The most pressing post I’ve been working on, “How Trust Is Lost,” has been waiting for me to finish a project: the transcription of “What Is The Possibility of Relationships?,” a seminar Werner Erhard gave in August of 1984. It has a section on trust, to which I wanted to refer.

Now that I have listened to it again, and I have it in front of me in text, I realize that I have made a terrible mistake, and I cannot bring myself to write that blog post right now. I do not know how to deal with it.

like most other similar situations like this in my life, I expect it to go like this: I will freak out about it for a while, and then, probably tomorrow or Wednesday morning, I’ll get out of bed and deal with it, and it will be over, and then I can write about it.

The current dysfunction in the United States government is a convenient backdrop for this post. The underlying issue, hidden beneath layers of blame and drama, is that opposing sides of all issues are so attached to their beliefs about fill-in-the-blank that compromise and discussion are impossible.

But giving up beliefs is awesome! Even giving up beliefs about your own identity is useful and empowering.

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I recently stopped reading Alan Watts’ book, “The Book”, after he asserted that man is “incapable of pleasure and contentment” while experiencing the world as a collection of separate people and objects. I find this assertion absurd. But the larger thrust of the book, that we aren’t separate objects and people, is actually starting to seem logical, even appealing. More below the fold.

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