Some things I want to remember from What We Owe the Future:

Direct action and campaigns are important tactics for drawing attention to issues.… But they should be designed to lead to conversations, collaboration, and negotiations, not destruction of the enemy.” Revolutionary beliefs; cooperative behaviour.

We are now living through the global equivalent of the Hundred Schools of Thought.

We should also worry about gross moral errors that we haven’t yet even considered, that are invisible to us, like water to a fish.

What we want to do is build a morally exploratory world: one structured so that, over time, the norms and institutions that are morally better are more likely to win out, leading us, over time, to converge on the best possible society.

The new directors orientation, a whole day of presentations by Maine State library people, happened to be on the first day of Commonground. Maybe next year they will have it on Christmas. It was all about networking for me and about figuring out who public library people are. As a group they are not like school people or business people or church people; there is a lot more room to be different than in those groups; they are collegial and eager to help; they are smart and well-educated but not academic. Tattoos are ok, the dress code is casual to self-chosen-uniform to artsy statement. Our regional coordinator told me that the Commission (state committee that makes decisions) will meet in late October and that our library will be considered for membership in the state system. We call this the Grail. Many good things flow from being in the system. At the library we are in a busy schedule of offerings including an art opening (Arlene Hulva), three author readings, story times and STEAM bites, and the First Wednesday book group.

It was glorious to get Commonground Fair back. There were some changes and a few things missing, but I loved every minute of the sensory overload, the fall garb that borders on costuming, the crisp air. We did the train on Saturday, and went early on Sunday and parked close to the alpaca folks, had breakfast sandwiches and coffee there before and had Stone Fox Farm salted caramel ice cream on the way out. I posted the usual veggie porn pictures from Commonground, but the one that that got questions and comments was the the pollinator hotel pic; it was not a familiar idea for some.

Markers: hurricanes Fiona and Ian; electric lawn mower.