Nonjudgment

It's tempting to point out flaws of people like Thomas Jefferson, who spoke eloquently about freedom but didn't practice it in his own life as a slaveholder and racist, to discredit them. George Washington only freed his slaves in his will, not while he lived. Gandhi did odd things regarding his chastity, like sleeping naked with young girls. Mother Teresa let helpless people suffer she could have helped and called it beautiful. I point out some of these flaws in my upcoming book since I write about Jefferson and Washington. Among people who point out these flaws in people with power, they rarely look so deeply at everyone. I don't point out Frederick Douglass's flaws in my book. I wasn't hiding them. They didn't come…

It happens all the time. Someone is talking to me and happens to mention they flew somewhere, used disposable plastic, or the like. Then they apologize to me. For example, they might be talking about upcoming plans and say something like, ". . . and then I'll go to Europe . . .", pause, look at me, and say, " . . . sorry, Josh, I'll be flying there." I can understand why they would consider an apology appropriate if they feel they know they're hurting someone, but they aren't hurting me. Why apologize to me? If they don't feel they're doing something wrong, why apologize at all? If they do feel they're doing something wrong, why do it?

I don't learn of anyone like me in history books, but I'm told that's all who is in them. I'll link to a bunch of articles that history books are filled with dead white men. I'm told the best I can do is "shut up and listen." Why do people who don't know me tell me who I am? Should I think I'm represented because Hitler, Stalin, and Columbus were straight white men? I don't find people like me in history books. I see people today who aren't white men who seem more like white men in history books than I do. Why should people having the same skin color and sex mean that they represent me? Society hasn't treated me like them. We don't…

Talk to people about sustainability and they'll say "stop judging me" or that you're making them feel guilty. If someone tries to judge me for something I don't have a problem with, I don't feel judged. When I lived in Paris and people tried to judge or make fun of me for being American, I didn't have a problem with it. If they judged me simply for being American, I saw it as their problem, not mine. The reason you feel judged isn't because environmentalists are judging you, nor anyone else. It's because you have a conscience. You'd do well to listen to it. Abraham Lincoln's quote remains my most relevant to sustainability: "Nothing is more damaging to you than to do something you believe…

I didn't pay attention to it, but now that I do, people who pollute judge nonstop on sustainability issues. They also defend themselves even when the issue has nothing to do with them. I think they feel judged, which tells me they know they are doing something they believe is wrong. They can't resolve this internal conflict so suppress and deny it. Then when the issue comes up, they feel judgment and blame whoever brought it up for their feeling guilt and shame. They call me extreme for living as sustainably as all humans did until about a century ago, but it seems easier to me to resolve the inner conflict by not doing what I believe is wrong so I don't cause my own…

I can't believe I haven't posted this topic before. I say this phrase nearly every day: Living in the 21st century means there are a million ways to connect and they all break. Everyone agrees. No one even hints otherwise. On the contrary, they share stories. [EDIT: After posting this post I see I did post this topic before: The 21st Century: dozens of ways to communicate . . . and all of them break. Sorry to repeat myself, though it's been over two years since that post and I still hit bugs in media almost daily.]

There are two types of political revolution, at least. One changes the type of government. The American Revolution replaced a monarchy with a democracy. The other changes the person in charge but keeps the system. Many coups result in the second type. I'm not sure they qualify as revolutions, but people call them revolutions. What does James Bond have to do with revolutions? I recently saw the last James Bond movie, No Time to Die. I counted six bad guys, or five bad ones and one would-be good guy whose hubris caused the big problem. The main bad guy is Lyutsifer Safin, who kills people left and right, builds the lair Bond has to infiltrate, and so on. He even engineers killing the second bad…

I can't stand when people interrupt me. I don't like myself when I do it either. But there is at least one time when I would consider you my friend for interrupting me. More than interruptions, I can't stand when someone who can do something and believes they should but has filled their head and heart with some cockamamie limiting belief. They say they can't get in shape, get promoted, learn some skill, save money, eat healthy, stop polluting, and so on for reasons if they looked in their hearts they'd know where lies, but palliative, comfortable lies. They don't say them for others to believe them. They say them for themselves to sleep at night. Since they don't even say them out loud to…