Love and Support

It’s amazing how fast life can change, and it seems it goes the fastest when you’re least expecting it. I don’t know if it ever gets easier to roll with it; it might be a journey every time. 

I’ve been fortunate to have an incredible support system throughout the big things in life, and I can’t imagine facing them without my loved ones. We are social creatures and we all love—life makes that clear. 

No matter how things turn out, if we have that community, it will be okay. I’ve learned that as I’ve grown, and I strive to offer the same support to my tribe. 

Phone Conundrum

It’s so simple, and yet so difficult, to put the phone down and focus on what matters in your life. We all have different interests and passions, ways in which we want to contribute to the world, and the computer in our hand is hindering us. 

Our phones are incredible tools that enable us to access the world’s database of information, but they are not programmed to facilitate our lives in the way we see fit. They are designed to ping us, to hold our attention, to maintain a near constant use, simply so they can be sold.

We will do better if we turn off the notifications and conscientiously utilize our devices’ capabilities while being wary of their pull. Telecommunications and social media and apps and widgets can enhance our collective experience—is that how we are using them?

Common Guiding Light

We are all in this together, and in the most important way, we all want the same thing. Every human being alive, no matter their country or culture, wants to be happy, wants to be free, and wants to be healthy.

It’s easy to get away from that, to get wrapped up in the smaller, less important differences between us: gender identity, or skin or hair or eye color, or likes and dislikes. But if we look at it from this broader perspective, it becomes easy to see us as one global species living on one beautiful planet.

Circumstances may be dire, now or in the future, but it’s uplifting to realize that our universal desires, our most significant similarities, will not change or diverge. We are one people, diverse and beautiful; we are human. 

The Travel Bug

Do you have the bug? How long is it supposed to take post-trip to start dreaming about the next one?

I sometimes wonder if humans will become more nomadic again in the future. With surplus, sustainability, automation, and a more welcoming world, wouldn’t people want to move around and explore?

I’ve written many posts about the benefits of traveling. At the core though, it starts with an urge to explore and discover the unknown. 

Earth Organization

Even with how boring politics has become again, there’s still a lot going on. Important decisions are being made (and criticized by the news cycle) that significantly affect the world. 

How much are we tuned into it? How much do we need to be?

The sooner we can collectively answer these questions, and the sooner we can develop a healthy global information system, the sooner we can heal as a species. Likely every single human being alive will live out their existence on this one beautiful rock... we’re in this together, whether we like it or not... so let’s do this, together. 

Bootstrap Up

Do you ever have those pull yourself up by your bootstraps moments that seem out of place with the reality you’ve been experiencing? Those moments of clarity that stay with you?

Part of life is to find the patterns in those instances and what they’re about. It’s been difficult to maintain any sort of normalcy during the pandemic, but maybe it’s one of those moments for our species. 

We have made the world better over time, for sure. But it’s also necessary to pull ourselves out of this funk—do we know the clarity of the moment?

Navigating Calm

It can be difficult to hold to something day by day over a long period of time. I struggle with New Years resolutions and lofty goals over the boring parts in the middle. 

But I’ve also learned that those periods of calm and temptation are when holding true is ever important. It’s easy to grit your teeth and bear through the storm, but distraction and laziness abound under clear skies. 

Keeping the end in mind can sway your conscience toward the light. When we hold to the ideals of truth and decency and sustainability, those around us benefit, as well as those who come after. 

Changes of a Day

As light goes down and darkness gathers around another day, have we learned more? Because every day that that happens, our species gets better. 

I may not know wisdom or have the ultimate vantage point of perspective, but I understand that our learning is perpetual. When we improve over the course of a day, it gets amplified across our species. 

We are each vessels of our collective greatness, harbingers of our collective capability. Can we rely on it?

We Can Do It

People have different perspectives. I may not have typed a truer sentence. 

The fact is, we learn and adapt to different situations. It’s not always pretty, and there’s something to be said that a synchronous “sync” can be messy, uncultured. 

We are animals after all, trying to make our way in this jungle. It’s arduous, but we can do it. 

On the Plane Again

I’ve been fortunate to visit some different places this year, and have felt safe doing so. I can’t help it; whether born or conditioned, I’m meant to explore.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve appreciated how even a “small” trip short in duration can add depth to one’s view of the world. Basically, if you’re on an airplane, you’re traveling a distance that was impossible not that long ago, and wherever you land, people will be living a little differently. 

There’s so much diversity of culture and perspective across our species, and travel unlocks access to it for ordinary people. Possessions pale in comparison to the experience and education that travel brings. 

Spaceship Day

Today doesn’t get enough attention considering its importance. More than anything, today is a reminder to shift our communal focus to the largest shared arena, Earth. 

Cities, cultures, countries... these constructs do not separate us the way we imagine them to, the way we have accepted. Because in the end, we are all passengers on one wondrous spaceship. 

For the time being, what happens on this spaceship impacts us all, affects the entirety of our species and all we know. This Earth Day, let us remember we are one ecosystem, on one beautiful planet, and let us be grateful. 

Space Time Eminence

We are constantly emanating energy output into space time. The most powerful mechanism for this is something we can’t even see: putting forth ideas. 

Our species thrives because it can store ideas into collective memory at scale, something no other life on Earth can do. Bravo for humanity, but it’s a fragile ability that must be maintained (just like anything else).

We have inherited knowledge and luxury from those who came before us, and innovation of the wisdom thus far collected is not guaranteed. What energy will we produce, what progress will we release into the universe, for those who come after?

True Traits

I often reflect on the fact that we will never truly understand another’s perspective. Sure we can attain near total alignment, but no one is you, and you are no one else. 

This makes openness and consideration paramount to our survival, to our success as a species. We are frail and weak compared to much of the animal world, and instead rely on our combined ingenuity to thrive.

So far removed from the primal world within today’s civilization, it’s easy for us to forget the real advantages that make us human, and our biology will never “catch up” to our technological innovation. It’s imperative we remember our togetherness, the true trait responsible for all we crave and enjoy. 

Types of Greatness

We have this sense, this sort of illusion of greatness, that probably didn’t biologically exist before our creation of society, of civilization. We are impressionable creatures that are allured by specialness. 

I’m not sure that’s where we derive our happiness, but it could be. We seem to be our most satisfied when we thrive collectively within our social group, our tribe, but maybe that requires a certain kind of greatness. 

It provides options at least. To pursue individual endeavors, or to seek solutions for the greater good of humanity—those things are worthy of admiration—but do they compare to the greatness of companionship, leadership, and support 

Post Pandemic Tide

It seems everyone is getting a sense of possibility, that there’s hope on the horizon of a “return to normalcy.” The weather’s getting nicer and more people feel safer as vaccinations continue to increase. 

There’s reason to be hopeful, and our great challenge now is to embrace living in a post pandemic world while still remembering what it’s taught us. There are things to fix and problems to solve, and the tide doesn’t rise on its own. 

The sooner we determine how to organize and divide the work so it’s manageable for all of us to put forth a collective solution, the sooner our society will flourish post Covid. There is much to enjoy, but there’s as always much to learn, and we need to do both moving forward... let’s get to it. 

To Show Love

I don’t know, but every passing day has shown me that we each have an opportunity to show love.  What’s cool is, we can all exhibit it at any moment.

Think about it: at this very moment that you are reading this, you can choose to emanate energy out to those around you. It’s a decision. 

Can we collectively make that decision? Are we capable, are you and me capable?

Power and Possibility

There’s a lot of scary stuff going on in the world right now, and “the news” has been disheartening for a while. But shrinking away from the problems that persist in our society is not the solution. 

We are one global community, whether we understand it or not. Our behaviors collectively affect everyone else. 

We can decide to rally together, to declare that we will continue to change and improve the world. It’s possible and it’s within our power... what are we waiting for?

Together is Better

We also might be the most social creatures on the planet. Deep connection separates us from all else we know. 

The pandemic has made socialization difficult, for all of us, kids to octogenarians. Hopefully it has made us recognize our greatest strength and lifeline. 

We are stronger together, as millennia have proved. From that timescale, this is nothing; we will overcome, together. 

Productive Creatures

We build upon our successive learnings and failures as time goes on, (hopefully) cumulatively solidifying our grasp of reality and how we can improve it. Is that not the defining characteristic of being human?

I don’t believe we’re designed for consumption; it’s just a sticky web very alluring to addictive creatures. Our greatest happiness, and greatest potential, derives from situations requiring applied creativity. 

We contribute value to the world and the universe when we produce, not when we consume. When we harness this power collectively, we are capable of manipulating our environment for the betterment of life on this planet; we are capable of changing the world. 

Home Again

I returned to my apartment today hardly recognizing it. Hundreds of miles of driving, hours of hiking, and the majesty of the great outdoors will do that to you.

And it’s hard to convey that to others when you show them pictures of your trip. Photographs of the sights may be beautiful, but they show the fantasized version of the adventure, not the sweat and blood and trials and tribulations. 

We are forever changed by our experiences, if we let them do so. Travel creates new dimensions to our reality, that can make home seem a new excitement.