This is an EXCELLENT piece: thank you for all the layers you address with the kind of aplomb that instills confidence in the reader to listen to their own intuition—not fear—and live in pursuit of beauty rather than anxiety or reactivity to the ugly.
Yes, ask what are we for, rather than against and don’t don’t waste time on, and certainly don’t make excuses for what is outside the big three Transcendentals. We don’t need empirical evidence that ugly makes us sick if we make choices for beauty. It’s all so much bigger anyway. But JT, is this a return to the transcendent Purple Powerade bottle that welcomed you home. This complicates things. Sometimes the ugly is transformed by meaning and moment, but we should never base upon that a new artistic movement. We tried that already.
Of course not. Frontpage news is either slop designed to catch an audience and sell papers; or it's serious journalism, carefully reported and fact-checked and clear of an editorial board. The microplastic narrative itself is a contagion narrative, it gets the people going, it sells papers. The correction isn't nearly True enough yet to clear an editorial board, this is just one paper. It made a big splash in the "reads academic papers for fun" crowd, the academics and science education hobbyists, but the story is far too new and too nuanced to go mainstream.
One is most fulfilled when living with intention. If your environment is full of cheap plastic crap you will also feel diminished as you explained. I once read that wood is actually the most valuable and scarce substance in the universe because it required billions of years of evolution to even exist. I try to get things made of wood or stone whenever possible for my home. The materialists would argue there is fundamentally no difference between eating dinner off of a paper plate with plastic utensils and eating one off of fine China. But the lived experience itself is different in a way that's difficult to quantify but basically boils down to self respect. The more you settle for the cheapest quickest option in any given situation in your life, the more diminished you will feel over time as you are not living in service to your higher self, but merely surviving. Life is meant to be joyously lived and celebrated, not trudged through numbly. Shame so many people are lost and cannot see that, but your narrative approach to the problem is brilliant. We must provide an alternate story for those modernity and capitalism have failed or the species as a whole is probably doomed.
Same, everything else that exists, including every element in our bodies was originally forged in the heart of dying stars millenia ago. But wood was a biological miracle that as far as we know only exists on earth. Photosynthesis is literal magic on earth. We should be worshipping the trees, not using the black magic we now call science to turn the poisonous black goop that was once the bones of dead dinosaurs into Tupperware. Every piece of plastic that exists is an avatar and a totem to the environmental destruction that was required for it to exist. Outside of like specific medical and scientific contexts that genuinely require plastic there is hardly anything we use it for that could not be replaced with something less harmful overall.
Never believe anything that isn't settled science. Something that's been debated and written on for decades. When something new like microplastics is discovered it takes time to put it in its proper context and this is the phase we are undergoing now.
Obviously science never settles perfectly and we often believe things that are completely wrong for long periods of time. But it's foolish in the extreme to believe initial reports on anything before a large number of studies and experiments have piled up.
kinda like “if it walks like a duck….” we know that it’s bad in our soul. science just hasn’t caught up to Leviticus yet. you drilled down right to the sweet spot.
Plastic is not Anton Chigurh. It’s not a relentless hit man with a Beatle haircut. Plastic is a tool. It keeps my lunch ant-free at work, among a million other uses. Like any tool, it can be misused—but the answer is not fear of a “polymer grave.” Terence McKenna put it well: “Science got us into this mess, and science will get us out of it.”
Plastic is not just a tool - it says something about the person using it. Sometimes that means it’s good and beautiful and sometimes it means you are treating yourself like a tool.
This is amazing, like something I've been quietly living with for years but never really talked about. The feeling that the world is increasingly made of plastic, saying to me, here, this is good enough for you, this is all you're worth. It's depressing.
I once, in the early nineties, got a Coke from a vending machine in one of those old, thick, hourglass bottles, and I kept that bottle for years, like a relic. Today I search for mayonnaise and vinegar in glass bottles and jars, going without if I can't find it. I'm quietly but stubbornly just refusing to be surrounded by plastic, because I'm worth more than that. We all are.
Ya, I always figured the microplastic thing was probably bullshit. So for that matter is most of the garbage problem. There's plenty of room on land for most garbage; the problem is flushing it into water and into the sea; leaching; etc. The problem is more the destruction of wilderness than incursions by garbage landfills around its edges. There's a tendency to focus on small problems, in particular ones that may feed body neurosis.
Note from Caspian Blue: Last time I checked we don’t get our info from our philosophy department on contamination but it will be an interesting test in the future of XXX.
Lovely piece. Thanks. Not sure about unbridled acceptance of Wall-e though. My instinct is that to do so will not create beauty. But, FWIW, I still grieve for all the beautiful, hand-loomed fabrics never created when those nefarious machines were introduced in Yorkshire all those years ago.
I am picking up what you are putting down, here, and in fact, have been feeling myself reaching for these words in the sphere of my own mind, but hadn’t quite found them in the dim light of my one remaining incandescent. If there is any truth that has captivated me these last many, it is that our perception of our reality is the driving force in how our physical bodies respond to our varying stimuli, and it too can be altered, or perhaps lain by, if we are cognizant of that fact.
My deep thanks for your thoughts. A shiny penny for them, in fact. ✨
Amazing how many of us crave for the ignorance is bliss alternative when this author didn't even offer it positively,just the possibility that the danger is exaggerated due to testing limitations and potential contaminations..it could still be more accurate or not.
We have decades of metal particulates testing at similar ranges of size and we know from those bio tissues and brain are contaminated to certain levels and that some metals are showing up lodged in brains and don't have the testing dilemas of plastics and w new research showing a retention rate of 30 to 65 percent once in brains and a storage mechanism to brains of over 6x over other particles non metallic or plastic it shows similar patterns maybe not not so surprisingly w over half the plastics containing magnetite ,copper and aluminum to bind it better!( Perhaps why drawing plastics towards brain,ie electrical conduction like factors?etc).
This is a subject to erre on side of caution not fantasy bliss out max potentials people seeking ways to relax..don't relax where the real fights are at by adequate evidence plus too much risk,come on!
Things like sharp edged 220 nanometer particles avg polyethylene matching thick glass like particles when crushed ..try it..shampoo bottles perfectly need to be focused on as well as info showing oils and chemicals and plastics can penetrate the skull bone in animal http://studies.search methadone and sesame seed oil penetrates animal skull to brain..most shampoos and conditioners have oils and emulsifiers as well as nano tech now delivery chemicals.. hello! Also large factor seems to be sharpness of material plus small 200 to 300 nanometer size causing it to wedge into brain and not wash out like most material does daily,nightly..
This is an EXCELLENT piece: thank you for all the layers you address with the kind of aplomb that instills confidence in the reader to listen to their own intuition—not fear—and live in pursuit of beauty rather than anxiety or reactivity to the ugly.
Love to see my exact intent verbalized. Thank you.
And thank YOU for your content. I'm a fan.
Yes, ask what are we for, rather than against and don’t don’t waste time on, and certainly don’t make excuses for what is outside the big three Transcendentals. We don’t need empirical evidence that ugly makes us sick if we make choices for beauty. It’s all so much bigger anyway. But JT, is this a return to the transcendent Purple Powerade bottle that welcomed you home. This complicates things. Sometimes the ugly is transformed by meaning and moment, but we should never base upon that a new artistic movement. We tried that already.
Fascinating... somehow this wasn't blasted as front-page news everywhere?
“Actually, not that bad. Carry on.” is not exactly gripping news.
"Actually the story everyone's been telling for years might be the result of a giant cock-up" is fairly gripping to me though
Of course not. Frontpage news is either slop designed to catch an audience and sell papers; or it's serious journalism, carefully reported and fact-checked and clear of an editorial board. The microplastic narrative itself is a contagion narrative, it gets the people going, it sells papers. The correction isn't nearly True enough yet to clear an editorial board, this is just one paper. It made a big splash in the "reads academic papers for fun" crowd, the academics and science education hobbyists, but the story is far too new and too nuanced to go mainstream.
One is most fulfilled when living with intention. If your environment is full of cheap plastic crap you will also feel diminished as you explained. I once read that wood is actually the most valuable and scarce substance in the universe because it required billions of years of evolution to even exist. I try to get things made of wood or stone whenever possible for my home. The materialists would argue there is fundamentally no difference between eating dinner off of a paper plate with plastic utensils and eating one off of fine China. But the lived experience itself is different in a way that's difficult to quantify but basically boils down to self respect. The more you settle for the cheapest quickest option in any given situation in your life, the more diminished you will feel over time as you are not living in service to your higher self, but merely surviving. Life is meant to be joyously lived and celebrated, not trudged through numbly. Shame so many people are lost and cannot see that, but your narrative approach to the problem is brilliant. We must provide an alternate story for those modernity and capitalism have failed or the species as a whole is probably doomed.
I love real wood beyond what can be explained.
Same, everything else that exists, including every element in our bodies was originally forged in the heart of dying stars millenia ago. But wood was a biological miracle that as far as we know only exists on earth. Photosynthesis is literal magic on earth. We should be worshipping the trees, not using the black magic we now call science to turn the poisonous black goop that was once the bones of dead dinosaurs into Tupperware. Every piece of plastic that exists is an avatar and a totem to the environmental destruction that was required for it to exist. Outside of like specific medical and scientific contexts that genuinely require plastic there is hardly anything we use it for that could not be replaced with something less harmful overall.
Fuck humanity has really lost its way.
Never believe anything that isn't settled science. Something that's been debated and written on for decades. When something new like microplastics is discovered it takes time to put it in its proper context and this is the phase we are undergoing now.
Obviously science never settles perfectly and we often believe things that are completely wrong for long periods of time. But it's foolish in the extreme to believe initial reports on anything before a large number of studies and experiments have piled up.
kinda like “if it walks like a duck….” we know that it’s bad in our soul. science just hasn’t caught up to Leviticus yet. you drilled down right to the sweet spot.
I question everything I'm told to fear, and that's a lot.
One could paper their walls with warning signs of what's out to get you next.
"FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER"
This quote should be taken very seriously. Protect yourself from mindless FEAR. Use your mind to investigate all the threats and warnings.
Yes, there are things we need to fear. Intelligent humans know what these things are. This is exactly what makes them intelligent.
Plastic is not Anton Chigurh. It’s not a relentless hit man with a Beatle haircut. Plastic is a tool. It keeps my lunch ant-free at work, among a million other uses. Like any tool, it can be misused—but the answer is not fear of a “polymer grave.” Terence McKenna put it well: “Science got us into this mess, and science will get us out of it.”
Plastic is not just a tool - it says something about the person using it. Sometimes that means it’s good and beautiful and sometimes it means you are treating yourself like a tool.
This is amazing, like something I've been quietly living with for years but never really talked about. The feeling that the world is increasingly made of plastic, saying to me, here, this is good enough for you, this is all you're worth. It's depressing.
I once, in the early nineties, got a Coke from a vending machine in one of those old, thick, hourglass bottles, and I kept that bottle for years, like a relic. Today I search for mayonnaise and vinegar in glass bottles and jars, going without if I can't find it. I'm quietly but stubbornly just refusing to be surrounded by plastic, because I'm worth more than that. We all are.
Well said.
Ya, I always figured the microplastic thing was probably bullshit. So for that matter is most of the garbage problem. There's plenty of room on land for most garbage; the problem is flushing it into water and into the sea; leaching; etc. The problem is more the destruction of wilderness than incursions by garbage landfills around its edges. There's a tendency to focus on small problems, in particular ones that may feed body neurosis.
Note from Caspian Blue: Last time I checked we don’t get our info from our philosophy department on contamination but it will be an interesting test in the future of XXX.
Nice one.
Lovely piece. Thanks. Not sure about unbridled acceptance of Wall-e though. My instinct is that to do so will not create beauty. But, FWIW, I still grieve for all the beautiful, hand-loomed fabrics never created when those nefarious machines were introduced in Yorkshire all those years ago.
I would never accept a Wall-E future if I can help it, Lynne.
I am picking up what you are putting down, here, and in fact, have been feeling myself reaching for these words in the sphere of my own mind, but hadn’t quite found them in the dim light of my one remaining incandescent. If there is any truth that has captivated me these last many, it is that our perception of our reality is the driving force in how our physical bodies respond to our varying stimuli, and it too can be altered, or perhaps lain by, if we are cognizant of that fact.
My deep thanks for your thoughts. A shiny penny for them, in fact. ✨
Amazing how many of us crave for the ignorance is bliss alternative when this author didn't even offer it positively,just the possibility that the danger is exaggerated due to testing limitations and potential contaminations..it could still be more accurate or not.
We have decades of metal particulates testing at similar ranges of size and we know from those bio tissues and brain are contaminated to certain levels and that some metals are showing up lodged in brains and don't have the testing dilemas of plastics and w new research showing a retention rate of 30 to 65 percent once in brains and a storage mechanism to brains of over 6x over other particles non metallic or plastic it shows similar patterns maybe not not so surprisingly w over half the plastics containing magnetite ,copper and aluminum to bind it better!( Perhaps why drawing plastics towards brain,ie electrical conduction like factors?etc).
This is a subject to erre on side of caution not fantasy bliss out max potentials people seeking ways to relax..don't relax where the real fights are at by adequate evidence plus too much risk,come on!
Things like sharp edged 220 nanometer particles avg polyethylene matching thick glass like particles when crushed ..try it..shampoo bottles perfectly need to be focused on as well as info showing oils and chemicals and plastics can penetrate the skull bone in animal http://studies.search methadone and sesame seed oil penetrates animal skull to brain..most shampoos and conditioners have oils and emulsifiers as well as nano tech now delivery chemicals.. hello! Also large factor seems to be sharpness of material plus small 200 to 300 nanometer size causing it to wedge into brain and not wash out like most material does daily,nightly..
You should read more carefully.
But I have always wanted to be Plastic Fantastic..
:(
My god you are a good writer.