GreenMan Substack Podcast

The grave title evokes images of treachery, of pirate ships on the high seas and dramatic historical events. A mutiny is a violent act of rebellion and betrayal. And yet, some historical mutinies may have been justified or inevitable. I wonder if such metaphors can shed light on our inner landscapes and unseen internal power-struggles. Over time, the main focus of my writing has shifted from the m...

What was so compelling about the movie, Bladerunner? I was changed by this movie, despite rewatching and finding it slow 25 years later. I'll blame screens and my ADHD. Obviously it was well cast and acted. There were huge, memorable scenes and much novelty and exposition. The Film Noir feel set a gloomy mood: darkness, rain, endless night and disconnection. An urban future dystopia that spoke of...

I’ve been writing essays for ten years, 5 in earnest. I began writing about insights that came through me. Some inner voice would urge me to speak on a subject; politics, our culture, the arts, philosophy and personal development were the main subjects. I see how we exchange ideas via social media and other interactions. We often adopt ideas and stances when one of our preferred thinkers presents...

People are dynamic. But deeper, people are a collection of cells, of bacteria, of memories, of the genetics of their forebears. We are singular and we are collective. Together we make couples and families and neighborhoods. We are part of counties, states, nations and a planet. All of these collections of people are entities themselves. They have collective voices and desires, trajectories and des...

As a nuanced thinker, I like to debunk false binaries. Memes can present us with false choices that can be socially divisive and easily falsifiable. Life is full of grey areas and context. And yet, sometimes binaries are appropriate. Two books have had an outsize effect on me: Power VS Force and Love is Letting Go of Fear. Both books about binaries written by men who wanted to help show people the...

Let that sink in . That phrase keeps coming to mind. I think we're so task-oriented that we move on to the next challenge or class, the next problem, the next fault. What we often forego is looking around and assessing with gratitude and admiration, the fruits of our labor. We might forget to take stock of what we just accomplished and how we've grown. If we did, we might notice that we slayed a d...

I always appreciated the idea of the soul fragment. It's easy to visualize. We then consider the notion that we experience traumatic events which dislodge soul fragments, which leave our energy body getting stuck in a place and time. Perhaps what we call stored 'trauma' is the cement that holds the remaining fragments together. It hardens and keeps the soul mirror from disintegrating, but perhaps...

Not so long ago, the picture below was our national reality. And yet so many urge us to wash away these memories and to burn the books that tell stories that make certain people uncomfortable. Let's not learn about Tulsa. Let's not try for diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Let's ship off those migrants to camps and back into harm's way in the nations they left out of necessity. Doe...

The Song "Streets of Philadelphia' by Bruce Springsteen, popped into my head last night. The movie 'Philadelphia' came out a long time ago. I was a senior in high school. It was about an HIV-positive gay man and his interaction with a hostile society. What a different time that was. We were debating 'Don't Ask, Don't tell' in the military. That was Bill Clinton's effort to move the needle to the l...

I was musing about the 'con' in con-man lately. It's obviously short for confidence. The con-man sells you something false, empty or non-existent. We get glamoured by his confidence. We eat it up. He could sell us anything: snake oil, Trump Steaks, a degree from Trump University, we could donate to the Trump Foundation. But those were the wares he offered when he was merely a grifter on the econom...

Thanks for opening this email. Please enjoy my writing and consider supporting me in any of the following ways: like, subscribe, share, comment and consider being a paid subscriber at $5 per month. It helps! I can listen to a podcast and ruminate about a happenstance and then a salient insight comes up and ties these disparate events together . I then run over to the computer to save and plant and...

I don't remember where I learned the term, but it stuck with me: probably an English or Film class. This morning as I awoke, the term 'suspension of disbelief' came to me.  I'm sure it's in part because I have been watching Marvel Movies lately.  I was imagining Iron Man and thinking how silly it was that we could see him inside his suit.  It doesn't make sense, but that's where we have to suspend...

Hello and thanks for reading and subscribing. I’m sorry for the recent delay in articles. I’ve kept busy and have more articles to come. Please consider being a $5 per month paid subscriber as this helps. Please like, comment and share 8) After watching Avengers End Game, some good insights came up. One is that mythology can inspire us.  Another, that these movies have amazing casting.  All the be...

As always, thanks for reading my posts. If you enjoy them, please: like, subscribe, comment, share and consider being a paid subscriber for $5 a month. It helps me and affords you a recorded version of the writing for your convenience. This essay was a Facebook post I wrote in 2022.  I’ve been meaning to discuss the idea and figured this would be a worthy foray into the subject. I see friends and...

Thank you for reading and/or listening to my personal take on the issues of the day. If you enjoy these, please like, subscribe, share and consider being a paid subscriber at $5 per month. It makes a difference 8) I wrote a few years back about racism. There I made a seemingly pedantic distinction between racists and people who are racist. I argued that some people may hold racist beliefs, but do...

Racism has been defeated in key battles in US history, but the war seemingly never ends.  The Civil War was a pre-action to Lincoln’s presidency, where the South believed Lincoln would free the enslaved people.  So Confederacy attacked first. The North eventually won and over 600,000 Americans died.  This was a gigantic backlash to the idea of expanding rights and freedoms to a minority group that...

“A vote is a kind of prayer about the kind of world you want to live in,”  said Senator and Reverend Raphael Warnock. With so much cynicism and disinformation, it's easy to want to sit out politics.  That's where this quote from Reverend Warnock finds us.  Teetering on the edge of a cliff.  The demagogic dreamweaver would have us believe we are in a nightmare that only he can wake us from.  And ye...

I keep seeing political signs and Facebook posts saying, ‘We won’t go back.’  I say Amen to that.  But the fact that we have the luxury of looking in the rear view mirror at a 1 term Trump administration may be our saving grace, in the long run.  Most autocrats win the election and then gradually consolidate power until that power is absolute.  Then they either go to war, start a reign of terror,...

Often my focus in writing is about digging into an issue and finding the intellectual flaw that holds it together.   Usually ideas come in the form of insight where I get an ‘aha’ moment and I see the error of a particular stance or the misleading message from a propaganda network.  Other times I may be describing an experience with a person where I notice poor argumentation. Fallacies, biases, ma...

I love writing and sharing my insights and perceptions. If you enjoy this writing, would you please consider doing one or more of the following? Subscribe, like the article, share an article with friends or consider being a paid subscriber. It’s just $5 a month but it helps. Thanks 8) We often criticize each other for wallowing in self-pity. The connotation is clearly negative. But is this fair? T...

I was playing my guitar the other day and randomly started playing the Star Spangled Banner , albeit poorly.  There was absolutely no Jimi Hendrix Woodstock version being channeled.  As an aside, playing other people's songs can be moving.  There's something about how it feels when a song comes out of me that makes it more personal and tangible.  I often feel enriched.  I first noticed this while...

Beware those that flatter your sensibilities. They’re usually selling you something: literally or figuratively. Sit with that for a moment. We love being flattered. We eat it up. We love being the good guy, the hero, the cowboy in the white hat. And we can be manipulated into making poor choices by those who would take advantage of us via the age-old technique of flattery. Propaganda can influence...

Sometimes the battle within mirrors the battle without.  And it doesn't have to be a battle, but sometimes it is.  Right now our nation is in a  battle: a war of ideas, a war on our capacity to make sense, to know what is true and who is who. With so much at stake, it sounds hyperbolic but the mundane truth is that we have to choose what we stand for and who will lead us.  But deeper, we must deci...

I almost forgot to post my one-word dream last night. They can fade so fast from memory. I think I had been asking what to do about my many interests juxtaposed with my need to make money and provide value. An answer came to me in the form of a word. That word, if it is one, was 'portrayer.' I saw the outlines of transparent letters of the word on a floral backdrop just before I awoke, That's ofte...

I wrote this 2 years ago at Thanksgiving.  It couldn’t possibly be more apropos right now as we gear up for the most important election in our history. I'm fascinated by how we have had comedic news shows that lampoon the news for 50 years; about as long as I’ve been alive.  Since the news segment on Saturday Night Live, starting in the mid 70s, we've had jokes about the news presented to us in a...