{"id":29119,"date":"2026-10-21T17:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T00:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=29119"},"modified":"2026-10-21T17:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T00:46:16","slug":"what-would-be-the-cure-for-being-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/10\/21\/what-would-be-the-cure-for-being-human\/","title":{"rendered":"What Would Be the Cure for Being Human?"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Jim Palmer&#8217;s six existential realities that humans try to escape&#8230;;<\/li>\n<li>Short items: Fox News provides the conservative need for the panic of the day, or month; even National Review calls out Trump as shameless; Pete Buttigieg on how Republicans take credit for Democratic projects; and how Christian Nationalists are plain about their intentions to &#8220;seize power.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>I briefly noted this piece back on 9\/24. Let&#8217;s spend a little more time with it today. What does he mean by &#8220;trying to escape&#8221;? This goes to the core of his metaphysics, which I still haven&#8217;t exactly figured out.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!sO90!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4ba40d7c-77a1-44d7-a614-3014e1118759_1536x1024.png\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Jim Palmer, Deconstructionology, 23 Sep 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/jimpalmerauthor.substack.com\/p\/there-is-no-cure-for-being-human\">There Is No Cure for Being Human<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;The Six Existential Realities We Spend Our Lives Trying to Escape&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s 37 screens long, on my big laptop. Just write a book and be done with it! Let&#8217;s see if we can find his six.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s part of his preface:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As Existential Health becomes established as a field of health, there is necessary work to be done defining its concepts, developing its theoretical foundations, examining its applications, and subjecting its claims to serious scrutiny. I have published an academic paper on Existential Health in a peer-reviewed journal, completed Volume One of the Existential Health White Papers, and am currently working on Volume Two, which explores the field across applied domains.<\/p>\n<p>That work is important. But I also don\u2019t want us to overthink or complicate what is ultimately at stake.<\/p>\n<p>At the center of Existential Health is something almost embarrassingly simple: our relationship to being alive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is intriguing. Can humans ever understand existence and reality without resorting to childish religious myths? To Palmer&#8217;s point, what does it mean to be human, if it means trying to escape being human?<\/p>\n<p>(Oh wait, he does have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Practice-Being-Alive-Modern-Humans\/dp\/1067281746\">a book<\/a>. I saw it before, when it was only available as an ebook. Even as a paperback, it has signs of being self-published. I&#8217;ll check it out anyway.)<\/p>\n<p>So, here&#8217;s the paragraph where he identifies his &#8220;six existential realities&#8221;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I have begun thinking of six in particular as existential givens: meaning, mortality, insatiability, isolation, uncertainty, and suffering. I do not mean that these exhaust the human condition, nor that every philosophical tradition would name them in the same way. They identify a territory every life eventually encounters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sections of this long essay expand on these six, with these subheadings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Meaning and the Absence of a Final Explanation<\/li>\n<li>Mortality and the Life We Cannot Keep<\/li>\n<li>Insatiability and the Problem of Enough<\/li>\n<li>Isolation and the Distance Between Us<\/li>\n<li>Uncertainty and the Desire for Ground<\/li>\n<li>Suffering and What Cannot Be Made Right<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And then,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Our Elaborate Attempts to Escape<\/li>\n<li>Existential Exposure<\/li>\n<li>The Historical Moment We Are In<\/li>\n<li>Capability Is Not Capacity<\/li>\n<li>A Different Understanding of Health<\/li>\n<li>There Is No Cure for Being Human<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;ve addressed some of these issues myself, via insights from science and philosophy. Palmer is a lapsed evangelical megachurch pastor. Does he have any insights from science and philosophy? Not that I can tell. Even so, or rather to the point, he is thoughtful enough to see through the shabby rationalizations of the common religions.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise today, I have only reports from the current ongoing civilizational crisis.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mediamatters.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/scale_w1024\/public\/download-40.jpg?itok=FEIdcJ22\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Media Matters, Matt Gertz, today 21 Oct 26<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediamatters.org\/fox-news\/french-riots-are-new-hunters-laptop-which-was-new-migrant-caravan-which-was-new-ebola\">French riots are the new Hunter\u2019s laptop which was the new migrant caravan which was the new Ebola<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;On Monday, Fox covered the riots every hour from 5 a.m. to midnight \u2014 a total of more than 2 hours of airtime&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Conservatives need something new to be frightened about every few weeks or months, and Fox is happy to provide.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Even the high-end conservative magazine is calling him out.<\/li>\n<li><strong>National Review, via JMG today<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2026\/10\/national-review-trump-has-no-capacity-for-shame\/\">National Review: Trump Has No Capacity For Shame&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Noting a familiar pattern.<\/li>\n<li><strong>LGBTQNation, today 21 Oct<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lgbtqnation.com\/2026\/10\/pete-buttigieg-skewers-gops-habit-of-taking-credit-for-democrats-projects-in-one-powerful-sentence\/\">Pete Buttigieg skewers GOP\u2019s habit of taking credit for Democrats\u2019 projects in one powerful sentence<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;You can always count on your Republican congressman to take credit for something they voted against.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>They say it out loud.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, yesterday 20 Oct<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peoplefor.org\/rightwingwatch\/white-christian-nationalists-will-gather-texas-lay-out-battle-plans-seize-power\">White Christian Nationalists Will Gather In Texas To Lay Out &#8216;Battle Plans&#8217; To &#8216;Seize Power&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jim Palmer&#8217;s six existential realities that humans try to escape&#8230;; Short items: Fox News provides the conservative need for the panic of the day, or month; even National Review calls out Trump as shameless; Pete Buttigieg on how Republicans take &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/10\/21\/what-would-be-the-cure-for-being-human\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-nature","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29119"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29121,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29119\/revisions\/29121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}