Author Archives: theoracleofz

Conscious Consumption Update

In December of 2018, I decided that our household was going to spend 2019 watching everything we consumed pretty closely. The intent was to cut single use plastic and palm oil out of our lives to the full extent that was possible while also buying much less overall. When we had to buy things, IContinue reading “Conscious Consumption Update”

Sylvia Plath and Parenting

OR, Toward an Equity of Selfishness I’m not well suited to the realities of parenthood. Parenting, especially for the female presenting parent – the mother – is a fairly consuming process. Children need and want things and parent needs and wants come second. I have a more artistic, erratic and fluid sense of my ownContinue reading “Sylvia Plath and Parenting”

Christmas, Consumerism and Custody

Even in a normal year I am a great hater of secular American Christmas and am at best confused about why – as a non-Christian – Christmas always has to be omnipresent. That sounds aggressive, but I think “confused” is the best way to categorize my feelings about a religious holiday that has been cooptedContinue reading “Christmas, Consumerism and Custody”

Sonder

In high school, because of mine and my mother’s disgraced retreat from a repossessed mobile home to a rundown apartment complex resultant of her bankruptcy, I had a 45 minute commute to high school in my hand-me-down 1991 Buick Century, Bonnie. I traveled through an affluent suburb, down old state route 421 to my ruralContinue reading “Sonder”

On Middle Age, Intentional Parenting and Media Criticism

Recently, I have reached the point in my life where I am past the age of experts, which is to say that I am actually in the cohort of “real” adults who are driving the status quo and the locus of common sense that everyone else is relying upon to construct their reality. What thisContinue reading “On Middle Age, Intentional Parenting and Media Criticism”

Empathy through Anthropology

I was raised by assholes. When you call someone an asshole it is because they have demonstrated to you through their behavior that they lack empathy. They’re rude, entitled, inconsiderate, etc. Some examples: When it was -5 [not that cold in Montana] and snowing, my mother came to pick up my toddler son from myContinue reading “Empathy through Anthropology”

Agriculture: we’re doing it wrong

Humans have very short memories and attention spans. This is by design [not intelligent design, but evolutionary design, which is to say natural selection by the environment for fitness]. Humans evolved as an upright hominid species that exploits technology [which includes both physical technology and complex symbolic systems like language, culture and religion] to inhabitContinue reading “Agriculture: we’re doing it wrong”

Anapodoton OR I don’t write fiction anymore, but…

When I was young, before all the abstract reasoning had completely kicked in, I used to write stories. Because I am a collector and cataloger and archivist at heart I still have all these stories in journals and notebooks. At various points in my life I have taken them out and leafed through the pagesContinue reading “Anapodoton OR I don’t write fiction anymore, but…”

Anarchy is not what you think it is

I am very dissatisfied with the current political climate of our country, and when I say “current” I don’t only mean the current administration, I mean as far back as I remember knowing anything about the political climate of our country. I was born in the 1980s, so it has been one helluva a ride,Continue reading “Anarchy is not what you think it is”