In Time, I Find Time

Back at the turn of the century I was single, built a new house, hunted and fished a lot, and made my living as a logger and handyman. And in that time I also developed a habit: I used to visit The Ishmael Community multiple times a day. It's Daniel Quinn's official website. There you'd find, and still do I might add, close to a thousand questions he'd answered from readers, multiple essays and speeches, things for sale, recommendations, and a guestbook that he'd sometimes visited and commented on. I knew close to nothing about authors back then, and I hadn't been on the internet but a couple of months. In my world authors were up in towers and didn't interact with their readers, but here was Quinn doing the best he could do to make clear to his readers what he was saying in his books. In other words, he was a passionate teacher. So I took in as much as I could. I couldn't get enough of his teachings. I still at times find myself going back there. Oh, I forgot to mention another reason I was attracted to the community.

A guy by the name of Michael Time. Here was a guy that took to hitchhiking across the United States partly because of Daniel Quinn's work, and he'd post frequently on the guestbook about his adventures. I was fascinated. A guy that I presumed to be close to my age was going against how I thought a young and responsible adult like myself should be living their life. I really enjoyed his writings. Shortly after that I took to the road in my own way. I quit my job, locked up my house, pulled some money out of my bank account, and went and did whatever the hell I wanted to do. I followed my nose. Looking back I'm glad I did it. But sometimes I wish I would've been a bit more bold about it, sort of like Mr. Time.
Over the years since then I've often wondered what happened to Michael Time. Yesterday I visited Daniel Quinn's Facebook page, like I periodically do, and noticed he posted a short essay by a friend named Carl Cole. The essay (posted below) was really good. Out of everything I've read surrounding the resistance at Standing Rock this piece of writing really resonates and sticks out from all the rest. It gets to the root of the problem. After reading the essay I had to find out who this Carl Cole guy was. A google search later I learned he wrote and published a book titled: Feasting on the Breeze: A Memoir of Hitchhiking America at the Turn of the Century.

I found Michael Time.

Here is the essay by Carl Cole (aka: Michael Time):
 "If we go on as we have, with this understanding that the world was made for humans to conquer, then we will eventually conquer it. The planet will be broken, bleeding, and unrecognizable as the life-support system that made it possible for Australopithecus to evolve into Homo Hablis 2.8 million years ago. The same gently nurturing planet gave room and allowed for the evolution of the Homo genus to ancestors 400,000 years ago so similar to us we had to call them Homo Sapiens...us.

10,000 years ago, in a world that was basically a Garden of Eden, one culture in the Fertile Crescent adopted a totalitarian agricultural strategy whereby they took a piece of land, plowed under every living thing, planted only human food, denied competitors access to this food, and figuratively began eating at the gods' own tree of knowledge, deciding what deserved to live and what should die. This gave them great power as they took control of the land and resources, creating a surplus of food, a surplus of population and shrinking space for all this people and food. They began to conquer, enslave, or assimilate the cultures around them, eventually spreading into the Americas in the late 1400s.

If we continue to eat of this fruit of knowledge of good and evil then we will surely die, as a species. IF humans are living on this planet 100 years from now, it won't be because they figured out a better way to extract and ship oil, it will be because they are living in a fundamentally different way than we are now with a fundamentally different view of the world. If humans survive as a species on this planet it will be because enough of us spit out the vile fruit of knowing what's good and evil for the life of this planet. Enough of us will have changed our minds that we can no longer accept that humans are masters of this planet and more important than all the rest of the living biosphere.

We're not just fighting to stop this particular oil pipeline (Dakota Access), the fight is really against a worldview that allows for the destruction of everything we need as biological organisms in favor for the technology and mindset that allows for and condones the destruction of the planet as our greatest work.

Should those fighting for this most important cause abandon the technologies of the conquerors? Should only those who don't care about the destruction of the planet be allowed to use cars, cell phones, and computers?

Personally, I feel this battle to change the minds of those who choose to not see is of the greatest importance to the future of this planet and my children's ability to survive here. Any and all weapons we can muster in this conflict for how people view themselves and understand their place in the world should be used.

If everyone who cared more about the water we drink and the air we breathe than the oil we use to facilitate our civilized lifestyle abandoned their communication devices, this particular argument in North Dakota today would happen in the same vacuum that allowed for the genocide of this continent hundreds of years ago.

No one saw the frantic smoke signals of the past as entire societies were crushed under the boots of the not-see's. But it was certainly much easier to justify the destruction and genocide when we didn't have to hear about it." -- Carl Cole

Sooner Or Later It'll Collapse

"But all too many people--most people, I'm afraid--tend to think, 'Well, so what? Humans belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living community. Since we're separate, it doesn't matter how many species we destroy--and since we're superior to them anyway, we're actually improving the world by eliminating them!'

"We're like people living in the penthouse of a tall brick building. Every day we need 200 bricks to maintain our walls, so we go downstairs, knock 200 bricks out of the walls below and bring them back upstairs for our own use. Every day. . . . Every day we go downstairs and knock 200 bricks out of the walls that are holding up the building we live in. Seventy thousand bricks a year, year after year after year.

"I hope it's evident that this is not a sustainable way to maintain a brick building. One day, sooner or later, it's going to collapse, and the penthouse is going to come down along with all the rest."-- Daniel Quinn out of The New Renaissance

Saturday's Daniel Quinn Quote

Quoting Daniel Quinn out of the New Renaissance:

"If there are still people living here in 200 years, they'll know that humanity doesn't belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living community. They'll know this as surely as we know that the earth revolves around the sun. I can make this prediction with confidence, because if people go on thinking we belong to a separate order of being, then there will be no people living here in 200 years."

Quinn Quote Saturday

"During your lifetime, the people of our culture are going to figure out how to live sustainably on this planet--or they're not. Either way, it's certainly going to be extraordinary. If they figure out how to live sustainably here, then humanity will be able to see something it can't see right now: a future that extends into the indefinite future. If they don't figure this out, then I'm afraid the human race is going to take its place among the species that we're driving into extinction here every day--as many as 200--every day."--Daniel Quinn out of the New Renaissance

Daniel Quinn Quote Saturday

"During your lifetime, the people of our culture are going to figure out how to live sustainably on this planet--or they're not. Either way, it's certainly going to be extraordinary. If they figure out how to live sustainably here, then hum anity will be able to see something it can't see right now: a future that extends into the indefinite future. If they don't figure this out, then I'm afraid the human race is going to take its place among the species that we're driving into extinction here every day--as many as 200--every day"-Daniel Quinn I pulled the above quote from The New Renaissance

Quinn Quote Saturday

"If there are still people living here in 200 years, they'll know that humanity doesn't belong to an order of being that is separate from the rest of the living community. They'll know this as surely as we know that the earth revolves around the sun. I can make this prediction with confidence, because if people go on thinking we belong to a separate order of being, then there will be no people living here in 200 years."--Daniel Quinn from The New Renaissance

Daniel Quinn Quote Saturday

"We look at the world around us and find that turtles are not flawed, crows are not flawed, daffodils are not flawed, mosquitoes are not flawed, salmon are not flawed--in fact, not a single species in the world is flawed--except us. It makes no sense, but it does pass the medieval tests for knowledge. It's reasonable--and it's certainly supported by authority. It's reasonable because it provides us with an excuse we badly need. We're destroying the world--eating it alive--but it's not our fault. It's the fault of human nature. We're just badly made, so what can you expect?"--Daniel Quinn in The New Renaissance

Saturday's Daniel Quinn Quote

From The New Renaissance:

"During your lifetime, the people of our culture are going to figure out how to live sustainably on this planet--or they're not. Either way, it's certainly going to be extraordinary. If they figure out how to live sustainably here, then humanity will be able to see something it can't see right now: a future that extends into the indefinite future. If they don't figure this out, then I'm afraid the human race is going to take its place among the species that we're driving into extinction here every day--as many as 200--every day"