My class on Arendt’s The Human Condition continues, and this week I had a quasi-meltdown as to whether my mission here at Pose Ponder makes any sense. Monday’s Findings drew a lot of traffic, and Anne of Green Places provided welcome consolation. :)

Next installment reading with Dan: Storythinking, ch. 6.

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My class on Arendt’s The Human Condition continues. She’s a challenge to read, but oh so rich. I’ve been posting Notes on various things political and getting distracted. To stay above the fray — or not? What would Arendt do? 😅

Next installment: Storythinking, ch. 5.

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My class on Arendt’s The Human Condition has started, so expect reflection forthcoming. See especially this past week’s post on life options. I also recommend the Byte-Sized History Substack, a video interview with Oren Cass, whom we’ve met before at Pose Ponder, and a long-running resource to learn philosophy online.

And: Storythinking, ch. 4.

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Findings this week included a suggestion for a daily “planetary practice” involving Google Earth, which I’m doing and enjoying immensely! I got a bit preachy about how to read big books. Samantha Rose Hill is publishing 20 key points, one coming each Tuesday, that she’s distilled from a decade of teaching Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism. Dan and I are continuing our reading collab on Fletcher’s Storythinking (ch. 2 this week). And I’m closing out the current three-week publishing cadence with an index of old posts.

There’s also a one-off post that didn’t go out by email: my amateur take on the Supreme Court’s ruling re: presidential immunity.

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This week I shared some new-to-me Substacks on natural history, including plant biology and earth science. and I started a collaborative reading project on Storythinking, the book by Angus Fletcher. In the latter part of the week, I’ve been thinking hard about what’s going on at Breakthrough Insitute and related corners of Substack vis a vis other approaches to political economy in the Anthropocene.

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Storythinking Collaboration

Storythinking with Tracy - by Dan Allosso and Tracy Gustilo (pondercraft.com) cross-posted from MakingHistory.

MakingHistory and Lifelong Learning

Storythinking with Tracy

Storythinking: The New Science of Narrative Intelligence, Angus Fletcher, 2023 Angus Fletcher is an English Professor at Ohio State University in Columbus. He has written extensively on narrative, rhe…

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2 years ago · 2 likes · Dan Allosso and Tracy Gustilo

I feel like I’m rolling out an Agenda these days by pushing for collaboration for the sake of lifelong learning, for the sake of being good humans in the Anthropocene.

It’s funny how the word “collaborate” has both highly positive and highly negative connotations. I guess it all depends on whom you’re collaborating with and to what end. If someone yelled, “You collaborator, you!” I’d be okay with that.

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Thinking of installing solar? You’ll want to check out Live Susty’s guide. I’m continuing conversation with Michael Magoon on material progress. Wednesday’s featured Substack is Taming Complexity, one of my favorites. Thursday’s post was a special essay tapping into the world of MOTH (More-Than-Human), and a Friday index rounds out three weeks’ worth of writing — which means I’m on break and will see you next week!

PLUS. Parts 2 & 3 of my video conversation with Dan Allosso have been cross-posted. You can find those here and here.

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This week I dug into my “findings” curational workflow to share reading suggestions from posts and articles not found on Substack. I spent a lot of time digesting Mortimer Adler’s dense article, “The Schooling of a People,” and writing up my reaction to it, mostly positive — although he evoked a cuss word out of me at one point! ~ Tracy takes on the whole of Greek philosophy!?

The week’s featured Substack is Robin Taylor’s SmallStack project.

Friday’s resource is Anthropocene Magazine.

Plus a special first. I have cross-posted a video of and myself in conversation. This did not go out by email but is on the website only. Here is the VIDEO link.

Finally, an announcement. I’ve added a dedicated domain (pondercraft.com) to this blog/newsletter. I settled on Pondercraft rather than Pose Ponder. — It could be there’s another name change coming up. — Thank you for your readerly patience as the writing here gets sorted!1

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This week I leaned heavily into learning opportunities, with an overview of the Pondercraft “Core,” some thoughts on how to read history, and an opportunity to study Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition this July with Samantha Rose Hill.

The week’s featured Substack was Michael Magoon’s From Poverty to Progress.

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Monday’s post this week starts a new roundup of things I’m reading. Posts on Tuesday and Thursday were original essays. On Wednesdays I’m working to engage with other substackers, this week featuring my prolific friend, historian . Friday’s index links to a handful of light early posts.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear from you.

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Starting this week I’m leaning into the educational mission of Pose Ponder. I brought Pondercraft back in-house vs writing an independent publication. In the process, I’ve turned a bit manifesto-y.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear from you. If you know someone who might be interested in reading Pose Ponder, do share. 😎

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A bit lighter week, only four posts. Nothing too awful heavy, but some thought provokers.

How’s your Spring springing? It’s gorgeous here in New Mexico.

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What a wacky week. This is what I get — what you get — when the publishing cadence is daily. I hope a few things are thought-provoking.

I’d love to hear from you. Likes, dislikes, raised eyebrows?

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A mix of things this week, including literary! I’m traveling, so Monday-Tuesday posts may be late, if they appear at all.

How are you doing? What are you thinking about? I’d love to hear from you.

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Two posts this week focus on political realities surrounding complexity. I very much like the possibility of democratic reform through citizens assemblies. (Go subscribe to . A third post ended up a quasi- little rant on the difficulty of finding an “adequate anthropology for the Anthropocene.”

I’m off next week, so Friday’s post is a new Index, this time gathering posts on “Leviathan.”

(There were only four posts this week.)

How are you doing? What are you thinking about? I’d love to hear from you.

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This week’s posts focus on biomimicry and other idealistic efforts.

In other news, I’ve renamed from The Daily Inchoate to Pose Ponder. Now that there are more than 75 posts available — sort of a proof of concept — I’ll be expanding the vision and re-organizing a bit. You can read more about the name change here.

I’d love to hear from you. How are you doing? What are you thinking about?

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This week’s posts focused on the data scientist Hannah Ritchie, who just published a new book and is a lead researcher at Our World in Data, a fabulous resource for visualizing the state of the world on various important issues from economics to energy to food to population.

Thinking about political solutions to Anthropocene problems is as important as getting a clearer understanding of the issues. To that end, this week I analyzed a debate on the conservative side of the political spectrum between Stephanie Slade, a libertarian writing at Reason magazine, and Oren Cass from the new think tank American Compass.

I’d love to hear from you, if you have comments, questions, suggestions, or encouragement.

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If you know of someone who might be interested in reading about the Anthropocene in a slightly more philosophical way, please share!

This week’s posts dove into the water, tackled the Climate Leviathan book (finally!), announced a new publishing schedule (three weeks on, one week off), and shared a resource index from the past few months.

Have a good weekend and see you in a week!

This week covered problems with banks, liberalism, and emergencies, and I shared three thoughtful articles from on American political culture. I’m still working on Levithan; more on that eventually. What can I say? I can’t resist sharing other things. Also, a YouTuber-physicist you really need to meet.

Have a good weekend!

This week there were three posts on general sustainability issues: mines, junk on the moon, and green business resources; and two posts introducing Thomas Hobbes, author of the famous foundational book of modern political philosophy: The Leviathan. A mix of the practical and (hopefully) thought-provoking.

Have a good weekend!