Divisiveness or Equity

Is it possible the mainstream media publishes fake news and Trump lies routinely?

Is it possible the DNC sabotaged Bernie’s campaign and most Republicans defend Trump only to maintain power?

There is so much hostility between between the two sides of the political spectrum.

But we don’t live in a dichotomy. We actually all live together, if we haven’t noticed. It’s one planet, and we have to share it.

At the basic level, we all want the same things. Let’s build a world in which we can achieve equity in those things. 

Quick and Slow

Let’s not be so quick. Like Marky Mark says in Shooter, “slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” Let’s not be so quick to go back to poisoning our air. Driving down the Santa Cruz mountains yesterday I could actually see the Valley floor and across it to the foothills. It was beautiful.

Let’s not be so quick to revert back to our imperfect system. We have fundamental flaws in our socioeconomic hierarchy, and they will be exposed as we open up—when the working poor will have to choose between going in to work and risking infection versus staying home and healthy but losing their job, the upper class will still be able to work from home. Economies are complicated; all the more reason to have serious discussions about them now.

Let’s not be so quick to inundate ourselves with the flashy distractions we’ve built to divert our attention from our most pressing problems. Leisure and play and relaxation are integral to our wellbeing, but we must be cognizant of their nature, costs, and consequences.

We can build a better future. We just need to ask the right questions and have the right conversations. Let's not be so quick to give up on changing the world. Slow is smooth, and in the long run, smooth is fast.

SIP Musings

Nearly the end of April and California is nowhere close to being done with SIP. The testing capability just isn’t there, and although the state is further along the curve than others, we’re probably not close to re-opening, according to the data we’ve collected and the criteria created.

Maintaining a routine definitely helps. It’s been hard for me to get up early when I don’t really have to, but I’ve noticed that often you’re tired whether you get up early or go back to sleep and sleep in for another hour. Might as well get up early and see what you can get done. Regularity keeps you going.

Staying in touch makes it easier as well. I’m so happy I’ve kept in contact with old friends I reconnected with along the road while traveling. When you hear about how the situation is unfolding in other places in the world, it pushes you towards a larger perspective.

And finally, contemplating a new normal fuels hope. Things might be bad right now, but the situation has also (hopefully) made clear that our previous ’normal’ was deeply flawed. Now that we’re all having a shared experience, and mostly having the same conversation, perhaps we can drive towards a better future for all.

Movement and Gratitude FTW

I’m reminded by a quote I came across from way back when I would frequent Reddit every day: “Was it a bad day or just a bad 5 minutes that you milked all day?” Yesterday I definitely struggled with the latter. And sometimes it can be hard. For as much as I talk about collectively changing the world together, there are times when I’m just not happy or just plain don’t feel well. There are 2 things I’ve found that have helped the most—exercise, and a return to gratitude. 

Sweating, and getting as close as you can to your physical limit, just helps get it out. Science has been clamoring to figure it out over the past few decades—we release endorphins, our hormones change, we actually sweat out any toxins in our body, the movement gets our heart pumping and blood flowing. All I know is movement works.

The second one, a return to gratitude—now that sounds a lot like hippie nonsense doesn’t it? But I mean ‘return’ in the sense that when we’re upset or agitated, it almost feels like our mind is in a different place. If we inch towards a place of gratitude, where we can truly feel grateful for the current conditions and circumstances of our life, we move away from that tormenting place. It requires you sit with it, and that can often be painful. But as you sit with it, you realize you can’t deny how much there is to be grateful for. You can’t deny how amazing the simple fact that you’re alive is, alive in this wondrous thing we call the universe, on this amazing planet with all its narwhals and wildflowers. And suddenly, those agitations and feelings of torment feel very small and insignificant, compared to the grand source that is physical reality.

As Alan Watts said, we are under no obligation to be who we were five minutes ago. With exercise and gratitude, we return to our basic freedom of being human and contributing to the universe. Let’s change the world.

Our Universal Purpose

The start of a new day, a new week, a new future. What will it be? Humanism, sustainability, reason, equity...these concepts have been crescendoing into a unified global movement for thousands of years. How will you be a part of it? Perhaps it’s the election in November. Maybe it’s holding yourself accountable to being informed. Possibly it’s just having an important conversation with someone. It could be so many different things. Each of us can contribute in our own way; the point is to contribute. That is our purpose: to contribute to our species, to our world, and ultimately, to the universe. 

The Choice

Billions of years of galaxy development and planet formation. Millions of years of evolution. Thousands of years of hard-earned knowledge, passed down to those after. All of it led to this right now. We not only stand on the shoulders of giants, but benefit from so many things going right, so many things working out in a certain way. We have the technology now to sustain change, and to accelerate it. It just starts with a choice. What is yours?

How Bad is it

How bad was it today? Consider...there are probably, literally, billions of people who’ve had it worse. I struggle with it. We grow accustomed to our environment, our habits... but far away... there’s no semblance of equity. It’s up to us to change that. We can, and we will, change the world. 

Just Keep Swimming

One of the most powerful yet succinct lines ever to come from a kids’ movie: just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Whatever waters you’re navigating, just keep swimming. No matter the storm, no matter how far the land, just keep swimming.

Your friends probably want to get together because it’s been so long. The weather is getting nicer. Shelter in place has even become normalized, and boredom’s weight is ever increasing. Just keep swimming. 

We want to be able to say to our children and grandchildren that we did what was right; that we protected our healthcare workers and the most vulnerable, that we sacrificed for others and became closer because of it.

The forecast has been bleak, and it remains uncertain. Just keep swimming. We still don’t know so much. Just keep swimming. People are dying and the world is reeling. Just keep swimming. We will overcome all this, the world will be better, if we just keep swimming. 

One Pandemic, One Moment, One Opportunity, One World

Every person is facing a different situation right now, and in that we are all unique. However, regardless of our individual circumstances, we are all affected by this pandemic, as it concerns the whole world—we all share this experience.

Right now is our collective moment. It is humanity’s opportunity. It's our chance, the chance for each of us to clearly determine what is most important. What is the one big thing each of us can focus on? What makes us feel alive?

This pandemic is granting us the opportunity to reset and reconfigure our lives toward our wildest dreams, to the most ridiculous goals we’ve ever considered. It’s providing us the opportunity to decide how we want to treat each other, how we want to live. It’s giving us the opportunity to become one world.

The rest of our lives begins now. The future of the world starts right now. All we have to do is ask ourselves: What’s important to me? What must I achieve before I die? How can I contribute to this one world?

Earth Day: Our Responsibility to the Planet

Today serves as a great reminder to realign our focus, but every day is Earth Day. We are noticing lockdown’s beneficial effects on the environment—the skies are clearer, the animals are returning. But these changes won’t last if we revert back to “normal” and plow onwards in stubbornness or unawareness. 

Climate change is humanity’s number one threat, not the Coronavirus. Because of us, it is also millions of other species’ greatest threat. We are slowly garnering attention towards this issue, and we are making some progress. But not enough.

Earth is the only home any of us will ever know. It is the only home our species has ever had. We must treat it for what it is—a sacred miracle. If we all consider our actions and how they affect the planet, rapid progress can alter the current course of catastrophe and extinction.

Make no mistake, those are the stakes.

Let’s make every day Earth Day, because every day is a day on Earth. It’s such an incredibly beautiful and utterly amazing world; we must change our ways to keep it that way. 

Hope in Extraordinary Times

I had a thought yesterday—that one day, right now will be remembered as the good ol’ days. Even with shelter-in-place, with being separated from loved ones and not living the life we are accustomed to enjoying, life is still grand.

Sure, these are extraordinary times we are living in. Unprecedented. Awesome, in the pure sense of the word. Did any of us even imagine today’s world? Yes, it’s horrible. People are sick, people are dying. Coming to terms with that hurts your soul on a very visceral level. But this pandemic can also serve as a great teacher.

Look how far we’ve come as a species. Things were not perfect before Covid-19, far from it, but they were still an infinite improvement on daily life in the 1800s, or the Middle Ages, or 2000 years ago. We have made great progress. Hopefully this pandemic can shed some light upon that reality. Hopefully the pandemic also brings us closer together. Hopefully it makes plain that we are one large group of primates spread across the surface of a floating sphere in space. That we are all interconnected; this interconnectivity flows through every living thing on this planet.

This pandemic is revealing how “ordinary” people can be heroes. Our healthcare workers are proving the word ‘duty’ isn’t solely owned by the military. “Ordinary” people are demonstrating we do indeed live in communities, that it’s possible, even when it’s difficult, to be a good neighbor. I walk the sidewalks, adorned with uplifting chalk messages drawn by children, filled with hope.

Hope that we see. Hope that we learn. Hope is contagious. Spread it. We can do this. We can emerge from this global crisis stronger than before, more connected than before, more committed to our ideals than before. We can emerge with a greater sense of humanity, with more collective discipline and more resolve. We can change this world. It starts with a little bit of hope.

To Choose Change

Can we transcend our biology? Can we learn from history?

The human race can accomplish much if it collectively decides its convictions.

These extraordinary times we live in are the greatest opportunity we’ll ever have.

Do we choose change?

Home is where the Bay is

I’ve moved around a lot since my early 20’s, but being back in the Bay during this pandemic has given me some reflection time. Born and bred in the South Bay, when I returned home from college I began to realize how much the area has changed over the years. With the dot com bubble and the subsequent dominance of Google, Apple, Facebook, combined with the rise of startup and VC culture…Silicon Valley and the greater Bay Area is a different place than where I grew up. 

Traffic, pollution, and housing prices have all grown exponentially, the homeless population has ballooned out of control, and the influx of thousands of transplants has changed the local demographics and culture. These are the most cited and begrudged changes people mention, and they are very real. These endemic problems are serious challenges and will require a lot of determination and collaboration to solve.

But the Bay is still a very cool place, and indubitably a unique one. People here are accustomed to studying and using data to make decisions—it’s ingrained in the work culture here—and you can see how the region has applied this habit to fighting the pandemic. There's an incredible amount of diversity throughout the entire region; people have been immigrating to San Francisco and its surrounds for more than a 150 years. All the different subregions exhibit their own qualities and vibe: from The City to the East Bay, from the North Bay to the Peninsula to the Valley and the South Bay, one might wonder how each place is so different. People innovate here, and take risks, and work really hard, and produce a lot of value for the world. People here believe in change.

Most of all for me though, the Bay is home. Regardless of where in the world I’ve lived, my center has always been San Jose, California. I’ve experienced a lot of different environments and lifestyles, and I’ve learned that none of them are perfect. Everywhere has pros and cons…but not everywhere is home. I am so incredibly fortunate to be born and raised here. I might not live here forever, who knows, but I do know this pandemic has given me the opportunity to appreciate home. Home is special, and we should work to protect it, to keep our world amazing and beautiful.

The Power of Learning

We have the technology and infrastructure, even in some of the least developed places in the world, to make continuous learning a basic component of society. Through online platforms, we can supplement child education around their in-person schooling, but we can also ensure people of all ages regularly learn new content relevant to the constantly changing economy.

Imagine if every child received phonics and reading instruction leading up to primary school. Imagine if every teenager took financial literacy courses before graduation. Imagine if every adult had access to updated, industry-specific information throughout each year. How much more aware, prepared, and smarter would we be as a global society?

Through e-learning, it’s also possible to build informed, active citizenship. What if we created a remote class on the history of democracy, or an online survey course on different voting mechanisms? Many Americans don’t know much beyond their own two-party system of the Electoral College and plurality voting. Many people around the world have never even been exposed to democracy. What if everyone from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea to Louisiana had access to such courses? How much more invested would we be in an equitable, prosperous future?

The internet isn’t quite there yet in all regions of the world, but we're working on it. Within the foreseeable future, it will be possible for almost all people to reliably get online. Imagine if every human on the planet—regardless of nationality, age, gender, location, language or culture—engaged in learning every day. What if new knowledge became a given? How would our world change? There’s only one way to find out.

Being OK with Change

In a way, this has been chaos. More than many ways. How are we dealing with it? Are we resilient in the face of change? Data and disinformation and boredom aside, it’s important to look at how we handle change—on a personal, communal, societal, and global level. Because when the pandemic is over, change will still be here. Let’s right our ship now to better face future storms.

Rejecting Normal

Everything can be normalized, even a pandemic. Zoom hangouts galore, and we still aren’t getting our fix of social interaction. There’s the revealing power of routine in our daily lives, now that we’re conscious of it. And there’s the great struggle for balance: can you stay current on current events without becoming addicted to the media machine? Can you be productive, contribute to society and the world, and still live an interesting adventure?

It’s a strange, strange world. But it was before all of this started, and besides, it’s also a beautiful, amazing one. We are what we think about. We embody what we do. Our choices and actions encapsulate who we are.

All of this comes to the fore when you awaken at dawn and experience the rising morning light. We are one species of millions on a planet among billions in the Milky Way, just one galaxy of trillions in the universe. Even in shelter-in-place, life is pretty amazing.

Stay away from normal. We are anything but ordinary.

A Shooting Star kind of Life

I don’t presume to know what happens upon death, whether there is an “after.” What if life is finite? What if there is no afterlife or reincarnation?

Would there be a purpose to life? If the theorized heat death of the universe is true, is it all a waste? Where’s the meaning if everything is temporary?

I would answer that we can derive meaning simply because it’s temporary. We have one life, one short period, to make meaning. The only way to matter is to impact others.

Even if it’s only in a shooting star kind of way, every single person who chooses to do good makes the universe better for those after. When enough people do that all around the world, the sky is magnificently lit for all to enjoy.

World War Z to Ours

I finished World War Z by Max Brooks yesterday, an insightful critique on modern society. Sure, the book uses the allure of zombies to capture your interest, but that’s not really what it's about. Just take a look at some quotes:

“Oh, c’mon. Can you ever ‘solve’ poverty? Can you ever ‘solve’ crime? Can you ever ‘solve’ disease, unemployment, war, or any other societal herpes? Hell no. All you can hope for is to make them manageable enough to allow people to get on with their lives. That’s not cynicism, that’s maturity. You can’t stop the rain. All you can do is just build a roof that you can hope won’t leak, or at last won’t leak on the people who are gonna vote for you.’”

“Ignorance was the enemy. Lies and superstition, misinformation, disinformation. Sometimes, no information at all. Ignorance killed billions of people.”

“…it means that, in politics, you focus on the needs of your power base. Keep them happy, and they keep you in office.”

“You can blame the politicians, the businessmen, the generals, the ‘machine,’ but really, if you’re looking to blame someone, blame me. I’m the American system, I’m the machine. That’s the price of living in a democracy; we all gotta take the rap. I can see why it took so long for China to finally embrace it, and why Russia just said ‘fuck it’ and went back to whatever they call their system now. Nice to be able to say, ‘Hey, don’t look at me, it’s not my fault.’ Well, it is. It is my fault, and the fault of everyone of my generation.”

“Confidence, it’s the fuel that drives the capitalist machine. Our economy can only ruin if people believe in it; like FDR said, ’The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’”

“Be nice if that was the lesson people took from all this misery. We’re all in this together, so pitch in and do your job.”

“Anyone around the world, anyone you talk to, all of us have this powerful shared experience.”

“I know I come off as a little too optimistic, because I’m sure that as soon as things really get back to ’normal,’ once our kids or grandkids grow up in a peaceful and comfortable world, they’ll probably go right back to being as selfish and narrow-minded and generally shitty to one another as we were. But then again, can what we all went through really just go away? I once heard an African proverb, ‘One cannot cross a river without getting wet.’ I’d like to believe that.”

Wow. Especially now, more than ever, we need to reflect on these statements. We need to reflect on the state of our world. Our society was not harmonious before the outbreak—will we ensure it becomes so when this is done? Will we learn anything from this?

I highly recommend Brooks’ social commentary. To read about a global pandemic during a global pandemic—it really illuminates our focus. We can change the world. Do we want to? Will we take the responsibility upon ourselves? It’s up to us...

Morning Investment

Watching a positive YouTube video can be a great way to generate motivation in the morning. Investing just 10 minutes of your time can deeply affect your outlook and production for the rest of the day. It helps you angle your lens toward the big picture. Here are 3 great places to start. I was particularly moved this morning after watching  one and decided to write down my convictions:

I am deciding right now—I refuse to give in to the negativity and destruction in the universe. I choose to be a part of something greater than myself. I choose to leave the world better for those after me. I recognize my actions are my greatest gift to others, that my positive actions of good will ripple into the future after I am gone. I choose to live, to strive, and to sacrifice for others. 

Will you join me?

Easter Rebirth

I’ve always been ambivalent about Easter. I don’t identify with the religious portion, but culturally it’s been a part of my upbringing. It’s bright colors and often the start of Spring and it almost serves as a mini New Year’s. What are we going to do this year? It’s been 3+ months, so what are we really going to do this year? It’s kind of a real gut check, along with the rebirth. My family has always made a big deal about Easter, so it’s a big deal for me. Yes we are what we think about, but we are also majorly influenced by who we spend time with. I’m fortunate to be sheltering in place with my most important people. If you’re reading this, you’re fortunate—there are millions of people without internet. This Easter can serve as a true planetary consciousness, a global rebirth. We just have to recognize it’s one world. What are we going to do this year?