I keep seeing political signs and Facebook posts saying, ‘We won’t go back.’  I say Amen to that.  But the fact that we have the luxury of looking in the rear view mirror at a 1 term Trump administration may be our saving grace, in the long run. 

Most autocrats win the election and then gradually consolidate power until that power is absolute.  Then they either go to war, start a reign of terror, or do both.  But we were spared some of the consolidating power part because Trump lost and his attempts to hold onto power via the January 6th riot on the Capitol, coupled with the fake electors schemes, didn’t work.

The most unlikely hero in US history, Mike Pence, stood up to the angry mob and the man who spurred them on.  The man who tried to have him killed.  The former President and convicted felon, Donald Trump. The Republican nominee for President in 2024.

So he left power, however unwillingly.  And we got a needed reprieve.  We had time for Congressional hearings and federal and state grand juries and charges and even some convictions.  And yet the current race is still neck and neck.  The Biden administration had a pretty good record and still we are hoping to barely beat back this fascist onslaught.  And if we do, it will be partly due to the break and the juxtaposition of a hopeful and positive message after a decade of manufactured division.

Donald Trump has dominated our culture for the last 10 years in a way no person has done in our nation’s history.  Even FDR with his 12 years in office and sweeping New Deal legislation, WW2 heroism and fireside chats didn’t reshape the culture as much, though he did shape our nation for the better.

After 10 years, I think most of us are as sick and tired of Trump as is possible.  But if he had won in 2020 or held onto power, we would not be in a position to do anything about it.  We’d be in a de facto dictatorship.  We’d be watching Trump consolidate power as he rationalized increasingly draconian punishments for his detractors.  But we got lucky.  He lost and his attempts to hold onto power were thwarted.  You’d think with a second opportunity, they will figure out how to do it right. And they just might.

So especially with VP Harris now leading the ticket, we see a vibrant alternative to this darkness.  We see how a bully acts when he doesn’t think he can win.  We hear his ramblings, his threats, fear-mongering.  And it just doesn’t land.  Because we’ve seen this act before.

Most nations in the throes of an attempted authoritarian takeover don’t get this window.  We get to revisit the question, thankfully.

We get to watch the bloom fade from Trump’s speeches.  We get to watch as a tyrant and a criminal mind keeps racking up more crimes, more hate speech, more calls to violence.  And it will never end until he is held accountable.  And other opportunists will pop up until they see him held to account.  Such is the desire for so many willing imbeciles to lick boots.  Such is the fascination with macho bread and circuses.  Such is the emptiness of late-stage capitalism and a taken-for-granted democracy.

Such is the hollow soullessness that sees no goal worth fighting for, sacrificing for.  Better to watch it all burn and warm one’s hands by the fire. 

But we get the chance to side-step all that.  Perhaps it is our institutions that saved us.  Maybe it’s those courageous Republicans who worked in the Trump administration and spoke up, who said no to the angry mob.  Those who got their own attorney and changed their testimony.  Those who tanked their own promising careers to co-chair the January 6th committee.  Because it was right.  Honorable.  American. 

I thank everyone who has been courageous in the face of fear and threats and actual violence.  And we’re not even there yet.  We haven’t won the popular vote yet.  We don’t have the electoral college votes yet.  We haven’t gotten past the certification hurdles that will inevitably arise.  But we have hope.  Because we are getting the opportunity to revisit the question, “Do we want to be a free people?”  We are lucky to be a still free people.  We take that status lightly at our own peril.

Often my focus in writing is about digging into an issue and finding the intellectual flaw that holds it together.   Usually ideas come in the form of insight where I get an ‘aha’ moment and I see the error of a particular stance or the misleading message from a propaganda network.  Other times I may be describing an experience with a person where I notice poor argumentation.

Fallacies, biases, manipulations, denial and other psychological phenomena are the nuts and bolts of misunderstanding and the distortion of reality.  This is the stuff of propaganda.  Most people who unwittingly spread propaganda don’t recognize it as such.  We are often unwittingly arguing, debating and believing distortions like these.  Most people are unaware that such tricks of the mind exist.  And those who know of them usually can’t spot them or catch themselves or others using them in a statement in real time.

So, in short, I’m saying everyone is full of s**t.  This raises deep and important questions:

How do we get tricked or trick ourselves?  Can we learn to think more clearly?

How can we recognize and decode and inoculate ourselves from propaganda?

Could we come to notice fallacious argumentation in ourselves and others?

How does a person reckon with the fluid and often faulty nature of perception?

How can we have a beginner's mind when we consider our stances and perceptions?

A simple answer must include vigilance and practice. We must remain always curious about our ideas and humble enough to recognize that we may have arrived at them by faulty means.

There is always more to a story than we can see.  That’s where a beginner's mind comes in.

We must view our collection of beliefs with a suspicious eye. We come to conclusions via a process with steps along the way.  Every step has potential pitfalls, where arguments that seem to make sense on the surface turn out to be faulty.  Especially those that elicit an emotional reaction in us.  Those presenting us ideas may have used poor but salacious argumentation, made leaps of faith, jumped to conclusions, used distorted thinking, presented fallacies in lieu of logic, and had hidden biases.  In a sea of data, our minds try to find answers, often using pattern recognition and mental shortcuts.  Predicting that the Mind will jump to these conclusions can make us more disciplined. 

And finally, with propaganda and advertisements as examples, let’s remember that we live in a world where not everyone is honest.  Not everyone has our needs in mind.  We are being manipulated by political parties, businesses, and other institutions with their own agendas.   We can begin with the stance that most public entities are selling us something.  They often package the information they want us to believe in the form of a narrative whose accuracy is less important than its efficacy. The narrative, the relatable story, makes the information manageable and palatable.   Our minds love a good story, especially one where we get to be the hero.   Stories that feel good sell products.  Stories that make us feel good about ourselves sell even more products, this is called humoring.  But stories that make us feel bad may rouse us into action, bypassing our logical mind to access our primitive amygdala.  This is where propaganda comes in.  Propaganda pushes our fear buttons so we are primed to look at others with suspicion.  Then we can find affiliation with others who are suspicious of other groups.  Then we feel good again.

This is how nations get divided and scapegoats get sent off to camps and worse.  The 20th Century was a cautionary tale; Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, Communist Russia and other examples of propaganda leading to genocide abound.  Tens of millions died in WW2.  But the majority of that genocide took place within the borders of said nations.  Autocrats like Hitler turned a benevolent populace against a convenient scapegoat, via propaganda and 6 million Jews were massacred.

The process of propagandizing and amassing absolute power took years from Hitler’s election in 1932 until the bloody end of WW2 in 1945.

So while I love to discuss the talking points of the day, to speak up for my candidate of choice, I prefer a deeper focus.  Let’s look beneath the surface and explore the arguments themselves. Let’s decode them and notice who may be propagandizing us.  We must develop this ability before we share media or talking points that may be misleading.  Otherwise, we become a stooge, carrying water for a demagogue.

And finally, we must assess and be willing to renounce our affiliations.  We must recognize that we may have been unwittingly propagandized to the point of cult status.  This is where humility serves, for we are all prone to manipulation.  We are all vulnerable to the manipulations of those who seek to sway us to their agendas.

The only fighting chance we have is to arm ourselves with at least a passing familiarity with the tools of the propagandist.  Otherwise, we know not whom we serve.  The gruesome costs of ignorance are everywhere: Civil War Memorials, the still standing Death Camps in Europe.  And yet Anti-Semitism abounds, as does a sunny and absolutely falsifiable revisionist history about our Civil War, known colloquially as the Lost Cause.  Propagandists also want to rewrite history: even selling unwitting consumers on the idea that the Holocaust never happened.  How much easier will that be when all the survivors of the death camps are long dead?

Such is the slippery nature of perception.  We can be made to believe lies.  And these lies lead to stances, which lead to votes.  And those votes can and do empower autocrats to take more and more power.  And they never willingly give it back.

I love writing and sharing my insights and perceptions. If you enjoy this writing, would you please consider doing one or more of the following? Subscribe, like the article, share an article with friends or consider being a paid subscriber. It’s just $5 a month but it helps. Thanks 8)

We often criticize each other for wallowing in self-pity. The connotation is clearly negative. But is this fair? The idea crossed my mind yesterday that pity is a form of love. If I saw a hurt, sick or hungry animal, I would be overtaken with pity.

That pity would cause me to care for this animal in any way I could. Pity asks us to give grace. Not to ask if that animal worked hard enough to find food and water or to avoid cars. Pity asks us to give, to shepherd, to protect and to lift up someone or something in need.

Obviously, with self-pity, we don't want to use it as a defense against working, considering our part, taking responsibility, making amends etc. But perhaps we are sitting in self-pity because we are deserving of this form of self-love. Perhaps a s**t-storm of events has overtaken us. Maybe we don't know what to do. Maybe we are absolutely devastated to our core.

Maybe self-pity is destructive. I don't know better. I don't know if it might be helpful for a time and then becomes a crutch, a defense, a shield. Maybe it becomes part of our story and we need to move on from it and become empowered again.

However this shakes out, I want to look at everyone, including myself, anew. I don't know anyone's story, their suffering, their deficits and their blind spots. Maybe the tough love of telling someone to stop wallowing in self-pity is appropriate.

I don't have a slick answer, but a nagging voice inside is telling me that calling someone out for wallowing in self-pity feels like a robotic, checked-out kind of answer. A closed-heart kind of decree. A de facto rejection. A self-congratulatory typecasting of someone as lazy or playing the victim.

And we are all victims at times. I wonder how well we can move on from said victimhood when either we or others won't recognize this basic truth. Sometimes we are powerless. Or we were. We were hit by a car on the sidewalk. We were blindsided by the decision of another with power over us. Or multiple events affected us at once. And perhaps it’s a blend of things for which we were and were not responsible.

Admitting we have been victims means we are vulnerable to the vagaries of life. And for some, admitting that the homeless person on the street or the person looking back from the mirror is vulnerable means that they are not omnipotent. Not safe and not truly secure.

Death stalks us all. Poverty, illness, loss, and loneliness are a part of this life. I wonder if instead of criticizing the person for their self-pity, if we might join them. Give them an ear. Relate. Feel for them. For they are us. I hope we can be willing to love ourselves and accept our moments of victimhood, of frailty and of absolute bewilderment.

Perhaps too, we can look at moments when we caused harm to others, intentionally or otherwise. And can we be our brother's keeper without shaming them for self-pity? I wonder if our collective unwillingness to help those in need is rationalized by this rubber stamp of disapproval we place on self-pity. And further, if our unwillingness to see our own pitiable, wounded self perpetuates our rejection of those in need.

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I was playing my guitar the other day and randomly started playing the Star Spangled Banner, albeit poorly.  There was absolutely no Jimi Hendrix Woodstock version being channeled.  As an aside, playing other people's songs can be moving.  There's something about how it feels when a song comes out of me that makes it more personal and tangible.  I often feel enriched.  I first noticed this while playing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.  It was a song I didn't particularly like until I played it for someone who did.  And then for a moment, his words were my words. 

As I played the Star Spangled Banner I thought about how the song did rouse a patriotic spirit in me these days, in a way that I didn't feel very often before.  I suppose I didn't see the need before; there was nothing apparent to defend against.  That sense of security was false, but that’s a story for another day.

I never saw myself as patriotic: perhaps largely because of limiting social messages about what patriotism was.  Patriotism was apparently expressed in a few obvious ways. One was being a soldier, another, being conservative.  Or it was about symbolic gestures like saluting the flag or standing for the pledge.  I was never drawn to these specific choices so I assumed that meant I wasn’t patriotic. I was wrong.

And while I honor those choices, sometimes refusing to serve in an unjust war is patriotic.  Sometimes kneeling in protest of institutional racism is the patriotic choice.  Sometimes being liberal is patriotic.  Sometimes being patriotic means risking being ostracized and misunderstood.

When I was a Senior in High School I refused to stand for and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in Homeroom and was sent to the Principal's Office.  The homeroom teacher was a veteran and was offended by my protest.  He said that he fought for this country and that I must stand.  I said that he fought in that war so I didn't have to prove my fealty.

Because I was free.  And I was no hero, but I was brave enough to make him mad.  Because having to stand and pledge allegiance to a nation was what people do who are not free.

As I look back now, I see it.  There will always be people, well-meaning and otherwise, who are trying to take away our freedom.  Their pride may be dominating and blinding them.  It may be their fear or chauvinism.  Whatever it is, they think they're right.  They're the good guys.

Mr Caputo probably thought I was just a punk kid.  And I was.  But I was honoring that little voice inside that said this isn't right.  This isn't what we're about in America.  And I was right.  In a time where I was lost, depressed, losing interest in school and directionless, I still had my moments of clarity and bravery.  And sadly, I didn't see these as a way into myself, my mission, my voice and my path.  30 years later I'm just recognizing this and hoping they make a pill to let me live and be healthy to 150.

As I finished playing the Star Spangled Banner in my rudimentary way, I thought of the last line:

Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave

I almost put a question mark on the end of that sentence...because it is a question.  Does it yet wave? Are we still free?  The flag, in this example, is the symbol of our freedom: the barometer, the indicator. Just like in wartime.  

And I thought to myself, if this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, what does it mean to be free?  And what does one do if one is brave?

Attacking our Capitol to try and overturn a free and fair election isn't brave.  Supporting a candidate that calls his detractors vermin and uses other words directly from long-dead genocidal dictators is not brave.  He would not bring about freedom.  He would mislead his foolhardy followers into doing his bidding like strongmen always do.  Like the Confederates did.

They always bring destruction and misery.  The 20th Century is a recent testament to the endless blood-lust of the soulless demagogue.  The usurper.  The authoritarian.  The false messiah.

This is the land of the free and the home of the brave,  if you can keep it, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin.

For this guy, I'm gonna vote for those who didn't try to overturn the election and kill the Vice President.  Call me crazy. I think that’s by far the most patriotic choice. And while you’re free to disagree with me, if you agree, please consider being brave enough to challenge those who would vote the other way. Be willing to make people uncomfortable, including yourself.

Beware those that flatter your sensibilities. They’re usually selling you something: literally or figuratively.

Sit with that for a moment.

We love being flattered. We eat it up. We love being the good guy, the hero, the cowboy in the white hat. And we can be manipulated into making poor choices by those who would take advantage of us via the age-old technique of flattery.

Propaganda can influence us by presenting criminals that we can judge and bemoan. Downward comparison makes us feel better about ourselves as we sit in righteous indignation about how the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. We need to be suspicious when a narrative comes along that makes us also feel heroic. It’s usually a call-to-action. Certain dark corners of our media seem to constantly elicit righteous indignation about crime, drug use, non-traditional lifestyles and immigrants. They’ve got to convince you of the problem before they sell you the solution. More on that later.

“Diplomatic immunity.” The line spoken in a South African accent always comes into my mind when I think of the movie Lethal Weapon 2. The story was about an Apartheid South African Diplomat and the illegal drug trade. It was one of those movies that was entertaining and well acted. But in looking back, I surmise that it was successful at least in part because it flattered our sensibilities. Especially as conscientious citizens of a nation with its own ugly racial history, it’s easy to see why we collectively want to feel absolved. The bad guys were so cartoonishly evil, so easy to hate. And we, by extension, were so good because we were against racism. We got to live vicariously through the good characters in the movie. And as Americans, we had a faraway boogeyman to love to hate.

Movies like these seem to be a self-congratulatory effort to make oneself (or a whole nation) feel better about our complex history and our sense of collective guilt over slavery. Dances With Wolves is similarly manipulative: a convenient revision of our history concerning Native Americans. Another very self-congratulatory endeavor, much like the Lost Cause Narrative that has overtaken the actual history of our nation’s bloody Civil War.

We can be the hero, against slavery, noble, the good guy. Flattery deludes and pacifies.

Similarly, it goes without saying that we are all against the mistreatment of children. Every sane human wants to end sex trafficking, child labor, and child abuse of any kind. And yet conspiracies about rampant child sex trafficking and abuse have become mainstream in the last 5 years or so. These dramatic stories would lead many to believe that a burgeoning child slave trade and rampant child sex rings etc abound. Q Anon, Pizzagate and other fantastical and unfounded conspiracy theories have captured the attention of large swathes of our population. People believed that child slaves were being sent in furniture boxes from Wayfair, an online furniture company. These theories took place at the crossroads of a conspiracy-peddling fascist presidency and the Covid 19 outbreak and subsequent shutdown.

Millions of us were working from home, or out of work. We were home and bored amid an onslaught of messages about the shutdown, the vaccines, politicians and other public servants. Documentaries like ‘Plandemic’ had many believing that the covid virus and vaccines were all part of a Deep State plan to control the masses and curtail rights. It wouldn’t be long before many were told by the outgoing President himself that the 2020 election was stolen by the incoming President, Joe Biden. And there was a ‘documentary’ called ‘2000 Mules' that sold many people on this clearly falsifiable claim.

So it’s easy to see why some would believe what they saw, since there purveyors of such stories presented them as truth. But why did so many fall for this nonsense? Because the viewers were being flattered. They were the good guys. And only they could stop the villains. And the villains were everywhere! Politicians, big pharma and other big targets were easy to vilify as faceless entities bent on destruction and profit.

But it turns out that each of these conspiracies was debunked. Liberals weren’t drinking virgin blood. There was no secret DNC child slave trade or sex ring. The government didn’t intentionally release covid only to help the big pharma companies make billions. It was all disinformation in service of dividing our nation.

Why did they want us divided? To sow confusion and distrust of the government. To help usher in a Fascist would-be dictator in Donald Trump. And it’s working. And the conspiracies, collectively were like a trojan horse, willingly accepted and with similarly devastating results.

For more details about how so many were duped into conflating prostitution with the child sex trade, please read the following article. I found it very enlightening, especially since it agrees with the suspicions I held about these events.

THEINTERCEPT.COM

QAnon Was Born Out of the Sex Ad Moral Panic That Took Down Backpage.com

For years, the political establishment opportunistically railed against sex trafficking and ads on Backpage.com. Then came another conspiracy theory.

Sometimes the battle within mirrors the battle without.  And it doesn't have to be a battle, but sometimes it is.  Right now our nation is in a  battle: a war of ideas, a war on our capacity to make sense, to know what is true and who is who.

With so much at stake, it sounds hyperbolic but the mundane truth is that we have to choose what we stand for and who will lead us.  But deeper, we must decide who we are as a nation, at a core level.  Everything else radiates from this place.

As I look at one of our candidates I realize he epitomizes the act of using.  He uses women.  He uses workers.  He uses his followers.  He uses the system to self-deal.  He uses media and the economy.  He is the ultimate taker of things.  And we as a nation must be careful not only to stop him, but to not become him, even in seemingly small ways. 

Trumpism is anti-life and anti-love.  Anti-freedom and anti-truth.  And yet it's so alluring to so many.  If he is not the anti-Christ, there is no such thing.  And yet the ultimate cartoon foil of our ego and our shadow can and must serve a purpose.   The purpose, on a political level may be to show us the weaknesses and fault lines in our founding documents and our legal system.

The purpose on a soul level is for us to take a long, hard look at ourselves, to not flinch when we see little selfish baby Trumps in our own psyche.  To accept that when we hate him, we are usually projecting some amount of self-hatred: hatred about parts of us that we cannot accept or admit.  This is projection.

But we must see the ways in which we fall short and begin to love those parts.  We must unmask these shadows and hold them to account as we hold Him to account in our courts of law and at the ballot box.

Simply put, we must choose who we are and who we will be.  That reckoning can be daunting in the short run.  But we will come to realize that we are not a collection of our worst moments and lowest urges.  We are the stuff that's underneath that.  Just waiting to be unearthed and dusted off.

I wish everyone happy excavating.  Do so with kindness and a sober eye.  And yet we must firmly choose not to tolerate any unconscious malevolence, from within or without.  We must connect the dots.

It's easy for me to condemn Donald Trump as a user.  He is the most blatant and disgusting user there could be. But why does that irk me so?  Who have I used?  How have I used a system for my benefit?  Unpleasant questions to be sure.  I guess it's better than the self-congratulatory sleep that so many seek.

And if we come to the conclusion that we have fallen short, we're still here.  We still have time to stop bad behaviors and make better choices and tip the scales in the other direction.  Transformation is a process, not an incident.  Do we have the willingness to see?  If a situation is demanding courage, it's probably the right path.

I almost forgot to post my one-word dream last night. They can fade so fast from memory. I think I had been asking what to do about my many interests juxtaposed with my need to make money and provide value.

An answer came to me in the form of a word. That word, if it is one, was 'portrayer.' I saw the outlines of transparent letters of the word on a floral backdrop just before I awoke, That's often the message portal in my dreams. Whoever it is deposits the messages when I would seem most apt to receive and remember.

Lots of us portray our thoughts and feelings in different ways. But the message I got was that there was value in my ability to share my take on things. As if my job was to process information, distill it, uncover hidden truths. To help in the sense-making process.

I'm sure this is true of lots of people. Visual artists, singers, authors, political pundits and on and on. We help each other digest and organize the dense and scattered information that this world and culture present us. We help each other find meaning, purpose, reconnection and fascination in an alienating and sick society.

I was looking over at a new drummer last night who closed her eyes and just sat there entranced in our circle, clearly her first time. She was riveted and swaying as if she was receiving something she didn't know she needed. She left with the biggest smile. We have tremendous power over one another. We portray and accept portrayals to our delight and at our peril.

We help each other find our way to growth and to find discernment.

I know it was just a one-word answer, but I always appreciate the cryptic messages from my secret admirer. They make me feel connected to something or someone beyond my understanding.

It reminds me of the line from Jethro Tull in 'Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day': "Looking for a sign that the universal mind has written you into the passion play."

I'll take this dream and the many others as just that sign. That new feeling of cosmically belonging is quite the buoy when seas get rough.

I wrote this 2 years ago at Thanksgiving.  It couldn’t possibly be more apropos right now as we gear up for the most important election in our history.

I'm fascinated by how we have had comedic news shows that lampoon the news for 50 years; about as long as I’ve been alive.  Since the news segment on Saturday Night Live, starting in the mid 70s, we've had jokes about the news presented to us in a newsroom format.

It may be more polished and obviously topical these days, but even then the comedy news was a place where we wrestled with the news of the day.  TV audiences were dealing with the impacts of seismic and cynical cultural events like Watergate, the OPEC Oil Crisis, and the attempt on Reagan's life. 

We may see this as comic relief, pure entertainment, but I say the comedy news played and still plays a serious cultural role.  We increasingly rely on a daily admixture of comedy and truth-telling from these outlets.  The Daily Show and some great copycat shows help us untangle and organize reality in a sea of mis-and dis-information.  They ask the deep moral questions, they help us see how, when and if the Emperor wears no clothes. Now the late night talk shows get in on the act too to great results.

In a time of fascism, racial violence and intentional political division, nothing could be more valuable than the spell-breaking capacity of comedy mixed with truth.  These outlets, like John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, take deep dives into the myriad issues of the day that affect all of us, and especially issues facing those less fortunate among us.  The truth is so under threat that our comedians had to erect a backstop against hate, misogyny, racism, demagoguery, innuendo, and the like.  To push back.  It's heroic, brilliant and purposeful.

I argue that within the 50 year timeline, these comedy news spoofs have gone from mostly kidding and a touch pointed truth to very thorough investigative journalism with a healthy dose of funny.  The cultural importance and value cannot be underestimated.  My absolute favorite was the Colbert Report, which starred Stephen Colbert as a parody amalgamation of Tucker Carlson, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.  This was stunning political theater and absolutely hilarious.  And it followed Jon Stewart's Daily Show, making the ultimate 1-2 punch.  We were so lucky.

And there are others, like Bill Maher, who has played a vital role in our nation's discourse for 30 years.  His 2 shows, Politically Incorrect and Real Time were pioneers in topical tv shows that were funny but willing to make people uncomfortable. 

Not Necessarily the News was a fun show on HBO when I was a kid.  It was a true news spoof with great writing and funny commercials.  It was a template for the modern shows I mentioned.  But it didn't have a point of view, per se.  It was for fun's sake.  A parody for more entertainment value.

So I am so thankful at the education I have gotten from tv and now Youtube.  I paid attention in school, but these outlets help me see the subtleties.  I believe comedy clarifies for us what is blurred by those who would hurry spurious arguments past our intellectual safeguards.

This is not easy work.  Being funny about the news of the day while also making it manageable, clear and accurate.  Being a moral filter, entertaining, artistic, informative and fair is a tall order.  These shows do it day in and day out.

This Thanksgiving I give thanks to all the tireless writers, investigators etc that put together these daily masterpieces of art, comedy, education and investigative journalism.  What an amazing combination of skills and knowledge.  And: it's funny.  Bravo!

I went to a store I hadn't frequented in a long time since I've been a realtor. It was a store I needed more for landscaping. It felt like a step back in time and I was hoping to see familiar faces. One in particular, was a funny and friendly man who I debated politics with before we all did it on Facebook.

He was very conservative and I was liberal and we enjoyed sparring. When I asked about him, his former coworker said he had died 5 years before. I was sad and genuinely liked the guy. I can still hear his voice in my head when I think of it.

I asked what happened and the man told me that he had a health condition but refused to take the medicine because he didn't want to be a 'pill-popper.' He died soon after. What a shame. He could not have been a day over 60.

I understand people not trusting Big Pharma and wanting to live a natural life. But when we get dogmatic and extreme, sometimes things that used to bend have no choice but to break.

I see life as demanding, at certain times especially, flexibility from us. Not moral relativism, not a lack of boundaries, but a willingness to reconsider our accepted ideas, our stance and our sureness. This very cool man's dogmatism killed him and I'm sad about it.

The very same dogmatism has infected millions in our nation and around the world and I fear a similar outcome but on a grand scale. And we must realize that we are easily misled, easily fooled and easily nudged into a chauvinism that has become second nature.

Out-groups are easy targets for those who would manipulate us into doing their bidding and carrying their water. Blame the immigrants, those of different sexual persuasions, religions or ethnic groups. Divide and conquer.

I use natural products, herbs, aromatherapy and the like, but I don't esteem my knowledge of science above those who study it and live it. If, in the short-run, a doctor recommends something that will keep me alive while I change my diet, get blood tests or find something natural, I'm in. I take a couple medications that are helping with gout or whatever cousin of this ailment I seem to have. And I have had zero side effects except it helps me sleep.

But let's get down to mental gymnastics. Just because something is natural does not make it good. See poison ivy and lead. Petroleum products are natural and they pollute our air, water and land. The makers of natural products market and, at times, use misleading advertising. They are not necessarily better because they don't sell synthetic products.

And why are synthetic products bad? Where did we come upon that bias? And why won't people question it? Synthetic products have been amazingly helpful to the human race. Antibiotics, insulin and many other medications save lives daily and have for 100 years. They have their pitfalls, but so do melatonin, chinese herbs, and any number of amino acids used by the wrong person.

There exists a philosophical argument that whatever a natural person makes is natural any way. We are part of nature, so our buildings, our labs, our science etc are natural by their very existence.

If we don't think about our thoughts and whence they came, we won't see that we are so often peddling nonsense.

If we don't discover how we came about our ideas and worldview, we won't realize that they are not us and that we have choice and had it all along.

People use terms like facts a lot. They seem to do this in order to concretize what are actually opinions.

I suppose it's scary to look into the abyss of not-knowing. Sureness makes us feel safe, like we are right and good. But we are good no matter what. And we need to be curious and humble. Those tools will help us excavate the artifacts of our belief systems. Parents, school, religion, media, friends, nation of origin, the time period we live in. All of these are places where we were taught to think. Did they teach us critical thinking or did they indoctrinate us? Or was it a little of both?

We must familiarize ourselves with the tools of misperception and deception: fallacies, biases, cognitive distortions and so on. The stakes are so high. Not only could we die from using distorted thinking, like my friend did, but our whole way of life could be extinguished by thought viruses like scapegoating and conspiratorial thinking.

Literally everything is at stake. Our nation's promise of freedom is not immune from entropy. It must be nurtured, fed, and protected.

It's just a big collective organism with a symbiotic relationship with its many hosts. Take its protections for granted at your own peril.

Inquire. Educate yourself on the ways in which we mislead ourselves and each other. Correct your thinking. Tell the others.

This is the most important moment ever.

I have been considering a post about difficult people but from the perspective of gratitude. When I look back at them now, I see things differently. It's the old cliche about them being the best teachers. It's true, but I think they're really the best trainers and mentors too.

I have been lucky in life to have had amazing mentors. People who helped me intentionally with a skill or with just being a better person. I love to return the favor. But the unwitting and unintentional mentor is just as valuable, and perhaps more.

Most of us were trained at different times in our lives by difficult people. They may have been or still are antagonistic and critical, mean etc. But they show us ourselves in a mirror. They show us how much we want/need/demand approval. They show us how we react. And they definitely trained us on how to handle future difficult people.

Some shun, others gas-light, attack, project and on and on. But I recently sensed that I feel galvanized by this treatment. I even wear it as a badge of honor. Even since some scenarios that took place around covid times I sense now that I experience myself as dramatically different. I am far more self-approving and assured. I was really mad at someone for the treatment that led to this. Now I'm thankful. I'm tougher. I'm more centered.

What also helps is that I took some rude awakenings and decided to reflect and act upon the information. So the context is different when you're doing the work, even to the small extent that I do. So from that place of seeking renewal and redemption, I can recontextualize the behaviors as tearing off a band-aid rather than seeing the other as a villain, regardless of their intentions.

And we are in a mental health crisis for lots of reasons. That's a whole different post. But one must realize that they will and do encounter lots of people who are projecting their traumas onto others. People who will misunderstand behaviors and intent. They will try to convince you that yours are treacherous. They will try to fit you into their narrative when you don't want to be an adversary. This can be quite unintentional and unconscious on their part. Because they, like many, have been hurt deeply.

So hurt people hurt people. And the only solution is to do the inner work. To seek assistance from within and without. To educate oneself on one's own foibles. To seek a spiritual life if so disposed, or to seek community.

But what woke me up lately is a sense that maybe everyone is sleep-walking. The hubris that puts them to sleep is the idea that they've already done the work, don't need the work. It's denial. And the antidote to said arrogance is humility.

Humility says I don't know. I'm going to use beginner's mind. I'm going to apologize, forgive and humanize the other. I'm going to awaken when I'm in someone else's control drama and quickly exit. And I'm going to be vigilant against ensnaring others in mine.

Then we can see that most of us are unwittingly re-living the past. The pain, the wishes unfulfilled. The emptiness and the losses. The inner child, so wounded, becomes the miserly ego of the adult. And all we can do is to truly see them as more than they're being. And to see our small selves in them. To mourn our losses and forgive our trespassers. Because most of them were asleep at the wheel. And so have we been.

And love is giving. And it feels so much better than resenting. We can forego starting the whole adversarial process over again with someone new, while subconsciously imprinting upon them someone from our past.

And speaking of mourning our losses, it seems such a pity that we spend so much time in this dance of re-traumatization. We must be here for so much more. Perhaps some don't want to wake up from it because the weight of the wasted time and misplaced rage and hate would seem too much to bear. Especially minus the mechanism of forgiveness.

I wish everyone only love and joy and peace. And as I inch closer to 50, I realize there is no shortcut for doing the inner work. In some ways I feel like I'm just getting started. In others I sense the accumulated insights and knowledge for which I am grateful.

Sometimes the intent to learn, grow, and change our ways is enough to start a process that overtakes a person. I sense I'm strapped into that ride, especially after recently responding to a call made years ago to a very different me.

The tools of the trade of life are indispensable: meditation, gratitude, foregiveness, crying, journaling, community, purpose, music, exercise, humility, humanizing others, perspective, stewardship of nature and others. And sometimes, it's fighting for what's right, even if it makes us unpopular.

To all the teachers and trainers, I truly am grateful.