BEWARE OF THE SIDE EFFECTS

I am on the bus from Portland to Boston where I will get on a plane (United Airlines which has just merged with American Airlines which will likely merge with XYZ next year and then merge again with ABC the year after.  Soon there will be one airline and it will be easier to nationalize it) heading to San Francisco.

I've been invited to attend a private seminar Techno-Utopianism--- Killing the World where I will give an update on the latest happenings in the world of space technology.  There will be an amazing group of presenters, all with the purpose to try to find our way out of this dark maze of technology uber alles that we find ourselves locked in - resulting in our spiritual disconnection from Mother Earth.

Can there be any doubt that technology has been firmly inserted into our veins and brains?  Sit on a bus or train and watch us with our gadgets - lost in a wired world where the art of human interaction seems forever lost.   

Listen to the talking heads on TV deny the existence of climate change and promise us that fracking is a safe technology that will help us become more energy independent.  Witness the politicians like Maine's new Sen. Angus King reassure us that drones are "humane weapons" - smarter than an artillery shell.  And watch our eyes grow heavy as now reassured, we go back to sleep aided in part by the new wonder drugs our doctor prescribed for our depression.... please beware of side effects, call your doctor if erections last for more than eight hours!

Yes we are so smart - as they say in Maine "you're so smart you must have gone to Harvard" - but with all of those smarts we are so fucking stupid.   We don't know how to live on this tiny spinning orb.  We are all divided against one another, killing each other over the color of flags, human made boundaries of separation, and differing views on the creation story.  Truth is none of us know much of anything - it's all the biggest leap of faith imaginable.  

Because we truly know so little, and because we are so arrogant, we are eager to grab onto some truth, any truth, and once we get it we hang onto it for dear life.  

I expect I'll come back from this experience with the zeal of a new convert but I'll do my best to remain humble.  After all, I'm truly as ignorant as the next person about virtually everything.