Oh man. I'm home sick for the first time in a long time, and being stuck on my back with only a few phone calls to occupy my time has left my mind a-wandering. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling well so actually writing anything substantial feels like too tall an order, but there are so many things I wish I could write. A short list follows.

• Systems Thinking is Easier Said Than Done: my real-world experience working to understand a semi-complex system (Pantheon) via a torrent of data, compared and contrasted with what I imagine it's like to try and actually understand how real complex systems (economies, ecosystems, etc) work.
• Something Something White Male Privilege: collected thoughts on why it's so hard (but still incredibly vital) to critique the people who still run the world with bonus sauce being that I'm undeniably one of the people who still run the world so hey what's that all about then.
• Status vs Solidarity: comparing and contrasting the deep-seated human desire to attain status and privilege with the equally embedded desire to be a part of something larger. Also, how a culture which idolizes celebrity and "success" skews too heavily towards status, resulting in bazarre forms of solidarity. Also too how the alienating affects of the service industry and inequality in general don't help.
• At What Point In Our Slide Towards a New Globalized Pseudo-Feudal System Do You Start Playing The Game and If So What Does That Game Look Like? (self explanatory)
• Red Dawn Rationalizations: another iteration on my "the end of the world isn't coming" theme, deepening the observation that rapture oriented thinking generally prevents effective action both individual and collective.
• The Inevitability of Geoengineering: in light of a pessimistic view on climate change and the above, a plea to the left to get ahead of this coming conversation rather than being reactionary.

So, pretty much I seem to be thinking about:

1. The difficulty of complex systems, both personal and planetary.
2. Inequality, injustice, and inefficiency in our lives and around the world.
3. The pressing need to get better at these things in the face of a coming squeeze.

I could go on and get mildly melodramatic and political — opining about the sorry state of our democracy, etc — but I guess I've mellowed somewhat in my age. That could be a nice post in and of itself, actually. But I digress.

Maybe I'll return to one of these topics in the future!