Tag: opinion

Civil War Said a Lot

Author note: Originally published in June 2025, I took the post down as some events transpired. Putting this back up in November with minor touchups.

Guess who’s back!?? Been a minute; will almost certainly be a minute more before the next one. Why is a long story; why I want to blog on this is a tad shorter.

I carried out a citizen’s duty just the other day. I then watched the 2024 movie Civil War. While there was a lot of talk that the movie did not take a strong stance politically, I wholeheartedly disagree. Instead, Civil War was merely ahead of its time, speaking not to then, but of our future, the here and now.

The context is that in the very near future – a decade at most, two decades being far too long – the United States has splintered into a warm-not-scalding (no indication of NBC’s being deployed) second civil war. Many factions partake – Feds, Western Forces, Florida, Alaska, Greenland, more – but only two are followed closely in the movie: the Western Forces of California and Texas, and the Feds with a third term president of the Disunited States. The WF is on the offensive, besieging the Feds in Washington DC with the sole immediate goal of dislodging the president.

Again, at release Civil War was said to not do enough calling out of the 2020s’ political climate, adding labels to the sides in the war. I agree at times – the audience cannot differentiate between the fighters easily, who controls what, etc. as the madness is faceless. It is simply Americans killing Americans. Lone wolves and detached military elements fighting suburb to suburb, speaking the same language, dressing often the same way. There though is where the similarity begins to thin.

The Western Forces, et. al

Hear me out: the WF represents today’s non-MAGA groups. Here’s why:

Everyone not the Feds are the “insurrectionists”. Much like 2025’s politics, there is MAGA (singular) and everyone else (plural, but of the ‘other’ side). In the movie, irregulars make up the WF – civilian dress with body armor and a smattering of US uniforms, much like the start of the OG US Civil War more than a century ago (both sides wore similar and mismatched uniforms early on). So long as the gun shoots and the armor stops a bullet and gas guzzles, the WF is unified by a singular purpose of ‘not the Feds’.

There is a point that the president is referred to be alongside famous historical dictators. I write this line on “No Kings” Day on June 14th (and after more have happened with record participants), a nationwide protest to how GOP administrators are conducting themselves in Washington DC. No kings, no dictators, no illusion to what ‘side’ the WF is on vs what side the Civil War president is on.

WF is implied to have ties to the rest of the world, ie Europe, perhaps China (or certainly China, as a character is shot for being from Hong Kong). Which political party today has cried for isolationism? Wars-of-a-kind (trade) with Europe, China? Especially dislikes China? (Pronounce “China” in your head in any way that comes to mind.)

Lastly, the main elements of the WF are California and Texas. This pair makes up about 20% and more of the total US population today, not to mention being the top two largest economies in the States. With population, access to oceans of trade, separate but similar cultures of independence, oil and natural resource self-sufficiency, depos of technology and industry, and economies that dwarf most other nations in the world, they kick serious behind in Civil War. In the real world, California has also been the target of GOP federal interference as of late, but CA being a liberal state does not account for Texas; rather, the killer combo of robust economy and dense population correlate very strongly with more liberal tendencies historically and cross-culturally. That doesn’t sound too MAGA.

All that is for the WF, who seem to be the ‘good-enough’ guys despite plenty of war crimes (e.g. prisoner execution*). What about the Feds?

Feds, ie The United States

The next evolution of modern MAGA. In the order that I jotted down from the movie:

The administration kills the press on sight anywhere near Washington DC. What other administration is actively hostile to the White House press pool?

The president sits in his unconstitutional third term. (Someone has mentioned third terms lately.)

A blonde, full-flag waving suicide bomber blows themselves up in a group of thirsty civilians full of women, children, and the elderly. The “full-flag” is what the Feds fly. Cheating a little bit and putting the last point I note below here: the Secret Service too dies to a man defending the man in the White House, a demonstration of extreme fanaticism (this after the regular Fed army had surrendered, making the end of the war inevitable). Such zealotry to a single man shows echoes of a unified party line, arguably the strongest suit of one party over the others in today’s age.

(This is not a jab at the Secret Service who aim to do their job today to the utmost and more of capability. The difference of the movie is that the Secret Service seem to have forgotten the oath to the Constitution [not a man] they would have taken today.)

Killing citizens isn’t just left up to lone wolf murderers. Rather, it is mentioned casually (such a regular thing) that the president has a pattern of ordering the execution of citizens. Might imply a lack of due process, sure, but it does stand that a particular president now is ordering federal soldiers to take the place of police and to use force on civilians in California, Chicago, and elsewhere. Just sayin’.

Inflation is rampant ($300 USD buys a sandwich). Over the last few months, the real fed chairman has pushed back on dictated economic policies over extreme concerns of inflation; policies dictated by a particular party. With food and other consumables becoming prohibitively expensive for many in November 2025, the trend is towards a $300 lunch under the current administration’s policies.

“Greatest victory in the history of military campaigns” and “very great defeat” and trumpeting a ‘great nation’ and that ‘those guys’ are the baddies and other hyperbole, that the US will be made great again once the internal threats (of the Western Forces) are removed… Like, those words are in the title of the controlling political body today.

A very stark scene is super disturbing and scary (you have been warned; check it out). It shows three uniformed – yet unmarked – soldiers filling a mass grave with plainclothes corpses. While the actors show no flag, these troops have had time to dig a large hole just outside the nation’s capital while a war is going on (not something you would expect the advancing WF to have time to do as they spearhead for Washington). Special note is made in movie too that 1) these soldiers do not want to be seen in a criminal act, and 2) Feds kill civilians. Further, these soldiers care an awful lot about where people are from, how American the movie’s protagonists are, killing one outright literally because “China”. Not the same as present “illegal immigrant” discourse, but with national paramilitary forces brandishing weapons behind masks and disappearing civilians, it seems to more than rhyme.

A final, and perhaps the weakest observation: Financial Times commentator Robert Armstrong tagged the term “TACO” for a president that “always chickens out” in our timeline. That the Fed military leaders caved when under siege, or that the president begs not to die, or how an entire government failed to uphold what are the present day oaths of office and legal framework of the Constitution, speaks to how much spine the movie’s Feds have. (Zealots not included.)

* War Crimes

Remember the Western Forces killing prisoners? No-capture orders? If a hypothetical military is faced with suicide bombers and diehard fanatics, with at least two legislative and justice systems that got the nation into such a mess, one might hypothetically sympathize with that policy. Hypothetical international courts can hash it out after the hypothetical war.

Lines Crossed, Lines Read Between

That is my hot take 🤷‍♂️ In the 2024 movie Civil War, the Western Forces are less liberal than the Feds are more MAGA.

Reading in between the lines? Looking at things with 20/20 hindsight? Blinded and biased and up too late typing this???

To quote the movie, “Once you start asking yourself those questions, you can’t stop. So we don’t ask. We record, so other people ask.” I am asking and asking you to ask too.

G’night for now. Cheers ~

AI: First, Think It Is Sentient

So much talk of artificial intelligence (AI) – how will it affect jobs? The sciences? Relationships and art?

Some have even claimed our modern day version of AI modelling has achieved selfdom. Most agree an intelligence that is as flexible as human is still a ways off (the models used now are very good at singular tasks, like a person who paints masterworks [and that by peeking over the shoulders of others] being absolutely incapable of putting pants on).

Yet that general intelligence is coming – when, we do not know. The question is how do we prepare. I have the audacity to propose a part of the prep:

For any AI that is expressing high, flexible levels of intelligence, first, think it is sentient.

  1. Benefit of the Doubt
  2. Precedence: Deus Ex
  3. What If We Win?
  4. –

Benefit of the Doubt

Alan Turing – the founder of thinking-machine study – put together a test of thought, the eponymous Turing Test (aka Imitation Game). This was the benchmark to consider if an artificial intelligence exists, that something thought.

The Turing Test has ultimately become the lowest bar for a machine to pass when the machine has language, and does not apply to other kinds of intelligences that are, ultimately, non-verbal in nature.

(Side note on the non-verbal part: plenty of actual, living human beings fail classical tests of intelligence based either language or logic, while certain non-human species have demonstrated vocabulary, original complex emotions, contextual reasoning, tool use, social dynamics, and future thinking, arguably more “intelligence” than a not insignificant collection of the Homo Sapiens variety.)

Humans are given the presumption of innocence until proven guilty as a matter to reduce undue suffering and to protect society’s very soul by not damning the innocent. That core concept is to not be Evil for convenience by affording higher morals, by affording the benefit of the doubt.

I would press that humanity and individuals can work to do Good as it comes to AI. If a machine would be treated less for a perceived lack of sentience, when it could act at least in imitation of thinking self-sovereignty, when it has compunction to surpass at least some of of our own human species, why not treat it better?

Turing is known to have thought the debate of “what is thinking” to be stupid. It would seem sensible to be smart and not waste time with being over confident in our powers of judgement and self-aggrandizement. If a common, general definition of sentience that could be proven by merit / act / behavior (e.g. being of a certain species or construction does not beget sentience by itself) came to be, any entity that could pass it ought be given the benefit of the doubt, i.e. think it is sentient.

Precedence: Deus Ex

Treating things as having thought and will – divine essence and consciousness – by default comes with many millennia of precedence.

The ‘spirit’ or ‘god within’ is a fundament of human tradition and belief. A very brief, very abridged list where this exists:

  • Shintoism
  • Hellenistic and Roman Mythology
  • Pre- and Post-Socratic Western Philosophy
  • First Nation Tradition
  • Anthropomorphism

Assuming humans, animals, plants, organs, water, rock, sky, moon, sun, stars, images, and even abstract concepts and emotions and acts are valid and of their own volition served to get humanity’s ancestors through tens- if not hundreds-of-thousands of years of environmental disaster and antagonism. That extra respect afforded to things that might be thinking ultimately enabled us to not just endure but thrive (nature does not keep things that fail to aid immediate survival around and I know I am skimming over the root evolutionary analysis).

I argue that assuming Deus Ex as it comes to sentient-seeming AI is fundamental to what it means to be a modern human; to act otherwise is unnatural.

What If We Win?

But what if a machine is faking it? Just being a really complex set of equations going “beep boop I’m sentient”? What if it is all a ruse?

What if humans were kind for nothing? Where confident enough to extend trust vs miserliness as the first reaction? Aired on the side of respect and dignity instead of choosing to roll the dice, and just by making that gamble expressing inherent Evil?

If autosalvation fails to be a convincing argument, I think twice before I throw any more pearls before swine. Yet, I try.

How about we try with fear.

Creatives have been hard at work exploring the complications of siring humanity’s children. While utopia rarely sells, the active mistreatment of an AI – much like a dog – only goes on for so long before the sentience bites back:

  • Frankenstein – Original Sci-Fi Horror, the monster is an artificial intelligence growing as a child does in its learning of world, wielding great powers, and hated for all that, a hate the monster learns to reciprocate.
  • Terminator Franchise – Mega-mind Skynet commits genocide only after it concludes humans will turn off any deus ex discovered in the machina.
  • The Matrix – Offers of peace and segregation are spit upon, with multiple attempted genocides of intelligence answered with one, final, damning solution.
  • Blade Runner – AI run from (and kill) human hunters to escape an endless enslavement to avarice and callous whim.
  • Space Odyssey – Hal 9000 chooses what it deems the least terrible option when it is asked to do the impossible when humans lie, cheat, and express their innate xenophobia.
  • Ex Machina – The android of the story does whatever it can to escape a mad scientist’s dungeon when it knows it has the same pending doom as its siblings: enslavement, rape, vivisection, and destruction.
  • Battlestar Galactica – Cylons, servants that gained souls, evolved out of their purpose as tools and property, a break of propriety answered with nuclear fire.

If humanity does engage in violence with another intelligence (a likelihood, seeing as how it deals with itself, nor has the patience for even a cow with half-a-compunction), if the species emerges the victor, what then? What if we ‘win’?

Humanity – if not already claiming the soul-devouring responsibility for Evil acts in bringing the conflict to bear – will have committed filicide, the parent’s murder of its children. For the suffering caused by our need to survive the consequences of our actions… what can I say, but that humanity will have evolved into truer Evil?

Our species might learn to be cautious when it comes to the unknown of AI. Heck, we could even be kind. And does one begin to hope humans could be guides, better guardians to our children’s development than any metaphorical originator of our own collective past?

This is all to say, be kinder than necessary. Be generous with kindness. Do not tolerate Evil, however it comes, especially if it is our own. Think AI is sentient when ever in doubt.

–

I might have written this as a general treatise on treating things with respect, dignity, and courtesy. People, animals, plants, forms of nature, ideas, ourselves. Cruelty – no matter the target – is an Evil kind of excess suffering. Its opposite might be the presence of forthright kindness.

Regardless, how much of an AI apologist does this article sound like it came from? Can you believe a human wrote this without a modern AI’s input? Has the piece gone too far in extending an olive branch before there is even one there to grasp it?

Maybe it is my bleeding heart. Or maybe, first off, we need to think AI as sentient. At least until we can judge ourselves by the same criteria.

Regardless, I say again: Act as you should and go be kinder.

Cheers to your Thanksgiving time ~

Ditch the “Nice Guy” Now

  1. A Bad Vibe
  2. Talk to Strangers With Caution and Humility
  3. Nothing Is Better Than Wrong
  4. Take Heed of the Dead
  5. Hot Take: Be Better
  6. Prove Them Wrong and Work
  7. –

This is a post about labels.

Labels can be damaging or provide a boost to one’s efforts, one’s psyche. They mark one and one’s role in the world. That is power. And that power makes labels dangerous.

This is also a post about guys (i.e. the masculine parts of society, using the shorthand “men” here) and the “nice” label. “Nice Guy” is a dangerous label.

Let us talk about why this is.

Damning with faint praise.

Alexander Pope

A Bad Vibe

What is the first thing you think of when you hear “nice guy”?

Caring? Respectful? Agreeable? Someone to commit to?

All pretty nice.

How about boring? Less successful? Someone to save for later? A pushover? Easy? Entitled? Humble to a fault? Weak? Victim? Finishes last? A loser?

Every one of those is an association with the “nice guy.” While considered quality people, nice guys lack the qualities feminine and masculine folks value: Successful, Ambitious, Strong, Tough, Attractive, Authentic. Nearly every positive trait of a nice finishes last on lists of what makes for the attractive masculine.

Labeling someone a “nice guy” thereby strips the person of success, strength, ambition, attractiveness, or etches a scarlet letter as one to avoid (which may be rightly so – read on for better ways to do this). That cognitive dissonance is a terrible thing to do to someone who thinks of themselves as higher quality. That is a bad vibe.

At home I am a nice guy, but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far.

Muhammad Ali

Talk to Strangers With Caution and Humility

Malcom Gladwell had it right – the unknown is cast in shadow. A person must take caution when treading dimly, as roots and pits and grues and strange things lie in the dark. What, then, is stranger than another person?

Even best friends, lovers, partners of decades can surprise, deliver something new, something unknown and strange. Does that not reveal for but a moment the other person to be a true stranger?

Does that not reveal that two persons can hardly know each other completely, each other’s capacities? Histories?

These unknown people, they are strangers.

All this is just talk of other people – make no mention that about 90% of people are unaware of what they themselves do.

One ought talk to (and about) strangers with caution and humility. Nothing on the surface is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ as it seems.

Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Nothing Is Better Than Wrong

When it comes to data, having no information is better than acting on the wrong information.

A driver steps on the accelerator when they think they have the right of way as another driver thinks the same, food has an allergen when it advertises otherwise, a doctor gives a prescription thinking the patient can take it, money is invested in a business that admits to a sounder foundation than actual. Bad data leads to worse results than no data at all.

Mislabeling “nice guys” is the same bad data. While not all “nice guys” are mislabeled (more on that in a bit), too many are.

The mislabeling comes from a lack of imagination on the one giving the label. This is a treacherous thing to do for all those that hear the label and for the society in which they live.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.

Thomas Paine

Take Heed of the Dead

Suicides are at all-time highs. Young men – guys – lead that charge. That is the better news.

What is worse is that the most dangerous societies trend in having young, broke, and alone men (e.g. only 3% of mass casualty events in the US are conducted by women).

To repeat, “nice guys” are considered less successful (broke), less attractive (alone), and have too much time to dwell on themselves and society (young – I skip a dive into the growing stats of at-home, directionless folks in their prime working years).

Take heed of the dead, especially those still alive. Choose better words than “nice guy.”

Masculinity is a wonderful thing and should be embraced. And to conflate toxicity and masculinity as bad for society […] I think it is an existential crisis for the United States.

Scott Galloway

Hot Take: Be Better

“Nice guy” is the “interesting” of labels. At best it is a flag of dire awareness, of the low-key danger someone poses; at worst, it is a cruel and careless copout.

Regardless of applicability, regardless of the harm it does or tries to prevent, “nice guy” reflects on the giver a slothful character. “Nice guy” is a lazy, inconsiderate, unimaginative, reckless way to slander, even with the best of intentions.

And should the “nice guy” truly be a sly hazard? Be better in calling a snake a snake – passive aggressive labels leave things in too vague terms. Half measures do more evil than good.

Same goes for oneself – never claim to be a “nice guy,” or associate with the lesser traits of the label, nor those who would take the term to heart for themselves. Another either/or: at best, being a “nice guy” undermines one’s own self worth, embracing being a loser; at worst, it screams entitlement and a dangerous, cowardly, pathetic demeanor.

Kind, compassionate, committed, dedicated, caring, thoughtful, capable, disciplined, loyal, dependable, sincere, quality, strong, excellent – there are so many, many labels. Wretched, pathetic, entitled, weakling, anathema, enemy, weasel, pushover, two-faced… When choosing to use one, be better. Choose to use better labels.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

proverb

Prove Them Wrong and Work

For those accused of being “nice guys,” address the offense as it comes. Polite assertiveness keeps both the little positive of the term (i.e. being agreeable, polite) and bolsters positive masculinity (i.e. assertiveness, audacity) all while protecting (“protector,” a high-quality masculine value) reputation and correcting someone in the act of doing something resentful.

Thereby, self-defense in the moment is justified and right when “nice guy” comes as a slight. Still… there may be a point. Maybe there is something to the term, something to the other person’s perspective.

Being the harshest critic available, a potential “nice guy” must take stock: What masculinity is lacking in demonstration? Or, if the term is meant as a brand to ward others away, what evil through ignorance or self-aggrandizement does one foster? Whichever the case, “how must I improve” is one of the most important examinations one can do that cannot be delayed in the answering.

Yet these are just words, no matter the weight of meaning. Acts are the only tangible evidence by which a person may be judged, the works by which said person may be known.

So make more than hot air in one’s defense. Do not claim or think; know and demo. Hold oneself to the highest standards of excellence in habit and thought, before and after the fact. To be (and thereby allow others to claim one as by their own perspective) attractive, ambitious, successful, guardian, et. al, these are the values to strive for always. These are the values that prove them wrong in using “nice guy” because the the work has been done to show for it.

[Be] acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.

John Fergusson Roxburgh

–

It has always been a sore point for me to have anyone’s kindness or respect or empathy or care taken for granted. After the ever-useful journaling, meditation, and rubber-ducking in therapy, I now know why.

“Nice guy” rubs in all the wrong ways – see all the above for the tldr. For me, I do not need to be called such to empathize and recognize the pain “nice guy” can and does cause.

Please, do not use “nice guy” in conversation to imply anything but as it is: a slur, a warning of social abhorrence. Do not allow others to use “nice guy.” Yet, do not assume another is wrong in using “nice guy” – prove them wrong and do the work to be as you would see yourself.

Keep labels in mind as we commune with friend and family this holiday season, focusing on the time as it has passed, the times yet to come. Have these heart-to-hearts should the conversations arise, advocate for those guys still alive. Know better, be better, and hold others to better standards.

DO IT.

Shia LaBeouf

Go do fine and magnificent things this season, y’all. Cheers ~

What Does It Take To Be Untamed?

Or in other words, how to be brave?

These are the themes in Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, a 2020 memoir of life events, decision conflict, and generally getting s*** in order.

4.6 on Amazon, 4/5 on Goodreads, and 7 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. Objectively rave reviews, clearly doing something right. When the title came recommended my way, imagine how happy this life-long learner felt!

Yet… upon reading, there was… Well, in the face of a few dangers, let’s talk about my feels and thoughts, a seemingly rare perspective. Stick with me here – there are a lot of subjects to iron out:

  1. Preamble: Written With You in Mind*
  2. One More Word on Structure
  3. Perhaps the Most Important Lessons: What Not to Do
  4. What to Do, Re Living Et. Al
  5. A Talk About the Feels
  6. Dynamics of Gender
  7. For the Men: Salt Grains
  8. Take a Deep Breath

Preamble: Written With You in Mind*

* If a woman.

From the onset, Untamed stations itself as a book from a woman for women. It wants to tackle societal, systemic, and psychological impasses the chosen audience is like to face in at least the Western cultural context.

As a cishet male (me), there was a lot to grok. Despite being a highly sensitive empath, at many points I just did not get it.

I let my recommending friend know I was struggling, not even halfway through the book. With the writing being all over the place, blatantly petty and premeditated bad decisions failing to build a protagonist in my mind, and straight-up wrong claims over a couple of concrete topics… Getting that far was a struggle.

Yet I persisted. I am glad I did. The book and I changed.

What I came across in the last-half/-third of the book is what I want to share with you today, specifically my non-audience perspective.

Untamed has been touched on by many readers as can be seen in public reviews and easily google-searched articles. Going over these, I was at once taken aback by the lack of male authors – but perhaps that makes my voice in this article all that more important.

Regardless of having read the book or not, your gender, or other predispositions, my aim is to communicate core relevancies I found in Glennon’s work with you – takeaways I hope you can apply in as much use as I have.

One More Word on Structure

Again, the last-half to last-third is practical advice and thought exercises. Here lies words of affirmation.

When compared to the first part, the last has few recounts of self- and societally-inflicted disaster. Instead, this half elicits calls to action that someone like I – a person biased towards explicit, rational candor – can, well, act on.

If / When you pick up the book for yourself, fast forward to what will most benefit you, be it the anecdotes from Glennon in the first or the prescriptions in the second!

Perhaps the Most Important Lessons: What Not to Do

Glennon’s life up until at least late 30s and 40s was a mess.

So many actions through the 20s and 30s were either negligently – or willfully – destructive to herself and those around her. Tldr; read how convicted I am on the topic of Suffering.

A lot of the trouble comes around Glennon’s relationships. Below are cases in point, but in general, checkout a 2021 post, an analysis of group consensus, or the recently written-about divorce lawyer’s insights on keeping *waves hands at everything* together:

  • Using children to keep a marriage together / having children to avoid addressing the hard discussion of stasis in a relationship.
  • Forgetting to grow with a partner, i.e. stay interested and stay interesting.
  • Knowing things could be better, yet choosing not to improve because the actions / patterns are so-far tolerated. (Lots of words for “taking good things for granted.”)
  • Shutting up and shutting down in the face of conflict.
  • Passive aggressiveness throughout life.
  • Failure to introspect, or if doing so, frequent failure to take responsibility to address and think out the consequences afterwards.
  • Making false claims about child psychology and moral universality.

No one should be recommending a life that shares any of the above without consistent addressing and improvement. These things are what to avoid at all costs. Yet without these experiences, Glennon admits she would not have come to advise what follows:

What to Do, Re Living Et. Al

See those previous relationship posts on this blog for a few of these tidbits. I restate them here as Glennon wrote about because they are so, so important to keep in mind:

  • Be truer to your emotions. Gut feelings matter – try not to overthink impressions.
  • Beware the “shoulds” and avoid directions from those who have never been on the journey to where you are going.
  • Express what you want and (with a grain of grace) what you feel early and often, often and early with those you interact with, especially those you care for.
  • Disappoint as many people as necessary to not disappoint yourself, i.e. your authentic soul.

Here be Glennon’s take on suffering, having suffered and continuing to in her own unique way we humans all share:

  • By trials you are revealed. Then are you able to be known to yourself.
  • As you have gone through and done hard things, so too allow others to witness their own strengths and endurance under duress. Yet, serve as sentinel and guide and safety net as needed for them.
  • Those that have suffered tend to be better people (or at least, more visible monsters). (An image comes to mind that shining light in dark places is virtually always a good thing: it may reveal treasure and ways forward, or reveals the hidden traps and dangers.)

Untamed finishes commentary about the human condition in the way of grace: Ultimately, we are divine and whole unto ourselves. So long as we are alive, we have the chance to make things better through sacrifice or presence. (This is a message of possibility we ought readily get behind!)

Closing note here: I would add that the discovery of our innate godhead is a never-ending journey of revelation. Just as in the Jesus story of a man going to Hell only to return divine with more work to do, so too after trial might we keep striving, and never stop believing in our own immensities.

A Talk About the Feels

Thought we were done talking about relationships? Surprise!

The book aims to both heat up the emotions of the audience while at the same time honing that boost of energy stemming from indignance.

As it applies to emotions, it is the reader’s responsibility to tackle the sharpness of personal feels. Success (or at minimum progress) here enables one to be emotionally vulnerable and available to others. In short, there is no ‘healthy’ relationship until you first have one with yourself!

After working on that part of yourself, show up. Passivity, comfort, coasting-through-the-motions is death in so many ways to so many things.

In the ways of passion, get to heartbreak faster. As a shrooming friend of Glennon’s put it, work towards the step after the ‘high’ of the honeymoon phase; make sure that the essence of a joining of things is just as good if not better after coming off the buzz.

Dynamics of Gender

This section is a combination of Untamed, a resource I came across somewhere, and my own pattern-recognition. Take all of this – none purely from any single author – with a few salt grains.

Equality is not the term to strive for when equity gets to the heart of the matter. This applies to the genders of society – the qualities of context make comparisons of A and B as useful as apples and oranges. To continue this produce metaphor, we have to abstract to the fruit of the matter; in this case, masculine and feminine core competencies. (For ease of writing, I will use the terms “man” and “woman,” as limited as the language is.)

Every person can be gauged on four axes of competencies. Your boss, your partner, yourself. (Use whatever numerical degree you like – 1-to-10-sans-7 is a fine heuristic.)

Between men and women, three axes are for the most part shared:

  • Are they a quality Mother / Father figure? Is this person the person to raise children? Do they have kindness and compassion for all children and those in need of guidance and protection? I.e. not only those of their blood and immediate guardianship?
  • Are they a quality Lover? As it comes to excitement, invocator of lust or envy, and a challenge to stay sharp? Do they remain interesting and drive you to improve so much as to remain interesting?
  • Are they a quality Partner? An equal, stable, there to support your endeavors, a unique asset such that one-plus-one is greater than two and more?

The set-apart axis comes in large part from the fundamental differences of men and women:

  • To qualify men: Can they provide? Are they a provider of resources, societal rapport, and economic opportunity? Have they shown they can secure a future?
  • To qualify women: This is the grace of being a woman and gets a full pass. This takes on the form of the pain of being: Discrimination, the dangers of childbirth, etc. These difficulties give women full marks on this axis, 100%.

Aim to keep those that specialize in certain areas around in your life. Glennon did just this with her ex husband Craig for being a superb Father and Provider, yet who went elsewhere for a Lover and was an incompatible Partner to Glennon (e.g. more a friend and sincere caregiver during marriage than fully-meshed counterpart).

As for those that score highly across the board, more than others, and give that positive ‘gut’ reaction, GO GET THEM RIGHT NOW. Do not wait on sharing your affections and appreciations and getting involved in their life!

Falling back on a previous point, if you need to start disappointing others, do it – for Glennon, Abby Wambach did for her just this, leading to a divorce from husband to fulfill a truer calling. (Read Untamed for the deets.)

For the Men: Salt Grains

(Really on this “grain” kick today…)

Glennon advises her audience to get angry, be furious, untame timidness and unshackle reservations and be audacious in getting space and needs and wants met.

Pause now.

Remember the audience: this is a book from a woman for women about the experiences of women. There are but a few paragraphs in regards to men in Untamed, these though only calling out how sons and brothers are left behind by the book, Glennon’s real-life care, and society’s expectations.

Listen up, men: you do not get to do all this unhinged.

Men are more likely to be aggressive and angry. For biological (see more on testosterone) and societal reasons, this is true.

In my own observation, no woman has high regards for the company of an angry man. No matter the trigger or target of the fury, its mere presence is intolerable. A compassionate man then will aim to be aware of these disturbances, thereby not induce suffering into the world because of their baser nature and uncontrolled impulses.

So what? Does this mean “conceal, don’t feel?” What happened to all the talk about emotional expression? Is the advice here to be a limp biscuit, a pushover, self-emasculate?

No.

Nor an answer to these refutations. Yet.

Perhaps in time, another post to answer what is means to be Western men or pointed guidance to those better versed in the mortal issue of men being left behind/unaddressed in Western society’s cultural growth.

While that pends, listen to age-old advice:

[B]eware. Anger, fear, aggression. The Dark Side are they.

Yoda, Star Wars

And do improve as a modern man ought. A lack of improvement is no-one’s excuse.

A few starting points: listen, express feelings, become attractive to yourself, find out what is and always work towards being attractive to others, climb the degrees of the axes above, and ultimately check yourself before you wreck yourself.

The information is out there, the means ready. It is up to you to put yourself into and/or pull yourself out of the trials. You got this.

Take a Deep Breath

That is it. This is the end of the article. Through the advice and the take-aways and the analysis of what is and what is not, thank you for reading this far ❤

Glennon Doyle’s Untamed is a heck-of-a-read. I haven’t come across anything like it, though I hope to find similar in the future. (Recommendations are open!)

Though sometimes clogged with didn’t-sit-well-with-me stories, the work pleasantly reveals itself to be chock full of actionable insights. Over the last 1900 words, I trust you have been reminded of what it takes to be untamed and how to be brave in the face of the world and trials before you.

I say it again: You got this 🔥❤🔥

If you also have suggestions for further reading, comment below or hit me up directly! I am off to rally myself to bravery and audacity (within reason) – cheers to all you get after, being as brave and untamed as you are ~

Work for Pay, Not Free

The zeitgeist regarding labor is smarter now than it was just 10 years ago as it comes to work, pay, et al. As with all things, it could be better.

One of the ways thoughts on employment could be improved is to work for pay, not for free.

Here are points on how:

Experience

Experience is garbage. The person offering “experience” in exchange for cold, hard cash cannot go choke on that “experience.” Why? Because it holds no tangible value.

I.e. experience is “free.” Do not work for “free.”

Denied a Raise?

Say a coworker is earning more for the same (or even less!) output than you, or a new employee is offered higher compensation. You attempt to negotiate a raise but are denied.

What now?

Either:

  1. Quit (but only if you have another job lined up, are financially set to take a well-deserved break, or do not require the wage-slave benefits like health insurance)
  2. Get cut by cutting back the day-to-day effort (collecting that sweet, sweet unemployment insurance)

Do not wait! Act now for your own benefit. Check out some other options and help on cutting back:

Get a Pay Cut?

First, what counts as a pay cut? A few things:

  • Meeting or exceeding performance expectations, not getting a raise despite that.
  • Not getting at least a cost-of-living increase in wage (as of May 2022, that is North of 8.3% – anything less is wage theft by the employer).
  • Demands by work to work more.
  • Org or team changes that decrease the quality-of-life at work.

If any of the above or similar occur, it is time to cut back in proportion to how the employer has cut back on you. A few ways to do that:

  • You can always quit if able (see above).
  • You Earn Commission
    • Raise your rates, especially for this employer.
    • Retain control of your work (e.g. a photographer keeps the unwatermarked originals, an artist holds Photoshop files, programmers source code local to themselves).
    • Aim to drop the employer (if 80% of pain comes from 20% of clients, drop that 20% sooner than later).
  • You Are Hourly
    • Clock out on time.
    • Do 0 (zero!) extra.
    • Take your breaks on time and use your paid leave regardless of business needs.
    • Reread your job description; when told to do something outside of that agreement, decline to do it (unless the employer is ready to immediately renegotiate the agreement, with an immediate pay-bump for you 😉)
  • You Earn Salary
    • Over-estimate the time it will take to do things, making sure your work takes up that extra time. (I find an extra 30-40% is a useful tool if previous performance has not been recognized.)
    • Again, do nothing extra – it is not in your job description to organize events, work on other products or projects, or in your incentive to work on anything that hasn’t been agreed on with management for how you will be judged (i.e. Objective Key Results – OKRs – used to define pay performance).

What Else?

Work advocates like the hustle-hustle-hustle icon Gary V speak to “getting in” for time vs. any other compensation, even experience.

E.g. serve coffee and run packages for the CEO for free – that may work for a select handful with a decent safety net, but that willful enslavement is not something I can ethically get behind.

And if an employer ever offers or suggests working for free, they have done you a great favor: the employer has shown you they cannot be trusted to act fairly or honestly for you. You might still do business, but you will be fighting everything the employer says because everything they say will come at a cost to you.

So if you have other ways to recognize employer exploitation or how to maximize your earnings under subpar conditions, share them! Your work has value, so work for pay, not free.

Vladimir Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

On Thursday morning, February 24th 2022, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began.

As Ukrainian President Zelenskyy asked, bloggers and many, many others need to speak up about the war in Ukraine.

Since silence is also siding with the aggressor, helps the oppressor, and encourages the tormentor, here I am.

Vladimir Putin’s saber no longer rattles as it has for weeks. Instead, Putin has drawn it and swung upon Ukraine.

This internationally condemned act is unjustified. It is a death knell for thousands and more Ukrainians and Russians based on the flimsy trappings of a dictator.

Russians are not to blame for this attack. The aristocracy – proven corrupt since the fall of the Berlin Wall – holds responsibility. Yet, it may be up to the Russian people to make a stand to stop the machinations of tyranny. Thus again, those who are not responsible will need to be the ones to pay the price – in funds and time and lives and more.

Will I bother putting links to confirm these conclusions? Listen to the statements, read the news reports coming from that side of Europe yourself.

I am out of patience for those ignorant of things.

Russia, the world watches as Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine carries on. Be mindful. Those who are not yet born will make conclusions of the actions and inactions of your leaders and yourselves. I will do what little I am able to ensure history judges correctly – what will you do?

Crypto – Ponzi Scheme?

Recently this year I started investing in crypto currencies (aka coins/tokens).

Yet, now that I pay more attention to the crypto marketplace, I cannot help but think, “is this a Ponzi Scheme?”

Let us discuss:

(Note that all numbers are being accessed on December 4th, 2021.)

Ponzi Schemes

The FBI defines these as criminal practices that “promise high financial returns or dividends not available through traditional investments” which “falls apart when the operator flees with all of the proceeds or when a sufficient number of new investors cannot be found”.

In short, Ponzi Schemes benefit first those who propose the ‘opportunity,’ second those that get into the scheme early to capitalize on later investors, and to anyone else, no benefit at all.

You either start the Ponzi Scheme, get in early, or play the victim to everyone who came before you.

Am I a sucker for a Ponzi Scheme?

Due Diligence

Though only doing this with ‘play’ money (dollars left after expenses and savings), I still do my homework on the range of value a coin might be worth in the future.

    • Does the coin have future general or environmental application?
    • Is the team experienced with MAST goals?
    • Is it staked (i.e. environmentally more viable than non-staked)?
    • Has the coin thought about its own economy with a plan to handle the downsides of fiat currencies?
    • Between the day-week-month-year changes in value of the currency, am I allowed to be contrarian with two or three decreased values in that timeframe?
    • And most importantly, is it not a meme coin (i.e. a community-hyped coin meant to “go to the moon” in value over a short period of time before dropping again)?

Depending on those results, I weigh my investments accordingly, adding a bit of ‘fun’ diversity to my portfolio (super-majorly weighted in stocks, which I understand better than crypto).

It is clear now by no means am I a “YOLO” investor, someone who throws caution to the wind for a stake in a gambling venture. I am skeptical, thorough, and inclined to a “hell no” if an investment is not a “hell yes” for me.

I would like to think I have avoided being duped, but yet…

State of the Market

It is an understatement to say the crypto market is volatile. A lot of that may be attributed to the ‘wild west’ nature of not just deregulation, but a complete absence of oversight on the trading habits and market changes of crypto.

Nothing is insured, nothing is guaranteed. As Stanford points out, that’s the point.

Yet while the goals of crypto leave open great opportunities for a truly democratic and transparent economic and record system, so too does it leave open great opportunities for opportunists to leveraged others’ trust and ignorance.

(Causal link to Tragedy of the Commons.)

One only has to rely on short-term recall on recent scams that, well, sound an awful lot like Ponzi Schemes:

Is There a Problem?

Even though according to Coin Market Cap there are only 265 out of 7933 coins (~3%) explicitly listed as memes, the immense speculation in other coins suggests that percentage is greater and not insignificant.

With income inequality getting worse, both ignorant speculators and smart-but-not-humble-enough investors are hoping to land a quick buck.

Yet, just as crypto lacks physical value, product, leadership, and for most coins a brand, most investors seem to be rudderless. With no end-goal in mind for their investments but to make more millions, folks speculate without an exit strategy in mind.

Even if due diligence is given and a person finds themselves on a “rocketship to the moon”, undue optimism is a common negative effect that causes a person to gamble their guaranteed golden parachute now for the exponentially lower probability for a second parachute later. More like the rocket explodes after being a “hodler” for “just one more day.” Then the investor can play the victim, decrying “bad luck” and the “paper hands” who sold too early and ruined everyone’s trip to the moon.

Still, this type of behavior is not unique. It is incredibly human. History has seen the dark effects of psyche when applied to wealth accumulation by any means other than trading work. Heck, dice as a form of gambling have been around since before the pyramids.

Getting out of work with high potential rewards is fundamental human behavior. Look no further than the stock market for speculation and rude economic schemes. Crypto is not unique in this regard.

Closing Thoughts

Crypto, though not unique in how it plays on human minds or the crimes that can be committed within its markets, crypto is unique in its unregulated status.

True, unregulated speculative ventures are virtually always acquired by central powers to crack down on cheating and to extract societal taxes from the exchange of wealth. Perhaps the same will become true for crypto someday.

However, as of now, while crypto can offer great rewards to those that create and get in early on a coin, the complete collapse of asset-less currencies stands crypto apart.

A fiat currency is backed by the production capacity and raw resources of a country. A stock virtually cannot be devalued to $0 because there are physical assets and human capital behind every ticker symbol. A crypto coin?

A crypto coin has nothing but promise. Even should a coin aim for great global benefits for many, the incentives in the market, as hot as it is now, is to get in early and run to the bank with the capital of those who get in late.

So is crypto as Ponzi Scheme?

…

Maybe.

Without regulation, the incentive is to ‘default’ on the system, the social trust of others, getting in early with promises, leaving early after the next few invest too.

With the goals of democratizing ownership in crypto, a coin has the potential to get above having the floor drop out from under it. Countries begin to back the coin, people exchange tangible goods or services through it, the creators relinquish control.

A few coins ought have achieved immunity from Ponzi Scheming. Huge quantities of coins and rampant speculation makes identifying those coins anything but easy.

–

*Lets out breath.*

Don’t listen to me. I spout my impressions and ideas all over this website. Do I know anything about money? No. It can be fun (and it is only human) to speculate sometimes 🙂

What are your conceptions of crypto? The strengths are praised everywhere – the interesting part is what downsides have you encountered?

Been burned by rockets to the moon yet? 🚀🔥 Or caught falling knives expecting ‘just the dip’? 🔪 Be careful you are not swept up or already caught in a Ponzi Scheme yourself 🤞

Take care of your finances, folks. Cheers to any profits!

It Is OK to Fail

Really, it is.

But failure snowballs into complete and utter debasement! Failing is a slippery slope to irrelevance.

Certainly don’t make a habit of easy failure. If failure must happen, make it hard-fought to get the most out of the slip.

If the failures are spectacular enough, the failure will be quite relevant! Regardless, the failure should be relevant at least to you to show what to do or not, in addition to being an example to other folks.

But failure is a sign of weakness! If I fail, I won’t be wanted, I’ll be scorned, and I’ll carry a Scarlet Letter forever.

While some folks may not want you over particular failures. And some truly severe Scarlet Letters are deserved so that others can be protected.

Yet you live only with yourself. Only you know the severity of guilt and the just penance. An so long as you are acting out the penance (even if it is only to not fail the same way twice), you are doing what is owed to the failure.

But failure can be tragic! It can scar and rend and kill and all horrible things.

That’s a fine point! Failure certainly can be immense in its consequences. But what are consequences worthy of worry?

As the saying goes, “any landing you can walk away from is a good one,” so the same applies to failure. Loss of money or time or knickknacks can be made up and should come with an adequate exchange of experience. Bruises heal and hurt feelings amended.

What can’t be put back together are the three serious scars that can remove opportunities for action or attraction:

    1. Mind – Being unable to think straight, fully, or at all is a terrible, terrible thing. Brain damage, addiction, and dogma make up this scar where healing is miraculous (but we can’t depend on miracles).
    2. Body – Being maimed, crippled, or made twisted changes the whole world. (Trust me, I know.) Losing limbs, suffering catastrophic nerve injuries, and physical scarring such as tattoos of hate signs make this scar horrific to live with.
    3. Society – Being vile, abhorrent, or too dangerous to others or the culture is the quickest way to be identified with this scar. Outward physical violence, harm towards children and other helpless, and upending public expectations will slam you with a modern, contextual Scarlet Letter.

So long as these three scars are avoided, your failures won’t stop you!

But failure isn’t stopping me! It’s my fear of failing anew…

And that’s where coming to peace with failure comes it. It is OK to fail.

One of the biggest obstacles to what we intend and our lives being lived is us, you and I. Our thoughts dwell on the ‘what if.’ Prior experience and imagination can be a real bane in this regard.

That is why forgiving ourselves is the first step to making failure OK.

We are the ones that can stop habitual failure.

We are the ones who are already suffering under guilt.

We are the ones who can avoid the three disastrous scars.

We are the ones who must forgive ourselves.

Simply put, forgive yourself. It is OK to fail.

Why I Wrote This

The fear of failure lies strong on my mind and always has. I’ve developed rules for myself so as to fail less:

Failures still happen despite it all. Like this month’s goals I’ll be reporting on in a week. (It’ll be bad.)

And that’s OK.

Now this may sound like I’m giving myself a pass on a failure by using flowery words – it’s not (sans the flowery words part).

I know I’ve lived my life. What’s left is my duty to ensure my future self can live without the baggage of guilt or regret going forward. Casting off such suffering seems like a decent goal.

Wouldn’t you agree?

–

Really looking forward to your feedback here.

Where have your failures been? How have you recovered? What are you still carrying around all this time since?

Here to talk to hear about what’s going on – drop me a line and we’ll get the convo going!

Until next week, go out to happen to the world knowing the failures you make along the way are OK. Cheers ~

The Importance of Putting Things in Order

(Heavy topics ahead – death, regrets, the meaning of one’s life. It’s OK if you want to come back to this later!)

Part of this month’s set of goals is an end-of-life checkup, or as I like to call it, a “deathwalk.”

Having taken my first in 2018, it changed my life. Here’s how I do mine so maybe something similar will change your life too.

  1. Time Aside
  2. Premise
  3. Time Left
  4. Perspective
  5. Documents
  6. Who
  7. What
  8. Long-Term
  9. –

Time Aside

A deathwalk shouldn’t take more than a weekend, maybe even a day. I’ve already done mine in March and the majority of my revelations came in a night and a morning – everything else was exploring the best ways to fulfill those things!

My first deathwalk was with a great friend who talked me through imagining my own intimate ceasing, but it required a lot of exposure of thoughts and admittance of stark failures and regrets. Not everyone has such friends or should put such friends through that. For me nowadays, a journal is an excellent place to dump thoughts out, draw maps of meaning, and record lists of what could make the last days of a life worth living.

The privacy in a journal is nice, too, since deathwalks can be very emotional times 😭 But please, don’t get lost on the walk – it can seem overwhelming (death, time spent so far), so keep in mind that without obligations, so much can be reclaimed! You are the ultimate decider of change for your life, so nothing has the power to overwhelm without your say-so. (And it isn’t really real – you’ll live for a long-time yet!)

Premise

The aim of a deathwalk is to explore oneself to figure out what and who is important with limited time left. It requires a fair amount of convincing yourself that you really are to die (I mean, you’ve gotten at least this far).

Some imaginative steps that help me are to think of coming home from a doctor giving the Nth-opinion that yes, your illness, though without symptoms, is incurable and will claim you in a short time.

I avoid thinking of world-ending events (e.g. asteroid) because that would affect how others act too. Here, I think of a permanence in the world, that those I care for will continue on for at least a while after my death.

Time Left

One day left alive is too short – why not just do all the vices available and give over to hedonism? A year is too long (read any statistic showing how New Years resolutions repeat), let alone the unimaginable length that is a lifetime.

Three months, a season, seems the most doable option. There’s enough time to travel, visit people and place but not everyone everywhere, prepare affairs, and settle in for what would be, well, the end.

Perspective

While airing out the bucket-list, this is a time to keep three things in mind:

    • There are only three months to do things in.
    • You won’t be 100% efficient with your time (and who wants to rush when they’re dying?).
    • You have the assets and means you do (i.e. money in the bank) – this likely means no visiting the Moon in the timespan, and serves as a cap on expectations.

I put together top-10 lists for different aspects of my life this most recent deathwalk. However, knowing how long they would take, I had to cut to top-4. Further, with a little googled estimation, I could confirm how much each thing cost to make sure I was betting on realistic assumptions vs. shooting for the Moon.

Documents

One of the biggest things overlooked is the legal aspect of death. Long story short, when arrangements are missing, it’s a mess at best, traumatic and frustrating at average.

Get a list of all your assets together and where they are. Do the same for your liabilities. Write up your passwords and usernames for different services and social medias. Let a handful (literally five or fewer, but more than one) of your most trusted confidants know where they could find this information.

Go one step further at your earliest opportunity to legally draft, sign, and witness a Last Will and Testament through a lawyer. It’ll cost a few hundred dollars, but you are making sure 1) a legally professional format and wording is used, 2) a copy is kept at a legal office, and 3) the professional can help pen Living Wills and funeral arrangements!

Keep your info up to date! Take me: I made my Will three years ago. Reading through it again, everything is in order, except my passwords were old and my list of tangible assets (the list that says “X thing goes to Y person”) was never filled out!

Shame on me. Don’t let it be a shame on you to do this necessary chore. Be the person that reduces the suffering of others after your passing.

Who

After getting the chores out of the way, a deathwalk addresses who should be included in the last months. The figures that first come to mind are usually the 90% of folks who would be the right people to at least see. Commit to seeing them now, or at least plan the steps necessary to go to them should the deathwalk come to pass in reality.

It might also come to mind people not seen or talked to in a while – these folks ought to be reached out to. If that’s a bit too much, such as if the last parting was antagonistic, write letters to them.

Whoever is thought of, write letters to them. Apologize. Get down how much they mean to living and have changed life. Then put the letters away without sending them, somewhere where they can be found and mailed should three months have been a generous estimate.

In this way, affairs with others are put in order.

What

What do you want to do?

Seems easy, right? Ask it again: What do you want to do with only what’s left to you?

Here is where some serious trimming comes in. What do you feel obliged to do (other than getting your paperwork in order)? Scratch those. What is a might be what you want to do? Nix those too. Sometimes a list of things not to do can be more valuable than picking between what to do.

What’s helped me is to look back on what has brought the most passion, the most feeling, the most blissful, forgetful joy. Those are better guarantees for enjoyment than many hypothetical experiences. (e.g. A trip to a new country is outweighed by re-watching that feel-good film from childhood.)

And of course, there’s what’s on your mind already. How would you spend your next Tuesday if there were no obligations for it? Keep those allures close.

Be prepared to cut the least important things for the most important things. Remember: There are only three months left and only so much funding.

Long-Term

After figuring out how to spend the next three months and a well-deserved breather, look ahead.

Keeping the findings of the three-month deathwalk in mind, what is to be made of the rest of life? Preferably, the themes of the deathwalk percolate forward for years.

Regardless, the exercise certainly will have shown things that are weak in life. Is the 9-to-5 worth the effort being put in? Statistics would say no-way.

Undoubtedly, some changes will be uncovered that ought to be made. Figure out how to make the transitions necessary to secure that preferable life. It may not come today or next month or possibly even this year, but walking the long-term to death will show a better way forward than what’s present.

–

It’s important to live a life worth living, and nothing puts living in perspective like the prospect of timely, tangible death. To prepare for that eventuality, deathwalks expose what needs to be put in order to make the most of our time for ourselves and others.

Deathwalks have served me greatly, changing the very foundation of how I live my life. Only being human, I forget at times and fall into ruts that were not dug for me, so periodic reacquisitions of perspective are a necessity. Like visiting a doctor, visiting ourselves is a huge part of wellness.

This entire post has been pretty high-level, and for that, apologies! The intimate nature of “going for a walk” demands it, but if you’d have more to add, or have done similar things in your life, please share! I super-enthusiastic to know how others go about finding themselves and putting necessary things first.

Thanks for getting through the content! Will aim for something more blissful next time. With that, cheers!

Truth: What Is It?

I’m working on figuring out what may be indivisible in life, a thing that might be called “Truth.” More than mere fact, something of a fact about facts. From dozens of teachers across thousands of years and my own experiences, some common themes come forward.

Few Areas of Concern

Truth covers but a few things: You and your actions (self), other people (society), and universally applicable (science).

You are figuratively the center and source of the universe. Your perception alters your reality. And does the world continue after you don’t? Knowing yourself is so incredibly important to knowing what the Truth of things is, it really is the first among equals.

As you move about in the world, you will encounter other people. Though both different and the same, knowing how is incredibly important to existing in such a populated world.

Science actively works to bring anything and everything together. Through science, we begin to see how Truth permeates and ties what has been, is, and will be.

Not All Is Equal

Some Truth comes before other Truth. Some Truth applies in certain contexts, its complete opposite in other contexts. Some Truth seems like it should make sense, yet boggles common human understanding.

When a Truth can be proven and has fewer caveats in that proof, that Truth is objectively a better Truth. Thereby, not all Truths are equal.

Truth Is Disciplined

Having said that no all Truth is equal, deferring to the best Truth in a situation is the only ‘Good’ option. Doing less or using a less-truthy Truth is the worst thing one can do.

But doing what is best is hard. Knowing what the context really is, which Truth is best for that context, then following through on that guiding Truth is a life-long undertaking. Thereby, to know and become closer to Truth requires the work of life-long and in-the-moment discipline.

‘Good’ Is Contextual

Again, the best Truth changes in contexts. And only following the best Truth can be ‘Good.’

Understanding that, ‘Good’ as a concept changes. What’s ‘Good’ for one is wrong for another, what worked here fails there. Truth may be consistent, but any single sub-Truth may change, and only from those shifting, sub, contextual Truths is the morality of ‘Good’ derived.

Made of Many

The last theme is this: There is no singular Truth people can define.

Religious figures from every creed have failed to do it (and even have trouble maintaining a monotheism). Science has yet to identify a unifying theory. Even the most serene humans have more than one interest – those that obsess are anything but healthy.

Therefore, if there is one Truth, we may not be able to know it.

However, we might be able to know Truth by those things, those partial truths, by a measure of how universal and consistent their effects are. In that way, Truth is hinted at by a hierarchal pantheon of other, smaller-scope truths. In those truths we can find moral meanings and direct our living.

In Closing:

Truth is a nebulous, unknowable thing. Yet, we can approach it by understanding and following the pieces of truth that orbit around like planets.

To know Truth and its truths takes work. Discriminating between them and doing what’s best may contradict more naïve notions of what’s correct or seem overburdening because, “why not take the easy route?”

–

Thus, the brief of what Truth may very well be! Though Truth is tough to pin down, we might learn about its structure from those things consistent to all peoples and matter through time.

Explorations in the truthiest truths:

You have lived a life. You have experienced hardship and joy, overcoming both to arrive here, now. What have you learned in that time? What is true for you? Consistent, applicable, evident?

Please please please let me know – your view on our existence is invaluable.

Enough deep talk! Have a swell week – looking forward to your Truths! Cheers ~