The Committee

This isn’t new information for many of us, but even mainstream psychologists are now coming to the conclusion that the human personality is more like a committee than a unitary structure. It’s more like an “egoic cluster” than an “ego.”

This is of interest to me right now because building my Ark and clearing out the south end of my microfarm is requiring me to be “somebody else.” Not somebody new, because I’ve been in this mode many times before. It’s the “me” that copes with the surfeit of physicality that I’ve managed to create for myself. But this “me” doesn’t write blog posts nearly as easily as, say, “Gordon of November.”

All this is a longwinded way of saying I haven’t been posting as much as I would like, and events I want to comment on have been passing me by. I’ll make a few comments on the fly; many topics of late have deserved blog posts, but I’ll have to be content with a paragraph or two.

I wanted to express my awe of pilot “Sully” Sullenberger, and marvel at the fact that there was no ice in the Hudson that day. As I recall, ice started forming the very next day. Ice would probably have compromised the structural integrity of the plane’s belly, preventing the buoyancy necessary to get everybody off the plane in time. So let’s hear it for no ice. Sullenberger’s amazing piloting feat has already become legendary in the annals of aviation. Not only did he quickly make the correct decisions, he managed, with zen-like intensity and focus, to glide that powerless plane to a perfect water landing – nose up, tail down, and wings perfectly level. And he specifically landed as close as possible to the ferry terminal area, so the rescue vessels wouldn’t have to travel as far. What a pilot! The experienced crew managed to start getting the passengers off the plane within seconds of landing. On the ground and water, everybody was literally on the same wavelength, having learned from the tragic mistakes of 9-11, when the Fire Dept. and Police Dept. couldn’t even communicate with each other via radio. For a change of pace, we got to see civilization at its best. The tragic “victim” myth of 9-11 has now been superceded by a myth of competence and heroism. Which, given our rapidly-declining economy and fast-approaching multi-crisis, is no doubt a good thing.

Turning now to Gaza. I’ve been disgusted with Israel for a couple of decades now. If this makes me anti-Semitic, then so be it.

I have no problem with self-defense – this isn’t la-la land we’re living in. And I can understand why both the Palestinians and Israelis have been driven half-crazy (or totally crazy) during the decades of suffering and hatred on both sides. Crazy Hamas insists on poking sticks into the crazy Israeli lion’s den by firing rockets across the border, but genocide isn’t an acceptable response. The Israeli response was so over-the-top, it’s pitiful.

It’s fascinating how similar to each other the U.S. and Israel have become since World War II. Both countries are bullies. Both countries lay waste to much weaker adversaries. Both countries are hypocritical: if you fire a rocket at me, that’s terrorism; but if I carpetbomb your entire country into bloody rubble, that’s an appropriate response. And the press, which loves war, sucks right up to it and makes it worse. What a fucked up world.

Just like there’s no solution to the human situation on a planetary basis, there’s no solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. Pandora is loose, and humans cannot build a box strong enough to hold her.

Next time I want to talk about goats, chickens, winter gardening, and how I’m turning my place into my version of a little Amish farm: spic and span, neat as a pin, and highly productive. It gives me something constructive to do, and gives me something to spend my money on while it still has some value. And that reminds me: I also want to give some useless advice.