Tag: speculation

A World in Crisis

On By Roger B. BurtIn visionLeave a comment

 

What do you anticipate?

Is It Hope Or Is It Fear?

Call it interregnum. Call it denouement. Without question humankind is at a set of crisis crossroads. The Middle East is simply one indication. Overall, our world looks very much like Europe at the dawn of World War I. And we know where that went for the following decades.

I doubt you need a catalogue of all of the crisis points, from China hanging on the edge of chaos, to our own political menagerie fumbling toward failure. It was not so long ago that there seemed so much more hope for consolidation and stability. So much of it dissolved and the process hints of monumental change in the years ahead. And change can be good or bad. But in my mind this kind of process puts me in the position where I don’t wish to simply be an observer.

Fascination With Possibilities

Throughout my life I’ve always been drawn to the “what if”. For me possibilities are the staff of life and before us I perceive a feast. Such evolution and revolution does not lend itself to a thoroughly logical analysis because the underlying forces are never clear. And so I chose to name this blog Cusp of Reality because I firmly believe that is where we all reside—like it or not.

That means this blog is partly a thought document and is meant to present thoughts for examination and to lead us to the “what if”. And always there are different vehicles which may be chosen for the what if.

Waves, Hope and Promise

There are currently discussions of waves in human events. What did the waves of the twentieth century lead to? We are now being overtaken by a wave of information technology and, in the field of economics there is speculation that we are entering the postcapitalism era. Human affairs in all their forms offer hope, promise and promote fear.

I’ve chosen to write speculative fiction where the possibilities can be made graphic. Each of us has a rich inner life and there is a larger context. In the Gaia’s Majesty Trilogy I tell a story with a mythological element to lead us through possibilities as we see our future unfolding. Are we in a denouement of sorts and will it end in a transformation of some kind. If nothing else the discussion and examination in this time is fascinating.The question always remains, “What If”?

Which among the possibilities would you choose?

Gaia’s Majesty-Mission Called: Women in Power by Roger B. Burt

Roger B. Burt’s Amazon home page

Creating Characters and Plots by Roger B. Burt

Stepfamilies: Professionals and Stepcouples in Partnership

Whatever Happened to Community Mental Health by Roger B. Burt

Seeking Clarity in the Fog

On By Roger B. BurtIn Origins of Gaia's Majesty, StruggleLeave a comment

 

When you see “neo” attached to a word, what does that suggest to you?

Entwining the Political and the Economic

For a very long time we thought we knew what each political party stood for and families often passed down dedication to a particular party from generation to generation. Below is information on neoliberalism and neoconservatism. I think I got it wrong. Neo seems to simply mean that it is a new form of something and in this instance I have a hard time seeing them as either liberal or conservative. What it does indicate is something which supports the idea of an interregnum but the question is, if we are entering a very new era, where will it lead us? And in the Gaia’s Majesty Trilogy I suggest a direction with a mythological context. We are all explorers whether individually or collectively. It is fascinating to think about where our explorations might lead us. Implicit in this mythological exploration is that it may well have a totally unexpected outcome.

Speculation can be a wonderful thing. It is not only engaging and interesting but can lead us down unsuspected paths with all kinds of wonderful things at the end.

Elements of Our National Interregnum

Neoliberalism (From Wikipedia)

Neoliberalism[1] is a term which has been used by scholars in a wide variety of social sciences[2] and critics[3] primarily in reference to the resurgence of 19th century ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism beginning in the 1970s and 1980s.[4] Its advocates support extensive economic liberalization policies such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Neoliberalism is famously associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States.[6] The transition of consensus towards neoliberal policies and the acceptance of neoliberal economic theories in the 1970s are seen by some academics as the root of financialization, with the financial crisis of 2007–08 one of the ultimate results.

Neoconservatism (From Wikipedia)
Neoconservatism (commonly shortened to neocon) is a political movement born in the United States during the 1960s among Democrats who became disenchanted with the party’s domestic and especially foreign policy. Many of its adherents became politically famous during the Republican presidential administrations of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Neoconservatives peaked in influence during the administrations of George W. Bush and George H W Bush, when they played a major role in promoting and planning the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[1] Prominent neoconservatives in the Bush administration included Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan and Paul Bremer. Senior officials Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, while not identifying themselves as neoconservatives, listened closely to neoconservative advisers regarding foreign policy, especially the defense of Israel, the promotion of democracy in the Middle East, and the buildup of American military forces to achieve these goals. The neocons have influence in the Obama White House, and neoconservatism remains a staple in both parties’ arsenal.

Emergence is Another Useful Word at This Time

As you can see from the above descriptions “the times they are achanging”. The philosophical alignments are very different from what they used to be. Struggle is very much a part of human existence and the positions outlined above speak to struggle. We used to be clear about our realities but these differences and the changes over a relatively short period of time do support the idea of us being in an interregnum. Stay tuned!

Gaia’s Majesty-Mission Called: Women in Power by Roger B. Burt

Roger B. Burt’s Amazon home page

Creating Characters and Plots by Roger B. Burt

Stepfamilies: Professionals and Stepcouples in Partnership

Whatever Happened to Community Mental Health by Roger B. Burt

 

Possibility as Opportunity

On By Roger B. BurtIn Cusp of Reality, Origins of Gaia's Majesty, StruggleLeave a comment

What do you see in today’s picture? What might it represent?

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What possibilities are you searching in your life?

Questioning the Fiction We Write

Throughout the writing process I find myself asking a question about what I write. I prefer to call it speculative fiction because of what the story means to me but, evidently, the term covers a lot of territory. I usually settle and call it fantasy but the term is unsatisfactory to me. I know clearly it is not science fiction and certainly not horror. But what the story holds out to me is that it represents something I want. I also want to offer something specific to the reader.

When I explore my thoughts about what I create I am also clear that I am not writing literature. The turn of phrase does not enthrall me and at the same time I don’t see it as entertainment pure and simple. In the end I return to the core of my personality type. My primary function in my personality is intuition and the word I come up with again and again is “possibility”. For me it is a search and all of my life has involved search. Whether it was me in primary school looking out the window exploring a thought the teacher gave me or seeking a job with relentless potential later in life.

What Opens Before Us

Also with possibility comes the word “opportunity”. Isn’t that what a possibility is? It need not be a pure abstraction but can lead to a discovery and perhaps something to be done or even a mission.

Is There Some Form of Guidance?

At the same time I find myself entering the realm of wondering if there may be some form of guidance or the imposition of direction and purpose. And once that question is raised we have almost infinite possibilities and theoretical positions. Given the state of the world, I thought it was more interesting to pose purpose related to guidance from an earth goddess. We, after all, have to assume some responsibility for ourselves and our home. Perhaps we will be tested and since all animals struggle there is no reason why we should be an exception. It seems unlikely we will be given anything completely although some guidance might be possible. We learn through struggle. We grow through struggle. We justify our future through struggle.

And too often we confine our view to this planet when there is a rather large universe out there of which we are a product in the form of stardust. Why confine our search for possibilities. It might be that there is some form of even larger purpose growing out of the dynamism that is the universe and its fundamental forces. It would be beyond anything that we have yet conceived of.

How Central is the Instruction of Struggle

And then, of course, there is the matter that struggle is not merely struggle but almost surely offers productive possibilities and leads us to shaping challenge and purpose. We need to search the horizon for opportunity. And then when we focus on the specific work itself we might find all forms of opportunity. And in fiction there are characters to engage our explorations. We can ally ourselves with a character like ourselves or seize the opportunity too take in and work with someone completely unlike us. In fact we may find that some part of our unconscious is being raised or brought to our attention. It all composes opportunity.

Personal Discovery

In writing I found myself challenged by these thoughts and they lead to personal discovery. I did not set out to find them our build them. As an intuitive type I found they built themselves. In all you can see the possibilities with which I wrestle and they are components of the coming Gaia’s Majesty Trilogy.

And then I must comment on the picture I chose for this post. It is what we psychologists call a projective devise. I see it as our earth goddess in charge of our world. But how do we interpret it. How do you see it? Does this image intimidate us or challenge us to respond. Does the power frighten us or does it suggest struggle and possibilities as I outlined above. I tend toward seeing opportunity and dynamism with us under the command of the goddess/world we may be stewards of or ruin. Do we get guidance?

Which of these possibilities intrigues you?
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Life Among the Living

On By Roger B. BurtIn Life Forms, MythologyLeave a comment

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Do you have a special myth you favor?

Many of us don’t consider it unreasonable to ask if angels really exist, do we have spirit guides or how real our day or night dreams are? Certainly there is a great deal of speculation about paranormal phenomena. There is no point in trying to comprehensively enumerate the various kinds of life forms there are or may be. And related are various forms of consciousness that may be related to them.

In fantasy, science fiction and paranormal fiction we see various forms of exploration and belief. The fact of the matter is that it is unreasonable to dismiss any of them out of hand. I consider myself to be a very rational person which translates into meaning rationally it is unreasonable to dismiss them.

Other Life Forms
Alternatives are seen in the belief in spirits of all kinds. We love to think about them, love to read about them and write about them. It seems, though, that we cannot definitively establish their existence. And there is a very sound reason why we can’t. As human beings we have a very specific sensory system which is meant to help us survive in what we call the real world. In most instances we don’t need to sense spirits in order to survive.

Likewise, the head of the patent office early in the twentieth century declared that they might as well close up because everything that could be invented had been invented. He was just a little bit off base or, not in touch with reality. At that time we hadn’t mastered wave lengths for radio or other forms of communications. Now we know that there are all manner of waves humming around us that we can’t sense ourselves.

Dismissing Nothing
As I already noted I was told I was getting an education in being a scientist. Well, as a scientist I have come to understand that it is irrational and unscientific to dismiss all these various kinds of possibilities. But still we torment each other. We cry, “Get a grip! You can’t know that. Get a life. I have one and you don’t”. But the fact remains that what has been speculated may well exist and it may be that we haven’t yet been able to reach out to the other life forms—yet. And so we write about them, give them lives we create and yearn for the future. And it is so enriching to engage in this search and speculation. In fact we have better and richer lives when we do it.

Let me know when you have made contact. I want to meet whatever it is. At least as long as its friendly and is willing to share. For now please share your thoughts with me/us.  rogerbburt@gmail.com