note about this post and about this blog. I’m trying to offer a glimpse into a way of thinking about life through a collection of posts that may seem divergent at first glance. My hope is that, over time, they’ll add up to a larger story — of who I am, how I’ve lived, what I value, what I’ve learned, how I’ve changed, and more.

The stories from Amsterdam are central to this project, but they work in concert with reflections like this one. There may not always seem to be rhyme or reason, and each post can stand alone, but together they form an evolving portrait — the story of my life.

That said, here goes.

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Starting with a pre-existing notion and rigidly adhering to it is dogma. Or doctrine. The idea that human nature is inherently selfish or self-centered is an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western notion that persists today even though so much research and evidence suggests that anything that might be called a “human nature” is malleable based as much on cultural beliefs as anything else. To be told from birth that kindness and affection toward others is most valuable and to see it modeled in families and communities would lead to a powerful belief that human nature is kind and affectionate. You practice what you want to become and model what you want others to emulate. It is simple. But it’s also a choice. Which means decision making is how “human nature” is created. If it was just genetics, then no one could possibly be responsible for any action because no action could have resulted from a decision.

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A few years back, I started studying organizations doing research on harmful algal blooms (HABs) such as the type being found in marine waters and Lake Okeechobee in Florida. I wanted to provide a summary of the focus and scope of the research being done. One sample of the various types of research being conducted included prediction and management of taste/odor compounds in drinking water, cyanobacteria (particularly Microcystis, the type of bacteria composing the bloom in Lake Okeechobee) and related toxins in drinking water. I lost interest because the task was too daunting outside a university setting.

What are the political, financial, and ecological barriers blocking solutions to the problems presented by HABs, though? In south Florida, for example, there is the Central and Southern Florida Project, an engineering scheme of 1700 miles of canals and levees to provide flood protection and allow agricultural development which distorts river flows and changes the natural, more ecologically balanced water flows that had previously existed. This has led to a massive increase in the flow of nutrient-loaded water/sediment runoff (notably nitrates and phosphorus from fertilizers, sewage, and manure) into freshwater and coastal environments. The Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone is the most infamous case of HABs, but Lake Eerie, the Chesapeake Bay, and south Florida are also facing significant HAB problems.

An example of water management with negative unintended consequences occurred in south Florida years ago when a shortage of fresh water flowed into Florida Bay killing 40,000 acres of turtle grass. This was followed by the release of excess fresh water down the St. Lucie which led to the outbreaks of HABs in southern Florida. These two actions illustrate how excessive man-made management overcorrections lead to harmful unintended consequences. This is part of an ongoing cycle of hasty and ill-advised over management of freshwater throughout the U.S. which has primarily been a reaction to century-plus ongoing development in and around water flows which has created unintended (but foreseeable) harmful consequences—harmful in the sense of creating ecological imbalances leading to greater frequency and intensity of HABs.

I scanned through at least a dozen sites with articles or information about what HABs are, their causes, when they occur, and what has been done in relation to water management. Of concern to me is the overwhelming focus on treatment possibilities which involve what seem likely to be another wave of management which has unintended harmful consequences of a different sort. The most obvious solution would be to reclaim private property both for the restoration of wetlands for ecological balance as well as to restrict the application of fertilizer and manure to lands zoned and regulated for agricultural purposes. Another solution would be to investigate sewage runoff and alternatives for sewage treatment, though this seems extremely difficult to change in a way in which neutral or positive effects could be mitigated. This is largely due to the use of advanced technologies to dispose of waste in concentrated urban environments impacting runoff and waterways hundreds and sometimes even over a thousand miles away (in the case of the Mississippi River).

I would like to write more about this topic, but is this the best use of my time? I worked in publishing for 17 years as an indexer of academic texts and I think I’m done with that. Dedicating time and energy to specific issues such as this is to focus attention away from all other possibilities during that time (plus recovery needed after such study and writing). I do not have statistical gauges measuring the effects/usefulness of such endeavors. I will say that studying HABs does enrich my personal life and certainly allows me to build a more comprehensive perspective on the world, especially when combined with efforts I make to integrate such knowledge with other issues in the framework of how the world works. The worldview that develops provides me with insights that seem to be missed within specialized understandings of how the human world functions in relation to the physical world we inhabit.

The overwhelming focus in relation to issues such as algae blooms is related to intervention and production. Research is focused and devoted to reactionary solutions to source problems while source problems are treated as invincible or inevitable when in they are directly the product of legislation, policy, and productive enactment.

Doing nothing—allowing nature to manage the environment while minimizing human-generated impacts—is not considered a plausible solution. This is primarily due to a centuries-long reliance on a particular ideology of scientific/technological, economic, and political humanism that began in earnest during the Enlightenment and culminated most profoundly in the Industrial Age and has continued through the Information Age.

The thrust of this productive development in the Western world has occurred through the economic humanism created and aided by governance humanism. Underlying these ideologies is the belief that humans have conquered and will continue to conquer nature, using resources for the purposes determined by another wave of humanism: consumerism. Underlying these humanisms is the ideal of the individual as an entity of supremacy in relation to all other resources justifying the transformation of the latter into objects of necessity and desire.

One could argue that I am bastardizing concepts of humanism; that may be fair. I am more than willing to use another term to describe the ideologies underpinning the label. That said, what is more pertinent is that these ideologies are so pervasive and have been within our collective psyches that the very idea that changes in economic and governance practices seem absurd. An ideological shift of epic proportions would be necessary to escape our past. That would mean a mass transformation of social identity which would inevitably lead to changes so profoundly foreign that predictability would seem impossible.

One particularly prevalent argument against such profound ideological shifts is the naive argument that the only alternative to the various humanistic worldviews is the Soviet/Maoist models of communism (ignoring some very intriguing northern European innovative developments over the past half century which, to me, represent only the beginnings of epic shifts rather than the culmination of a shift).

The underpinning ideologies in those places post-WWII up until the 1990s were a conglomeration of butchered Marxism that veered much more practically toward totalitarianism and centralized power. Rather than get into the problems with those ideologies, which are largely defunct now in terms of real-world practice, I’ll say only that it is absurd to imagine that the underpinnings of Soviet/Maoist governance and economics fueling resource harvesting and production differ much at all in terms of natural impacts on the real, physical world.

The societal relations and cultural manifestations may have taken a different form on the surface, but in practice were insignificant compared to the Western forms of humanism. All parties engaged in mining, agriculture, technological and scientific development, militarization, land development, and so on. The practices were so similar that it’s doubtful that the most important ideological underpinnings differed in any meaningful manner.

What does all of this mean? How does this help offer solutions related to harmful algal blooms in any way? It provides an insight that I repeatedly try to make in terms of the scope of change necessary to make any noticeable improvements related to sustainability of life in relation to the real-world issues related to resource harvesting, management, development, production, and consumption as well as the impacts such acts have on the environment as well as social and personal life. The narrowness of focus within the personal (from entertainment to belief systems) and the social (from family to politics) guarantees that there will be the type of widespread personal and social focus on the ideological underpinnings limiting identity and practice.

Learning, while it may be playful as I attempt to make it for sustainability of interest, is also challenging work that necessitates sacrifice, discipline, and commitment. A willingness to let go of one’s foundations and to make adjustments in perspective are necessary. This requires a degree of personal and social maturity that is so far beyond the reach of most persons and even further out of reach of society and culture that it is difficult to imagine how this could happen. If it does happen, my guess is that it will occur in non-English-speaking countries. Most likely, northern Europe and very importantly the so-called developing countries which are much more willing to let go of the oppressive ideologies that have been imposed upon their politics, governance, and economics for centuries by colonial powers.

Even if change is unlikely in the West, it is still a civic responsibility to shed past ideologies as well to be willing to give up the “easy life,” the “self-centered life” to do the work necessary to become increasingly open to change, to be willing to share learning, to be open to criticism, and to incorporate practices of kindness and compassion toward those who may never adapt and change in such ways.

I have discovered the only way to commit to this type of life—admitting that I still enjoy my self-centered recreation and leisure as I am not immune from the ideologies that have been embedded in our culture for generations on end—is to continue in my attempts to foster care for others.

It sounds arrogant, but try to imagine spending decades doing this type of work on your own time with no financial reward or significant social acknowledgment while coming to realization after realization that almost everything underpinning what we are doing is off-kilter in relation to reality. We’re in a cycle of perpetual decline—which is completely at odds with the dominant narrative that we have been on a continual upward swing of progression for centuries.

Thus, I choose dada as a coping mechanism related to futility tempered with care about the wellbeing of others. Amsterdam provided a lens through which I could see a different way. I haven’t written much about autonomism or social anarchy, but I experienced them there and may write about them in the future.

I have too often imagined that others partake in the sort of introspection and external examination to the degree that they have made the connections between harmful algal blooms (HABs), racism, feminism, land management, property rights, entertainment, consumerism, and so on, in such a way that they are able to understand the vast complexities of the web of knowledge that make up 99 percent of the iceberg beneath the surface of what I express and share.

Other than becoming a teacher, there’s little way for me to communicate any of this. For all of the blathering about crowdsourcing and the wonders of access to information on the Internet that allows everyone to become scholars and artists, it is all hollow in relation to what is necessary and it is extraordinarily naive to believe that these nascent practices will develop in such a way as to overthrow dominant ideologies invisible to most with results that somehow de-problematize what has been problematized in such a way to enable something akin to a “wiser” problematization of issues which need to be addressed. On the other hand, I can see quite clearly that nature will eventually take care of most of these problems on its own, culling the herd of billions of humans down to hundreds of millions eventually. The latter is a “non-humanistic” viewpoint that often gives me a sense of relief in relation to the futility of civilization’s efforts to coexist with the environment and one another. But even in that mode of thought, I still value learning and despair over the inevitable suffering of billions of humans.

It is personally satisfying to learn and leads to some measure of fulfillment even if nothing worthwhile comes of my learning. It’s an ongoing battle to check my own values and desires in relation to the invisible ideologies and ethics which lurk deep within my psyche. Notice I never brought psychology into play here. The reason being is that I believe psychology is sort of a reactionary response to the mental and emotional ills created by the inhuman societies in which we live and believe, as if production/consumption could be a cycle that satisfies the core of our being, as if sitting in a cubicle was what any of us was meant to do.

I’m not trying to shame any individual in this sense at all. Rather, I am shaming the systems that manipulate us into succumbing, often unknowingly, and even becoming eager to believe in.

Hmmm… I don’t feel this is complete at all, like I’m missing something important before wrapping it up and calling it an end—which is really just a temporary break between projects. I wish everyone would take everything I express as well as everything everyone else expresses as an ongoing sharing of the totality of their being, even if just the tip of the iceberg, because then certain expressions would be considered aspects or manifestations or modes of who I am and each person is rather than the totality they are considered to be.

I recently had an exchange with a person who had a preconceived notion of me and decided to define who I was by one particular expression one particular day and decided that it was the fundament of who I am rather than possibly an insignificantly aberrant aspect of my being, a throw-away moment in the scheme of things even as it did represent something about myself. But if anyone only took the completeness of my postings on dada.blog, ignoring all other communications and interactions we may have, it would become obvious that I have a diversity of interests, a complex personality, ugly warts, extraordinary octaves, aesthetic depth, ethical integrity, recreational picadillos, and so on.

It’s interesting how I had a sense of purpose in writing this when I began and mostly throughout and now that I’m nearly through it seems I’ve completely forgotten what the purpose of this endeavor was. Sharing, I guess. Naive hope for change.

Hmmm … Oh yes! I forgot to wrap up what I was getting at related to psychology. I can tell I’m running out of steam. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that psychology is a reactionary response to a broken society in much the same way building levees and dams is a dysfunctional response to problems of flooding. Building canals to farm in places that were never meant to grow food are another example. Change the underpinning ideologies, change the systems that develop from new and more responsible narratives, change resource management and practices, adjust lifestyle and quality of life expectations, and psychology is unnecessary.

We aren’t genetically designed to be dysfunctional; we are made that way by being forced to fit into a system that ignores our evolutionary reality—we are social and cooperative creatures much more than competitive and self-centered creatures. The latter idea is a distortion created by a particular way of looking at the world that arises from individualist humanism and plays extremely well for manipulation through production/consumption ideology. Psychology is not part of the solution. As a practice, it “corrects” attitudes, beliefs, and behavior to adapt to broken systems. Psychological assistance may be necessary for many to survive in this culture, these systems, but that’s just it: it is particular to these cultural and economic narratives rather than something fundamentally necessary for being human in Western society.

One last thing: I don’t believe the university is the place for me to pursue my ongoing interests and learning. Each field is too specialized, too narrow, resistant to integration, committed to furthering the ongoing narratives, committed to problematizing anything that hasn’t already been subjected to power/knowledge, politically enmeshed in power dynamics, too much a tool of the state and the economic system, and ultimately insufficient in spreading any possibilities for the types of learning I value most.

I did my time earlier in life and I’ve learned so much more outside that system. I’ll never say never for going back if something changes in a way I can’t foresee, if I believe an avenue for meaningful teaching could arise, but I just … this has been my position for two-plus decades and everyone I know who has gone on to receive post-grad and doctoral degrees has shared enough for me to know that my learning and creative projects in life are not suited for that environment. It’s back to Amsterdam for me.