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Essays by Larry Barnett

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Fixated on growth

Life appears purposeful and growth to be an imperative of life itself. Even a single-celled amoeba must grow large enough before it divides in two. Solar energy constantly bathes our planet, stimulating an over-abundance of growth and what often seems to us as great excess: 300-ft. tall Sequoia trees,… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture 1 Comment September 23, 2024September 23, 2024 2 Minutes

The great Arizona food desert

Without doubt, the state of Arizona features some of the most spectacular landscapes in America, mind-boggling sandstone canyons sculpted by millions of years of wind and water and vast moonscape-like deserts which challenge life entirely. My wife and I are currently traversing such areas, and … Read the rest

Larry Barnett Uncategorized Leave a comment September 18, 2024September 18, 2024 2 Minutes

The Brutish and The Clever

“If the strong person exercises all his rights to oppress and pillage the weak, he is only doing the most natural thing in the world.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

When we observe the imperatives of nature, it might appear that might makes right. With relatively few exceptions – hyenas, some species … Read the rest

Larry Barnett Philosophy 3 Comments September 9, 2024September 9, 2024 2 Minutes

The terror, the terror

Humanity’s place in nature is terrifying. Fires, floods, landslides, predatory animals, starvation, poisoned water, infection, plague; the list of depredations goes on. Were it not for each other we’d have never survived; alone we are weak and vulnerable.

Some animals are solitary, but human beings… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture 2 Comments September 2, 2024September 2, 2024 2 Minutes

Planning for the past

Looking ahead to the future has never been easy. One transformational wave after another has swamped humanity in its wake. The control of fire was perhaps the first such event, followed by flint arrowheads, bows, metallurgy, the wheel, gunpowder and the internal combustion engine. One transformation… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture Leave a comment August 26, 2024August 26, 2024 2 Minutes

You can’t always get what you want

A central Buddhist teaching is that being human means living in the realms of desire, and that desire and what flows from it – attachment, craving, grasping, defending, protecting – produces suffering. Sounds reasonable, and from what I can tell, is largely inescapable. As rock n’ roller… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture 3 Comments August 19, 2024August 19, 2024 2 Minutes

Alive and conscious of it

Animals are alive; it’s so obvious as to be a tautology. Not all animals, however, are aware of being alive. As far as we can tell so far, human beings are the only ones.

Opinion about awareness, and even more precisely reason, has varied. The designation of animal behavior as the use of reason actually … Read the rest

Larry Barnett Metaphysics 1 Comment August 12, 2024August 12, 2024 2 Minutes

The mastery of nature

Our present human condition embodies an antagonism towards nature, one that explains the heights of our creative intelligence, the depths of our self-destructiveness, and how they have become one. Although of nature, humanity relentlessly seeks to master it, and in doing so prompts its own demise.… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture 3 Comments August 5, 2024August 5, 2024 2 Minutes

The tales we spin

People are great storytellers. Whether to make sense of a mysterious world beyond our control, to gain influence or power over others, or simply for the playful purposes of entertainment, the tales we spin have created a human reality quite distinct from that of the natural world. Buddhists call it … Read the rest

Larry Barnett Metaphysics 2 Comments July 29, 2024July 29, 2024 2 Minutes

What is this moment?

The past 500 years of social change can be summarized in one word: emancipation. Despite the repeated pendulum swings of permissive and repressive governments, religions, and politics, the overall trajectory of history, in particular western history, includes greater freedom for more people,… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture Leave a comment July 22, 2024July 22, 2024 2 Minutes

The rise and fall of schemers, empire builders, and big talkers

When I hear a developer say how much they love Sonoma, it makes me cringe. I’ve lived here long enough to have seen and heard it all before; what such big talkers often mean by loving Sonoma is craving to possess it.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel tremendous affection for our community. I never say I love Sonoma,… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Uncategorized 1 Comment July 15, 2024July 15, 2024 2 Minutes

Encountering Counter-Enlightenment

The cultural and political forces at play in America right now, the permissive left and the repressive right, present two sides of a centuries-long struggle within western culture: Enlightenment vs. Counter-Enlightenment.

When we speak of The Enlightenment, we are invoking the philosophy of the… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Politics, Public Citizen Leave a comment July 8, 2024July 8, 2024 2 Minutes

How I earned “Most Improved in Canoeing”

My neighbor has a canoe on the roof of his extended cab truck. He’s about to go camping at a lake near Truckee. I like canoeing, and his wooden canoe reminds me of summer at Camp Androscoggin in Maine, where at age eleven I earned a birchwood plaque for “Most Improved in Canoeing.”

Sometimes the honors we … Read the rest

Larry Barnett Recollections Leave a comment July 1, 2024July 1, 2024 2 Minutes

When reason vs. faith

People are talking about how polarized public opinion is right now, politically and socially. The widespread assumption is that a narrow slice of undecideds sits in the middle and that everyone else is rigidly fixed in their opinions; hence, all arguments fail.

Ever since the dawn of The Age of Reason,… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture Leave a comment June 24, 2024June 24, 2024 2 Minutes

Homo whaticallus?

The Homo line of bipedal humans sequenced through a variety of iterations before settling down, albeit uncomfortably, into the one we are today. Among others, there’s been Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and the now popular Homo neanderthalensis. All these primate species share… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Uncategorized 2 Comments June 17, 2024June 17, 2024 2 Minutes

Reverting to orality

People have been speaking and using words for a very long time, but writing and reading is something relatively new.

The bicameral mind, psychologist Julian Jaynes’ idea that for most of humanity’s history internal thoughts were regarded as the voice of gods or spirits, is a way to understand… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Culture 1 Comment June 11, 2024June 11, 2024 2 Minutes

The choices we make

Being born is choiceless, but fairly soon thereafter we begin to choose. The choices we make follow the branching structure of time, each moment of choosing akin to a bud on a twig that either begins to grow or withers away.

As living beings, we are semi-autonomous vehicles, our sensory apparatus constantly… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Philosophy Leave a comment June 3, 2024June 3, 2024 2 Minutes

Life and death on Hwy. 101

People are afraid of being killed by all sorts of things: branches falling from big trees, being attacked by vicious dogs, dying in a plane crash, drowning at sea. These are possible ways to go, of course, but for my money getting killed while driving on Hwy. 101 tops the list.

Two-ton hunks of metal hurtling… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Recollections Leave a comment May 27, 2024May 27, 2024 2 Minutes

The religion of politics

The role of religion in American society waxes and wanes. I remember back in the 70s when Time Magazine unearthed Friedrich Nietzsche and famously declared “God is Dead” on its cover. Turns out the death of God was greatly exaggerated, as current events demonstrate.

The push and pull of religion is tied… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Politics 1 Comment May 20, 2024May 20, 2024 2 Minutes

On whispering to flies

Everyone gets flies in the house from time to time, and we’re no exception. Sure, we’ve got screens on our windows but in one way or another, flies appear inside. Sometimes they find their way in from below, finding a hole or gap in the floor after having bidden goodbye to a dead mouse or other small rodent… Read the rest

Larry Barnett Philosophy Leave a comment May 13, 2024May 13, 2024 2 Minutes

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