Hello my dear friends. 

Here’s a big, challenging but loving idea I’ve been working on for awhile. It comes from asking the question – why has this century been so full of disappointment, frustration and conflict, just when the whole world seemed poised on the edge of hope, after decades of constant fear?

My answer starts from one idea – we paid a huge price for many crucial lessons in the twentieth century, which for some reason, we still don’t seem ready (or able?) to learn. 

Alan Watts does indeed show up, as promised, but in a rather impish way, he insisted on a role very different from my original intentions. (Sometimes writers don’t so much control, as supervise).

Plus, I have an especially rich treasure trove of referents today see - LargeEssSmallPress.com for links

NON DELUSIONAL HOPE (the simplest distillation of my own personal grail-quest). ;o)
Hope you dig it!

So you say you want to change the world...
Rebellion isn’t new at all, but we’ve been lying about old rebellions for so long now, that we have almost forgotten what the real thing looks sounds and feels like (and especially, which part of the heart it comes from). 
Timothy Leary is an especially misunderstood figure, from the especially misunderstood but genuinely turbulent sixties, but I openly confess I bring him along on this one not only because his personal story reveals much of interest, but also because I am very simply grateful for his life thought and work.

For extra links see my main site at    LargeEssSmallPress.com/ 
And/or sign up to my new (and free) Substack!    paulsnyders.substack.com/

What do we need memory and free speech for?  Why is it crucial that we are allowed to offend the powerful?  Because they are trying to get us all killed with war and ecological collapse, and citizens are going to have to learn to cooperate again and steer ourselves responsibly, together (known as democracy), and then run all those scheming creeps out of town.

Hello folks - time for some full-strength politics once again!

It is such a strange moment right now – I’d really like to be able to link directly to my most passionate friends on the right, middle and left and ask them to give this one a listen and a think, but I don’t want to accidentally set up a petrie dish for a grudge-match (social media's new favourite trick).  So instead let me just ask all my pals to try this one on with an open mind.  And as fraught as these times are, trust me folks – despite our high emotions, it simply isn’t true that practically everyone is a despotic, demonic, unprincipled, ignorant, intolerant, insufferable immoral maniac nowadays – some people are still centrists!

My apologies to one and all, of course – but then, I also trust that any with humour still intact will appreciate the irresistibility of that one (and the necessity of the chuckle).  ;o)

We talk (and nowadays argue) quite a lot about what we use computers for, but we don't so often think about what they are, and how we are changed by using them.  I think there are hopeful clues to positive possibilities, and also helpful ways to resist emotional manipluation which are perhaps more obvious if we stop and think like the blacksmith, instead of just worrying like the rider.

Hello my friends!  
Politics is an especially scary subject in this insanely polarized moment.  Very serious stuff, the consequences of which will stay with us a whole lot longer than this fearful crisis.
So far - left right and middle, we have all failed to meet the moment.  Performance and sanctimony have been tried - they obviously aren't going to cut it.  Rediscovering principle just might.

Hello my friends – time for a podcast once again. Afghanistan is the subject of the hour – but I haven’t heard a single word said yet, which reflects context or memory. Never in my own living memory has the professional news media industry been quite so dumb, casually racist, dishonest, immoral, or counterproductive. 

As usual – I have several other big ideas to discuss as well – I try hard to make these programs useful, time independent and general, rather than going into huge depth about momentary situations and perishable technicalities. But propaganda is weird stuff. This century has nearly perfected lying by omission, which enables ideas which would be obviously insane, if we didn’t buy into the first lie.

In any frightening upheaval, there are always questions of who was at fault and who bears the responsibility (not necessarily the same who). The question for those who must fix things is how.

Who is a rebel – what is the system? What is oppressive conformity, and what is heroic resistance? Where is corruption? Who and what holds real power? When is knowledge dangerous, who gets to decide? How free are we really willing to risk being? How much responsibility must we take?

Most of these are questions which seem to have several different sets of rather simple answers, depending on which belief system and/or tribe they are coming from.  But I don’t think any of the answers to questions like these are simple anymore. More twisted and puzzling than anything. And I don’t see any serious rebels here at all. 

I hate to be rude and perhaps overly direct but – If we were doing this right, it would feel good.