Political Effort

Opinions disagree all the time. What about you!? I’ve asked myself that question  many times. Our responsibility doesn’t start or end with a date. It’s a continuous effort, that we need to maintain. Who said it was easy? 

Modern Life Restart

Time passes. We get older, we turn into our habits. The days can blend together. Such can be modern life. We enjoy lives of such incredible privilege that we become far removed from the Earth, from the feeing of being alive. How to combat this? Wander. Explore. Refrain from consumption. Our brains reset, and we return to the majesty that is the natural world in the present moment. 

Election Work

I read the 8 tips on Five Thirty Eight on how to stay sane over the next 8 days until the election. They were good tips, but I think the key is really just  to vote. I’ve made my decisions and submitted my ballot, and I received confirmation that it was received and will be counted. With only consuming the news on Monday’s and Friday’s, there’s now very little time for me to stress or absorb more information. I’ve done my civic duty; doing your part helps put you at ease. I’ve now done the work for the immediate future; the rest starts when the new officials are elected. We must hold our officials accountable and encourage new incentivizes within our political system so that it works for all of us, not just the elite. Voting is step one. The next fifty steps start in January.

Fine Line of Hope

Not that he first proposed the actual thought experiment, but Barack Obama had a great point when he declared, “If you had to choose one moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn’t know ahead of time who you were going to be–what nationality, what gender, what race, whether you’d be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you’d be born into–you wouldn’t choose 100 years ago. You wouldn’t choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You’d choose right now.”

We certainly have our problems, and it will take a lot more than effort or humility to create the solutions, but the fact remains that’s a true statement. We live in a world more free, more fair, and more just, than any time before. Is it 100% free, fair, or just? No. Breonna Taylor. No, the Uyghurs in China. No, there are human rights violations around the world.

And yes, it’s incredibly easy for me to comment on all this as a straight white male American in California. But we’ve made progress, and I try to do my part in perpetuating the progress previous generations have made.

There is so much work to do. But there is also so much to be grateful for—can we thread the needle? Can we do both?

Voting is a Duty

Today I voted and submitted my ballot for the US general election. It was work, even with how much ballots and the voting process has been improved over the years. Deciding on local propositions can be tricky, and voting for people is precarious at best. But the point is not for it to be as easy as possible, even though we are well on our way there. The purpose is to enact your civic duty, your responsibility as a citizen of this country. Our political system, the economic marketplace, society... they are the result of what we choose. The real work begins once our elected officials take office, but voting is a fundamental duty of living in this country. What kind of country do we want to be? What type of community do we want to live in? Our voting and our voices determine the possibilities.  

One Year of Blogging

My whole issue is action. I think about things a lot, I read a lot of information, and I learn a lot of new things, which is all well and dandy, but I don’t do enough. I don’t take action and thus don’t see dividends on the change I want to see. 

That’s why I’m proud of blogging every day for one year. The anniversary is today, October 23rd. It was exactly a year ago, in Tanzania, that I realized, “I have no excuse for not blogging every single day. What is preventing me from publishing my writing each day? Nothing. Let’s go.” 

So I made a commitment to myself that I would submit my ideas, thoughts and feelings to the public every single day. It’s perhaps the biggest, most tangible, long-term promise to myself I’ve ever followed through on. 

The first 5 months of blogging were done while traveling the world, which made it much easier to think of interesting topics because I was experiencing so many cool things. And it was encouraging that I was able to blog anywhere in the world—Kenya, Cambodia, Laos… the world is becoming more connected, and basically everywhere has internet. In many ways that’s a great thing.

It got harder once I returned home and was confined to my home because of the pandemic. There were so many days, somany, that I didn’t feel like blogging. That I didn’t want to face the pressure of publishing my writing. I did it anyway. I took action. Sometimes it wasn’t very good; a lot of my posts, in my eyes, suck. But I did them, and it gave me practice; practice at pressure writing, at developing voice, at figuring out my topics.

So now the big question is, "What now? What's Year Two?" Well, it’s been long overdue that I build some better functionality and a more intuitive user interface into this site. That will be a short-term focus. But I think the elephant in my mind that’s been glaring at me for quite some time is audience. I vow in this second year to no longer be afraid of building my audience. I have to learn how to do it, and it will be challenging. But as I asked myself one year ago today, “So what? Why not? Do you really want this?” The answer is an emphatic yes. I look forward to delivering even more over the next year. Because I believe in the ideas I put forth. I believe we can build a better world together.

To those of you who have been reading this from the beginning, thank you. This has been a transformative journey for me, and I can’t wait to see where the next stage of metamorphosis takes me. In a very meaningful way, you have been along for the ride with me since day one, and I’m forever indebted to your belief and encouragement.

To one more year of producing content. To one more year of trying to raise global consciousness, unite humanity, and inspire change. We can change the world.

On the Shortness of Life

Life is short. That’s the saying. Make that extra effort for your loved ones. Reach for that dream job you really want. Explore new places and meet new people and learn new things. As you get older, you rapidly realize that an 85 year average isn’t that long. There’s a balance to being emphatically grateful for the time allowed to us, but also cultivating a sense of urgency around our deepest desires and passions. It can be hard to nurture such perspective every single day. But find a way. Your future-self, on your deathbed, will thank you for it.

From Focus, Experience

I often say “you are what you think about.” It’s not a new notion; it’s been expressed since Marcus Aurelius and probably beyond. Another way to consider this phenomeneon is to word it slightly differently: “you experience what you focus on.” This can inhibit gratitude for how wonderful our lives truly are. We aren’t subsisting on hunting and gathering anymore, so we complain about our jobs and the drudgery of modern life. We might not focus on the magical nature of reality in this crazy universe we are a part of, so our experience seems ordinary. Albert Einstein utilized a faux-dichotomy to combat stagnation and wallowing (either everything is a miracle or nothing is). It may seem backwards, but it is truly our focus that determines our level of experience. The choice is ours. 

Official Qualities

Do we want people with predisposed solutions running for office? What happens when they are elected and the other public servants disagree with them? There are certainly some levers of incentivization that need to be pulled within our political system. But we also need open individuals who are capable of communication, compromise, and diligence. Remember, voting is only the first step of citizenship and improving our country. The real work begins upon Inauguration Day, whether that’s for president or your local congressional representative. It is our responsibility as constituents to hold our representatives accountable, to ensure they understand what we want. Thus we need folks of reason in office. The burden, and the choice, is ours. 

Relationships, Impact and Time

Today would have been my grandfather’s 88th birthday. He was a good man, and I learned a lot from him. I was lucky to be old enough to really get to know him before he died, in 2008. We used to remain at the table after family dinners, talking about life, economics, politics, and history. He would allow me, even as a naive teenager, to voice my opinions regarding those things—but he would challenge me as well, forcing me to back up my assertions with evidence or logic. His perspective, being an old man, was often different than mine, and I think I first developed longer-term thinking through our chats. He’s been gone for a long time now, but our family still talks about him often. His memory and impact live on through us, as we pass it down to our children. At the end of the day, our time will end at some point. That can be scary to appreciate and consider. But it also makes those moments with loved ones that much more meaningful. We get to decide what to do with the time given to us. What will it be? Happy birthday Grandpa, I love you. 

Looking at Life

I tend to think about the deep stuff a lot, but I can’t help but feel the pandemic is forcing all of us to consider the totality of life’s experience. People have lost their lives to the coronavirus. Many others have had their livelihoods significantly altered or eliminated. There is still the lingering anxiety around civil unrest. Politics and the economy have crossed beyond sore subjects. We are being pressed with the grand scope of this adventure we call life. Turn off the news, put down the phone, and spend time with those who mean the most. 

It Takes Time

I was thinking about the delay of the onset of symptoms for Covid-19, how it can take 5 days or more to show symptoms of the virus and how it complicates our response to it. Our current understanding is it takes a certain viral load to become infected, to become contagious to others, and to develop symptoms—we’re still learning the exact timelines for each phenomenon and there is variance among different people as well as potential overlap between the different events. That’s what makes this virus so hard: there’s periods of time where everything seems fine, in which you don’t know you are sick and can spread the pathogen to others. But then I realized how everything takes time. We’ve grown soft in this luxurious technological world, where pages load incredibly fast on the internet and communication occurs instantly across great distances. In the real world, we have to wait. Things take time. If you want to lose weight, you don’t drop it after eating less for just one day. You don’t get in shape after one workout. Starting a company takes time. Learning a new skill takes innumerable repetition. We don’t really live in an instantaneous world. Perhaps if we taper our expectations, we won’t only deal with the coronavirus better; maybe we’ll come back to the present, maintain awareness, and live better lives. 

Children Investments

It was so nice playing with my niece tonight. Children are the future, and it’s a constant, never-ending investment. It’s also a continual joy, and an incredible blessing. It takes 20 years to see the return on our investment in child rearing and education. But it’s also the most important one we can make. The sooner we see that, the faster our world will get better. 

Keeping it Simple

The KISS principle (“keep it stupid simple”) not only applies to design, but to our collective perspectives and experiences. Simple retains truth over the long term, and we can always come back to the simple things. In plain terms, all humans want the same things: health, wealth, and happiness. One can lead a good life by cultivating the fundamental qualities of gratitude, earnest, and consideration. Americans can unite around the common ideals of the nation: freedom, justice, and equality. We may disagree politically, or live our lives differently, or want separate things when breaking it down further, but on a meaningful level, on a simple level, we are all the same. Going back to the core concepts, returning to the basic principles, and rediscovering the simple truths will enable us to grow and prosper. Embracing ‘simple' makes harmony and synergy possible. Change may be the only thing in life that’s constant, but returning to simplicity can change the world.

Banishing Demons

Your demons start the first thing in the morning when you wake up and regain consciousness. They tell you to hit the snooze button. They try to lure you back to sleep, and they insist on your grogginess and fatigue. The demons try to convince me it’s not necessary to blog in the morning, that I can do it “later.” They also often reassure me that I’m fine to have one more helping of food, one more drink. Demons take no shape, which makes them hard to combat. They also disguise themselves as yourself. But as you wage battle against them throughout the day, they grow weaker and you grow stronger. It soon becomes an easy fight. Banish the demons, and you control your destiny.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Yesterday was Indigenous Peoples' Day, the counter-celebration of Columbus Day. While it can be helpful to acknowledge past injustice, it’s more consequential to take action. It’s a day later… how many people are still thinking about the plight of Native Americans and other indigenous people? I write this not to shame, but to encourage a further building of awareness. It’s important to learn the most accurate history possible of the Americas. Indeed, many members of indigenous cultures still needlessly suffer today. This doesn’t mean we tear down the institutions that make up our modern nations, but that we take tangible steps toward actualizing our modern society’s lofty ideals of inclusion, diversity, equity, and freedom. Is it too much for us to incorporate such awareness into our efforts to change the world? Can we not insist on equal opportunity for all people as we work to mitigate climate change and build a better one? For what is the point of saving the world if it is not saved for everyone? We have so much to learn from each other, and committing to this learning will accelerate our collective development. We are a synergistic amalgamation of knowledge and experience; let’s better understand each other.

Something about this life

There’s something about watching the dark turn to light at dawn that makes you feel alive. There’s something about feeling refreshed on a Monday morning. There’s something about being grateful for the loved ones in one’s life. There’s something about looking out and seeing the cold outside while safe in shelter. There’s something about experiencing revelations while taking a hot shower. There’s something about knowing everything will be all right. There’s something about this life… there’s something about being alive. What a wonderful world it can be, what one big beautiful amazing world it is.

Third News Trial

A common productivity tip is to construct a “not-to-do” list in addition to the prototypical to-do checklist. Perhaps to combat our collective anxiety we should all have a political news “not do” for certain periods of time. If you have followed my blog you’ll know that I have struggled with the news for quite some time. I’ve oscillated back and forth between over-consumption (dare I call it addiction?) and ignorant bliss. It’s difficult, because I strongly believe an informed populace engages in better citizenship—but the news is not designed to disseminate information, at least not now. It is designed to capture and maintain your attention and maximize profit. Thus here I go again: I will limit my news reading to Monday’s and Friday’s until election night. It is my hope this 3 week experiment will give me back positive, peaceful weekends and enable me to focus on what matters to me throughout the week. Three times a charm? Time (and discipline) will tell. 

To Vote is to Begin

This year will be my first time volunteering for an election; I attended the training today. Although our systems are not perfect, it’s obvious how much thought and care goes into our voting process. At least here in California, people are encouraged to vote and all reasonable accommodations are made for any person with a disability or anyone who communicates in a different language. Diversity is celebrated, and the right to vote is considered sacred. We have lots of work to do—we can improve how we conduct elections and our voter turnout remains dismal, comparatively speaking. But so much effort has been spent to bring us what we have today. Voting is a privilege we have inherited; we must keep wielding its power so it truly becomes a right—for all people. Voting matters. But it is also just the beginning. 

Perspective of Pride

Perspective continues to change as time passes. If there’s one indication that you need to re-evaluate things, it’s if your perspective persists over a long period of time. We are always learning, and there is always more to learn. 2020 has taught us so much, and we can be grateful for the increased knowledge. We must continue to learn more, to apply our heightened knowledge and elevated awareness to make the world better. Because in five years our perspective will be different once again, and we can either look back with shame... or with pride.