During his acceptance speech today, Biden quoted Ecclesiastes 3, which starts off as such:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. …

Twitter has updated some of its rules for the upcoming election:

Twitter will impose new warnings on politicians’ lies, restrict premature declarations of victory and block calls for polling violence or other disruptions, the company announced Friday as it rolled out wide-ranging changes designed to harden the platform against abuse related to the Nov. 3 U.S. election.

With election day looming, Twitter imposes new limits on U.S. politicians — and ordinary users, too — Settle Times

This is very good news!

Trump (and Pence) have repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transmission of power after election day. Another way of saying this is; they believe if they lose, they can get a lot of Democrat votes thrown out (by casting doubt on mail in ballots) and re-jiggle the numbers so they win. …

I was recently social-distance camping with a sweet young woman who was telling us about her very conservative, very Christian family. She loved them a lot, it seemed, but she was sad because they didn’t accept her. They thought everyone should be like them, she said, and they disapproved of people not living the same Christian life as them.

I’m not sure how conservatives look at liberals, really. I actually don’t know many American conservatives, and British conservatives are different. But, how it feels to be a liberal right now, funny enough, feels like what the conservatives always say is going on — it feels like “our way of life is under attack.” …

I suspect Trump is going to win re-election, mostly because of gerrymandering and voter suppression. Just like last time, I expect him to win the electoral collage and lose the popular vote. The photo above, however, gave me a good laugh — because in my experience, Trump supporters are neither silent nor in the majority. Yet, that doesn’t seem to be the story they’re telling themselves.

The story they’re telling themselves is, despite Trump gaining power against the votes of the majority of Americans, is that the Trump supporters are the oppressed ones. …

When I was in my mid 20s, I realized I was suicidal and that it was ok. In a way, the act of recognizing it and accepting it was the first step to overcoming it. Nothing held joy for me, the world looked grey, I didn’t want to live. And… that’s just how things were. So long as I tortured myself about how horrible it was and how broken I was, the more my suicidal ideations deepened.

But, the rational acceptance of my state opened up new avenues. I started meditating and going to the zen center, I started therapy. And it took a long, long time — but about one year later I wasn’t suicidal anymore, and about 5 years later I wasn’t depressed anymore. …

The video of the old man getting knocked down by the police really upset me; I don’t really know why, after all the shit that’s been on the news I’d been starting to feel numb. Perhaps it was just how the police refused to help him afterward, even though they knew he was bleeding:

There are also several protestors at this point who have lost their eyes to police rubber and wooden bullets, and I just find that so sad too — especially the young people. …

I sat down to write a blog post, to get some degree of order out — at least in my head — as to what the fuck is going on, and honestly, I got no idea. I got no idea, and I think anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.

What the fuck is happening?

What are people angry about? Yes, George Floyd dying, but not just George Floyd dying. Like, black people dying, old people dying, working class people dying, health care workers dying — sick people dying.

A lot of people are dying right now.

And, a lot of people don’t care. …

“Killing the ego is the only thing to accomplish,” Ramana Maharshi said in one of his talks. “ Realization is already there. No attempt is needed to attain realization. For it is nothing external, nothing new.”

There are many spiritual traditions, both old and new, where some version of this advice crops up again and again; ego is presented as the obstacle between us and enlightenment, and getting rid of it is the one thing we need to do to see what reality is all about, man. …