Confessions of a Yes-But Junkie

During the cold months past, I have been lurking for free on Substack.com, exploring information and opinions about anything and everything (science, climate, economics, philosophy, politics, religion...), and leaving clever comments to set things straight, yes-butting ignorance toward enlightenment. 

Yesterday I read The Church Paul Described Terrifies Modern Pastors with a quote from First Corinthians 14: “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.”  

Interesting. Church with no pastor, everyone bringing what they can for the benefit of the group.

Yes, I see the genius of that, worshipers as participants rather than audience. Reminds me of God as Holy Spirit rather than law giver and judge. But how would this distributed divinity work in a large congregation? 

OK, anybody who has something inspiring to tell us, line up at the microphone. And speak up when it's your turn.

Someone has to give the orders, and the rest of us have to follow their lead. And somebody has to shut down the nutter who interrupts the other speakers with a "yes-but" argument. 

Pastor: Just listen. You can talk when it's your turn.

Yes, like God silenced Paul until he changed his mind about Jesus. But that stroke was probably brought on by his rages about the Jesus cult. Stupid to get so worked up about other people's beliefs.

To explore that thought further, I searched Substack for 'stupid' and found Bonhoeffer's Theory of Stupidity, We Have More To Fear From Stupid People Than From Evil Ones.

Interesting. I thought about yes-butting that one with a clever comment like:

yes stupid is dangerous, but stupid plus evil would be worse and clever plus evil would be as bad as it gets. 

I was going to illustrate that thesis with examples and body count statistics, but something stopped me from publishing. Funny thing about yes-butting, nobody likes a wise guy. Sometimes a wise guy should keep quiet and yes-but himself.

Yes, Substack has been rekindling the teacher in me, but not your favourite teacher. 

Yes, I thought I had retired from teaching, but it feels like I'm still in school, sometimes teaching and sometimes being taught. 

Yes, I know, it's stupid to waste time in a yes-but rut, arguing with faceless phantoms on Substack. But I needed something to do when the snow was on the ground. Sorry if I sounded critical.

Enough of that. I deleted my Substack account. I'm going to go dig the garden.

****************

Physical activity helped a bit. For the past hour, I yes-butted along the fence while the shovel did it's thing. Yes, I scattered a mix of flower seed into the dirt. And (not but) maybe something nice will come of that.

Socrates had it right when he said the wise man knows he is a fool. So today there are two of me here setting each other straight on a lovely spring day while we finish this note. 

Now that we have confessed our stupidity, what do we say to a nap? Yes?

zzzz ZZZZZZZ 

zzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz

CaterFly

Somewhere between caterpillar and butterfly there is a pupa (caterfly?) undergoing remarkable transformation.

"Within the chrysalis, the caterpillar’s tissues undergo histolysis, a process of controlled self-digestion. Most of the larval cells break down into a nutrient-rich soup, while the imaginal discs and certain other groups of cells survive. These surviving cells then use the available nutrients to construct entirely new tissues and organs. The caterpillar’s body is reorganized into that of an adult butterfly—complete with wings, compound eyes, proboscis, and reproductive organs." (Science News Today)

That must have happened to produce the white butterfly we saw yesterday, first of the season, identical to all those white butterflies we saw last year.

What happens in a chrysalis is a striking analogy for this chapter of the planetary story. We find the biosphere, including human affairs, collapsing in many ways: biodiversity, climate, global and national politics, energy supply, the economy, food security, religion, relationships, health, fertility. What if this is the chrysalis from which Earth may emerge as something beautifully new with or without people? What if the human obsession with consumption and growth has been our larval stage, and as emerging adults we have other concerns, an evolving worldview.

A metaphor gets us thinking, but is never exact. Once it has our attention, we learn much from how it doesn't fit. For a particular species, what emerges from the chrysalis is almost always the same. If it fails to repeat the inherited plan, the butterfly probably doesn't survive. Very occasionally, a mutation turns out to be useful, and will be passed on to progeny.

In the human realm, we have history to lead us into the future, but it is a future unlike anything in history. If we faithfully replicate what the ancestors have done (including war, exploitation, extraction, extermination, pollution), we race to the sixth mass extinction. Fortunately we are equipped with a tool that the butterflies lack. We have imagination.

We either reinvent what it is to be human, or the world will evolve without us.

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New Climate Research Warns of Faster Warming: Just Have A Think

A Question Of Margin: Bill McKibben

An Attractor Nobody Sees: How civilizational dissolution reorganizes itself: Richard David Hames

Taraxacology

the study of Taraxacum officionale, also known as blowball, cankerwort, doon-head-clock, witch's gowan, milk witch, lion's-tooth, yellow-gowan, Irish daisy, monks-head, priest's-crown, puff-ball, faceclock, pee-a-bed, wet-a-bed, swine's snout, white endive, wild endive, and dandelion. We have this ology about Taraxacum because there is much to know such as this plant's use as food and medicine, the aerodynamics of wind dispersal of seeds and reproduction by apomixis. Curious yet? You can read about it >> here <<.


Taraxacum officionale

Taraxacology is on my mind because this year I have already spent hours digging Taraxacums out of the lawn. If you let one grow, it produces so much seed that your yard will soon be fully entaraxacumbered.

On the plus side, my back is getting stronger. That and the pretty yellow flowers are free. That and the fun of blowing away the seedheads in June. That and the tap-rooted persistent greenery they provide during summer drought. They are vigorous, resilient, tolerant of heat, cold, full sun, shade, and mowing. What's not to love?

The Dandelion Strategy For Regenerating The Earth: The Earth Regenerators use dandelion seed dispersal as a metaphor for the rapid spread of an emerging ecology paradigm following the coming collapse of the biosphere. It may only take a few people with regenerative ideas to seed a rapidly growing sustainable culture amidst the chaos. Shall we be dandelions?

Sea Level Rise: The Universe, The World And Us, a video explaining one consequence of climate change.

Sustainable Communities: The David Suzuki Foundation

Regenerative Practices Breathe New Life Into Forests: David Suzuki and Rachel Plotkin

Mark Carney Wades Into The Deep Waters Of Environmental Regulation: CBC News, May 13, 2026

Doing The Best That I Can

Until recently I didn't give a thought to my thumb, the one on my right hand. It was useful for sure, opening the cookie jar, taking out the garbage, tying shoelaces, etc. But it was always there in working order, so I just got on with business.

Last week, the old thumb had enough of being used, abused and ignored. The knuckle began dislocating even under slight stress making all the usual chores painful problems to be managed. 

I'm not looking for sympathy. You don't make it to 85 without accumulating problems to be managed. It's OK. I'm managing. The right hand is on vacation. The left hand opens the cookie jar and carries the garbage bucket. Since both thumbs are needed to tie the shoes, I'm switching to Velcro. Velcro is nifty, but I can't take credit for it. Didn't invent it. Didn't design and manufacture laceless shoes. Glory and honour to inventors and manufacturers.

This reminds me:
when things are running smoothly, we forget that we are part of something bigger that keeps us safe and comfortable and solves our problems. We imagine that the world is there for us to use, and we use it as we wish because we can...until we can't. We are deluded in thinking we are self-sufficient and in control. Not so. We are bit actors in a story that has been going on forever, a story to which we belong as transient, self-absorbed trouble makers, a story that will continue without us when we are gone.

Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble 'til you try brushing your teeth with the other hand.

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It's Hard To Be Humble: Mac Davis and The Muppets

Everyone Is Playing Correctly, a game theory of collapse: Adrian Lambert

Overshoot:  Alan Urban, 2023

Ants Or No Ants

That is the question.

We've got ants.
Again.
Ants on the floor.
Ants in the kitchen.
Ants running up our legs.

I imagine an ant saying, "How do I get this tasty human to hold still so we can get his butt back to the nest? We've got babies to feed."

As for us tasty people,
how do we get rid of the ants?
We use ant traps, of course.
Ants will take the poison bait back to the nest
and that'll finish 'em off.
When the ants are gone, the traps go in the garbage...until there are more ants.

There are always more ants.

Years ago a wise granddaughter told us we were being mean. We should put a jar of jam on the lawn so the ants would stay outside. She hadn't been around long enough to learn how we humans deal with stuff we don't like. Jam on the lawn doesn't work. If you feed the ants, they thrive and you get more ants looking for more food. Ants will happily bite the hand that feeds them.

We do that too. Come to think of it, we have a lot in common with the ants.

When they have exhausted the provision around their nest they send out an army to exploit surrounding territory. Just like us.

Sometimes ants send a swarm off to find somewhere else to call home. Just like us.

Some ants let aphids do the foraging for them and harvest aphid sugar secretions. Ice cream anyone?

These solutions to survival problems have evolved over millions of years along with everything else on the planet including us.

We have evolved smarter than ants, but not as smart as evolution. We are good at altering our circumstances but not so good at predicting outcomes, some of which may be bad. Eventually evolution fixes its mistakes. 

If we continue to exceed the regenerative capacity of the planet, that mistake will be fixed.

After that there will still be ants.

May we be wise enough soon enough to survive being so smart.
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The Abundance, Biomass, and Distribution of
Ants on Earth: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
Creation As Relative: Randy Woodley
Climate Science Awareness and Solutions: Columbia Climate School

Record Heat: The World, The Universe And Us, 23 minute video
The Failure Of Climate Politics: Prof Eliot Jacobson
I Need To Be Honest For A Moment: The Earthly
The Mouth Of The Ouroboros: a chronicle of civilization's suicide: Gabriel Lovemore

After Earth Day

Earth Day was April 22. It went by hardly noticed. Our attention is on war and tariffs, the price of fuel and groceries, housing and jobs. All of that is important here and now. 

But have you noticed that the conversation around climate has hushed ? William Rees (see link below) explains why humanity is mentally, socially and culturally unequipped to pay attention to this large scale, slow moving existential threat. If he's right, we are done. 

It would be so tragic if our grandchildren were extinguished because we are distracted by the price of gasoline. 

We have a choice.
We could pay attention to the facts,
imagine a better future for the planet and
make it happen. 

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Conflict and Crises Floodlight Fossil Fuel Folly:  David Suzuki and Ian Hanington

Mything Out On Sustainable Development: William E. Rees

Something Brewing In The Pacific: Chris Gloninger

Super El Niño: The World, The Universe and Us and New Scientist (13 minute Youtube video)

Super El Niño: Covering Climate Now (1 hour Youtube video)

Let's Talk Climate: Bill McKibben

The Economy of Becoming: Indy Johar

Another Year Gone

Eighty-five today and still writing.

Maybe I have said everything I have to say. I look back and reread words from blog posts past and find I agree and disagree with it all, naive simplicity and pedantic complexity, so serious and so silly. Ideas are to be lived, like seeds sprouting questions, budding heresies, and bearing fruit with new seed, then doing it all again. That's life, or perhaps meta-life.

Which leaves me wondering:
what's the meta for:
overthinking simplicity,
oversimplifying complexity,
being seriously silly?

Enough!
Time for life.
I will dig the garden and plant again.

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Evolution of Minds: acknowledging the complexity of thought

KISS or SIN: in praise of simplicity

Emergence: a simple poem about the source of complexity

To Look at Dust: the last words in this blog.