Agency is Choice

It can feel like we have no agency when we follow what’s going on in the world. But we have to remember the media is biased, a lens through which much is filtered. 

There are serious problems that threaten our species and our planet. But there is also work being done, and good people out there who are trying to do the right thing. 

Our agency is our conscientious choice to be one of those people in the world. It is how we will be judged by future generations, and what will comfort us at death’s door. 

Gratitude Perspective

I’ve been blogging about this a lot recently, but gratitude keeps coming back to my salvation. When having a rough time of it, we can always return to thinking about how good we absolutely have it. 

Reminiscing over photos of good times can help, especially if done with loved ones. Remembering what we’ve experienced and the important people in our life provides added perspective. 

However irritating a few hours might be, if we step back and examine it all, we realize it could always be worse. After all, it still is a big beautiful amazing world, and we get the opportunity to make the most of our circumstances. 

Appropriate Attention

Deleting Twitter has been a positive experience for me thus far, and I’ve overall followed the daily news cycle a lot less. I still struggle with the balance of keeping informed while focusing on what matters and living my life. 

In this hyper connected world, we oddly enough have to set boundaries. We still haven’t figured out as a species how to distribute attention individually and collectively. 

What matters to us? Our news gives an indication, and it’s crucial we determine how best to proceed as a society. 

Comfortable Mattresses

I’ve been considering purchasing a mattress, and at one point I laughed to myself at the ludicrousness of it, from a perspective. We have developed these material rectangles that are literally the softest most comfortable thing possible to sleep on. 

What a far cry from how our species has traditionally found rest. We may pick and choose between different firmness or composition when selecting our sleeping option now, but in much of our past is was somewhere warm and dry. 

It’s helpful for us modern humans to remember these simple yet profound luxurious we enjoy on a daily basis. With so much comfortability and convenience at our disposal, what will we turn our focus to?

Photos for All

I look at photos and revel in the previous adventure. They offer a glimpse into our most precious moments. 

A normal person living in a first world country today enjoys a lifestyle unimaginable just a short while ago. It’s fantastic progress, but the inequality between it and the other concurrent realities on the planet demonstrates the need for change. 

Should not everyone, regardless of birth circumstance, have the opportunity to look back on memorable photos? Let’s make it so, by choosing to contribute our 1% individually. 

Enjoy and Contribute

Can still enjoy the heat right? Today was the first pool day for my tribe in the neighborhood, and it was nice to spend the time together. 

It made me reflect on how grateful I should be to have a “weekend.” We’ve made some significant progress as a transcontinental species. 

And yes, we still have very far to go, if recent events over the past few years have demonstrated. Can we separate the two facets of our reality, and can we both enjoy and contribute?

Neighborhood Walk Thoughts

I walk around my neighborhood and I see new housing developments going up where there were once fields. I see maps online in which the entire Western United States is colored deep red. 

Our species is certainly special in many ways, but we also need to figure ourselves out before it’s too late. We not only affect the lives of (the world’s poorest) millions of people, but countless other species as well. 

It is the great call to arms for the current generation, all of us alive today, to address climate change. Let us work together and contribute to the solution. 

Proceeding

What a realization it is when you recognize that we live in a maze. It’s an incredible world, and wow, do we navigate it well?

We cruise around in what we know, and it’s awesome, in the true sense of the word. But we also have the ability to exhibit perhaps the most important characteristic: consideration. 

There are so many other people outside the scope of any individual understanding. How do we proceed?

Wanting and Doing

It’s so easy to get caught up in caring about what society wants. I struggle with it often, and it appears to be a common problem across our species. 

I’ve found gratitude to be a good antidote. When we consider how spectacular our position in this universe is, striving for what doesn’t matter becomes recognizably foolish. 

We enjoy so much abundance of opportunity in the modern world. The world may not be perfect, but that’s only each person’s chance to contribute something unique. 

Conscientious Adaptation

The pandemic is still evolving, still forcing us to adapt and change. You don’t read about how the 1918 influenza pandemic shaped peoples’ behaviors in 1920 and 1921. 

But it did, and SARS-CoV-2 is still altering our perception and psyche in 2021. Despite the breakneck speed onto-the-next-thing culture in which we live in, we need to recognize this simple fact. 

Just like other momentous events in history, this one is transforming our time. History will look back on how conscientious we were in our approach to weathering the storm. 

One Home

You always get a fresh look at home when you first return after being away. The feel of its culture, the lay of the land, the weather: all are on display after traveling. 

Now more than ever, we get to choose where we live. Beyond familiarity, what are the criteria we use to decide?

If we reflect deeply on why we call which place home, we might start to see that the reasons are the same for everyone. And that we all share one home. 

Independence Onus

Our Founding Fathers, despite being brilliant, we’re not perfect. They devised a system better than any before, but its design was not flawless. 

We can strive to have a realistic view of their shortcomings and successes, but we must also recognize our own responsibility. 

It is the onus of our generation to improve and build upon the imperfect creations we have inherited. Let us celebrate Independence Day, and reflect, and yearn and commit to be even better. 

Travel Lens

As a lifelong tourist of other places, I struggle with tourism. It’s important to see and learn about the world. 

It can also burden the environment. How am I any different than the millions of others?

If the power of perspective is what results, than maybe that justifies our travel. Through a conscientious lens, we can achieve lasting and necessary change. 

Navigational Waters

Even the semblance of “vacation” is a modern creation. How do we make sense of such a smorgasbord of human flurry in so certainly non-dire circumstances?

There is so much to be learned in this vacuum of society we currently inhabit. Are we learning, are we looking beyond our own faces?

This applies to myself as well, as I navigate what I can conceive as my boundaries, through this tide of meaning. We can do it. 

Natural Solitude

My wife may be influencing me, but I’m drawn more and more to the quiet rural life. Walking amongst the trees and greenery today, beyond the sensual experience itself, it also drew me to my most profound experiences this year. 

The moments I feel most at peace, most connected to the universe, are the ones of solitude in nature. When there are just a few other tribal members and myself, immersed in the natural beauty that is our planet: that’s when I feel grounded and alive. 

Do we experience this enough as a whole, as a species? If not, and if it rings enough bells, then we need to take drastic action so that those after us can experience the same.

Ancient Ways of Nature

The Earth is so incredibly beautiful, I don’t know how we forget so easily. We get wrapped up in zeitgeist and careers and the pursuit of fortune. 

But true living is timing your day around sunrise and sunset; it’s what humans have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years. Positioning oneself where nature and the atmosphere is most spiritual—that’s how we have traditionally lived. 

We learned so much as a species, but we must not forget the call of the ocean and the mountains and all that is green. We are connected to this blue marble, and when surrounded by nature we can experience our ancient way of life. 

Sea Connection

There is no other sound like the waves of the sea. Continuous, ever present yet still the background, the music of the ocean simply soothes.

Does it matter at what port we receive such sound? There’s character and history everywhere, but something about the sea is eternal. 

We are a part of this ecosystem, no matter if land-dwelling. It feels good to be connected again. 

Big World News

You get caught up on the news and are fed all this new information, and then you wonder how much of it applies to you. The business model in the internet industry is still very much geared toward exploration and profit, instead of pure information. 

And we have to make sense of that, and figure it out. It’s a dilemma for the modern human: how to remain informed to thus make good choices, yet still live life at the same time. 

We can reconcile both ends of the extreme, if we decide to invest energy in it. It’s one of several things we are working out on the global scale—let’s keep at it. 

All We Are

You just gotta keep going in life. Great things happen and we enjoy them, and bad things happen and we have to move past them. 

We have it so easy compared to so many before us, and I try to remember that during those tougher times. The only way for us to continue on that path is to keep trying together. 

Doing our best, treating each other with consideration: these are the measures we must continually take to change the world. It will never stop being necessary, and it will take all that we are; but that’s kind of the point anyway. 

Tribe Support

Even a day later, and the results are the same. Family is what matters. 

I look back on what has transpired over the past 24 hours, and my tribe is the constant. The other externalities have come and gone. 

It really is up to us to choose what we want, and when surrounded by good people, that becomes a lot easier. Our tribe is the change we wish to see in the world.