> From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> There is always a solution to every problem. The challenge is finding it.
I'll agree, while noting that not everything is a "problem." We in the modern,
energy-rich industrial world are used to casting just about everything as a
problem to be solved.
In "The Long Descent," John Michael Greer points out that not everything is a
"problem" with a "solution." For example, death awaits us all, regardless of
the myriad life-extension techniques brought to us by modern medicine. In the
end, most of those things result only in a period of low quality-of-life,
bed-ridden, hooked up to tubes, dependent on drugs with side-effects that rival
the disease.
Greer points out that, instead of problems with solutions, some things are
"predicaments" or "dilemmas" that lack have only "coping strategies." Climate
change, fossil energy depletion, ocean acidification -- these are but a few of
the dilemmas for which we humans lack solutions.
Oh yea, then there's death, the ultimate dilemma. Unless you're a Ray Kurzweil
devotee, there's no "solving" that "problem!" That's when spirituality or
religion becomes coping strategies of choice.
I don't mean to hijack your thread, Ken -- and I'm genuinely delighted you
found a solution that is going to make a bunch of shareholders happy. But I
have to get my two cents in (well, two nickels -- the penny has just been
banned in Canada) when anyone claims that everything has a solution!
----------------
:::: Children aren't happy without something to ignore, And that's what parents
were created for. -- Ogden Nash
:::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality Co-op ::::
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