Mindful Wellesley

05/01/2025

"I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened."
~Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov

10/23/2024

Look out Noah... In the beginning, there was no beginning. In the end, there was no end. What begins? What ends?

When a meteorite with the mass of four Mount Everests hit Earth 3.2 billion years ago, it caused global chaos and provided an unexpected silver lining for life.

10/02/2024

As Ilsa has posted on my FB page, someone/thing is out there pretending to be me. Be careful I'm me. They're aren't.

09/24/2024

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Economic anxieties are generating crushing pre-professional pressure on campuses, destroying college life and damaging students’ mental health.

09/24/2024

"Senator warns of "economic shock" as climate change strains insurance industry."
This goes with the great DUHS! of human history. Of course a light bulb goes off in some rich Senators head: climate change is going to destroy my money machine. Insurance premiums are one of the greatest slush funds of investment capital. The owners of these slush funds determine your fate and own congress, the president, and the supreme court. Talk about regulatory capture! And to repeat what Kurt Vonnegut said: "We will go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective." Think about it though. We allow the corporate maximization of shareholder value algorithm to drive us to the edge of the cliff, cliffs that are quite visible for decades, and often over it before we adjust our course. The strange mathematics of my wealth is more important than your life. An amazing virtual machine created by human beings that destroys life. Talk about genocide!

The consequences of climate change are making homeowners insurance either unaffordable or unavailable for millions of Americans.

09/06/2024

The interdependence of ALL of what we call LIFE has always been. For tens of thousands of years human beings without science recognized this and lived in accordance with it. It has only taken science 400 years or so to begin to get the picture. Is it too late? And, if so, too late for what?

Without bats to eat insects, farmers turned to more pesticides, a study found. That appears to have increased infant deaths.

09/02/2024

"These days many Americans seem to think that education should be focused entirely on work force development. They define the “good of the individual” as making a living, not working with others to figure out how to live a good life. It’s understandable. In these days of economic disparities, social polarization and hyper-partisanship, it is certainly challenging to talk with one’s neighbors about what we want from our lives in common. But that is the core of political discussion. From JD Vance’s call to support large families to Tim Walz’s “mind your own damned business,” there are many visions of how best to live in community. Protests are part of the competition, but only its glossy edge. Demonstrations shouldn’t just entice you to come up with rhyming chants; they should push you to inquire about how different groups of people think about complex issues. And protests should lead to more discussion, not shut it down in favor of ever louder chanting.

Education can prepare people for this kind of true political engagement, and true political engagement can prepare people for the highest goals of education..."

Higher education should be tolerant but never neutral.

08/26/2024

Listen to this man, Joe Rhodes, first generation Asian Black from Pittsburgh public schools, Cal Tech, Harvard Society of Jr Fellows. Learn about a dedicated and committed person. Learn a bit of history about the criminality of the Reagan Governments in California and the US...

Rep. Rhodes talks about his family and extensive educational background, and his introduction to politics. Rep. Rhodes also talks about his district, and pri...

08/25/2024

More Pepe Mujica former President of Uruguay:

You have said in the past that you don’t believe in God. What is your view of God in this moment of your life?

Sixty percent of humanity believes in something, and that must be respected. There are questions without answers. What is the meaning of life? Where do we come from? Where are we going?
We don’t easily accept the fact that we are an ant in the infinity of the universe. We need the hope of God because we would like to live.
“With all its ups and downs, I love life,” Mr. Mujica said. “And I’m losing it because it’s my time to leave.”

Do you have some kind of God?

No. I greatly respect people who believe. It’s like a consolation when faced with the idea of ​​death.
Because the contradiction of life is that it is a biological program designed to struggle to live. But from the moment the program starts, you are condemned to die.

It seems biology is an important part of your worldview.

We are interdependent. We couldn’t live without the prokaryotes we have in our intestine. We depend on a number of bugs that we don’t even see. Life is a chain and it is still full of mysteries.
I hope human life will be prolonged, but I’m worried. There are many crazy people with atomic weapons. A lot of fanaticism. We should be building windmills. Yet we spend on weapons.
What a complicated animal man is. He’s both smart and stupid.

08/25/2024

Pepe Mujica, former President of Uruguay amongst other "identities" in an interiew:

PM: I think that humanity, as it’s going, is doomed.

Interviewer: Why do you say that?

PM: We waste a lot of time uselessly. We can live more peacefully. Take Uruguay. Uruguay has 3.5 million people. It imports 27 million pairs of shoes. We make garbage and work in pain. For what?

You’re free when you escape the law of necessity — when you spend the time of your life on what you desire. If your needs multiply, you spend your life covering those needs.

Humans can create infinite needs. The market dominates us, and it robs us of our lives.

Humanity needs to work less, have more free time and be more grounded. Why so much garbage? Why do you have to change your car? Change the refrigerator?

There is only one life and it ends. You have to give meaning to it. Fight for happiness, not just for wealth.

I: Do you believe that humanity can change?

It could change. But the market is very strong. It has generated a subliminal culture that dominates our instinct. It’s subjective. It’s unconscious. It has made us voracious buyers. We live to buy. We work to buy. And we live to pay. Credit is a religion. So we’re kind of screwed up.

And it continues... amazing...

08/23/2024

No private jets here!

Pepe Mujica, Uruguay’s spartan former president and plain-spoken philosopher, offers wisdom from a rich life as he battles cancer.

08/13/2024

It seems so far away that it is had for us to imagine down here in the lower 48 to 25 what this means for us and the rest of the world. Read on...

The delicate balance of one the planet’s largest natural systems for storing carbon depends on the humble black spruce tree.