On Being Shown a Way to a Peaceful Global Civilisation

The great religious and philosophical influence in my life is the teachings and life of Baha’u’llah. Taking for himself the appellation, Manifestation of God, the fulfilment of the promise, Baha’u’llah’s life and teachings are of a consistent high-mindedness and ethic, that convinced me of the truth of the matter of His declaration and His mission.

His mission is expounded in over 100 volumes of letters, treatises and books, and include a book of laws (Kitab-i-Agdas), treatises on practical mysticism such as the Seven Valleys, and practical spirituality such as the Hidden Word, and a full exploration of His station in relation to the teachings and prophecies in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Kitab-i-Iqan).

As a number of hotspots of conflict around the world are uprooting millions of people, Baha’u’llah’s declared future and mission to the people might best be encapsulated by these exhortations:

“It is incumbent upon every man, in this Day, to hold fast unto whatsoever will promote the interests, and exalt the station, of all nations and just governments. Through each and every one of the verses which the Pen of the Most High hath revealed, the doors of love and unity have been unlocked and flung open to the face of men. We have erewhile declared — and Our Word is the truth — Consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship. Whatsoever hath led the children of men to shun one another, and hath caused dissensions and divisions amongst them, hath, through the revelation of these words, been nullified and abolished…

Of old it hath been revealed: “Love of one’s country is an element of the Faith of God.” The Tongue of Grandeur hath, however, in the day of His manifestation proclaimed: “It is not his to boast who loveth his country, but it is his who loveth the world.” Through the power released by these exalted words He hath lent a fresh impulse, and set a new direction, to the birds of men’s hearts, and hath obliterated every trace of restriction and limitation from God’s holy Book.

” O people of Justice! Be as brilliant as the light, and as splendid as the fire that blazed in the Burning Bush. The brightness of the fire of your love will no doubt fuse and unify the contending peoples and kindreds of the earth, whilst the fierceness of the flame of enmity and hatred cannot but result in strife and ruin.” (Bahá’u’lláh, “Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh”, Passage XLIII)

An important aspect of Baha’u’llahs exhortation is in the realm of our Being. One of his tablets is dedicated to a list of how we are to be to realise the greater mission of the unity of humanity. He is a part of what He writes:

“Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer of the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men….” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Passage CXXX)

On a personal note, I found over the course of a few decades of my adult life, that I seemed to have certain limitations to my development of the practical application of such virtues. I felt that I had, apart from the occasional outright failing, “hit a ceiling’. I felt that I had explorations in life and contributions that i could be making but which in some way I seemed lacking.

Nonetheless, in picking up the yoke of those contributions, especially in creativity, the arts, and theatre, I found an access, a gateway, to another world of human development – ontological coaching. This particular gateway lead me to the thinker, Werner Erhard and the offshoot of his work, the company now called Landmark Worldwide. The work I have participated in through Landmark including the Being a Leader Course in which I met and interacted with an ageing Werner, himself, has had a number of impacts:

i) a breakdown in regard to what i was unable to see regarding my own lack of integrity in the world;

ii) an simple, appreciative, caring acceptance of myself as cause in the matter of my lack of integrity and inauthenticity; and the real limitations of my mind that are a function of my genetical personality and a considerable number of physical and psychic assault events over the course of my upbringing; and

iii) An equally appreciative and exciting recognition of my capabilities and skills that were developed over many decades, including the lessons I learnt from what I failed or did not so well. From this recognition I could aspire to something bigger then who I wound up being that gave me a safer, more controlled, push through life, to participating more fully in the global landscape.

Werner Erhard’s most fabulous work since the 1970’s and the widespread impact of that work on millions of people, was influenced by his vast reading of philosophical and religious thought, a powerful epiphany, and conversations with other modern influencers of thought. In all that Erhard took on the philosopher of Martin Heidegger, a mid 20th century German existentialist, and member and sympathiser of the anti-jewish views of the Nazi Party during WWII and to the end of his life in 1976. Heidegger’s philosophical work and teaching at the University of Marburg in Germany in the 1920’s, inspired many students and fellow philosophers including Hannah Arendt, and the French existentialists such as Satre . By the 1960’s and 70’s Heidegger’s work was presented face value to the world without more than a nod to his Nazi history. The post mortem release of Heidegger’s diaries, showing his dedication to German National Socialism, has certainly un-nerved many who have come to appreciate his works on Being. As might be expected, the philosophical camp falls into those who reckon that Heideggers work can be separated from his Nazi attitudes, and those who reckon they must be entwined. One of the most recent explorations of Werner Erhards early mass coaching practice, “The Forum”, is Bruce Hyde and Steve Kopp’s book, “Speaking Being” ¹ that has an analysis of how Erhard’s work can be seen as a practice of the linguistic and existential philosophy of Heidegger,

I am personally of a kind who can sit with the work of another, regardless of their ideology, and see whether there is something I might find interesting, of wonder, or even true. For example could it be true that, as Heidegger says, there is a ‘throwness’ to human existence, a facticity, such that how existence show up to us is already informed (by ourselves) and is disclosed through our moods. In practice, from this type of view, it is only a short step to asking of anything we have an opinion and as such have an emotion or mood that comes along, “is (xxx) true”? However, developing my capacity for sitting with the diverse view has been also under Baha’u’llah’s encouragement, “Warn the beloved of the one true God, not to view with too critical an eye the sayings and writings of men. Let them rather approach such sayings and writings in a spirit of open-mindedness and loving sympathy.”² without which I may have maintained many of the cultural attitudes I was raised within, some of which are harmful in social practice to others.

While this can seem like a vicious circle of questioning the answer and never coming to a conclusion, indeed my experience is that there is a capacity for humans to holding the inquiry while also standing in an immediate working conclusion. This does require some deft cognitive ability and is not a strength of many people. For those of us for whom it is a strength, there is also an ethical response to also sit with other’s less complex opinions for as long as it requires. Under the practice of ‘consorting’, we might think of the action as providing a clearing or space of listening for anyone to express themselves fully and being ‘gotten’. While consorting is a moral exhortation of Baha’u’llah, “being gotten’ is new language designed by Erhard to express being able to authentically reflect a person’s expression back to them so they can see that indeed you ‘get’ what they are saying. Yet in asking why we do that, the existentialist would say, “in order to (achieve, consequence, avoid)” while Baha’u’llah would also say “for God”. Rather than “God” Erhard simply states, that “to be a leader (consequence) you will need to be given being by something bigger than yourself”. And the placeholder “God” if defined as what is ever unknown and unknowable, the fundamental essence of pre-existence, is as big as it gets.

On the other hand, in the world of action, Baha’u’llah is emphatic about the role of justice both as a personal response and attitude and a social and political response. “Justice and equity”, He writes, “are twin Guardians that watch over men. From them are revealed such blessed and perspicuous words as are the cause of the well-being of the world and the protection of the nations.” (Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, P23)

This brings me to Hannah Arendt, student and lover of Martin Heidegger, who fled to Paris in 1933 after arrest by the Ghestapo. Arendt was Heidegger’s friend to the end. In an interview about her book, “We can Change the World.”, Lyndsey Stonebridge, says Arendt understood that friendship was not transactional. Arendt laid out in a paper called “The Banality of Evil” that it takes a mass of a population to sign up to a progrom like the holocaust. And the people are not evil, they are just making ‘banal’ / ordinary choices given the sweep of a cultural message, and do not believe or see they are comitting a crime. She spoke of the holocaust as a crime against humanity on the body of the jewish people, not just one more anti-semitic progrom. Arendt was also influenced by Husserl who was fired by Heidegger because he was a jew. Yet fully from Husserl and Heiddeger we find a philosophy that can be a practical pathway to a greater human being, regardless that Heidegger himself fell into a narrow superstitious rut of it, perhaps in part to assuage himself of the existential nihilism he experienced as a lapsed catholic and an existentialist.

Werner Erhard, in noting this nihilistic quality in existentialism, discovered, and asks us all to discover, that nihilism is not to be battled, yet an inverse solution lies in moving through the nihilistic awareness of existensialism. To understand this, we must understand that nihilism is the idea that the world that humans understand is based in language, and particularly language that contextualised everything. If we take away the context, e.g. ‘a tree provides shade to humans’, we are left with ‘a tree’. It is the thing “tree” that exists, not any such meaning or context or purpose, we might apply. The existential provocation means that everything is meaningless. Werner Erhards, genius insight was that it is all empty and meaningless including empty and meaningless. Erhard in being able to express this, created a practice for building a ‘dasein’, a being as a clearing in which anything could show up, or could be created. In ‘getting’ that empty and meaningless is empty and meaningless, dasien (I-Me) can be a future that is really relationship(s) of my own choosing. Simultaneously, Erhard saw that all of our relationships were already of our own choosing. So instead of feeling we are choiceless or driven at times, of any of those choices we are driven by habit or upbringing, we can also move into the created future as our choices. In the clearing of empty and meaningless is empty and meaningless, all choices can be divested especially when they take on the complete attribute of meaninglessness. This is not to be mistaken with anything paranormal or super human. This is not about wishful thinking or fantasy. All invitations into a clearing can only be given as allowed by current states i.e relationships including those with ourselves e.g. our bodies and embodied states. In such clearing we can create a future for justice for the whole world, and see that future fully expressed in the world. Baha’u’llahs writings are replete with the created future of a global civilisation and the characteristics of humans and communities and governments required to see that future fully expressed.

In the life of Baha’u’llah and his son and successor, Abdu’l-Baha, certain religious and political authorities murdered many of their followers in Persia. While chastising these persons, they always invited said persons to correction of their moral behaviour. Indeed one such person, on accidentally meeting Abdul-Baha, did implore forgiveness and was accepted caringly and forgiven. This was an extraordinary act, overwhelming to witnesses who knew the suffering and who couldn’t quite grasp the response.

In this day of so many millions dispossessed by conflict, by so many who perform assault because they are provided political and even corporate approval, we must continue to chastise the bad players and the banal supporters, to step down, to reflect on their moral compromise, and to ask forgiveness. Some in the current conflict, like the Nazi leaders, will face war crimes tribunals. The rest like Heidegger will face a lifetime of tolerance. My hope is that the vast majority will face reconciliation and shame and be offered radical forgiveness. That is the only way to a peacful, just world. To those currently in authority I implore you take it.

1Speaking being, Bruce Hyde, Steve Kopp, Wiley 2019

2 Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, CLIV

Justice Accountability and Forgiveness

It is the season of Christian Lent and the Baha’i Fast. The wonderfulness of the teachings of Jesus Christ has lead to one signal cultural message down through the ages: no one is taboo by culture, love and care for everyone you come across, and who abides by that forms a brotherhood and sisterhood, a community, a church.

Baha’u’llah, founder of the Baha’i Faith, pulled justice, the expression of true brotherhood through the larger socio-political lense, into the centre of a religious framing that includes the acknolwedgement that we are a global civilisation that requires integrative tools beyond that of the individual or the community.

Two qualities lie at the interface of the moral individual and the moral society: accountability and forgiveness.

Accountability is the voluntary open and honest exploration of one’s personal life. Given that the culture of accountability by which a society can go about its business in a secure and confident manner requires formal processes social process of accountability, all issues regarding the conquest and subjugation of another people, the takeover of lands, and the expression of this the enlightenment colonial powers performed on many generations after the first conquest, layers embodied trauma (psychic and physical) on those generation until the epigenetic qualities are ingrained in the lives of people living in a more supportive social environment.

Accountability and justice cannot be performed without recognising the true nature of the impact to the conquered people. Indeed I would argue that it is so difficult to outlive this trauma over generations, it is the one thing that has taken generation after generation to war for the past several thousand years. Only the very hard work of accountability can give the conqueror ease even as their descendants carry the trauma of their murders down through many generation afterwards, also living tortuously in our epigentics. Only a full and willing accountability provides a pathway out of our social traumatised behaviours.

When a full and willing accountability has been formally established, what some call a truth-telling, then two redemptive actions can be motivated: a recompense for the losses caused by conquerors (true justice); and, because the recompense can never be fully made for genocidal policies or slavery, the victims across time might resort to radical forgiveness for the shortfall. I would encourage the victims to forgive or at least play with forgiveness even if for the rest of life, for in that lies a path out of the malaise of victimhood to a true empowerment. However we need to be honest with ourselves that forgetfulness is forgiveness (not the other way around) and forgetfulness is only induced by being offered a full accounting of wrongs done against us and a full recompense where it is needed both individually and socially. Such social acts of social integration allows the perseverating mind to rest and turn to other more developmental, transformative and productive living.

The Image of God.

Consider the bible teaching, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (KJB Genesis 1 V27). Sometimes this passage is taken by critics of religion and, perversely, believers, that they are the image of God. For critics of religions the patent dissonance this sets up is rendered as proof that God is simply a fantasy of an egotist. And they are right. Here is a short discussion on why it is both true that “God created man in his own image”, and that ‘man’ is not the image of God.

I will begin the study by recalling the teaching of the prophet Isaiah (KJB Isaiah 46:9) “remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me”. As if determined to strip the teaching about God for humans from as much comparison as possible through language, Muhammed’s revelation states forthrightly “There is no God but God”(Qu’ran, Muhammed 47:19). Baha’u’llah subsequently chastises any thought that God’s hands might be bound in any way in anyway that might be a comparison with any limited being like a human. “‘The hand of God,’ (they say) ‘is chained up.’ Chained up be their own hands! Nay, outstretched are both His hands! The hand of God is above their hands.” “How can the hand of such a One be chained and fettered? How can He be conceived as powerless? Behold the absurdity….!” (Baha’u’llah Kitab-i-Iqan – Book of Certitude)

To further get across the nature of the distinction between God and any human concept, Baha’u’llah goes on to say, “To every discerning and illuminated heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the Divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is, and hath ever been, veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men.” (Baha’u’llah, Gleanings XIX)

So given that an unknowable essence (who/that) created existence is incomparable to anything human nor anything that can be invoked in language, then how are we to take the biblical quote “God created man in his own image.”?

To get a handle on this quote we need to understand what the words in the quote mean. Take God as defined above by Muhammed and Baha’u’llah. Take ‘man’ as from the bible quote, male and female. We are left to unpack the word, ‘image’.

On the surface ‘image’ has maybe seemed obvious. A word of advice, when dealing with understanding anything, first make what you understand into clear statement(s). Then question every word of the statement for its’ meaning. Finally, question whether the statement is true according to those meanings, after all. This is one way out of a tranquillised obviousness with any well-known subject matter.

Addressing this process to ‘image’, the first question is what does ‘image’ mean? The dictionary definitions can be summarised as ‘a representation, likeness or counterpart.’ It is important to get here that these words are making a distinction between an object and its image. By way of example, when someone sees me, they will say, “I saw Owen”. They won’t say, “I saw an image of Owen”. However if they saw a photograph or sculpture or portrait of me, they can say “I saw an image of Owen.” Even if they saw ‘me’ in a mirror, they would not be at all confused with that they are seeing an image, in this case a reflection, of me.

The second question about ‘image’ from the biblical quote relates to historical reference. If the book of Genesis was written around 1000BC, i.e. 3,000 years ago or at the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel. Glass had been around for 1000 years but mirrors were flattened shiny metal at best, and for all the previous history of homo sapien, reflections in water were the best most could do. Why is this important? In the time of the teaching of ‘man created in the image of God’, image was a rare and imperfect view. Consider using a pool of water as an image reflector. Even the most still water distort the image through refraction effects. Yet most water will have ripple across it. As for metallic reflectors, depending on the sheen or dross, the flatness or curve, the image is also either distorted or besmirched. In regard to the biblical teaching, knowing this leaves me with an idea of ‘image’ as an imperfect, distorted, covered up, of poor appearance or resemblance.

Then we might ask, in what way does God have an image at all? Baha’u’llah invites us to “Regard thou the one true God as One Who is apart from, and immeasurably exalted above, all created things. The whole universe reflects His glory, while He is Himself independent of, and transcends His creatures. This is the true meaning of Divine unity. He Who is the Eternal Truth is the one Power Who exercises undisputed sovereignty over the world of being, Whose image is reflected in the mirror of the entire creation. All existence is dependent upon Him, and from Him is derived the source of the sustenance of all things.”

Baha’u’llah then asserts a distinction between the essence and the names of God. “Behold, how immeasurably exalted is the Lord your God above all created things! Witness the majesty of His sovereignty, His ascendancy, and supreme power. If the things which have been created by Him—magnified be His glory—and ordained to be the manifestations of His names and attributes, stand, by virtue of the grace with which they have been endowed, exalted beyond all proximity and remoteness, how much loftier must be that Divine Essence that hath called them into being? (Gleanings of Baha’u’llah). Note that it is the manifestation of God’s names and attributes that endow all things of the universe. Baha’u’llah’s writing then go on to list in various places the names of God such as the omnipotent, the all-knowing, the all-wise, the most generous, all-possessing, great being, great educator, etc. Some scholars have listed 339 names of God found in Baha’i writings.

So we finally see that the ‘image’ of God is the manifestation of certain attribute in the universe. In regard how this might be in the creation of the human, Baha’u’llah further asserts that “Upon the reality of man, He (God) hath focused the radiance of all of His names and attributes, and made it a mirror of His own Self.” and then notes to us that, The radiance of these energies may be obscured by worldly desires even as the light of the sun can be concealed beneath the dust and dross which cover the mirror. … (it) can (never) be possible for the mirror to free itself from its dross. It is clear and evident that until a fire is kindled the lamp will never be ignited, and unless the dross is blotted out from the face of the mirror it can never represent the image of the sun nor reflect its light and glory.”

So we might take the biblical assertion that “God created man in His own image”, an assertion of the capacity of humans to represent the names of God with the condition that same humans orient towards clearing the mirror of their life from the dross of the worldly condition, we might realise that reflection of the names of God.

In Appreciation of Jesus

In a meditation, today, I found myself contemplating my experience of God. I have always thought I believed in God. Today, as I looked I saw that belief as an inner construct correlated with action, didn’t portray my relationship with God, at all. Did I only have a thinking-about-God, then? I concede that at the heart of my relationship with God is a thinking-about, yet that thinking about is mostly in discarding all thoughts-about as disproven of anything I would call, God. I seem to be left with an experience of something tantalising, beyond reach.

I wonder why I feel there was something there, beyond reach. I pondered the word’s of Baha’u’llah, founder of the Baha’i Faith, who described God as unknowable, unapproachable, and essence. Essence of what? And I found myself recalling the fragrance of the Frangipani tree flowers I smelt yesterday and how their essence (aroma) spoke to me of frangipani, yet which held no frangipani tree. What then speaks to me of God? I thought of those names we might use, All-Might, All-powerful, Unconstrained, Omnipotent, All-merciful, Just, All-loving, Most Generous etc etc. And when I see something in action, like fairness, generosity, power, and that these displays could be the reflection of All-, as if on a lake or mirror. No a perfect rendition, sometimes a clear rendition, and oftentime as if the reflection was on choppy waters, or a grimy mirror. Yet, as if my appearance in the world was to be alive to noticing any rendition, and, following it, finding myself in a delightful garden full of the essences. Yet somehow, running here and there, as if I might catch a glimpse of God find only the way undefined, like a complete whiteout. Perhaps this is what is referred In the Arabic sadratu’l-munaha, the tree beyond which there is no passing.

And, although I imagine I can reach with mind or spirit into that nothingness, I concede that any foray might just be to open up a little more garden in an unending garden tended only by words. This suggests then, to be resigned to a giving over, then, to what might rise above ‘syllables and sounds’. Here I find the delight of a forgone moment, perhaps as complete a nothing as possible for a wordy existence, drawing like the gravitation field of any planetary mass. Yet it is enough to allow the opportunity for clearing all things, and in those clearing(s), actions and company. 

And I wonder about the clearing and contexts create by His Holiness, Jesus. Perhaps, of his experience, unrestrained of the essences of God, and turning to the circumstances of humanity around him, uttered extraordinary words not only to cut through that contemporary situation but created openings in the great sea of the future, catching fish tossed by the stormy seas of the Roman empire and, following, the Byzantine, the dark ages, even the misalignments around His word, until indeed, we can say, everything He taught has been immeasurably fruitful. 

A New Gratitude for Anti-Vaxxers & Climate Change Deniers

In The Fire Tablet, Baha’u’llah asks of God, “Coldness hath gripped all mankind: Where is the warmth of Thy love, O Fire of the worlds?” To which He, later in the exposition, replied, ” “Were it not for the cold, how would the heat of Thy words prevail, O Expounder of the worlds?”

While Baha’u’llah was lamenting the dearth of spiritual characterisation among the people of His time, there are implications here for acknowledging certain social realities and, how those realities provide the possibility for Baha’u’llahs’ core vision, “an ever-advancing civilisation”.

While the totalitarian sovereignty that ruled Persia and the Ottoman Empire in Baha’u’llah’s 19th century, allowed little in the way of dissent, the rapid uptake of His teachings support the rule of thumb that there are always about 10 % of people ready to push back on the status quo or move towards a more enlightened future.

There is a distinction between the 10% who push back on the status quo and the 10% who move towards an enlightened future. The 10% who push back are exhibiting, I think, an anti-authoritarian trait. The 10% who move towards an enlightened future are exhibiting an adventurous trait.

The anti-authoritarian trait leads to resistance to government regulation and individualism or tribalism. They are found among political conservatives and progressives, hippies and traditionalists, capitalists and marxists.

The adventuring trait leads to finding ways forward through, over, around, and underneath government regulation. The adventurer, likewise is found across all social world views.

There is an overlapping group with anti-authoritarian and adventurous traits. I will call these triple-A’s. These people, like the suffragettes at the late 19th and early 20th century, are the social spearhead of the world. Their anti-authoritarian stance has the government comes down hard on them, while their adventurous proclamations are castigated by the majority, Eventually, from their spearheading, cracks emerge in the traditional socio-political argument. More people start to support the enlightened view. Laws are improved, society changes. Eventually all but 10% of people proclaim “I always thought so. It’s just obvious.”

The triple-A shows a particularly courageous intelligence. In WWII, France, Holland, Belgium, Norway etc were mostly engaged through the small population of resistance fighters. These were from all ages and status in the communities and had one thing in common, a triple-A streak. Many of these fighters are honoured as heros of nations, today. In other part of the world, the triple-A leader has de-colonised their nation. Some of these, have, themselves, come to show a totalitarian mindset.

So, here’s the rub. We can’t have social change, we cannot resist the really nasty possibilities of political life, without anti-authoritarians. We cannot have an enlightened future, a new political possibility, without adventurers. We cannot have the undoing and the transforming without the triple-A. And this is not a rational thing. This is not someone gets up one day and say, “Today is a good day to become an adventurer or anti-authoritarian. This is a trait. Something fundamental to our evolution as social primates. It is not predictable who will be born with either trait. Most families will have someone born with one of these traits, given that they appear in about 20% of the population in one form or another.

People with any of these traits tend to find a home whenever there is a desperate existential moment for their society. They then are immediately in action and are able to play a vital role by either pushing back on capitulation or problem-solving to a new status. At less dire moments in society, the anti-authoritarian will link to whatever is around, like a rise in climate change acceptance, or a status quo like vaccination uptake. The adventurer, in the less dire today, will be dancing with the possibility of solving a problem for today and the future. Both anti-authoritarians and adventurers will tend to express their actions in terms of a rational construct. I think this is a post-enlightenment behaviour. However, the actions whether of an anti-authoritarian or adventurer or triple-A or an individual slap smack in the mainstream status quo, are simply an accident of inherent circumstances.

This is not to say that rational constructs are wrong in any way. Certainly, although the rational constructs will tend to be biased by the trait exhibited, the rational construct expressed through these traits are vital to socio-political well-being. In less dire periods in national life, these are the people who draw the lines in the sand for society and governments. As someone who is an adventurer, I hold to a particular line among those lines drawn by adventurers. Anti-authoritarians and other adventurers might draw lines differently to mine. However their lines do define my line in conversation with what I fear about politics and economics, and what I support about the development of human-ness, social capacity, democracy, science and problems-solving.

While I am fully aware of the political and power-grabbing humbug that is exploiting them, I have slowly developed a new gratitude for the anti-vaxx or climate change denial person. They provide the edges of the clearing of who I am, and, at that edge is also the question, what would I sacrifice and what for? I may never need to extend the clearing of who I am into the forest of I-have-to-put-my-life-on-the-line, but by listening to my more paranoid friends, I have more clarity where that is (and isn’t). And tomorrow, if the existential crisis arises, there’s a good chance they’ll be at my shoulder.