to Liliana and not Ashton. Because Ashton’s anger was directed in a way that was ultimately protective of Imogen—most effective—and Orym’s was founded solely in his personal grief.)

He wants Imogen to have her mom and he wants Lilliana to be salvageable for Imogen because he loves Imogen. But his love for the people in his present actively and consistently tend to conflict with the love he has for the people in his past. They are in a constant battle and Orym—he cannot fathom losing either of them.

(Or, to that point, recognize that allowing empathy to take root in him for the enemy isn't losing one of them.)

It is deeply poignant, then, that Orym’s grief is symbolized by both a sword and shield. It is something he wields as a blade when he feels his philosophy being threatened by certain conversational threads (as he believes it is one of the only things he has left of Will and Derrig, and is therefore desperately clinging onto with both bloody hands even if it makes him, occasionally, a hypocrite), but also something he can use in defense of the people he presently loves—if that provocative, blade-grief side of him does not push them—or himself—away first.

(it won’t—he is as loved by the hells as he loves them. he just needs to—as laudna so beautifully said—say and hear it more often.)

[philosophybits]

Pure truth could burst the world apart.

Nikolai Berdyaev, The Spirit and Reality

[yandere-daydreams]

haitham is NOT a stem student his ass doesn't have what it takes to survive the trenches (a four hour organic chem lab just to end up with an impure product). like he's literally a member of haravatat which according to the genshin wiki " is specialized in semiotics, the study of sign processes and meaning-making, and includes disciplines such as linguistics and ancient runes studies." he IS the english major

i see your point anon but i must defend my people. alhaitham is a PHILOSOPHY major with a minor in communications and i won't let him get any closer to a liberal arts degree than that.

[queercodedangel]

Funny how the media stopped talking about Greta Thunberg ever since she became explicitly anti-capitalist