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Peco's avatar

Your essay’s thoughtful vibe followed me away from the computer screen, and into conversations with family members, and now I come back wondering, What is the water cask? Maybe our ship is always sinking, often in little ways, yet ways that accumulate and can become real dangers (even before the Great Ship sinks)? Maybe we ought to be daily practicing leaping into the waters?

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JimmieOakland's avatar

Excellent piece. I especially love how the surviving brother repurposed an ordinary object, a water cask, to save himself. That is the kind of adaption we may have to make to survive what is coming. I think it is also necessary to check our assumptions of what the future might look like. The past is prelude, but prelude to what? I assume it will be a gradual decline, and there is already evidence for that, but there might also be a few downdrafts coming. Best to prepare for both possibilities.

Adjusting out mindsets and acquiring skills are both required, and I would give a premium on the former. I think we must, in the words of poet William Everson, "build [a] program for action based on repose." The substacks, I believe, are for the reposing part, and that is great for a beginning. I think the skills part will grow more urgent as we see that the time is running out. That may be sooner than we think.

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