Among all artists, writers alone suffer the illusion that the world needs to hear what they have to say.

I thought that line, or something like it, came from Rollo May, probably in The Courage to Create. But a search within that book says no. ChatGPT and Gemini both tell me May didn’t say it anywhere.

Still, I think it’s true that writers write because they have to. They can’t not write. It’s what they do, how they live. And I’m one of them.

The need to write is for me a vivid fact this morning, a few days past a catheter ablation on my heart. There is so much I need to say, because I suffer the illusion that the world needs to hear it. Does it?

I am sure C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein had the same affliction. I am also sure that the world is better for having read both of them, even if the world could have lived without their writing.

As for time, I have had twelve more years to write than Lewis got, so far, and five less than Tolkein.

Time to say what?

I want to say that personal AI will do far more for all of us than what we will ever get from AI as a corporate service. And to say it better than I just did.

I want to say that we will do better with rulers who care about people than with rulers who merely rule. And to say that better than I just did.

I want to complete the work of John McPhee by reporting as best I can what has happened to the great characters that anchored every one of his essays and books. But that project is not on the back burner. It’s in the fridge, where I’ve kept it for decades (while continuing to read the entire McPhee oeuvre, much of it repeatedly).

Speaking of burning, I am impelled by Dylan Thomas, who wrote “Do not go gentle into That Good Night,” before dying at just thirty-nine. The poem was for his father:

Old age should burn and rave at close of day,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And so I do.

“The combined collapse of biophysical, cultural, and economic systems will have profound implications for the human psyche. Indeed, the pressure already put on our ecology and the climate has exerted stress on many people worldwide as climate chaos, extreme weather, radically altered landscapes, and various forms of pollution hit hard.

Within a period of earth history known as the Anthropocene, the dominant role humans play at a planetary scale has enabled us to exceed many of the biophysical boundaries that would have us conduct our economies within what has been described as a ‘‘safe operating space.’’ The ‘‘unsafe’’ biophysical space that we are creating for ourselves will have its correlates in a self-generated unsafe psychoterratic (psyche-earth) space. Identifying and documenting the negative impacts of the Anthropocene on the psyche will be one of the important roles for ecopsychology.

In order to avoid further transgression into unsafe spaces and to retreat from those already entered, we need to move out of the Anthropocene as soon as possible. Ecopsychology can help us do that by showing the way for a positive reintegration of the psyche and the ecology.

Such positive reintegration will only become possible if children and adults currently alienated from nature and natural processes can see the benefits of rapidly moving out of the Anthropocene and playing a constructive role in the creation of what I have called the Symbiocene. The Symbiocene will be that period in the earth’s history where humans symbiotically reintegrate themselves, psychologically and technologically, into nature and natural systems.”

Adapted from, Glenn A Albrecht (2014) Ecopsychology in the Symbiocene. ECOPSYCHOLOGY  VOL. 6 NO. 1. MARCH 2014

Image: Fire fighting at Duns Creek, NSW, Summer 2019 by Glenn Albrecht

Even though I have tracking turned off every way I can, I still see ads for hearing aids all over the place online. I suppose that’s because it’s hard to hide when one occupies a demographic bulls-eye.

They’re wasted anyway because I’ve done my deal with Costco. Consumer Reports top-rates Costco’s best offering, and that’s what I’ll pick up later this month when I’m back in Santa Barbara and can go to the Costco store in Goleta. (There are none here in Bloomington. Nor a Trader Joe’s. Since those are our two dessert island requirements, we suffer.)

I’ve had my hearing tested at Costco three times: in 2019, 2021, and last month. Each test looked roughly like what you see in the audiogram above, which is a test I did in September with my new Apple AirPods Pro. (2nd Generation). I got those because they kinda work as hearing aids. (In “transparency” mode. If you have them, give it a try.) The main problem with the ‘pods is that they tell people I’m not listening to them. Also, they tend to fall out of my head.

As you see from that audiogram, my hearing loss is moderate at worst. And that notch at 4 kHz is at least partly due to tinnitus. At all times I hear several separate tones between 4 and 7 kHz at a volume that runs between 30 and 60 db, depending on the time of day and how much I’ve been exposed to loud sounds. (Amplified concerts, lawnmowers, and vacuum cleaners crank my tinnitus up to eleven, for hours afterward.)

Since my hearing loss doesn’t test as severe, each Costco audiologist hat tested me has recommended against getting hearing aids. (Their tests were also far more complete than what I got from my otorhinolaryngologist, whose office also pitched me on hearing aids costing upwards of $5k.)

The hearing aids won’t help my APD, and certainly not my ADHD (which actually isn’t that bad, IMHO). But they also won’t hurt. We’ll see—or hear—how it goes.