Welcome back and thank you for being apart of my blog for nearly 20 years (beginning as a website before the dawn of blogging). I continue to write and share perspectives on a range of topics cogent to our successful living within the confines of Spaceship Earth (Thanks, Bucky).

This week’s headline topics:

• Implications of US withdrawal from / violation of Iran nuclear deal
• Hawaii volcano eruptions
• Fall-out from NY attorney general resignation
• Fresh food safety concerns via romaine lettuce / e-coli risks
• On Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviews Robert Kuttner on whether “democracy can survive global capitalism“
• Video depicting implications of China’s “new silk road” agenda

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I have been re-reading and further digesting the work of Jack Alpert, and one of his remarks informs this entry: “There are limits as to how much one astronaut can inconvenience another because there are no resources in the budget for conflict.”

This rings true in so many ways.  I often ponder how local / global unsustainable realities might be different if we were to progressively / carefully address various conflicts and aggressions around us as we evolve day-to-day.  No actions taken are benign — all have embodied systemic interactions which, admittedly, can quickly become mind-boggling and overwhelming in scope and meaning — yet require our urgent attention.

To reconcile or progressively take responsibility for such conflicts (which imply that our actions have reciprocating direct / indirect deleterious impact on “others”), we must begin to discern what / where / how such conflicts occur, and reveal connections about their respective significance to the critical causes of our world, beginning in our “own backyard” so to speak.

Flushing a toilet, munching on toast, receiving an email, starting a car, etc. all implicate many systemic capacities which carry unseen / unfelt / unknown energy, carbon — externality-laden — burdens for “others” to manage. We are all parties to this contract, regardless of where or how we live. As Alpert would likely agree, we must come to terms with the unseen by beginning to perceive and “see” more continuously and effectively. We can unite senses and sensibilities.

How we do so can and (I assert) should be enjoyable, value-added, psychologically healthy, socially-enriched, and mutually empowering — “nutritious” as I have often commented.  And, doing so should be apparently contiguous across our whole-personal and professional roles and relationships.  Disconnects or incongruence ultimately undermine benefits.

So, “no budget for conflict”. No time to waste.

Looking ahead, I aim to share experiences, lay-out insights, and chew on questions from which to tap ideas for practical innovation – as if our lives depend on such.

Stay tuned.