==

“I’ve learned that you simply can’t control those bad vibes.”

Kenny G

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“Just as thoughts are not facts, feelings are not facts either. Emotions are information, but when that information is powerful, intense and loud, as emotions can be, then we are more vulnerable to believing in them as a true reflection of what is going on. I feel it therefore it must be a fact. Emotional reasoning is a thought bias that leads us to use what we feel as evidence for something to be true, even when there might be plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.”

Julie Smith

==

I almost called this ‘feelings versus reality,’ but let’s stick with vibes for now. Vibes is simply an extension of “feelings over facts” or even perception is reality. To be clear, sometimes what you feel about something is a reflection of reality, but for the most part your feeling is simply a reflection of some part of reality you have chosen to focus on. And from there reality goes into a death spiral because often what we choose to focus on is, well, wrong.

Which leads me to the misuse of data.

Whew. Nothing feeds vibes more than a misused piece of “data.” Some scrap of faux logic feeds an entire vibe meal. Lets use the “60% of people live paycheck to paycheck” to discuss this. The reality is maybe 18% of people actually live paycheck to paycheck – as in that’s all the money they have. That said. Apparently 60% of people ‘feel’ like they are having to live paycheck to paycheck. That’s the logic gap. And it is within the gap where ubiquitous data thrives. You would think we , as a society, would have learned this in discussing climate change. For years, if not decades, climate change has been proven, and agreed upon, by over 95% of experts and climatologists. Yet that less-than-5% pried open a gap which confused the hell out of people. That climate change faux debate was simply the precursor to everything in today’s world. It where the charlatans learned how to use data to their own purposes. What I mean by that is “use the exception to suggest the rule.” Along the way they combined this learning with “he who shouts the loudest and most confidently wins.” The exceptions of data were wielded like heavy dull axes on a society dulled by an overwhelming amount of data. Vibes often get fed by misused data.

Which leads me to dulled versus stupid.

I just said “a society dulled” but this isn’t to suggest most people are dull/stupid. Generally speaking, people are not stupid. Generally speaking people face some challenges with regard to truly learning despite what they feel like they observe. Human beings, apart from being fragile mentally fragile in certain instances, critically thinking fragile in certain instances, as well as selectively data starved in certain instances, has consistently shown a limited capacity for transfer learning. What I mean by that is we mainly extract superficial patterns and have a tendency to not be able to deal with a hierarchal structure of data where a meta structure of thinking is often constructed from a myriad of smaller mesa components. We struggle with open ended inference and have a poor history of integrating prior knowledge. We certainly cannot inherently distinguish between causation and correlation and we tend to assume a predominantly stable world while struggling to deal with a confluence of systems that are continuously changing with varying rules, varying outcomes, and varying successful processes. So, as we consider progress and priorities and likely future paths of not only our society but of our own thinking we must constantly be exploring better ways of assessing our own intelligence an ability to assess reality True progress means we do need to become better prioritizing not only the data but the paths that we pursue.

Which leads me to logical illogical vibes.

One of my pet peeves is the saying “perception is reality” because, well, reality is reality. If your perception is not reality, it just means you are living in a non-reality world and I would suggest you are in for a rude awakening one day (maybe not tomorrow, but one day). Vibes based on flawed data is exactly the same. Selective data plucked from qualified research and data simply gives you some dubious logic to an illogical universe. It is within this illogical universe in which things like vaccines can be bad, soft power (diplomacy and foreign aid) is wasted monies, tariffs can generate enough revenue to fund necessary societal needs and immigrants are actually bad for the economy (they are not), more likely to commit crimes (they are not), and voting (they can’t). That isn’t to say that I could find a selective data point to make any of those statements seem logical. Its just, well, it would be selective data misused and, therefore, creating a vibe not reflective of reality. All that said. This is the illogical logic world we live in. Ponder.

===

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

unitarian minister and slavery abolitionist Theodore Parker

==

“However, even if we accept that citizens are not primarily causally responsible for our poor information environments, it could be argued that they nonetheless have a remedial responsibility to mend them.”

Solmu Anttila

===

James Fell, who is a must read for everyone, recently published a piece called “the moral arc of the universe is bullshit.”  James, being James, suggests the arc of human nature is more “go fuck yourself” rather than any commitment to greater good. Anyone who reads my thinking knows I do not agree. But. And this is a big but. As I wrote years ago, I am constantly disappointed with humans. I have come to the conclusion that while people are inherently kind, and the arc of the moral universe does eventually bend toward justice, the arc doesn’t bend unless an exponentially larger amount of morally just people are involved – than the morally unjust people. I have said, again and again, the morally unjust seem to have an outsized power and outsized effect despite their fewer numbers. The corrupt, morally and behaviorally, simply bludgeon society and civilization with a wanton disregard for chaos and mayhem. They act without norms and rules and regulations, and laws are viewed as simply things that other people do. I do not pretend to understand why they think that way or act the way they do, but it worries me how many people view them as successes. What I would point out to those people, and have, is success in the moment is not reflective of success in the future. From the heights of morally corrupt wealth gains, the falls are many and deep. It would behoove us to point that out and maybe even celebrate the fall more often and more loudly.

Which leads me to the arc of humanity.

“I’m trying to make the case that humanity is worth it.”

John Green

If you step back into United States history, I could argue the westward expansion of pioneers fostered many of the Democratic beliefs and practices. What I mean by that is the problems facing pioneers were unique from their past experiences. In fact, many of the problems, and issues, required solutions difficult to understand to the non-pioneers. I could argue every wagon trail, and every ensuing settlement, became an infant republic. I could even argue basic social democracy was embedded in initial settlements as class distinctions almost seemed meaningless where hard work, teamwork, and speculation not only was the line between death and survival, but also thriving in that it could transform whole poverty-stricken communities, or individuals, into a higher wealth strata. It was a unique type of social equality where, in many situations, resilience and hard work was everyone’s initial wealth. The problem in discussing today’s arc of overall humanity is that there is a myth that all these pioneers were unusually individualistic marked by an independence of thought and action and adventure. The reality was the majority of pioneers understood that it took a village to be successful, if not to survive. There was an acknowledged interdependence, and interconnectedness, which created a bond of community and ultimately prosperity. The true individualistic individuals were few and far between and while, mythically, we empower them with superhuman morals and ethics the majority of the truly individualistic people had what James Fell called a ‘fuck you attitude.’ A few became exorbitantly wealthy and powerful (at the expense of others), but for the most part the majority – through hard work and resilience and a sense of community – bent the arc of morality and progress and prosperity.

Which leads me to the larger lesson: there is a difference between myth and reality.

We celebrate individualism (and so-called grit), but in reality, resilience is found in community bonds. Social cohesiveness is simply stronger than any one individual. I will also add that a community of morally just is always more powerful than the morally unjust. Why? The morally unjust are zero-sum and individualistic. Even in a team they always have an eye out to screw the others to their personal benefit. They are constantly seeking to tear down while communities are constantly seeking to build. And maybe that is where I will end this section. Builders always win in the end. I do not pretend to understand people other than I believe people like to build things.

Which leads me back to human involvement with arcs.

“Consensus reality is gone. We are blessed to live now, in the West, in a strange world without

common sense. As fact grows stranger than fiction, we should embrace the surreal and try harder to imagine more outlandish fictions. We might begin by accepting that we are being lied to all the time, that most of what we hear and see is an illusion, misrepresentation, or performance—and that’s fine. Life has in many ways become a fiction, reality is vanishing under its own representations, we are suffering from collective delusions, we are teetering on the precipice of the real, with a multiverse of fantasies spinning out beneath us.”

Dean Kissick (on contemporary art)

Arcs are patterns. And therein lies possibly humanity’s greatest present challenge. In a truly globalized, interconnected, world we are constantly aware of everything and, yet, incapable of perceiving the patterns, and arc, of the greater whole. This actually doesn’t drive us ‘up’ to engage and macro-ly seek to see patterns, but rather it drives us ‘down’ where ‘vibes’ replace real patterns. I think this is called apophenia (seeing patterns where there are none, overloading the particular with excessive significance, and reframing one’s own disparate observations as generalizable cultural commentary). It is within apophenia where conspiracies thrive. If you cannot ‘see’ a real pattern you create one. I do not pretend to understand conspiracy embracers, but I clearly understand why someone seeks a conspiracy explanation. It is here that I will suggest a conspiracy is not being involved in the arc of humanity – it is simply unhealthy speculation about humanity. Involvement is actually a team sport. So, if you read “we are created equal with inalienable rights which include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as an individual endeavor, you are pursuing something other than being involved in they arc of humanity. You are simply becoming involved in creating chaos where each individual particle never bonds with anyone, or anything, but rather spins out of control in some unbounded space.

Yeah. The arc of humanity is not bent by any one individual. That is a myth. Reality is the arc of humanity can only be bent when a community of people decide to establish a pattern. I imagine I do not even pretend to understand how people do not understand that. Ponder.

“The enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth-persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”

John F. Kennedy

==

kayfabe

Kayfabe is a term used in professional wrestling to describe the act of portraying staged events as genuine

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“When a fact begins to resemble whatever you feel is true, it becomes very difficult for anyone to tell the difference between facts that are true and “facts” that are not.”

Katharine Viner

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“Alternative facts aren’t facts, they are falsehoods.”

==

2025. My “prediction” is it will be the year of performance, or, the kayfabe year. This year has been creeping up on us for over a decade if not more. What I mean by that is decades ago someone suggested that perception was reality. From that point on that belief has been burrowing its way into the minds of people. And while reality is fairly resistant to perception performative efforts, perception is a stubborn motherfucker because it taps into feelings more than the rational brain. In addition, along the way the performative perception artists gained two allies. The first was the World Wide Web and social media. A relentless onslaught of fragmented truths and partial facts created a shifting ground of uncommon sensemaking. It was like a tectonic shift, all the time, in what the common public knew and understood. The second was a kind of purposeful passivity with regard to defending reality. What I mean by that is those of us who believe in reality felt like it was so obvious that perception would just bang its head against the reality wall time after time .. and get nowhere. The problem that I overlooked was that reality needed to be defended. It needed to fight back.

Which leads me to my prediction for 2025.

Perception has now roared to the head of the class and is attempting to teach everyone that reality isn’t reality and what you perceive is real and performance is more important than substance. Yeah. I believe 2025 will be the year of the performative grounded in perceptions. Let’s call it kayfabe. Kayfabe is used to create the illusion that professional wrestling is not staged. It’s similar to the suspension of disbelief used in other forms of entertainment, such as movies or soap operas. What this means is nothing can be ‘disbelieved’ and anything is possible.

Full disclosure. I have always disliked professional wrestling. Mainly because I imagine I was never able to accept the unspoken agreement between wrestlers and fans to pretend that wrestling events, characters, and stories are real.

That said. Used by performance artists, kayfabe – managing perceptions by defying reality – is all about making the people they need to believe; believe. In addition, you need others to not only believe, but ‘do.’ Yeah. In this version of a performative world while the performance artists are seeking something for themselves, they are also asking others to do things. It is within the ‘ask’ in which performance artists are most insidious. What I mean by that is they make things black & white, simplistic to a fault, in a world in which reality is more often found in the greys and nuance. They thrive in the black & white because in this world of judgement of actions “the perception is ‘x’, they didn’t deliver ‘x’, therefore ‘x’ is not reality.” Yeah. Real behavior is judged on perceptions. Upon a razor thin line perception and reality dangles.

Which leads me to politics.

To be clear, politics as I am referring to it also resides in business. What I mean by that is business has always had the ‘performance douchebags,’ the ones who acted confidently, spoke confidently, treated perceptions confidently, none of which matched reality. We have always had people in business who have not only been attracted to those douchebags, but actually followed them. And therein lies the problems of performance anywhere. This kind of politics begins to mix the fake world of perceptions with reality, bringing real tension (in an individual as well as in society) through a mindfuck of what might or might not be real; what is possible and what is probable. The mindfuck resides in all the people having to constantly figure out, and debate, what is real and what is not. This all gets exacerbated by the performance artists who view no perception as off-limits. In fact, it almost seems like the more outrageously non-real, the better because in this warped performative world it seems to create a higher likelihood the mindfucked people begin seeing it as, well, reality. To the performance artists its ‘better’ because in this blurry world of ‘I feel’ versus ‘reality’ no one can figure out if what they are seeing is real or not. Its dangerous for society because this performance politics, this kayfabe, is grounded in a slick configuration of muddied isolated factoids, half-truths, and unequivocal lies, all delivered with unequivocating confidence. Within this performative world everyone loses the ability to distinguish between what’s real and what isn’t. Reality gets deconstructed on a daily basis and performance trumps substance.  As Hannah Arendt stated “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction – the distinction between true and false no longer exist.” I bring in totalitarianism because there is not a single performance artist, in business or public life, who has the best interest of society or the public or the business in mind. They are in it for themselves and they seek power if not wealth.

Which leads me to the year of performance.

So 2025. As we, the people, decline to embrace reality for performance, on occasion it will be a year where things do not actually happen, but it will feel like they did. Reality will be distorted when discussing real issues therefore making the issues themselves unrecognizable thereby making real solutions impossible. It will get a bit worse. The real issues become harder to distinguish from performative perception management ultimately leaving society cognitively, dysfunctionally, paralyzed. Within this dysfunction there will be a large sense of uneasiness and a larger sense we, the people, need to do something to get out of this dysfunctional malaise.  The problem is that ‘performance politicking’ (kayfabe) is difficult to ignore and difficult to combat. It’s difficult to ignore because if you ‘feel’ a sense of constant impending doom you will be drawn to scraps of performative doom to insure you don’t miss the real signs of doom. It is difficult to combat because it demands we learn to actually ‘see’ reality for what it is. It also demands, at least in today’s crisis driven social media world, we embrace kindness, hope and optimism. Nothing false, just a recognition that generally speaking the world isn’t a complete shithole to live in and most people are not shitbags.

Look. Every generation has always thought these were the ‘worst of times.’ Its almost like we ignore the full concept of “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us ….”

Charles Dickens (Tale of Two Cities)

Performative people will certainly suggest the world is ending, civilization is crumbling and we are in some shithole (small or big). And performative people have mastered the art of their performance by hijacking the24/7 smartphone world which is a fragmented perception-based world. But. The truth is we cannot look away. There is no real “unhooking” because we are all connected and someone, somewhere, within your sphere is getting pummeled by performance politics and getting sucked in. Truly, the only way to navigate the year of performance is to better distinguish, and engage, with reality. The only way to beat back the year of performance is to defend reality and attack perceptions. To be clear. 2025 will not be for the faint of heart. This year will demand you fight the whole idea of “perception is reality” and “what you feel is real.”

Which leads me to ‘the fight against performance.’

The reality is, well, those of us who are grounded in reality also need to embrace some aspects of performance. Not the kayfabe version, but a performative attitude.

“We’ve been looking for the enemy for several days now. We’ve finally found them. We’re surrounded. That simplifies our problem of finding these people and killing them.”

Chesty Puller

Chesty Puller stated this when surrounded by the Chinese in the Korean War. He bent reality without changing reality. It is an attitude. Yeah. Fighting performative perceptions is tricky. I often believe it is all about part attitude and a lot of behavior. Managing perceptions is a combination of communicating what will be; and delivering what is. Let’s call it leveraging reality to showcase the future. As Blake said “if the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear infinite.”

In other words. If you manage perceptions; anything is possible.

In other words. If people start thinking about reality, i.e., what is; they start thinking about what could be.

In the end, let us be very clear on two things:

1.        Let me repeat that while I call it performative politics, it is performance within business as well as public governance.

Business and public governance have a symbiotic relationship. I believe this has become even more true with the rise of a performative business person like Trump. Business will mirror politics. If politicians push the extremism of performance, and warping of perceptions, more business people – at all levels in a business – will push the extremism of performative shit. It has always existed in business, but it is gonna get exponentially worse n 2025.

2.       Let me repeat some basic Truths.

–          Alternative facts live only in an alternative universe.

–          Perception is not reality.

As someone who has dabbled in marketing professionally “perception is reality” truly galls me. It is an ugly lie. And it is even uglier because in an untrained, inexperienced mind, or a misguided lack of moral individual, it can be used to defraud people – unintentionally or intentionally.

Perception is perception. Reality is reality. And perception is reality only, and ONLY if you permit it to be so.

As we all head into 2025 let me state a fact. Perception is hollow unless it is truly a reflection of reality. How do we know this? If you puncture perception, it deflates to whatever reality is. That is a ‘full, honest, perception.’ Let me be clear, when you float on the superficial surface of a “perception-based Life” you can only get away with it until people get interested enough to actually interact because interaction is when the piper gets paid. James Carse said it the best: “conversations are the smallest units of change.” Performance artists know this which is why they never stop talking bullshit – day in and day out, hour after hour. Maybe my point here is that in 2025 silence just ain’t gonna cut it for reality. Reality needs loud, concise, clear, voices engaging in the conversations. Small unit after small unit deflating a performance, perception, based world.  Kayfabe only exists if we permit it to, but, kayfabe will attempt to rule 2025. Ponder.

==

“The experience of the human race indicates strongly that the only person in abundant supply is the universal incompetent.”

Peter Drucker

What is “making it” in 2024? What I mean by that is in today’s flattened society making it isn’t some title or increased responsibility or even some version of social mobility, its more simply a zero-sum wealth concept. In other words, “I have more than they do” is making it. Please note that accumulation is not linked to competency; it is solely an outcome-based claim and objective.

That said. Years ago, I wrote a piece called the commoditization of competency where I outlined that optics were becoming more important than actual competence. But that issue, while it remains, has taken on some different characteristics in the current environment.

Which leads me to the redefinition of ‘making it.’

In the past a central belief of all Americans, in particular those of lower income and middle class, was that the son and daughter of a blue-collar worker could become a PhD in physics or even the president. At the same time there was a slightly naïve belief an irresponsible child of the most elite family in town could actually make mistakes from which they could never recover. I won’t suggest that both of these beliefs were completely myth because in reality every year we could find examples, within specific lives within specific communities, within which this occurred. Simplistically this is a social mobility and anti-caste narrative (with grains of truth). And while in the present it’s become obvious that both of these things are obviously less true, the larger issue begs the core question of mobility “to what.” And this is the core issue with regard to competence. Because competence is typically what undergirds upward mobility, i.e., one needs to gain significant competence to be able to gain significant upward mobility. But if the societal narrative is to question mobility in general then competence itself gets redefined because there is no longer an objective of getting ahead, but rather the objective is to simply get ‘what you deserve.’ And what you deserve is untethered to competence. While what I just said may sound a bit esoteric, it bears out in today’s world. The reality is in America today social mobility, if defined by more wealth, is alive and well. More people, of every generation, are earning more than their parents did. The issue is that wealth increase doesn’t equate to “upward mobility.” Its just in today’s world you can “make it” simply by getting wealthier. I would be remiss if I didn’t remind everyone of what John Kenneth Galbraith said “the link between intelligence and wealth is specious at best” and that is where upward mobility DOES matter. In the good ole days you actually had to gain competency to gain responsibility and that responsibility had increased wealth attached to it. That equation no longer exists. I can be a dumbass on YouTube spewing random opinions, and misinformation, and still make hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is no link between competency and “making it.”

Which leads me to competence.

In the past there was a solid belief that in the long run competence set limits as to what a person could become. If you wanted to play a professional sport you had to learn how to do that sport better than anybody else. If you didn’t do that, you could certainly be something else, but you could not be that. I use that as an example because in the past we believed this was a truth for all professions. If you wanted to be a lawyer, you went to a law school. If you wanted to go into business, you mastered maths, accounting, and the art of effective quick decisionmaking. We were also taught that the penalty for sliding through life without having mastered any competence was a sentence to mediocrity. This doesn’t mean that we always equated competence with formal education, although education was understood to undergird many of the competencies necessary for true upward mobility, because we understood car mechanics, craftspeople, service providers, and public service people like police and firemen, had certain competencies and always stood high in our value judgments. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who pointed out “I admire people who know how to do things.” My point here is competence was always tied to being able to ‘do something’ with a high level of competence and that competence was valued in and of itself; not assessed a value based on some outcome.

Which leads me to the current competency crisis.

Doing has become a blurry amorphous assessment. What I mean by that is that in today’s short term vanity metrics world we tend to focus on some published measurement or metric. What this means is that we ignore the mechanics to achieve that measurement or metrics as well as we don’t even question whether that measurement or metric is actually valuable. This all matters because somebody could have multiple measurements and metrics posted on their resume and yet they actually have no specific competency. Or their competency is not a specific skill or even be competently smart. For example Einstein was seen as a genius with an extremely high competence in physics and mathematics. Elon Musk, on the other hand, is acknowledged by peers as neither the smartest nor having any specific strength in a skill; his only competence is having a vision. Bill Gates was also a visionary, but he also had incredible competence within the specific industry that he built his vision upon. This isn’t to pick on Elon Musk, this is simply to make a point. The world needs visionaries, but more importantly it needs competency because it is those with the competency who actually do the things to actually make it happen. And it’s probably my generation’s fault, at least in part, in that in the past we used to split people up into doers and thinkers. In doing so we diminished the doers as being lesser versions of thinkers. Ultimately it diminished competency by narrowing competency’s value.

Which leads me to “competency cynical.”

“In an organization which manages by drives, people either neglect their job to get on with the current drive or silently organized for collective sabotage of the drive in order to get their work done. In either event they become deaf to the cry of Wolf. And when the real crisis comes, when all hands should drop everything in pitch in, they treat it as just another case of Management created hysteria. Management by drive is a sure sign of confusion. Is an admission of incompetence. A sign that management does not think. Above all it is a sign that the company does not know what to expect of its managers and that not knowing how to direct them it misdirects them.”

Drucker in 1973

What I mean by this is we have just become cynical with regard to what competent actually is. Yeah. We have not only become cynical of experts, but cynical of the competent. We have, basically, become bad faith, uncharitable, people. Uncharitable in that we give every competent person a bad-faith view detailing out every possible exception to a truth about their competency (and its value) and putting disclaimers on everything, i.e., “it is possible (not probable) something is not true.” Competence dies a death of a thousand caveats. And if competence gets sliced to death, the only thing left alive is a hollow version of ‘making it.’ Making itbecomes more about style (and accumulation), less about substance (competence). I sometimes worry in today’s world where things become less and less concrete and tangible, we are placing our hopes and dreams on some dubious pedestals. Personally, I would feel much more comfortable placing my hopes and dreams on real competence. Ponder.

“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?”

John Lennon

==

“Hatred is not the norm. Prejudice is not the norm. Suspicion, dislike, jealousy, scapegoating ― none of those are the transcendent facets of the human personality. They’re diseases. They are the cancers of the soul. They are the infectious and contagious viruses that have been bleeding humanity for years. And because they have been and because they are, is it necessary that they shall be? I think not.”

Rod Serling

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“If you wanted to dismantle an entire generation from the inside out, it wouldn’t take much. Forget bombs or economic sabotage—too messy, too obvious. No, if you really wanted to destabilize a generation, you’d start with something far more subtle: you’d convince them that the world revolves around their feelings. You’d make them believe that every thought, every impulse, every fleeting emotion is sacred, and that the universe is obligated to rearrange itself to accommodate whatever’s going on in their heads.”

==

Hatred. Prejudice. Suspicion. Dislike. Jealousy. Scapegoating. All are feelings. Just as another tautophrase suggests, “the heart wants what it wants,” this tautophrase exists, “the mind wants what it wants.” This becomes important when you are faced with a world run on feelings. What I mean by that is that ‘feelings’ is a fragile construct so if you live in a 24/7 world, cable news/talk radio/social media/search engines/algorithms, which is constructed to game and use your feelings, well, you/we are fucked. In fact, in a ‘feelings world’ individual purpose is replaced by individual validation. Or let’s just say even the most well intended Purpose construct gets deconstructed in a feelings validation world. And when feelings are the compass, we become emotionally fragile and hyper-focused on self and ‘making it’ becomes less an objective, but rather a construction where you do not have the hammers, nails or architectural plan. This gets compounded because the worldwide web is a 24/7 sharing machine. We barely notice this constant input and output of information, this ceaseless sharing, yet, it has psychological, social, and emotional consequences. Our feelings become our stories and we instantly share our thoughts, feelings, experiences and stories with hundreds or even thousands of people. This ceaseless sharing subtly shapeshifts your behavior (even if you think it doesn’t). Multiply that by the millions of strangers who, day by day, offer you unsolicited input and you have entered into the ‘feelings overload’ zone. Simplistically, you have dematerialized.

Which leads me to concrete dematerializaton.

It was Annie le Brun who coined this term. It constitutes the progressive loss of all tangible relationship with the world. Basically, it encourages us to accept feelings as THE impression of living. Its kind of a subversion of a world of experiences where everything of value is in the experience not fundamental, pragmatic, tangible value received. It becomes a substitute for reality (and makes it easier to substitute value in what we may see as a failing world, i.e., a failing world of feelings. A ‘world’ can become a failing world if it ‘feels’ like it is failing (even if progress is occurring, prosperity is increasing and by any tangible measure living and life is improving). It just ‘feels‘ wrong. Oddly, ironically, this feelings world deprives us of real emotion inspired by originality and reality. It is a more banal view of reality and the world because there is no personal relationship to time and space – other than feelings. And because feelings are so nebulous and intangible, we begin shaping ourselves based on fragmented, crowd-sourced feedback, adjusting in real time like a social marionette. Ultimately our feelings aren’t really ours, but rather a conglomeration of strangers’ expectations. This has always been true, but as Toffler pointed out in Future Shock, in the past the audience feeding our feelings input system was finite. In today’s social media world that input machine is infinitely larger in scope. The entire world offers every impulsive input into your world. Visibility-on-steroids leads to vulnerability-on-steroids which leads to defensiveness-on-steroids which leads to feelings overload (feelings-on-steroids). We are not completely unaware all this is happening and, yet, we end up living semi-aware that all our ‘feelings’ are a little skewed, a little infected, a little warped by strangers, and,, generally speaking, fucked up. We grow into gnarled versions of ourselves in this fucked up algorithmic soil.

Which leads me to powerlessness.

Just like we are powerless against cancer, we are powerless to the manipulations of algorithms. It takes a great power, and objective responsibility, to fight back against algorithms. Unfortunately, it’s a responsibility that most of us are poorly equipped to handle. We tear ourselves apart over and over again not exactly knowing how or when to stop engaging with algorithms. Our privacy, and private thoughts, are now public. Yeah. In today’s world it takes an exorbitant effort to maintain privacy. We have to actively choose not to share, to resist the temptation to engage online, to keep our thoughts and experiences to ourselves. The truth is most of us are not willing to put in that effort and, in fact, almost believe sharing is the status quo. And here is where it becomes a danger in a ‘feelings world.’ When sharing is the default, we share without thinking providing a constant stream of outputs to a world waiting to offer unsolicited input. From there it begins feeling like, well, every feeling, in every moment, is a guiding star. Minor feelings feel like existential crises. This is where true powerlessness sneaks in. When people believe that their feelings define reality, they’re incredibly easy to manipulate. Outrage and fear are powerful tools, and when you feel them deeply, you will ‘feel’ like you deserve to take some extreme measures to alleviate those feelings. This obsession with feelings is a psychological quicksand. The more you try to control the environment to protect your feelings, the more vulnerable you become to any shift in the public context. In fact, you get pulled further and further away from reality. You stop looking at hard facts, inconvenient truths, or anything that might challenge the feelings bubble you exist in. In addition, you become an easier target for the algorithms and the dubious actors who reinforce your feelings, no matter how disconnected from reality it might be. Uhm. But it ‘feels’ right and, well, making it gets tied to those feelings. Making it, in this world, elevates feelings above logic, where validation is found through input, not tangible output. In fact, in this feelings world if your output doesn’t match up with what you believe you deserve, or ‘feel’ you deserve, it is no longer your problem – it’s because of someone or something else impeding what you feel is yours. You just become a pawn in the feelings game and ‘making it’ is nothing real; just a feeling. While ‘making it’ is a different post for a different day, suffice it to say if your idea of ‘making it’ is based on feelings and external definition, you are fucked.

“Human attempts to construct moral order are always precarious: If righteousness too often leads to self-righteousness, the demand for justice can lead to one guillotine or another.”

Susan Neiman, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists

Which leads me to civic responsibility.

Civic responsibility is a way of insuring that even if you are self-focused, you don’t fuck over the collective ‘we’ (the community or society writ large). Civic responsibility is about caring for others, for everyone, not just oneself.  I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the easiest way to defeat societal norms is to limit access to civic education. This doesn’t mean someone is less smart, but they are less well educated in basic civic principles which, inevitably, makes it possible to abandon the morality of  a civil society. Without the basic education civic responsibility is often replaced by nostalgia or its partner – history. Ah. History is a tricky thing. History provides important context, but history also exerts a dangerous narrative gravity. If you expect the present to be a continuation of the past you aren’t actually looking at the present through clear eyes. The past suggests you can reasonably expect things. It suggests that things will obviously occur. The reality is the past only offers some patterns and patterns are only as good are only good until they’re broken. The past never predicts the future it simply offers possibilities and probabilities. What I would say is that civic responsibility is a drug to combat the cancer of the soul of society. Civic education diminishes hatred, prejudice, suspicion, dislike, jealousy, scapegoating. Civic education tamps down, well, personal feelings and enhances feelings of community. And, its quite possible, that a combination of civic education and civic responsibility increases one’s ability to fight back against the “feelings algorithms.” Ponder.

==

“America, fundamentally, is an incredibly rich country with a sick society.”

Noah Smith

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“The primary use of ‘misinformation’ is not to change the beliefs of other people at all. Instead, the vast majority of misinformation is offered as a service for people to maintain their beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

Charlie Warzel

==

Let me begin by saying well I feel incredibly fortunate with regard to my current financial situation. That said. Throughout the years I’ve had more than my share of sleepless nights worrying about money. What would happen if my car broke down the next day. How would I pay rent two months from now or even could I afford to buy the book that may help me professionally. Now. Financial worries are real. but they also take on a disproportionate size in our minds. This isn’t to suggest that financial worries should be diminished in any way, it’s just that in all the worries that we tend to face day to day the weight of a financial worry is significantly heavier than many of the other burdens.

I begin there because I have spoken with hundreds, if not thousands, of people across the United States as well as Europe and I’ve heard about financial worries and financial burdens. The reality is that burden weight is weighed solely by the individual bearing the burden. What I mean by that is that, objectively, you could look at one individual in one situation versus another individual in another situation and clearly see that one is facing significantly different financial worry than the other. The problem is that financial worries are subjective to individual context.

Which leads me to rich but sick.

The United States is an incredibly rich and wealthy country. Even our low-income people live healthier and more robust lives than their counterparts in almost every country in the world. The overall wealth of the country is almost astounding. The amount of luxuries and ‘wants met’ versus ‘needs met’ in almost every home in the United States is the envy of the world. It almost makes you think that it’s become far too easy to believe that what you have is what you deserve. This isn’t to say that there aren’t real financial worries and in fact for such a wealthy country we seem to avoid some of the easier solutions to ease some of the more prevalent financial worries. Accessible affordable child care. Expanded Medicare, or even a Medicare-for-all option for the total population (anyone ever wonder how good affordable healthcare would be now if Republican governors had embraced it from day one?). Affordable education not just to colleges, but trade schools. These are simple programs proven to be extremely effective across the world as well as proven by the United States during the pandemic to ease some of the financial worries and allow each individual to maximize their potential by shedding some of those worries. Regardless. There obviously will be people who are struggling financially day to day if not month to month, but America is an incredibly rich country. So, what is the general feeling of malaise the citizenry feels? Maybe its, well, we are rich but have a sick society.

Which leads me to who, and what, is making us sick.

Let me begin with the oil companies, the banks, the tech companies, and the big businesses. Simplistically most of them are selling out our future for present profits (and power). This isn’t to say they do not offer some value, just that they tend to be short term focused versus long term focused. Most of them are focused on making money and gaining advantage any way they can, take shortcuts, and choose quick fixes over long term societal good. Their sole focus on short term and quick bucks means they have less interest in building communities, i.e., their responsibilities of ‘in and of society.’ They shrug off societal/community responsibilities and accountability under the guise of profitability. This becomes even more important as other common sensemaking institutions falter. Church decline, decline in news trust, decline in trust in government, even decline in trust of doctors. If society cannot trust anyone, or anything, it will inevitably get sick. Rich, but sick.

Which leads me societal unhealthiness.

The combination of general wealth tainted by some extreme inequalities and the inability to apply some fairly common-sense solutions creates an unhealthy society. The basic asymmetry creates an imbalance which makes everyone a bit sea sick.  Worse, it creates some cynicism (which is corrosive to trust). Even worse, hopefulness is then seen as naive. If you ARE actually rich, you hold on to power with ragged claws. If you don’t FEEL rich (even though you do have some wealth), you relentlessly try and bring down those in power you blame for that feeling. Both of those things create a sicker society. Look. All I know is that hope is risky; you can lose, and you often do, but history shows that if you try, sometimes you win and that hope can be a cure for societal sickness. Ponder.

Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it.

==

Trump posted a word cloud based on his speeches: the biggest word was “revenge.” Many of his threats reflect Trump’s now familiar tactic of reversing charges against his opponents, conjuring a mirror world in which he claims they are guilty of the very offence of which he is accused.

I am tired of talking about the presidential election, Trump and MAGA governance as if it is representative of the majority. But here we go. Despite all the talk about how the election would come down to a small group of undecideds, it didn’t. It came down to indifference or, maybe worse, disillusionment (the feeling that the system isn’t working for them so they will not do any work for the system). Yeah. Here is what I mean. Given where we are right now (soon after election day) my numbers are going to be close to accurate and will not change significantly. Only 54% of the voting population voted. Let me say it differently. 46% of people who could have voted; didn’t (what this means is that whenever some pundit, or analyst, talks about the election dynamics they need to refer to everything as “of the people who voted”). Harshly, 46% of adults were indifferent. What that means is that while Trump, and MAGA, will shout about majority “spoke” and winning the popular vote; here is their key number – 28%. Given the horrible voter turnout on election day, MAGA governance will be the representation of about 28% of all eligible adult voters. Let’s say that again. 28%. His 70+ million votes is maybe 21% of the population and 28% of adults eligible to vote. As a side note, this is similar to 2016 where the numbers were 18% and 24% respectively. So, we are not a 50/50 divided country; we are simply a country governed by 28%. Yeah. A minority, once again, just chose the most powerful position in the world. As a side note to this, everyone should remember that Trump, and his cohort of MAGA followers, governed as if they were a majority. To be clear. MAGA is a finite cohort. It was 26-28% in 2016. It is 26-28% in 2024. 70 millionish will vote for Trump year n and year out; no more, no less. 2/3rds of US adults will never vote for Trump.

Which leads me to involvement matters.

A majority did nothing to stop this from happening. This is not an ‘anti-establishment movement.’ This is not a ‘reestablishment of conservative values.’ This is nothing more than a large indifference to involvement with a sliver minority voice being motivated enough to push one candidate over the finish line. Look. I work almost exclusively with think tanks discussing the future of business, society, and the patterns in the world. I work with economists, c suite business executives, behavioral scientists, and social philosophers. My role tends to be a reflection of what I imagine is my personal ideology which what most people would suggest is ‘progressive conservatism.’ Almost everything that I suggest and I think about balances pragmatism and possibilities (possibilities have no value if they cannot be achieved). That said. One of the least discussed aspects of discussing the future and progress is people. Because while the future can be viewed through eyes of possibilities and pragmatism and hopes and patterns and risks and opportunities and even technology, the truth is each of those things are dependent upon people. If people do not participate, get involved, to bend the arc of history, progress and possibilities just don’t occur. Pragmatically what that means is if people do not bend the arc, i.e., be actively involved, inertia sets in and status quo, wrapped up in some nostalgic views of what is good, tends to reign. This is a historical truth. I bring that up because if people are indifferent, and are not involved, progress doesn’t occur. I struggle to see how true progress can occur if 46% of the voting population is indifferent.

Which leads me to say I hate the indifferent.

I’ll admit. I hate the indifferent. I have always believed that living means taking sides. Business, as well as Life, demands participation. Elections are exactly the same. Someone may choose to be indifferent, but all that means is that someone else is not only making decisions for you, they are affecting the arc of your life and, consequently, your destiny. To be clear. This is a fact. It may not be a direct correlation, but the point is that even if you work hard, are persistent and have clear objectives, if you are indifferent, all the external factors will increase the gravity of the environment you are doing all of those things within and drag you down. I should note if your own life and destiny matters to you that when you participate in the deadweight of indifference you may actually be facilitating the twisting of society’s fate. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out, again, this is not just true of Life, but business. And while I do believe this discussion gets warped in some incredibly unhealthy ways, business should not ignore the discussion and being indifferent really isn’t an option. Once again, this is true for each individual. All that said let me circle back to disillusionment. One of Trump’s, and his cabal of kooks, superpowers has been the ability to increase a general malaise of disillusionment. I have often referred to it as his narrative that ‘America is in a shithole,’ but the grander issue is he amplifies a sense of disillusionment almost to a point where a lot of people just throw up their hands and say (a) there is no sense in being involved or (b) burn the whole thing down. Anyway. Indifference or disillusionment only 54% of the voting population participated; 46% were indifferent. Ponder that for a bit.

“I hate the indifferent. I believe that living means taking sides. Those who really live cannot help being a citizen and a partisan. Indifference and apathy are parasitism, perversion, not life. That is why I hate the indifferent. The indifference is the deadweight of history. The indifference operates with great power on history. The indifference operates passively, but it operates. It is fate, that which cannot be counted on. It twists programs and ruins the best-conceived plans. It is the raw material that ruins intelligence. That what happens, the evil that weighs upon all, happens because the human mass abdicates to their will; allows laws to be promulgated that only the revolt could nullify, and leaves men that only a mutiny will be able to overthrow to achieve the power. The mass ignores because it is careless and then it seems like it is the product of fate that runs over everything and everyone: the one who consents as well as the one who dissents; the one who knew as well as the one who didn’t know; the active as well as the indifferent. Some whimper piously, others curse obscenely, but nobody, or very few ask themselves: If I had tried to impose my will, would this have happened? I also hate the indifferent because of that: because their whimpering of eternally innocent ones annoys me. I make each one liable: how they have tackled with the task that life has given and gives them every day, what have they done, and especially, what they have not done. And I feel I have the right to be inexorable and not squander my compassion, of not sharing my tears with them. I am a partisan, I am alive, I feel the pulse of the activity of the future city that those on my side are building is alive in their conscience. And in it, the social chain does not rest on a few; nothing of what happens in it is a matter of luck, nor the product of fate, but the intelligent work of the citizens. Nobody in it is looking from the window of the sacrifice and the drain of a few. Alive, I am a partisan. That is why I hate the ones that don’t take sides, I hate the indifferent.”

Antonio Gramsci

==

In today’s current political environment, which bleeds into society as some fairly absurd niche arguments about what is right or wrong and important or unimportant, the people become more and more distant to traditional parties or governing institutions writ large and, further, involvement in things like voting. This impacts society, and communities, whether you like it; or not or want it or not. Being indifferent to elections, acting like you are detached from politics simply means an already ‘delicate and dangerous’ complexity of economy and society becomes even more fraught with peril.

At least I am consistent on this issue. I have argued for years a business cannot detach itself from society, responsibility to societal issues and much of the larger narratives and discussions taking place. Detaching yourself from it under the guise of “my job is ensuring my business makes a profit and offers people employment” is not a sustainable stance nor strategy. I would argue exactly the same thing for people around election day. I hate indifference. Inevitably everyone needs to pick a side and do something. To be clear. That sometimes simply means taking a stand on what you are not versus saying what you are. If you don’t believe it is your job to carry the flag ON an issue, that’s okay. But you do have to make it your job to say “but I will not stand by THAT flag.”

Which leads me to corrosiveness.

Until Trump came along, I was a benignly active political involved person. I always felt like presidents tended to focus on tactics, rarely strategy, and shared a common vision. And then Trump came along. He toppled that apple cart and, well, I stopped being slightly indifferent. I became involved. For 9 years I went anywhere, at any time, to discuss why I believed Trump was corrosive to the economy, corrosive to the country and corrosive to society. To be clear. The conversation was, and remains, challenging. Trumpism has always dwelled on the superficial and the surface transactions of life (and the metrics associated with them). The mechanics upon which those outcomes were produced were unimportant in his transactional view and difficult to explain to people. Therein lies the challenge of discussing why Trump is generally a corrosive actor. Trump distorts things to shape an alternative to reality. It exaggerates good, diminishes bad, is made up of a unique formula of uncertainties and lack of clarity, offers alternatives <facts & universes> and serves to only create challenges in exactly describing what is, and isn’t, actually happening.  Throughout it all Trump careens between appalling and appealing within a deeply flawed, thin skinned, selfish, vain, bullying character, but he remains one thing on a consistent basis – the antithesis of the highly polished ineffective politician who carefully calculates their words. So, while he may be authentically incompetently horrible; he remains authentic – what you see is what you get. He is not a fine-tuned machine nor was his administration a fine-tuned machine, but he had 28% of the population believing everything he said was brilliant and believing everything he did was ‘brilliant.’

A 56 percent majority of Trump voters say that if a national media outlet reported that Trump said something untrue, they would be more inclined to believe him than the news outlet.

Look. Over those 9 years I wasn’t delusional enough to believe any pragmatic discussion would sway the 28%, but it left 72% available for healthy, robust, discussions. And while I faced clown memes in my feed, labeled with Trump derangement syndrome and called a retard, I plowed my way through discussion after discussion with facts, pragmatism and reality. Time and time again I was reminded of how complex reality is and how difficult complexity is to discuss and grasp. Time and time again I found, even beyond MAGA peoples, there were tinges of alternative realities residing in the peoples of the 72%.  And time and time again I was reminded we mostly live in a short-term vision world.

Which leads me to “I quit.”

Here is my warning to the indifferent. The 28% mainly live in an alternative reality where America is a shithole and it needs to be fixed and World War 3 is always right around the corner (or any disaster always awaits). It feeds on impending doom; not fosters hope and progress. This despite the fact we have an economy the envy of the world (in results as well as depth of manufacturing and productivity). This despite the fact the majority of so-called illegal immigrants are in the system and waiting to seek a pathway to citizenship. This despite the fact crime is down and, factually, a 25-year-old white American male is more likely to commit a crime than a 25 year old male El Salvadoran/Guatemalan/Latin American. This despite the fact USA is currently positioned as a powerful counterbalance in a complex weave of international power where USA benefits in the global system. Look. Its quite possible your indifference in this year’s election was driven by the fact life in the good ole USA is pretty good right now and even a bit better than anything MAGA world is convinced happened during the Trump years. When things are going well it’s pretty easy to overlook any future, possible, problems. It’s just difficult to see future possible costs when in the present the only costs you are facing is 15 cents more for your favorite cereal.

Here is where it gets personal. Your indifference has come at a cost. Your disillusionment comes at a cost. Not just getting a Trump administration. This one is most likely a cost you will never feel nor even care about. I quit. I have had enough. Its time for a younger generation to take over the pragmatism and possibilities discussions. I am tired of fighting for the indifferent. In business I was willing to fight for anyone who was willing to step up and be involved. But the indifferent? I quit.  That is what I am doing now. You got a Trump administration and it will be up to you to fix it when it all inevitably goes wrong. I did my best and, admittedly, it wasn’t good enough. So, I quit and someone else can take the pragmatism and possibilities banner.

“At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties in that particular organisational form, with the particular men who constitute, represent and lead them, are no longer recognised by their class (or fraction of a class) as its expression. When such crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicate and dangerous, because the field is open for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic “men of destiny”.” Antonio Gramsci

==

==

“Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.”

Aristotle

====

“Life in freedom is not easy, and democracy is not perfect.”

John F. Kennedy

===

Today USA chooses a new president. I sat down this morning not really sure what to write. So, what I did is go back to see what I wrote on election day 2016. I am going to republish it after I share some quick thoughts on the difference between 2016 and 2024 (the repost will remind us of some similarities).

This is a weird election and weird time. The democrats are clearly focused on the future while the MAGA movement is a weird mix of past nostalgia and ‘fixing’ what they perceived to be as ‘broken.’ Through all the crazy shit Trump is spewing, the closing theme seems to be “fixing what is broken.” It’s a bit of a head scratcher because the economy is rocking, the fundamentals of prosperity and growth are solid, crime is down, the immigration issues are solvable (if congress would do their job), inflation is back to acceptable levels (and, frankly, Trump year levels) and, frankly, it’s the democrats who would like to ‘fix’ some things (most notably abortion rights). But Trump pounds away on trying to convince people that America is a shithole country (although his words are “a garbage can for the world”). Its weird. The “fixing” revolves around nostalgia (“fix progress so we can go back to a better past”) and a non-existent reality. What I just said resides the biggest difference between 2016 and 2024. In 2016 the government could have been quite fairly blamed for ignoring some fundamental issues. It certainly wasn’t a shithole country, but it could certainly have focused on some obstacles, and flaws, to the progress toward ‘great’ better. That cannot be said now. The Biden administration has done a stellar job of addressing fundamentals that tap into present greatness and future greatness. Anyway. But there is a troubling aspect which shifts the election from simply weird to a bit dangerous. Today a small group of leaders, supported by a significantly sized minority of citizens (think maybe 36% of adults), has rejected the idea that all people are created equal and seeks to destroy our democracy in order to install themselves into permanent power. To be clear, the citizens may not feel that they are doing so but the leaders absolutely do. Anyway. Prior to the civil war, Abraham Lincoln suggested Americans rededicate themselves to the ‘unfinished work’ and making America great. In his words:

“take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

All that said, here are my words I shared on election day 2016. Some seem a bit naive in reflection and some seem a bit prescient upon reflection. But. The truth remains the truth, we the people have the power and one person cannot dictate our future unless we permit them.

===

So. Today USA chooses a new president. I sat down this morning not really sure what to write.

I do know that America is bigger and stronger than any one person.

I do know that even if Trump is elected, someone who I believe is a narcissist and incompetent, it will not be a disaster for the country.

I do know that even if Clinton is elected, someone who I believe will be an unspectacular but pragmatically extremely competent president, it will not be a disaster for the country.

Yes.

This election feels a little bit bigger than many of the others in the past. I imagine it feels that way because the contrast between the two candidates in terms of true qualifications are so stark not because the objectives are so stark. And maybe even more so because it seems like the moralistic/ethical contrast may be even more stark.

That said. Despite what everyone may have been hearing for months on end through media, traditional and social, this election is truly not about change versus status quo. Why do I say that? Well. Because every president wants to change shit and these two are no different. In fact. The so-called status quo candidate is running on a platform that incorporates more detailed change then the so-called change candidate. But, in the end, while the new president elected certainly does matter it only matters in terms of tone & broader perspectives.

I think it is helpful to remind people <and congress> of this. It’s because I love our country more than I do my personal points of view that I know the institution of who and what we are as a country is larger than 1 person and 1 point of view. It is larger than any individual “I think” or “this must be” because the country ceases to exist if we remain so far apart that we can agree on nothing which inevitably means we either do nothing or do something so banal it will never show an ROI.

So, where I agree with either candidate … I will support them.  If they try to reach consensus, I will support them. Where I disagree with them I will continue to disagree and will work to make sure they know I disagree <and if enough people agree with me then they become a one term president>.

That is the way democracy and freedom works.

The people will speak today.

If they vote my way, fine.

If not, then the majority/plurality has spoken and that is what a democracy is.

In our country you do not have to win 90%, or even 50%, just a large enough plurality

That I know as a certainty. Just as I know as a certainty that presidents are one among many and disasters <unless they involve some nuclear button> are not fatal but rather “inefficient decisions.”

And maybe that is where I hope we, as a country, come out of this election. Maybe a little more interested in listening, a little less reliant on hyperbole and a lot more certain with regard to the value of some compromise over individual opinions.

I do know another thing for certain.

When a citizenry loses the one thing that had been in abundant supply in their lives – the unshakable belief that tomorrow will not be significantly different from today – that creates a sense of uncertainty <which, rarely discussed, is at the core of everything happening in our country attitude and the election>.

Not only is uncertainty a bitch to a general population, but uncertainty makes people feel poorer <even when they are not>, more divided <even when they are not>, less safe <even though they are not> and less hopeful with regard to the future <even when they should see signs of hope>.

In this time & place this uncertainty has been compounded by the fact we don’t trust anyone on anything <media included>, don’t trust anyone to do what they are supposed to do <government included>, and don’t even trust what was done when they actually do what they were supposed to do <anyone associated with any institution>. All of that leads to a pessimistic citizenry.

All of this suggestive pessimism has not been helped by, well, anyone <with maybe the exception of the president and his wife who offer a more optimist view>. Yeah. Political hyperbole for as far back as I can remember <let’s say a dozen years +> has created this wretched hollow in which society & citizenry is forced to live in. a wretched place where no one does anything right and is stupid or dishonest or corrupt.

Most sane people know that thought is not true. But even the sanest of us struggle to discern the good from the bad. Both Bernie and Trump raged against a “rigged system” and stirred up angry crowds. At any given point all candidates have also raged against the media, against Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump <depending on your view>, against “globalists”, against the government itself, against the democratic process and, well, against a vast host of other villains. All this has served to do is to create anger where there may not have been any and encourage an embers of potential anger to flame.

I read somewhere that the success Trump is having is because the American democracy isn’t working for most Americans and he reminds them, and us, of that.

I do not agree.

I believe most of us are just uncertain whether democracy is working for us or not. Yeah. In an environment in which truth is difficult to discern and pessimisms and guilt before innocence is encouraged 99% of us are just, well, uncertain.

I do have some certainty to offer anyone reading this.

First.

The world will not end, the country will not implode, regardless of which candidate we elect.

Second.

In a country of 350 million or so no matter what you do and how good a decision is made, there will be winners & losers associated with every decision <and I will admit I wish our politicians would have the kahones to stand up and point out the losers are still valued rather than celebrate only the winners>.

In a country of 350 million or so the American democracy is working, but it is always a work in progress therefore everyone will feel at some point that it isn’t working for them and that means at any given point anyone will look around and think someone is benefiting when they are not <this occurs even if that person is not officially in the ‘loser’ category associated with a decision>.

Third.

Good stuff does not come easy … to anyone. But that doesn’t mean that good stuff doesn’t happen. I say that and I will remind everyone once again, and I wish someone in some fucking paper or news network would point it out at the top of their lungs> in our democracy American people are perpetually dissatisfied. Always dissatisfied. We always feel like we are not doing as well as we should or, looking around, that we <as in individuals> are being left behind while someone else is doing better <benefitting>.

Anyway.

It is election day.

And we are all uncertain and uneasy and anxious.

It does not matter who you support – everyone is uncertain and uneasy.

And that is where we will be tomorrow too. And the day after and, well, you get it.

It isn’t trust or lack of trust. It isn’t anger or rigged or any of the other fabulous labels being thrown around.

It is uncertainty.

It is uncertainty about the direction of the country.

And, at a more basic level, it is uncertainty that the people we choose to elect us will do their job.

And, at an even more basic level, it is an uncertainty that even if we <you & i> work hard, do what is right and fulfill our own responsibilities and duties we will receive ‘fair value’ for our efforts.

In the end.

I am certain we will end the day with a new president.

I am also certain that tomorrow a significant majority of the country will awake just as uncertain about the everyday Life shit as they were today. And maybe that is what we should demand of the new president and of the leaders we elect to represent us <senators & representatives>.

Stop creating uncertainty and offer us some more certainty.

We Americans are pretty resilient <if not a little whiney along the way>. We can deal with bad shit as long as you give us some certainty. But if I am uncertain as to what is really good and what is really bad that uncertainty gives us candidates like Trump and creates what people feel is anger and drives up distrust for anyone.

Which leads me to end with Certainty.

Beyond all the policies & tactics & taxes & trade deals and transparency & honesty & all that crap it sure would be nice if creating certainty was high on the next president’s agenda. As I stated earlier ‘and maybe that is where I hope we, as a country, come out of this election. Maybe a little more interested in listening, a little less reliant on hyperbole and a lot more certain with regard to the value of some compromise over individual opinions.’ And if we do that? Maybe we will be a little more certain <and happier>.

===

Election day 2024.

It is a crappy feeling this feeling that an election can existentially steer a country in a radical turn. The truth is progress is not made to make radical turns but rather in arcs, nudges and slow-ish movement. Countries are not meant to be wrenched into new directions. Having steered 300+ people organizations into new directions I find it absurd to believe anyone can believe steering 300 million people in a new direction as easy or symmetrical or healthy if done radically. Anyway. I dislike this feeling.

And while I believe we, the people, can make a better future, I believe we will find out today whether that is so. Ponder.

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“The life so short, the craft so long to learn.”

Hippocrates

==

• I once wrote this:

“And, let’s face it, I don’t care who you are and where you have worked you have eyed what another person is doing and thought you could do it. At some point, if you have had some success, all jobs start having some commodity-like characteristics which tease you into believing shifting from one to another just isn’t that difficult.”

===

So. Let’s go back in the wayback machine to November 2016. Trump was the president elect and a shitload of people were freaking out. The world was bifurcated by “he can’t do that job” and “of course he can do that job.” It’s as if half the world thought, well, anyone can do “this job” if they had some success doing another job. It became a lazy argument on one side and an incredibly complex argument on the other. Regardless. That argument failed because it was grounded in the wrong fundamentals. The truth, the reality, was Trump was not a good business man, he was a good salesman. Not to disparage salespeople, I’m just making a distinction. And he ‘sold’ enough people on whatever he was trying to sell (I thought it was weird because he was selling America was a shithole, but anyway …) to get a job he was supremely unqualified for.

And, if people were truly honest, he really sucked at being the president. He certainly, objectively, was not a calming leader who offered certainty to 330 million people on a daily basis nor did he produce results matching the “sales promises” he made (as noted earlier, economy was good, not great). He ran on crushing ISIS (which was 90% done by the time he came into office), build a border wall (he did send a shitload of money on 55 miles worth), created huge deficits through a tax cut which disproportionately benefited rich people like hm combined with huge subsidies to subsidize whole industries to compensate for a dull axe tariff strategy and, well, he mostly didn’t do anything constructive. For the most part he didn’t fulfill responsibilities of being a prescient, he didn’t act like a president, and made an American president the comedic punching bag of the world. So, when people tell us to calm down with regard to Trump, I think they are nuts. He didn’t do the job the first time and hi seriously doubt he will be able to do the job this time and, oddly, the price at this stage is higher. Why? Well. Everything is going pretty well for the United States at the moment. Economy great. Growth great. Employment great. And all of those things are a fragile complex weave of things. Do I believe the Biden administration crafted all the great things in a whole cloth fashion? Nope. The outcome, the good stuff, was partly good decisions, some good nudges, and a confluence of unplanned good events. But you know what? That is what knowing how to do a job works. You put yourself, and your country, in a good position to take advantage of emergent opportunities. That’s doing a good job. Trump never did that and he never will. He doesn’t have the vision to see patterns before they occur – he is too transactional. Basically, he can’t do the job of the presidency.

Anyway. I am saying we shouldn’t have calmed down then and we shouldn’t calm down now. He is still supremely unqualified, and he may actually be even less qualified now than then (I find it unqualifying in business if someone’s competency digresses over time).

Gays and LGBT and blacks and minorities and women do not need to calm down. While his agenda is not theirs, his agenda creates negative consequences and effect on theirs. Business leaders should be scared shitless and should not calm down. All immigrants, legal or illegal, should be scared shitless and should not calm down.

No one should calm down because Trump will continue use “loose lips sink ships” type of asshat rhetoric and will continuously create unneeded trouble for himself and the country and the citizens. And he will deserve the trouble, but the country and citizens deserve better.

But what makes him most unqualified not just as a present but also as a leader is the fact he bases all practical tactics and actions on hope. Yeah. Its kind of like trickle down economics; another hope concept. You do something and you hope something else happens so that it creates the outcomes you hope will occur. That last sentence is Trump in a nutshell.

He wasn’t very good at anything other than (a) playing victim, (b) absolving himself of any responsibility, (c) blustering and bloviating every day, and (d) creating chaos and uncertainty. He, and his administration, is amateur hour which is simultaneously funny and scary.
I had one delusional friend say in 2016 “don’t worry, there are so many things in place anyone could do the job.” That is fucking nuts, but I think a shitload of people actually think this. This is a dangerous cultural issue we face now. The commoditization of qualifications & competency. In today’s world there is a general concept that anyone can do any job as well as anyone else. We sit around bitching about decisions leaders make and say ‘we could make a better decision than that.’ It leads to a belief that certain skills don’t matter and qualifications, particularly if you can be called an ‘expert’, aren’t worth a shit. The consequences of this is real skills and qualifications are commoditized and no one can tell the difference between the qualified and the asshats. And once that becomes a non-issue those being evaluated by the larger public are considered equals in people’s eyes with regard to skill & competency. And, holy shit, what a fucking false equivalency that is whenever Trump is involved. He is a salesman. He is a carnival barker. He is not someone who can do the job of president.
Anyway.
Not anyone can do this job, we learned that lesson the hard way in 2016 and I worry we will have to relearn that lesson in 2024.

==

“that’s the same thing as having an affair”

==

The closing arguments in the presidential campaign is a contrast in a number of things, but mostly it has become a contrast between respectful and disrespectful. One campaign has unequivocally stated that no matter who you vote for you will be listened to and represented and the other has, well, referred to ‘other voters’ as the enemy within. The heinous parts are tucked within the definition of ‘enemy.’ Because in this case the enemy is grounded in some 1800’s version of what a traditional marriage should be about – women subservient to men. Yeah. Reminder. Its 2024 not 1824.

Which leads me to a Harris-Walz campaign ad voiced by actor Julia Roberts which encourages women to vote for Vice President Harris in the presidential election, even if their husbands are backing former President Trump.

“In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want. And no one will ever know,” Roberts says in the ad as a woman on screen meets up with her husband after casting her ballot for Harris. The voter winks at a fellow female voter as her husband asks if she made the “right choice.”

Suffice it to say, MAGA world has not responded well. In fact, some have suggested that a wife lying about her vote is as bad as an affair. Yeah. Ponder that one as a closing argument.

“If I found out Emma was going to the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair”

Fox News host Jesse Watters

==

“I think it’s so gross. I think it’s so nauseating where this wife is wearing the American hat, she’s coming in with her sweet husband who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go you know and have a nice life and provide to the family, and then she lies to him saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m gonna vote for Trump,’ and then she votes for Kamala Harris as her little secret in the voting booth”

Charlie Kirk

To be clear. They are suggesting a husband is working hard to afford his wife’s lifestyle and her action undermines him. Ponder that just a bit.

Look. I am sure there are politically split households, but in the Trump era it is just difficult for me to envision. It is quite conceivable that someone could have voted for Romney in the same household where someone voted for Obama, but Trump is so divisive, and not normal, that it seems like a bridge too far. But I believe that is something that particular couple needs to navigate, not me. Regardless. The idea that a woman, a wife or partner, simply has to do anything let alone vote some way simply because the man does is a horrible thought. Oh. And a horrible closing argument to the majority of a 2024 population.

“Listen to this twit make Donald Trump’s closing argument. Women, you know what to do. #VoteKamala.”