A longtime friend and I disagreed during a phone call yesterday. We raised our voices at each other and interrupted each other. After the altercation, we resumed regular conversation, but at the end of the call I apologized. Then he apologized back, but I said he didn’t need to apologize. A consider it an act of friendship to argue with someone when you feel they deserve it. Someone who isn’t[…] Keep reading →

People tell me over and over, “You’re a single man. You can make unilateral decisions so it’s easier for you to live more sustainably. If you had a wife or kids, you’d see you couldn’t do what you do.” Yet people in marriages, with kids, or both who succeed at their dreams often tell me their spouses were their greatest sources of support and their kids motivated them. Most recently,[…] Keep reading →

My father died last year. I got this scam email from people trying to scam someone grieving a loss. I’m posting it so if people get a similar email and aren’t sure, they know someone is trying to scam them. Is “scum of the earth” is to harsh a term for such behavior? I don’t think so. Dear Joshua Spodek, I trust this message finds you well amidst the challenges[…] Keep reading →

When I started working on sustainability instead of hoping someone else would fix our problem, I saw my goal as restoring nature, also conserving and protecting it. Learning that our environmental problems result from our behavior, which results from our culture, has taught me that we have to work on ourselves. I see how much our culture promotes addiction, pollution, depletion, and plunder. I see that we are abandoning or[…] Keep reading →

Regular readers know I pick up litter every day. The other day I found this garbage wedged in the scaffolding of a building under construction. (Come to think of it, a topic I should write more about is this bizarre practice of litter being wedged and stuffed into places and why people do it. I’m not sure, but I have some ideas. In any case, all this littering is socializing[…] Keep reading →

I don’t usually just talk about what I did, but sometimes things work out enough and I feel great about how major life choices I’ve made work out. Last Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were great times. I’ll share Monday first since it’s not visual so might get lost following the other two. Monday: Einstein and Nobel Prize winners Monday I met with a physics professor who mentored me in college[…] Keep reading →

Our environmental problems have become a politically polarized issue. Why? I don’t know values of any political tradition that oppose clean air, land, water, and food, while all seem consistent with stewardship. Meanwhile, the main political tribes seem to see their opponents as obvious enemies, blatantly exacerbating the problems. Liberals say conservatives and libertarians don’t care and are greedy. They say they prefer profit over helping other people or wildlife.[…] Keep reading →

A month and a half ago I wrote about Eugene’s reflections on finishing the ninth of the ten exercises in my book Initiative in my post The Life-Changing, Inner-You-Revealing, Passion-Unleashing Magic of Initiative. He finished and posted about the tenth exercise at his blog: Method Initiative (Round 4) – Exercise 10: 10 Valuable People (And final Initiative methodology thoughts), and it’s as inspiring. Read the whole post for all he[…] Keep reading →

I forget what led me to learn the acronym DARVO (see below for definition and more), but it sounded like how people respond to sustainability talk. I read a few articles and watched a few videos on it (also below). They mostly talk about it as something narcissists do, though Wikipedia says “perpetrators of wrongdoing” do it, so not surprising that I see it in polluters. Identifying the pattern and[…] Keep reading →