In Praise Of Primitive Societies

All societies are consumer societies,
the more they consume
the more they dream of further consumption
and after having temporarily finished consuming
all they have are their dreams
as pale reflections that will be lost
of the vibrant life that there once was.

The more we mine our unconscious
through drugs alcohol and entertainment
the more infinite the seam of greed
that we collectively live by.

Even the best of the outsiders to all this
can never get far enough outside of it
to both survive
and be in balance with their environment.  

The Market For Ideas

I like the way ancient Greek philosophers
described the market places they walked through
-as places where they would exchange ideas
at least much as buy the food stuffs they lived on.

I much prefer that notion over 'the market'
as conceived 2000 years later by Adam Smith,
where money is the only means of exchange
and the only idea is the value of goods,
relative to each other as mediated by money.

Smith's market is a place where people and ideas
are worth what people will pay for them,
before they are left to rot, and lose all value.