Thanks for painting a hopeful, and compassionate picture of people and our shared future Max. Focus and the frame of view you share helps us to keep making small daily contributions and share gratitude that loosens the creeping hopelessness that can paralyze us and snatch the joy from our lives. You have added joy to my life today, thank you .
My favorite of your writings. She was obviously a light. As are you. I find it hard to trust people even though I know I can trust 9 out of 10. What I don't trust is our institutions. Those can dull even the most loving of us. It will be worse as we struggle with ecological collapse. People will be blind to it and will strike out in fear. Be careful folks.
What a lovely tribute. The ethos of your grandmother echo what I've been reading in Paulo Freire's book today...to recognize and to really experience each other in order to learn, to connect our humanness.
Interesting! I was just reading my first bits of Paulo Friere recently, from "Pedagogy of Hope." I resonated with some of what he wrote, such as:
"When it becomes a program, hopelessness paralyzes us, immobilizes us. We succumb to fatalism, and then it becomes impossible to muster the strength we absolutely need for a fierce struggle that will re-create the world.
I am hopeful, not out of mere stubbornness, but out of an existential, concrete imperative.
I do not mean that, because I am hopeful, I attribute to this hope of mine the power to transform reality all by itself, so that I set out for the fray without taking account of concrete, material data, declaring, “My hope is enough!” No, my hope is necessary, but it is not enough. Alone, it does not win. But without it, my struggle will be weak and wobbly. We need critical hope the way a fish needs unpolluted water.
The idea that hope alone will transform the world, and action undertaken in that kind of naïveté, is an excellent route to hopelessness, pessimism, and fatalism. But the attempt to do without hope, in the struggle to improve the world, as if that struggle could be reduced to calculated acts alone, or a purely scientific approach, is a frivolous illusion. To attempt to do without hope, which is based on the need for truth as an ethical quality of the struggle, is tantamount to denying that struggle is one of its mainstays. The essential thing, as I maintain later on, is this: hope, as an ontological need, demands an anchoring in practice."
Appreciate your reply, thank you. Freire does not read as polyannish in "Pedagogy of the Oppressed". However, I would interpret hope as a byproduct from Freire's teaching oppressed students to understand their own agency & in that understanding see an ability to create change regardless of race, gender, class, etc.. If ever the time, read or listen to the Intro. from the 50th Anniversary edition by Macedo.
I neve knew either of my gandmothers; I was an "ooops" baby and they'd recently passed on. But I have to admit I feel at least a little of your Bama in my heart and hope I can pass it on. Beautifully written , with the understanding of people and life you share with us. Thank you.
You are such a great writer max! Thanks for sharing your art with the world.
Thanks, Rose! ❤️
With words as your pigment, you painted a great artist. In her footsteps, indeed! Thank you Max!
Thank you Silvie.
Thanks for painting a hopeful, and compassionate picture of people and our shared future Max. Focus and the frame of view you share helps us to keep making small daily contributions and share gratitude that loosens the creeping hopelessness that can paralyze us and snatch the joy from our lives. You have added joy to my life today, thank you .
Thanks Rob ❤️
My favorite of your writings. She was obviously a light. As are you. I find it hard to trust people even though I know I can trust 9 out of 10. What I don't trust is our institutions. Those can dull even the most loving of us. It will be worse as we struggle with ecological collapse. People will be blind to it and will strike out in fear. Be careful folks.
Wow, thank you for the kind words. I definitely agree. The institutions have momentum, the vast majority of it in the wrong direction.
Thank you for sharing. Gathering and embracing the lessons of love are gifts without measure.
Thank you K. I completely agree.
So lovely Max, thank you. YOU make me want to believe in people.
Every once in a while you'll meet a good one tucked into the last campsite at a certain state park.
That is so damn beautiful.
I'm glad you appreciate it, Jennifer, and I know how much art means to you.
What a lovely tribute. The ethos of your grandmother echo what I've been reading in Paulo Freire's book today...to recognize and to really experience each other in order to learn, to connect our humanness.
Interesting! I was just reading my first bits of Paulo Friere recently, from "Pedagogy of Hope." I resonated with some of what he wrote, such as:
"When it becomes a program, hopelessness paralyzes us, immobilizes us. We succumb to fatalism, and then it becomes impossible to muster the strength we absolutely need for a fierce struggle that will re-create the world.
I am hopeful, not out of mere stubbornness, but out of an existential, concrete imperative.
I do not mean that, because I am hopeful, I attribute to this hope of mine the power to transform reality all by itself, so that I set out for the fray without taking account of concrete, material data, declaring, “My hope is enough!” No, my hope is necessary, but it is not enough. Alone, it does not win. But without it, my struggle will be weak and wobbly. We need critical hope the way a fish needs unpolluted water.
The idea that hope alone will transform the world, and action undertaken in that kind of naïveté, is an excellent route to hopelessness, pessimism, and fatalism. But the attempt to do without hope, in the struggle to improve the world, as if that struggle could be reduced to calculated acts alone, or a purely scientific approach, is a frivolous illusion. To attempt to do without hope, which is based on the need for truth as an ethical quality of the struggle, is tantamount to denying that struggle is one of its mainstays. The essential thing, as I maintain later on, is this: hope, as an ontological need, demands an anchoring in practice."
Appreciate your reply, thank you. Freire does not read as polyannish in "Pedagogy of the Oppressed". However, I would interpret hope as a byproduct from Freire's teaching oppressed students to understand their own agency & in that understanding see an ability to create change regardless of race, gender, class, etc.. If ever the time, read or listen to the Intro. from the 50th Anniversary edition by Macedo.
Thank you, Angela!
I neve knew either of my gandmothers; I was an "ooops" baby and they'd recently passed on. But I have to admit I feel at least a little of your Bama in my heart and hope I can pass it on. Beautifully written , with the understanding of people and life you share with us. Thank you.
Thank you!
Sweet story. How fortunate you are to have had such a grandmother.
She was a blessing for me. Thank you, Naima.