Many years ago, I was having breakfast with Sir Laurens van der Post in Santa Monica. At one point during our long conversation, I asked him what was the most important thing he learned in the Kalahari. Without hesitation, he said: “The power of the small.” I asked him to elaborate. He then told me that if he was focused on seeing the lion, he would most likely get eaten. But if he focused on the bugs on the ground, the breeze, moving the reeds, the sounds in the air, the changing color of atmosphere, then he would know when the lion was near, though could not yet be seen. That had saved his life many times.

As I was remembering this, I wondered how we might apply this idea to the biggest things coming at us: climate change and AI. I wondered, if we focus on these big things only, do we neglect taking in the small.

So what are the small things we need to notice?

The alliance between AI developers, tech corporations, multi-billionaires and deliberate governmental failure, insures that nothing will be done about the dangers of AI, because profits are the driving force. The knowledgeable voices calling for extreme action NOW, are having no impact. The history of the world uniting against existential threat of extinction is not promising. We are facing an inevitability that is rapidly becoming a reality.

Today, I am remembering this earlier post.

Russell’s Sentences

Doing What a Dream Demands

The very idea would strike most people as silly, ludicrous, nonsensical.

I do not take demands from anyone easily.

Well, maybe from my wife, Frankie.

But from a dream?

Actually, I do so quite often.

But not easily.

Not just demands, but suggestions, hints of direction, and other such.

Several plates are laden with dream tasks.

But the dream was clear.

Write in single sentences, no gathering of sentences into paragraphs.

Reminding me of a literature professor who declared that a close reading of any text required rewriting the text as single sentences.

Something akin to not seeing the trees for the forest, in a reversal he was known for.

Don’t be surprised then to see me write something in lonesome sentences.

Satrurday Memory for ASugust 15, 2026

It was 1956. I was a freshman at USC. I had a work-study job in the Computer Science Laboratory. USC had just received shipment of the IBM 305 RAMAC computer consisting of many modules taking up a whole room. It was IBM’s newest main-frame. My job was punching data into punch cards, loading paper into the printers, putting labels on tape canisters from the tape drives, and other such tasks. Some of the people that were in the lab were consultants from the Rand Corp[oration, whose headquarters was in close-by Santa Monia. I was invited to join them for lunch-time discussions. Among things discussed were artificial intelligence (AI). The term was not yet generally known, having been coined only the year before by John McCarthy, a mathematician at Dartmouth. But even before the word was coined, Rand Corporation was working on the mathematical and computer tools that were making artificial intelligence possible and manifest. A good bit of this was happening in the USC lab. Rand was one of the few places that was working on AI in the world. One thing that stands out in my memory is what one of the consultants told me. He aid, “Pay attention to AI. Do not ignore it.” I wish I had paid more attention . In many ways I was there where and when AI was born. I did not have the presence of mind to really understand the implications. Years later, in 1969, I was a professor at UC Santa Barbara. I was in the lab when the first ARPANET was executed between UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, and the University of Utah. This was the first physical manifestation of what later became the “internet.” I was there. Again, I did not have the presence of mind to foresee what it was that was being born. In 1972, while I was in training to be a Jungian Analyst, I had a dream referring to these two aspects of my earlier life. The dream called me an “uncomprehending witness.” That, I cannot deny.

Acupuncture. The vision started in the usual way, but the scene was less colorful than usual, somewhat gray. Nothing happened for a long while and then a white bird appeared and flew about the stage, the tower, and over the seats where I was sitting. I watch the bird fly about and then Orogine’s voice asked me, “What do you see?” I answered: “A bird flying about.” “Well, yes, but what else?” I respond: “Just the bird nothing else.” Orogine: “You don’t see the pattern the bird is flying?” I say, “No, but I am watching that now.” This scene is repeated with a butterfly, then a bee, then a spider, a snail, and a sow bug. This was followed by a cat, a squirrel and a lizard. With each new animal, I saw the animal as well as the pattern it was moving in. Then Orogine said: “Good. Now think of dreams, thoughts, feelings and intuitions. You must learn to see the patterns that these things move in, like the animals.” At this [point the session came to an end and was followed by the strong energy boost. In addition, I experienced a strong feeling of wellbeing.   

On the way home from school. Running across a field. I fell. I fell on a broken bottle of Clorox. I cut my right hand badly. It was bleeding profusely. I got up. I looked deeply into the gaping wound. I was fascinated by the inside of my hand and what I saw there. I got home. I couldn’t find mom. So, I went next door and showed by hand to Rocco, my Communist mentor. He was in his shorts. [When I was younger, that’s what I thought a Communist was.] Nonetheless, he took me to the emergency room. They worked on my hand and it took a long time with the stiches and all. At the time, I was often speaking with a British accent. In response to Rocco’s note he left for my mom, she rushed in to where I was being treated. I said, “Well, here’s my bloody mother!”

Thought for the Day – August 5, 2026

Acupuncture. The scene began with an unusual light. It was a kind of white light, soft and highlighting the whole scene. This had never happened before. I then saw a stream of gemstones that formed a cone, with the stones covering it all around. A voice asked, “What do you see?” She was not present, but it was the voice of Orogine. I told her, and she said “no.” The gemstones disappeared, and I then saw nothing. She said that you cannot see the shape of energy until matter takes on the shape. The gemstones appeared again, and I could see the cone-shaped surface covered with them. Orogine said I needed to understand that energy forms in shapes and then attracts matter to that shape. She then said that I would need to work on the obvious questions. What factor or force causes energy to form shapes? What draws matter to the energy shape? What is that forms matter? There was then a sequence of different shapes that could not be seen until matter was drawn to them. Orogine said I would need to think hard about these questions. She said that she and Tonarius would help me but not until I put in some real effort. Then she said I needed to understand the most important thing. That what I had just experienced was also true of thought. Thoughts, like energy, formed in shapes but could not be experienced until the shapes attracted…attracted what? Orogine said: “Guess it.”

I called her to make an appointment. That was easy enough. However, I forgot to ask her where her office was. When I called back, quite embarrassed, to ask for her address, before she told me, she said, “this is a very promising way to start. You don’t know where to go.” Hilde Kirsch was always coming up with these odd angles of reply, quite different than the norm.

I’m recalling a time in 1950, as I recall, during the off-season in football, when Bob Waterfield of the Los Angeles Rams played with us kids on our street in LA. He was one of the best quarterbacks in the National Football League, and it was a lot of fun to have him play with us. I can’t remember why he was in our neighborhood, but it was a joy, for sure. I was not yet 12. I recall him being very funny and full of humor. As teens, or almost teens, we were impressed that he was married to Jane Russell.

Dreams are stories, fragments of stories, or invitations to story. Analysis, interpretation, and efforts at understanding are types of stories, but they are different from the story potential of dreams.