Energizing Emptiness

"The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have."

~Norman Vincent Peale

Insanity

Black Friday violence and insanity:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/26/us-usa-retail-violence-idUSTRE7AO15H20111126

Watching the videos on the news last night was frustrating, heartbreaking and embarrassing. I'm ashamed of the behavior of my fellow humans. How did we get to a place where an electronic device is more important than human life? I simply can't believe a shopper would pepper spray others to get past them and that someone can get shot in a parking lot over material items. I also don't understand why these stores don't just give out numbers to those in line, develop a lottery, or come up with some better system then letting people mob each other in their stores. It's so archaic, we can do better than that.

It is behavior like this that makes me lose hope that our society will ever evolve. I don't understand it. We have lost our compassion towards others and we have forgotten what is truly meaningful in life. Not only that, most people don't even know or care that all of the electronics we buy have a huge impact on our Earth and natural resources. No one gives a fuck and it's just sad.

Duane Elgin said it nicely in his article, "Why We Need to Believe in a Living Universe." We have come to see our universe as dead. We've given life and value to things that don't even matter and have forgotten about those things that really do. In a world where every strand is intimately connected in a web of life, we are only harming ourselves with ignorance. As a part of that web, I can't help but feel that loss of connection and insanity in myself. We can do so much better than this, and it's frustrating that we are seemingly stuck in an adolescent stage of human development.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/duane-elgin/living-universe_b_862220.html

Each One of Us Can Make a Difference

"...if each one of us were to contribute a single drop of clean water toward protecting the environment, imagine how pure this vast ocean could eventually be." ~GYALWANG KARMAPA

My View on Black Friday

The problems of today...

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." - Albert Einstein

Hazy Afternoon

Trapped in a fog

inside and out

The skies filled with our disregard

The sun only shines

on the other side

Forever gone unless we evolve

False Romance

By Matthew Lamar Mills at Peace in Thought:

http://walking-contradiciton.blogspot.com/2011/11/false-romance.html

The Story of Stuff

All of Annie Leonard's "Stories" are awesome. This one is particularly good for the upcoming holidays, when so much unnecessary (and often unwanted) consumption happens...

http://www.storyofstuff.org/

More Dumb Human Entertainment

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-11-16-las-vegas-new-water-park-is-literally-the-dumbest-thing-ever

There are multiple layers of things wrong with this. I dream of a day when humans evolve enough to entertain themselves in ways that don't completely desecrate the planet...

Biomimicry

Biomimicry or biomimetics is the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems.

Very cool example of putting nature's wisdom to work: 
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/airdrop-design-pulls-water-air-to-irrigate-deserts.html