==

“Trump depicts a zero-sum world in which gains for any other nation — friend or foe — automatically represent a loss for the United States. His agenda, therefore, is designed to immiserate our neighbors and partners. In the end, history and basic economic theory tell us, it will immiserate us, as well. The bad news — and it is awful — is thus that we now have a president whose foreign policy agenda essentially amounts to burning the U.S.-led international order to the ground and hoping that America can collect the lion’s share of the ashes. The good news, such as it is, is that in unveiling this agenda so brazenly and early, Trump has also fully dispelled any illusions about his presidency and the dangers it poses.”

Hal Brands

==

It feels like the United States is going to get fooled into thinking an election is about one thing versus another. Televised debates often contribute to that tomfoolery or malarkey as our existing octogenarian president would say. Watching two octogenarians bludgeon each other shouldn’t fool us into believing that there aren’t two visions at stake at the moment. Let me state this up front. The election is about the MAGA Vision versus basically anything else. I state it that way because I personally would vote for an empty chair before I would vote for Trump. Would I prefer voting for say Gina Raimondo, secretary of Commerce, or Pete Buttigieg, secretary of Transportation, or Jennifer Granholm, secretary of energy, Gavin Newsom, Governor of the 5^th largest economy in the world, Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, or even Wes Moore. Sure. I would prefer voting for any one of them. But that’s not my choice. My choice is anything else other than Trump and the MAGA vision.

Trump represents the MAGA Vision and a MAGA administration with absurd MAGA policies and whoever or whatever resides in the opposite chair will not. Period.

Anyone in that chair will have ideas and aspects of policies that I do not support, but they will unequivocally not support the MAGA vision of policies or the MAGA vision of America. I also believe we are fooling ourselves into believing that we should be judging this election like we have judged elections in the past. I am an unequivocal moderate. While I may have disagreed with aspects and policies of a Mitt Romney, a John McCain, or even the Dumber Bush, I never felt like their vision, which was basically a traditional Republican vision, was an existential threat to the future of the United States – and by existential I mean economically as well as ideologically. And while I’m relatively sure the United States has had a president who was amoral, a pathological liar, racist, in the past, we have never had one who has also embraced something like the MAGA vision. As a corollary, we know for a fact that we have had an out of touch, too old octogenarian, as a president, but who still embraced a vision for the United States which may not have guaranteed our prosperity and progress, but certainly didn’t threaten our position in the world. This election is about MAGA versus anything else.

Which leads me to Trump derangement syndrome.

It has been suggested by many of my acquaintances or people who glance against some of my thoughts and writings that I have Trump derangement syndrome. I do not. I recognize Trump for exactly who he is. He is an amoral, narcissistic, sociopathic liar, who has a transactional view of business and life and offers a shitload of bad, dull axe (non-nuanced), ideas. That is who he is; no more no less. My issue resides in the MAGA vision of which he is the standard bearer. So, if I have any derangement syndrome, it would be with regard to the MAGA vision and policies that are associated with it. As I stated upfront, I don’t believe this election is between two octogenarians and we are choosing the least worst option of 80 year olds. I believe this election is a choice between two visions: the MAGA vision versus another vision. And if I am deranged about anything it would be that I stand opposed to everything about the MAGA vision. This admittedly suggests that I will embrace some policies and thoughts that I am not a huge fan of because I oppose, unequivocally, the MAGA Vision. Yeah. I will. And I will live with some bad policies. But getting back to Trump. I absolutely struggle to say anything positive about Trump. But more importantly I struggle to say anything positive about Trump Administration policies and results. I have said it before and I will say it again, Trump is a dull axe thinker, a 1 trick pony and has only one gear. The Trump Administration policies mirrored Trump. They were a dull axe, a 1 trick pony, and had only one gear. Suffice it to say the world is significantly more complex than that. I certainly understand the appeal of the simple and the simplistic, the problem is it’s not particularly effective when applied against a complex system. The MAGA vision does not serve the United States well in the present and certainly does not position the United States well for the future. Call me deranged, but that seems like a relatively sane reason to not support Trump nor a MAGA administration.

Which leads me to the direction of the country.

We should always be assessing a country and its governance based on progress, prosperity, and security. Let me address security first because it is actually subservient to prosperity and progress. What I mean by that is most people or politicians discuss security by (usually) shouting quite loudly in terms of military and military power This is wrong. Maybe I should say it’s misguided. Military power is used as a tool to maintain a country’s prosperity and progress. You only use the military power to either buttress the system which enables the progress and prosperity or to protect it. We may suggest that military power is used to maintain ‘safety,’ but in most situations even safety is subservient to progress and prosperity. Therefore, I speak of security in terms of securing the networks, connectivity, and inherent globalization which enables America’s prosperity and progress. Which leads me to progress and prosperity. Because America’s progress and prosperity, whether we like to believe it or not, is actually dependent in some form or fashion with connection to the rest of the world. That doesn’t mean that in isolation the United States can’t survive economically and allow its citizenry to be able to maintain a certain lifestyle, however, if optimal progress and increased prosperity is the objective we are dependent upon the rest of the world to achieve that. Therefore, security becomes intertwined with that dependence. And this is where there is an incredibly stark difference between the MAGA vision and the other vision. The MAGA vision doesn’t even recognize the importance of allies economically. It maintains an illusion that prosperity and progress can be attained by United States alone with a zero-sum view. No sane economist, no sane geopolitics expert, no sane business person, truly believes that. That doesn’t mean the United States doesn’t need to maintain strong pillars of economic independence in order to build prosperity and progress. Those pillars of independence make the United States secure from disruptions globally as well as increase the prosperity and progress because we can export our independence to other people who are in some form or fashion dependent upon that. Therefore, progress and prosperity becomes a relatively intricate web of independence, interdependence and dependence with economic and political allies. Allies would also include countries with common interests despite the fact we may not be aligned with them with regard to democratic values. But they are not our enemies. We have a mutual interest in progress and prosperity where our desire is security of the system which enables that progress and prosperity. The MAGA vision does not embrace any of that nuance nor does it embrace any aspect of interdependence or even a glimpse of dependence upon anybody else. They seek to bludgeon anybody who we are dependent upon even at the expense of our own prosperity and progress. The other vision is the exact opposite of the MAGA vision. It embraces the nuance of progress and prosperity in the present and building for the future.

Which leads me to the delusional opposition.

In some alternative universe there are no electable democratic candidates, America is largely center-right, the left has become so radical it mirrors some communist state, America is in a shithole downward spiral, Trump is in full command of his faculties, and that MAGA represents the majority of the country. This is the delusion the MAGA vision needs the world to perceive in order to have the MAGA vision make sense. As I remind everybody, while we focus on the sheer numbers that Trump received approximately 70 million votes in 2020, that represents about 28% of all the adults in the United States. Let me say that again. 28% of all adults in the United States. MAGA, and the MAGA vision is a minority view. Most democratic officials are pretty popular and the country, as a whole, is more center left leaning, moderate, on most issues and quite accepting of liberal leaning attitudes. More importantly, the country is not a shithole, in fact the reality is the United States economy is healthy, healthier than the majority of countries in the world, and in the process of building resilient economic progress and prosperity under the current administration. If we ignore the blaring headlines about culture and values and identity wars, the reality is nobody is coming to steal guns, nobody is stopping anybody from having their own religious views, no one is trying to indoctrinate our youth, and we should all just keep our eye on the most important ball which is progress and prosperity. Until somebody can show me some real ideas within the MAGA Vision or what could be construed as the existing current Republican Party, the only ideas that I can see for progress and prosperity in the present and the future reside within the Democratic Party. And in fact, if you strip away all the MAGA rhetoric about the Democrats, the democrat party are the ones who support the ideas and the basic ideological thinking that the majority of Americans like. As the election looms, I frankly do not care who is at the top of the ticket as long as whomever is there continues to enable the best ideas for our progress, prosperity, and security of those.

Which leads me to how MAGA perverts the idea of progress.

MAGA looks at progress in terms of individuals seeking individual satisfaction in combination with an encouraging an attitude of individual escape from individually suffered discomfort. That thought is a derivative of something that Zygmunt Bauman said. He suggested that progress no longer refers to forward drive and that society, rather than chase after a target spinning along ahead of us, instead seeks to make progress under the guise of ‘a lucky escape imperative.’ In other words it inspires the urge to run away from something, a crisis or a shithole disaster, that someone is suggesting is breathing down our necks. Let me be clear. Progress is not running away from something, but rather it is running towards something. That toward something should be a desired dream of a distant goal – one which progress should, could, and would eventually bring those of us seeking it, a better world not only for us, but one that serves all human needs. It should be the pursuit of shared improvement rather than just individual survival. And maybe that is where I will end because that is where the MAGA vision begins. It doesn’t begin with any shared improvement, but rather individual fears. The MAGA vision suggests that nations have lost influence on the course of not only its own affairs, but the affairs of all people which means that it has lost influence on guiding the world toward a ‘better destination’ and has lost the ability to mount a defense against all varieties of fear. The MAGA vision encourages us all to believe this, therefore, it encourages us to dwell on your individual fear. It suggests your worry is not only an immediate worry, but a long term worry. From there they offer no real solutions for progress and prosperity, just dubious tactics to salve your individual worry. MAGA is a black hole of no solutions. I would also suggest that the real solutions are offered somewhere within the non-MAGA vision. In other words, any administration embracing ‘anything else other than the MAGA vision.”

For years I have heard people say “I don’t vote for a person, I vote for policies.” Well. It’s come-to-jesus time on that thought. Ponder.

=====

We are swimmers

Caught in the tide

Pitch black river

Shadows and light

Into the night

Beautiful swimmers

Losing the fight

A constant river

Shadows and light

Into the night

Zero 7, Swimmers

==

“why should I be angry? It won’t change how you feel.”

==

My anger at the world coils inside of me. It’s a directionless seething, there’s no name or face to aim at.”

The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn

==

Anger is energy and energy is something to be ‘applied.’ In other words, the energy of anger needs to be used.

Which leads me to what you do when angered and how you treat others when angry.

Maybe they are the same, but I am going to treat them differently.

Desire defines what we think we need. And often defines how we act. When we don’t get what we ‘desire’ (or expect – they can be interchangeable) it sometimes can take us to places we never thought we would ever go. And it sometimes fuels us to do some amazing things as well as some amazing stupid things. Yup. sometimes we suppress it. But in the end you either face up to your actions, and how you want to act, or you will have to face the fact you are an angry person.

This desire thing has two faces: anger and disappointment. And anger and disappointment actually take up space. So much that sometime they can, without words, take up almost entire rooms. What do I mean? They can squeeze the space in a room so much you cannot breathe.

Which leads me to the fact anger squeezes conversations.

Conversations are the smallest units of change. In this case, conversations are what solves anger (as well as fuels anger). Unfortunately, anger is a problem to, and with, conversations. Everyday life is full of conversations of depth every day, some bringing a depth of joy, some bringing a depth of chaos, some bringing a depth of grief, some of anger, some of disappointment. All these conversations reflect the depth and breadth of, well, life. The deeper the authenticity, the genuineness, the integrity of conversations the deeper the meaning of conversations and, as a consequence, life.  This is where the weight of kindness and unkindness shove each other. This is where guilt and contrition reside. This is where the condemning and uncondemning words and thoughts battle. This is where brute force and gentleness face each other. This is where actions have consequences. This is where learning occurs and all those action’s consequences can be redirected.

Which leads me to anger can be a gift.

Anger is a self imposed trial and therein lies its gift. Far too often we wield anger against someone, yet, rarely will it ever change how the other person feels. Anger is always about yourself not the other person. And here is where anger offers its greatest, and most tricky, gift. Anger gifts you the ability to find something where nothing exists (if you permit it to do so). You cannot carry anger, frustration, disappointment or resentment into the future. And it is rarely useful in the present. Anger is a black hole. A black hole where nothing exists – there is no past, present nor future in anger. It would be silly of me to suggest that no one should ever feel anger because it is a human thing to do.  But maybe we should think of ‘anger as a black hole.’ Think about it because after anger there is typically a need for some type of forgiveness to fill the hole and move on. Maybe the mistake many of us make is to believe that we can leave the anger behind. You cannot. It leaves a hole. And holes need to be mended (or filled). I don’t have an answer of how one would ever fill up a black hole enough to ensure that which has no past, present or future ends up having some meaning. Maybe it is simply the awareness of this that permits us to be better people.

In the end.

Anger gains you nothing and costs you much, but it is always a learning experience.

I scribbled this on a random piece of paper: “I cannot be angry with you. Anger would be a waste of the moments we have and would make us weak in the face of the things yet to do.” Therein lies the gift paradox. Anger wastes moments and, yet, it offers learning moments. I imagine all I can offer is navigate the moments wisely. Ponder.

==

“There’s a difference between playing and playing games. The former is an act of joy, the latter — an act.”
Vera Nazarian

==

“Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else’s behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another.”
George K. Simon Jr

==

Trump has probably done over 100 things, okay, thousands of things which make me sure he is unqualified to be the country leader <and make me doubt he could lead a turd out of a flushed toilet>, makes me sure I dislike his business acumen and makes me sure his moral compass <assuming he even has one> is not working. That said. Its all a game to him. He wants a “story a week” so everyone is talking about him every day and every week (if not every hour). He is of the old school “there is no such thing as bad PR” belief with a twist – he has a cadre of alternative universe storytellers who twist everything he says into some false equivalence or even “you really didn’t see, or hear, what you really did” spin. Regardless. He is playing a game. And he is playing a game with democracy and elections and the presidency. And he isn’t even hiding the fact he sees this as one big game and he is going to do whatever it takes to win his game.

He demeans us, he demeans business, he demeans democracy, he demeans the country and, maybe most importantly, he demeans the office he is suggesting he is qualified for.

It is infuriating. He treats the political process like a game show and I’m angry at the people in leadership who permit this to happen. And I’m angry that we, the ordinary people, are so angry at some shadowy ‘establishment’ that we cannot seem to assume some thread of responsibility for what is happening.

And let me tell you how angry I am about the ‘gaming.’

Because Trump has given me the opportunity to be angry hundreds of times before. The truth is that in a fairly remarkable mixture of bombastic rhetoric, double-talk, vagaries, an outright onslaught of relentless lies, he says repulsive things every day. Realistically to keep your sanity you can truly only focus on one of them at a time <which is part of his game because if I focus on one and everyone else focuses on another one and so on, how the hell can anyone put a thumb on this stupid, slippery, slimy, carnival barker? I admit, his ignorance <with regard to the constitution, global realities, everything else, was amusing at first, but it truly is Trump’s disregard for constitutional principles which is most likely the most disturbing <all the while holding up the Constitution verbally as his guiding principle>.

He doesn’t believe in freedom of the press <unless they say something nice to him>.

He doesn’t believe in freedom of speech <unless it agrees with him>.

He doesn’t believe in … well … let’s just say he is free of morality and principles which underpin the country <torture is good if the other guys do it, killing families of enemies is okay because it deters future enemy action, and ‘I’ will trump ‘we’ in decisions>.

Article II directs the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Article VI provides that treaties are part of “the supreme law of the land.” These treaties include the Geneva Conventions, which govern the conduct of war. Yet in direct contradiction to these treaties, Trump has said that the United States should have stolen Iraqi oil and that we should kill the families of terrorists. As he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “Everybody believes in the Geneva Convention until they start losing and then they say oh, let’s take out the bomb. OK. When they start losing. We have to play with a tougher set of rules.”

Let me be politically incorrect <kind of along the lines of Trump himself>. While I am not holding my breath I would be delighted if at some point he stood up and said “I am sorry. I have been a psycho. I don’t really like myself that much and I have been an unapologetic asshole for my entire life.”

He will not. Shit. He cannot even apologize for … uhm … anything.

Donald Trump is a liar. Period.

He is a crooked con artist.

He is a spoiled rich bully with an unhealthy relationship with his own mirror <and a desire for fame>.

Trump has seemingly called everyone a liar at some point over his entire lifetime, let alone the election period, all the while offering us an onslaught of his own lies. A liar telling lies, but calling everyone else a liar, is not just an asshole, it is a reflection of the fact he believes he is simply playing a game.

He is a repugnant and ridiculous imposter with no integrity.

He is simply a game show host stirring up interest to a television audience who is only going to find that what is behind the curtain is not the dream vacation we have always wanted, but a plastic blender which runs at one speed.

Which leads me to May 26 in North Dakota:

“Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything. I will give you what you’ve been looking for 50 years. I’m the only one.”

Uhm. “I will give you everything.” If that were not so stupidly arrogant, I would get angry with someone running for president saying something like that. I am completely disgusted. He is a flagrant scam artist playing games with America. It gets a bit crazier because the MAGA people claim they like him because he is no nonsense and unapologetic. Well.  I don’t like it because I believe it is cowardly to not face your own lies and poor words and poor choices and you are stubbornly unapologetic when you are 100%, no, 100% to the nth degree, wrong or lying to people.

As a deception theorist, my explanation for this is simple: somewhere along the way Trump learned — and was rewarded for learning — that he can more efficiently get what he wants by lying than telling the truth. Fortunately for the world, this viewpoint is not shared by most people.

But I continue to say the worst is that he is unapologetically playing the election like a game.

Gaming the press.

Gaming the people.

Gaming the system.

Gaming the overall construct of what is right, what is wrong and his basic strategy is confuxing everyone.

He is fucking running for the president of the United States; not the smartest game show host on tv.

Let’s be clear. Like him or not, Obama is an American and he treated his role as president seriously and with dignity. Like her or not, Clinton is an American and was serious candidate running a serious campaign understanding it is a serious role. Like him or not, Biden is a decent man, an American, and treats his role as president seriously and with dignity. Trump is an American who doesn’t really believe in America (the idea and ideals) and he is a relentless liar who cloaks himself in false patriotism to hide his lack of knowledge and overall ignorance for how serious being a president is. He is not sane nor interested in workable solutions. Trump is unwilling to put in the serious work to match the seriousness of the position. We should demand our president to lead by example and lead by assuming the mantle of responsibility, all responsibilities, of the position. Every day is bizarre, and a slap in the face to democracy and the democratic process and to the citizens,  and in the realm of the Trump carnival barker show, every week seems to attain a new low.

“Talk about a lack of intestinal fortitude. Anyone who wants to try to put Joe Biden on the same plane as Donald Trump should have their mental health checked because that is just an absurd false equivalency. This is a very black and white issue here. You’re either pro-democracy or you’re not. All the other issues that we disagree about – and there are many – don’t matter if we don’t have a functioning democracy.”

Which leads me to the most dangerous part of his game.

He doesn’t really believe in democracy, he embraces autocracy. If it were just simply that, it’s important but controllable. The problem is he also believes that transactions are negotiated one on one based on a relationship. So he builds relationships and affinities with autocrats. The most obvious autocrat he’s developed a relationship with is Vladimir Putin. It has often been discussed the 2016 Trump campaign links with Russia and whether Donald Trump is actually a Russian plant. I would actually just suggest something a foreign intelligent officer said: “It doesn’t really matter if you believe that Donald Trump is a Russian asset because assets come into all shapes and sizes. And some assets don’t realize their assets. They’re the best kind.” It is undisputed that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. No sane person debates that. The Justice Department, the Mueller investigation, even the Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee, confirmed all of that. Everything portrays senior Trump Advisors eager to obtain assistance from Russia. Read any of the investigations and you’ll see a detailed list of a complex web of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians linked to a Kremlin and the Russian intelligence services. The most obvious one was Paul Manafort who was compromised having earned millions of dollars representing pro Kremlin political candidates. It is a fact that in Europe Paul Manafort handed 2016 voter targeting information to a Russian intelligence agent. Whether he knew it was a Russian intelligence agent or not is irrelevant; he handed it to him. But getting back to Donald Trump. While in the Oval Office Trump heaped praise on authoritarian thugs, entertained anti democratic European populists at the White House, rolled back US efforts to promote democracy around the world, and disrupted relations with allies. And to the chagrin of all intelligence officers around the world, during an Oval Office meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister and ambassador to Washington, Trump divulged highly classified intelligence supplied by Israel. Intelligence that was so sensitive it was not shared widely within the US government. And while the breach put at risk an operation that had given Israeli intelligence a look on the inner workings of Islamic state in Syria, the consequences of it were worse. Israel as well as the majority of other intelligence allies stopped giving the United States critical intelligence because they believed that nothing was safe once Trump had heard it. All of that is undisputed fact. He thought intelligence was a game and he shared that game with autocratic leaders, and particularly Vladimir Putin. And then of course there was Trump’s obsession with undermining NATO. Tied to his peculiar fealty towards Vladimir Putin, Trump challenged the conclusion of his own intelligence community that Moscow had meddled in the election. I would also be remiss if I didn’t note that Donald Trump met one on one with Vladimir Putin in five meetings of which there is no detailed record anywhere within the files of the US government. These are all facts. You may not like them, but they are facts. I’m not asking anyone to draw any conclusion other than Donald Trump does not take democracy seriously.

And then there was January 6^th. Three and a half hours where rioters roamed the temple of American democracy smashing windows, breaking down doors, ransacking offices, defacing works of art, stealing documents and computers, defecating in the building, and searching for lawmakers to kidnap or kill -including the speaker of the house and the vice president. Emblems of racism and hate were everywhere. One wore a sweatshirt that said ‘Camp Auschwitz.’ Another carried the Confederate battle flag. Americans allies stunned by what they had witnessed, condemned the president’s actions (and inactions) and used words usually reserved for 3^rd world tyrants and thugs. Even the Turkey autocrat called the insurrection the disgrace that shocked humankind. This may sound offensive to some people, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest it was the darkest day in American history since 9/11 – although somehow slightly worse. For the attack had been launched not by a distant enemy, but by the occupant of the Oval Office. It was a warning to all of us that democracy can never be taken for granted, and maybe more importantly with regard to Donald Trump that he grants democracy no or little value.

Its all a game to him.

Ponder. This seems important.

==

“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.”

Robert Frost

===

This is my companion piece to “business and what you have to say matters.”

I believe that is more important than ever that individuals speak out with regard to what matters to them. Of course, I prefer that the people who do so articulate those thoughts well and emphasize the rich nuance in most of the important things that should be talked about. With that said at the end of the piece I’ve included a quick thought with regard to being canceled or canceled culture because it seems inextricably linked to encouraging people to say what matters because it matters what you say.

Which leads me to say I say what matters to me; a lot.

Well. I write a blog. A couple thousand pieces and a couple million words. In my mind I have something to say and I say it. Maybe it all means nothing and as Frost suggests: “I am one of those who have nothing to say but say it.” Regardless. If I say it, I own my words. I say this because we are edging into a world where people are of an age that are shifting into leadership positions, positions of influence, who, well, have a history of some sort of online writing. And, uh oh, they are being demanded to justify their words, thoughts, and ideas. In other words. They are being asked to own their words. They may have had nothing to say, but they said something and now they have to explain something about their nothing.

This is all incredibly interesting <and slightly amusing> to me because if you go online, you will find thousands of writing advice columns <usually formatted in the heinous listicle style and written by self-righteous older people> written to the attention of young people warning them of the dangers of what they put online and how it can affect their future employment.

The amusing part? I found none <zero> advice columns directed toward, well, people of my age.

And you know why? Because we older folk are supposed to know better.

Sadly.

Some of us do not know better.

There are lawyers seeking higher positions, business people seeking a seat in a C-level suite and even doctors seeking to shift into a more general business world who are finding that their words are following them <and they need to own them>.  To be clear, no, “it was just my personal opinion on my personal blog” doesn’t hack it. If you shared a thought, you own the words in how you shared it, therefore, you own the thought AND the words. There is no personal/professional split, they are thoughts and words you own. That said. Personal thoughts and professional behavior split IS doable and actually a ‘thing,’ but that another piece for another day.

Anyway. To be fair I will spend a second in the tricky part of ownership.

Is the past a predictor?

Should we waste our time revisiting the online writings of someone who most likely sat down and vented personal thoughts on things of matter?

And, maybe more importantly, should we be held accountable for words we decided to put down and share on the world wide web?

Simplistically, I would say of course we should be held accountable for the words then just as, of course, what we said then may be different than what we would say now. We need to own all the words <and justify the difference>.

Simplistically I would say it is indefensible to solely make a stand on ‘you said it because you can’ and, simplistically, it is indefensible to simply say ‘that was then and this is now.’

If you write, you own the words. Therefore, use words with care.

If you make a point, you own it. Yeah. You own the words you use to make that point.

I make no mistake when I post something in that I know when I open my mind and share my words, they represent a potent formula that can be drunk with pleasure or peril. I know whether it is a large presentation, a one-on-one discussion or a 998 word post on my blog I am doing so as a public speaker.

I own my words. I own my thoughts.

====

“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

Yehuda Berg

=====

I say that because I am surprised when older people get trapped in business discussions having to discuss things they may have written as if the words should remain ‘there’ and why should we discuss it ‘here.’ Its nuts. Its nuts because anyone with half a brain knows words are a constructive force or a destructive force. With either path I own what I construct as well as own what I deconstruct; and I don’t understand how you can get to a certain age, or a certain level, and not know that..

Now. What also surprises me a little is that older people who have blogs or write opinion pieces are not young inexperienced people but, if you are making a point, you really do know that simply ranting or using some childish phrasing or hyperbolic rhetoric diminishes what you have to say.

And I say that knowing I am free with the swear words and generous with snarkiness.

Anyway. I may not communicate what I want to say simply, but underneath the swear words, the snarkiness, the faux intellectualism and the casual use of grammar resides a desire to hit what I have always believed is the message simplicity bullseye <by the way … anyone, blogger, opinion writer and even a communications agency can use this simplistic guide>.

The bullseye.

On one axis you are bookended.

On one end is whatever issue & solution I can offer — functionally what I have to offer <my experience, my ideas, my thinking> — followed in toward the bullseye by … well … me, the writer, and who I am and what I stand for <so that my thinking gets filtered through who and what I am … lets call that my character>.

On the other end is the need or want or desire – functionally what is needed – moving toward the bullseye by what the situation, or people, may desire <or think they desire> so that pragmatism gets filtered through the sometimes random irrational minds of people.

The other axis is even simpler: hero, conflict and resolution. It is basic story telling applied to ideas. I want to offer a hero <it can be an idea> which can enter into a conflict unflinchingly or flinchingly if appropriate, and offer a resolution.

All this permits me even in my most dry pieces to attempt to offer my version of a story which, as stories are supposed to do, address deeper and enduring emotional levels tapping into personal “issues” such as self-esteem <conformity versus individuality>, self-doubt and economic wellbeing.

Everyone who writes should have a story. They shouldn’t toss out words thoughtlessly, or worse, irreverently.  Anger doesn’t guide a good story <typically> but as long as you continue to aim forward the bullseye even an anger driven critique can end up in an okay place when viewed by someone in the future.  And all of that matters if you assume at some point someone will demand you own your words.

Regardless. No matter the words, what you say, what I want today should be aligned with what I believe in. I can take a fairly hard stance on a variety of issues, and I have, but I also hope that my heroes & resolutions reflect adaptability to other’s views and the situation at hand. When I do meet new business people or people I haven’t seen in a while and sometimes they bring up something I have written, let’s say 5 years ago, I am good. I may not think exactly what I did then but my basic principled beliefs have not changed.

It surprises me when some fairly qualified people have not assumed that stance in what they have written.

And.

I certainly have no patience for those who are more than willing to toss out their own past words as “I said that then but now …” or “I wish I had chosen my words more carefully.”  I will not suggest we should all get our words right every time <I surely don’t>, but not all words are created equal and the really important ones, the potent ones, the ones that can construct or deconstruct, you should get right. Well. At least right enough that someday in the future your career will not hang in the balance over poorly thought-out communications. Conversely, if you did think it out and your career can hang in the balance over it, well, you made a stand**. Good on you. And backing off that stand simply to get to where you want to be is, well, not good.

Look. I am very much aware that what I say today is probably the reason more people do not speak out. The consequences are often real and harsh and unforgiving. So don’t say what matters to you if that is what you choose (albeit I would note that silence is empty space for someone else to suggest something about how you feel about what matters). But if you do speak out, I have no time and I have no patience for people who do not own their words. And they should be ashamed of themselves for discarding thoughts and words so easily just to get something they want now. Thoughts and words are far too valuable to be that disposable. Ponder.

• ** hanging in balance when you take a stand. So let me make a point about ‘cancel culture’ and ‘being cancelled for speaking out.’ I have written before cancel culture is bullshit. Everyone who has supposedly been ‘canceled’ is somewhere in the communication system, with an audience, screaming what they have to say at the top of their lungs. They never had their tongue cut ut and the never lost access to some platform. That said. Let me tell you DOES get cancelled – stupid poor communicators. You can have a minority point of view, you can even have a horrible point of view, and if you articulate it well, you do not get cancelled. If, conversely, you ‘dull axe’ your communication – which is usually simplifying something down to an idiot soundbite – you get cancelled. Yeah. Truly the only people who get cancelled are the ones who say stupid shit stupidly.

——-
<context: thinking they hear King Henry approach the dungeon>

Prince Richard:

He’s here.

He’ll get no satisfaction out of me.

He isn’t going to see me beg.

Prince Geoffrey:

My … you chivalric fool … as if the way one fell down mattered.

Prince Richard:

When the fall is all there is, it matters.

“The Lion in the Winter”

—

“It’s true, I suffer a great deal–but do I suffer well? That is the question.”

Thérèse de Lisieux

===

I will begin with the thought that it is incredibly easy to flinch from “the fall” when ‘the fall’ is all there is. Look. We don’t often talk about ‘the fall’ because society tends to focus on ‘everyone can win’, ‘falling isn’t failing’, ‘possible resides in impossible’, and a bunch of other happy horseshit. The truth is we all fall. It is inevitable. And how you face ‘the fall’ is a choice. And the choice you make about what you do when you make it matters.  Because when the fall is all there is; it matters.

It matters a lot as a matter of fact.

Yeah. Today’s piece focuses on the biggest ‘fall’ – death.

Now. I am not going to be popular with aspects of the thought I am going to share. Pretty much everyone focuses on ‘living life to its fullest’ and making every moment count.  In fact. I often worry that sometimes we worry so much about ‘maximizing Life’ or being positive or believing the impossible can happen or you should always try to win in the face of impossible odds that we forget, or undervalue, how we fall says something about who we are as a person.

I say this because it is Death where things get a little reversed. In some cases, some people actually see the Life finish line and ‘fullest’, all of a sudden, becomes a bit more finite. Things are no longer limitless, but limited. Sure. We all know it is there, but for most of us it creeps up on us from somewhere beyond the horizon, unseen. For others Life shows it to them. It says “here it is.” But let’s be clear. Even then you can see it and, yet, not see it. Or maybe you just don’t accept it. And that’s where I believe not flinching from ‘the fall’ resides – in acceptance. At some point you look around, assess reality, and see your destiny will contain ‘a fall.’ And you accept it. And in that acceptance, you deal with it.

“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

Cheryl Strayed

Yeah.  Accepting it gives one freedom. Like the freedom to choose one’s way to fall.

I am not suggesting you shouldn’t fight for what you believe is right up until the end.

I am suggesting that when the fall is all there is that the way you fall really matters.

Look. I fully understand that some people ignore ‘the fall’ because they want to focus on Life. Ignoring the fall as an undesirable event which should be ignored as if it will not happen is the way they choose to fill up what is clearly finite time. I will not suggest that is a bad thing to do. I will not because everyone has to decide, individually, how one will face their fall.

But I will say this.

Will King Henry care if the prince is disgraceful, or, chooses to die with grace and honor?

Probably.

He may look at the prince differently.

May.

Will it matter to the prince … Richard?

Surely.

It is within that distinction in which acceptance resides. Acceptance makes a statement of who you are as a person. Acceptance is a decision. It is a decision, a recognition, that your fall will echo in eternity in a certain way. It is destiny’s version of “the last impression counts.” I guess my point is that one way of looking at ‘the fall’ is to treat it simply as an adverb in the middle of a long sentence.

Simply a word with the intent of getting to the period.

Or.

Like Richard the Lionhearted you can treat it like it is the end of a sentence.

A period.

Or an exclamation point.

Or a question mark.

Or anything definitive or declarative.

A way to put a piece of punctuation at the end of this particular sentence.

Richard states that it matters to him and he is going to control how his fall is defined. This isn’t about being right or wrong. This is about character. We do not choose when we will die. Death, more often than not, touches you and says “tag, you are it.” Your horizon becomes less infinite and your fall is better defined. You didn’t choose this ‘fall’, but by being chosen you have to choose.

The question one must ask themselves at some point is … well … do I suffer well? I imagine the answer resides in deciding if the way one falls matters. Ponder.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Victor Frankl

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.”

Augusten Burroughs

==

Events happen to us all the time. Some small. Some medium. Some large. Some immense. On this sliding scale of events, we make choices. Some good. Some bad. Some somewhere in-between good and bad. But inevitably, as events do, they end. And with that ending comes some reflection. And within that reflection the choices loom large. And they all loom large even if the event itself was small. But I would suggest on the immense events, all choices loom even larger – even if the choices really weren’t that large. And as they loom their imperfections will scream in your ear for attention.  Imperfect choices demand attention.

Which leads me to good intentions.

Immense events demand clarity of intent and intentions. Without that clarity many of those imperfect choices screaming at you may actually be screaming some really uncomfortable truths. But with that clarity you recognize all choices tend to be imperfect, but if stitched together with good intentions, well, you still may not sleep easy at the end of it all, but you will sleep a bit easier.

Ponder.

==

“It was suicide.

Others killed themselves with poison or with a revolver.

I killed myself with minutes and hours.”

Henri Barbusse

==

We are always moving through the cycle of existence, there is no stillness, only movement and transformation.

==

I’ve written about procrastination as well as measured time versus experience time and chronos and kairos, but today I will speak of a relationship with time and how it has become unhealthy.

Prior to the invention of clocks time was mostly driven by light (sundials) and tasks (harvest). The work took as long as it took and what could be done was done when the sun was shining. We slept when it was dark and, uhm, when we were tired. Yeah. Our attitudes toward sleep is cultural. Naps, siestas, and breaks in the hottest part of days, are part of society unless, of course, if you are American, the land of the people who are always exhausted and unwilling to waste time napping. I say all that to suggest time and culture have a relationship. That said. What I do know is that uniform timekeeping is inextricably tied to industrialization. I’m not suggesting that we haven’t always sought better ways to assess time or even to make better clocks and time keepers, what I am suggesting is that timekeeping has become the default for society’s view of time. And therein lies an issue we have truly failed to grapple with as a society – and individually. By looking at clocks and the time keepers we’ve forgot to look at time itself. We have sought to try to discipline time using it to discipline us (humans). The problem is the time is elastic. Yeah. Time seems short in good time and bad times seem to last forever. Tahat happens despite the fact we clearly know that time never really slows down, it is more in how we remember events that make us believe that time has either sped up or slowed down. Uhm. This also suggests the brain itself is elastic. Or maybe I should say that the brain has some emergent characteristics in that our senses adapt to context.

Which leads me to circle back to time and how it is measured.

If all of those human characteristics I just described are elastic, why wouldn’t we always be in conflict with time in our relentless attempts to discipline it? Maybe we were happier when we didn’t try to discipline time and we treated it as elastic – just as we are? Maybe we need to remember we still got work done and, in fact, the quality of work was often quite good. Maybe we need to remember that we weren’t always trying to cram that work into minutes, or hours. The day was the day, daylight was daylight, and we did what we could do. Maybe we need to remember time has always been in a limited supply and yet we used to demand less things of it.

All of this isn’t to say that the telling of time has been a human pursuit from the beginning of time. Sundials water clocks, lunar cycles, even astrology, attempted to give humans a sense of how time passes. But I would argue all of those things gave us all some room. Some space. Its lack of its exactness gave us the ability to live a slightly less exact life. It gave us some breathing room to still get everything done, but without exact time specificity. The patterns of our behavior and our attitudes, I would guess, were just a little less exact, a little less measured, and a lot more a reflection of a natural rhythm of human nature. We were dedicated a little less to time and a little more to what needed to be done – and life itself. We lived just a little more in sync with nature and coherence to whomever we were interacting with – and not to time itself. Maybe what I am suggesting is that time measurement was created by humans and maybe we should measure life, and tasks, through the social aspect of humans in their connectivity and interactions then to some time measurement device which puts unnatural demands upon us.

I imagine I am suggesting measurement of time IS reductionism where we are encouraged to believe time is shorter and shorter. That’s nuts. In our attempt to keep up with the faster pace of time (that statement is also nuts), before long we begin shortening our demands of time. What I mean by that is we demand more and more within less and less time and, yet, our expectations of what comes of it are smaller and smaller. What I do know is that the result of this generalized speedup of everything creates a high-stakes, high-adrenaline environment with lower and lower true involvement with the depth and breadth of time. What I do know is that within this environment it is easy to see why people wonder what exactly they are doing and why.

“I knew it wasn’t too important, but it made me sad anyway.”

J.D. Salinger

Maybe the worst of all our habits in a bite-size time world is the one which leads us away from deeper more complex, more contemplative, time, and leads us a bit closer to a manmade time addiction-style superficial involvement. I imagine the question isn’t whether our attitude toward time is making us smarter or dumber, but rather are we losing control of how we think despite trying to control time. It almost feels like squeezing time encourages us to skim through life (despite the fact our resumes are strewn with proof of goals met, milestones achieved and things done).

To be clear. Humans, brains and bodies, are pretty resilient things and what is occurring today, negatively, may simply be the precursor of something positive in body and brain. The truth is that extended time, historical epochs, have shown time and time again that we have extended our brains and how we think and assimilate. regardless. We shouldn’t just be storing ideas and things we have done; we should be letting some things simmer a bit before bringing it to boil – naturally rather than in some time disciplined way. I do believe we have an unhealthy relationship with time and I do believe more of us are killing ourselves through minutes and hours than by any other means. Ponder.

==

“In various quiet nooks and corners I had the beginnings of all sorts of industries under way- nuclei of future vast factories, the iron and steel missionaries of my future civilization. In these were gathered together the brightest young minds I could find, and I kept agents out raking the country for more, all the time. I was training a crowd of ignorant folk into experts – experts in every sort of handy work and scientific calling. These nurseries of mine went smoothly and privately along undisturbed in their obscure country retreats. Unsuspected by this dark land I had the civilization of the 19^th century booming under its very nose!”

Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s court

==

“It’s not about how long you stay in a place, it’s about what you do while you’re there and, when you go, is that place any better for you having been there.”

Chris on Northern Exposure

==

For a race of people who seem to relentlessly pursue ‘living in the now’ and maximizing pleasure in the present, we are surely an unhappy group. It should make many of us wonder why.

From a meta perspective, one could argue that our ideal is incompatible with industrial progress and industrialization. From a mesa perspective, it could simply be the constant friction between the ideal and reality. So, let’s stick with the latter for a moment. There is a reality of progress and that is, well, its relentless energy constantly grinds against the present reality. That constant grinding is a reflection of the tension of people relentlessly holding on to ‘some vision of the ideal’ despite all the signs and warnings reality continuously gives us. This oddly seems to feed a sense of powerlessness. As reality becomes more and more obvious the freefall from the heights of the ideal to the material reality is horrifying. And yet day in and day out we look around at a rude, restless, world and continuously try and replace it with polite order and machines hoping to force reality to reflect more our ideal. Unfortunately, our world is an intricate semi-organized urban/rural/industrial/agricultural society of which the machinery of its collective existence encourages us to have an image of humankind in the grip of uncontrollable forces. Once again, we are faced with another conflict of reality. Industrialization, once associated with movement and noise, has entered another phase of industrialization, technology, but one in which eliminates all evidence of any of the frenzied chaotic movement and clamor that we have always associated with industrialization. Once again the silence is horrifying and yet wherever there is noise we begin believing there must be a problem – quite the paradox. Maybe worse is that this silent machine simultaneously works against our dreams and simultaneously enables our dreams which creates even more tension/conflict. I’d suggest this is a battle between reality and imagination, progress and the ideal. And throughout, humans being generally an optimistic bunch, we hold on to the simple-minded notion that everything can be right again and can be made right again. We work harder and harder to fix things that we just can’t put a finger on. As we work, we grab onto a temporary feeling of relief that maybe we were on the path to some solution and the hope of a lasting possibility. The ideal can never be let go no matter how harsh reality suggests we should let go. It is almost like The Great Gatsby when Nick says “Gatsby did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the Republic rolled on under the night.” And maybe that is where living in the now runs into the most issues. The imagined versus reality. Or continuous efforts to banish facts in order to maintain faith in the ideal. It is the relentless tug of the possibility which simply makes optimizing the present so difficult.

Solving this, making “that place better for you having been there,’ is harder than one may think because the fact is that humans depend on filtering out a certain amount of things in order to make sense of the environment, i.e., where they are. We boil things down so that we feel safe. We reduce things to some version of ‘perceived best certainty’ (which does not equate to “better for having been there”). In addition, it is a basic principle that people generally fear what they do not know, but, in particular, we fear the perfidiousness of other people. All of those things ‘reduce’ the space we are in, reduce the present, and reduce any chance of bettering the space for someone following. Reduction should not dominate the space as we define it.

Which leads me to social cohesion.

Because these things dominate the definition of our space, we will typically gravitate towards who we know and what we know and, well, staying in place. To be clear, part and pieces of that are good, but we need to acknowledge the need for some boundaries in social cohesion. That being said even the boundaries which we erect for the safety of who and what we are should be permeable boundaries. What I mean by that is the boundaries have an infinite amount of doors in and out. And this is where the present comes crashing into the conversation. For if you have ideals and yet you are trying to maximize the present who owns the right of the space or the time or even the present, who even owns the doors? For it is within the space where the ideal becomes inherently social and not individualistic. And this is where “better for having you there” resides, for ‘you’ is not an individual but rather a collective. It is this space in which maximizing the present and reaching for the ideal is always about all about keeping a balance between what is built and what is grown, the architect and the gardener. Negotiation, compromise, genuine empathy, in an embrace of other people and their ideas all of which creates a daily testing of boundaries among people. Sure, there will always be tension between private benefit and common good, but social cohesion exists because of a meaningful and moral intent for progress and it is actually progress, not inertia, which promotes a sustainable social identity. Some of this may sound silly in the crazy hectic nonstop 24/7 world that we live in. But I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that loneliness is not just the absence of meaning, but just as much can be found in the absence of company. What I mean by this is that you can feel alone on an empty street just as you can feel alone on a crowded street with busy people going here and there. Yeah. With no social connection we find ourselves in a bubble of isolation even when surrounded by people. To be clear, connection is simply the first step toward community and collective good, but without it there is no community or collective good. Anway. It is at this point it’s quite possible that someone seeks meaning by trying to maximize the present – as an individual. That is simply a fool’s errand and it does not really offer a true path to “making that place better for you having been there.” Once again, without connection one can never truly maximize a situation nor do they improve their chances of moving any closer to the ideal nor do they really have an opportunity to make where they are better for being there.

Which leads me to what is “under your very nose.”

The truth is the design of life always embraces a larger, more complicated and complex, order of experience than simply living in the now, i.e., in the place you are. And while making most of the present certainly does need design – a larger structure of thought and feeling – that thought and feeling should embrace an ideal of, well, the future. That may sound contrary to what I was suggesting earlier, but maybe having an ideal in mind is the key to making the most of where you are, with what you have, and who you are with. Maybe that’s true because where you are is of the time, of the mind, of the body, and of the connections to some community which, in some form or fashion, has an eye on the future. Think about that a bit because reality should not cause alienation to the ideal, in fact all reality should do is make possibilities gather up its pragmatism friends as the engine for progress toward those possibilities. For it is within that time and space in which energy is converted into action, positively affecting the environment to propel us, collectively, toward progress and the ideal. My point here is that we should never divest ourselves of the ideal, just as we should never divest ourselves of reality, and maybe that is the point. In order to live in the present, you must use reality to edge ever so closer to the ideal. Day in and day out, small step or large step, and ‘maximizing a place’, edging closer and closer to your ideal. It is quite possible I am suggesting a life within which you never reach a desired destination, but maybe that’s what making the present world just a little bit better for whomever may follow behind is all about. So that maybe they could possibly reach the ideal destination. Ponder.

“want to be remembered just as someone who did whatever she could, with whatever limited talent she had, to move society along in the direction I would like it to be for my children and grandchildren.”

RBG

==

Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure.

Edward Thorndike

——

Just like some people like walking around with coins in their pocket so they can reach in and make them jingle, I like walking around with words in my pocket. This matters because unless you can draw pictures out of thin air, you will be stuck using words to explain something, get what you want or get someone to ‘see’ something. Take a moment and think about what I just said because that is the rationale for treating words with respect and to value the beauty of a well-placed word. I am not a godly man, but if you ever doubt that a higher being exists wouldn’t words be proof of some existence?

“God wove a web of loveliness, of clouds and stars and birds, but made not anything at all so beautiful as words.”

Anna Hempstead Branch

I have written about the power of words, the proper use of words as well as the waste of good words a zillion times. Nothing tears me out of my frame more than seeing and hearing someone abuse words.

That said. I cannot tell everyone how often I am reminded that how you say something is possibly more important than what you say <at minimum I would suggest it is a symbiotic relationship in which the life of ‘what you say’ is in the hands of how you say it>. And ‘how you say it’ doesn’t just encompass context, tone, choice of actual words & phrasing but also what’s inside you stuff – intent, AND, MAYBE THE MOST Important of all, belief in the words you are saying. All this becomes incredibly important because when words are used in front of a receptive audience, they can encourage marching, fighting and a sense of hunger for life that can gnaw at us all.

While I could write an entire book on what makes words tricky, I will offer a couple of things:

• Words given and words used

Yes. Some words we choose on our own. And then there are words that are given to us.

Now. It is easy to think about how there are speechwriters and how some people have to stand up and deliver someone else’s words, but this bleeds into everyday life. In business you can be sitting around a table and people parse out words and offer different ways of saying what you want to say. Parents suggest different words to their children and teachers do it day in and day out. Friends say “don’t say that” or “I wouldn’t say it that way,” in other words, we are given words to say all the frickin’ time. Suffice it to say not all words given to you are actually good words for you to use. Words have to match personal beliefs to be delivered effectively. Just listen to anyone who is given a speech to give and you will see how difficult it is to cloak your own thoughts and beliefs in words given to you. Anyway. Here is what I think I know from years of giving speeches and seeing people give speeches — thoughts versus principles. In general, most people working together share some basic principles. These are the foundations for specific words. Therefore, when given words to speak, the shared principles kind of ground the tone and delivery so that they don’t sound painful or distasteful coming out of the speaker’s mouth – just maybe a little uncomfortable on occasion. Without shared principles the words have no foundation, they are delivered hollow of anything. They are just empty words. And empty words sound, well, empty. They may be the actual right words to say, but the wrong person is trying to say them – which then strips them of any meaning.

Which leads me to what I know about empty words — empty words are evil.

“And empty words are evil.”

Homer <The Odyssey>

They have been uttered full of nothing, despite possibly crafted by a lot of something <passion, thought, insight, whatever>, but as they eased out from between the lips of the deliverer, they were stripped of anything meaningful and simply become platitudes. I could argue that this ensures inevitable invisibility <unless some listeners/pundits attempt to parse out each word as meaningful and full of some meaning & intent – where there actually was none of that>.  These words are not harmless because in their emptiness they have become a version of evil. Evil in that they have not prompted any thought, any idea, any new passion. They are evil in that they have not inspired anything new and everything old, or that which exists now, remains unchanged. That’s what evil does. It fights change and thrives on inertia. Those of us who give words should be credibly careful, and smart, on who we give them to. just because a word is right it may not be right for that person.

• Words can have a life of their own

Words are their own people with minds of their own. This means that they may not always remain a true reflection of the speaker’s thoughts. Once they leave the lips and they enter into the ether … well … they can be chameleons. They often take on the hues of the environment.

“Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.”

Learned Hand

This makes choosing words even more difficult. More difficult in that a word can mean several things at exactly the same time – what it means in your head, what it means as it leaves your lips, what it means as it floats thru the environment <slowly, or quickly, changing as it is bombarded with contextual environment> and what it means as it is heard. Yeah. Context, and delivery, can strip a word of meaning or it can dress it in whatever clothes you would like. For example, if I use the word ‘unity’ and, yet, it is used within an overall “us versus them” driven narrative, it suggests not an overall unity but rather a unity of “us only.” Yeah.

One would think unity would be a word well used in almost any environment, but context warps everything.

So. Unite. Blend. Coalesce. Combine. Fuse. Join. Merge. These words refer to the bringing or coming together of several different elements to form a whole.

Out of many one. E pluribus unim.

• Unites actually comes for the Latin word ‘usus’ which means one.
• Combine means to bring together in close union … more general in application than unite and does not emphasize as strongly the completeness of the process of coming together. In other words it just places things together but don’t guarantee the full integration.
• Blend even more strongly than combine suggests a mingling of different elements. Unlike combine it specifically refers to the obscuring or harmonizing of various components.
• Merge, like blend, suggest the loss of spate identity of ingredients, but does not imply the physical act of making or mingling together different elements.
• Join is the broadest term of this group can mean to become part of to bring together or connect or to put together in close contact.
• Fuse means to join by or as if by melting together – it also implies some aspect of ‘forcing or forging.’ Fuse in other contexts implies a solid lasting connection.
• Coalesce suggests a gradual or natural coming together. In extended senses coalesce suggests two separate courses that gradually merge into one. .

In other words I can say unity in a number of ways or even qualify unity with another likeminded word all of which suggests this is a multi-dimensional challenge — constantly in flux. Regardless. I imagine my real point is that words without their corners knocked off, or ground down, can be good words and used for good. They need to be shaped, protected, and guided through the environment instead of being flippantly flung out assuming a basic stimulus – response world.

Which leads me to say I clearly have a healthy respect for words.

And I, frankly, have a healthy respect for the responsibility of words handed to someone.

• Used well they can nudge the world.
• Used hollowly they are evil.
• Used poorly they are just wasted.

——-

“Words…

They’re innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they’re no good any more… I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are.

They deserve respect.

If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you’re dead.”

Tom Stoppard

——————-

Anyway. If you have words in your pocket, use them.

“It’s hard not to drown underneath all the words I’ve left unspoken. “

PSB

Let me end with my three favorite words:

• Mellifluous.

• Truth.

• Silence.

I had to chuckle a little because it took me a long time to name three words and then only to end with ‘silence.’ Ponder.

==============

Words to keep inside your pocket:

Quiescent – a quiet, soft-spoken soul.

Chimerical – merely imaginary; fanciful.

Susurrus – a whispering or rustling sound.

Raconteur – one who excels in story-telling.

Clinquant – glittering; tinsel-like.

Aubade – a song greeting the dawn.

Ephemeral – lasting a very short time.

Sempiternal – everlasting; eternal.

Euphonious – pleasing; sweet in sound.

Billet-doux – a love letter.

Redamancy – act of loving in return.

==

“Without adventure, civilization is in full decay.”

Alfred North Whitehead

==

With adventure, civilization thrives. Shit. With adventure, people thrive. Now. Adventures are tricky things. Exciting in concept, frightening in action. But then there is the civilization, or society, aspect. Adventure can be a solitary activity, but is more often experienced as a group. And when people have an adventure together, they share not only the challenges, risks and uncertainties they negotiate, but also the growth and bonding that arise when dealing with challenges. That said. Adventure stories tell us that we should all travel off the couch and seek out experiences in the world. Yes. I am suggesting there is a difference between a couch potato dream and an adventurer’s dream. And, yes, different versions of ideas and reality drive different kinds of dreams and drive different types of adventures. Regardless, we choose, wisely or not.

Which leads me to creativity and imagination (the stuff of dreams).

We honor creativity and imagination culturally mostly because creativity is as much social as an individual effort. What I mean by that is any true adventure of creativity and imagination connects with other people at some point; if not multiple points. This is kind of the part of diversity I wish we spoke more often about. When people of different backgrounds come together, new ideas arise from their conversations. The truth is that progress, and new thinking, tend to be crafted incrementally from the fragments of different viewpoints. Once again, creativity is a social affair. I say that because that suggests that creative genius lies in the foundations of social itself.  So, uhm, adventures of the imagination are adventures of society. And just as I stated earlier, the imagination of a couch potato is different than the imagination of an adventurer. And, once again, the main difference is that an adventurer ventures out, amidst others and their ideas and their adventures, and, well, imaginations get honed into realities. And those realities become stuff of myths, stories, and narratives.

Which leads me to stories.

===

“It simply isn’t an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

===

• Smooth.
• No problems.
• Went without a hitch.

Those are the kinds of words we really like to use in life. They imply things going well, plans well done, and well executed. Implies thoughtfulness and focus and hard work. So, what’s my problem then? There is no story to tell.  Look. I am not suggesting there is only one type of adventure. What is adventure to one person may not be to another person; and vice versa. But what all adventures have in common is they, in the end, have a story to tell.

Which leads me to dreams and adventures.

Dreams need doing or they are simply mental masturbation. That’s why adventure and dreams are linked. When you dream big things, you will find new roads you may want to explore along the way. It is an adventure and sometimes extremely unpredictable and never ordinary. This is because big dreams can push limits of possibilities <or what is possible> because it keeps the impossible in life in sight. Yeah. I just said that. Big dreams, big adventures, purposefully keep the impossible in sight. This happens because big dreams are … well … not quantifiable. If they can be <in your head> I would suggest it is not really a dream, but an objective or goal. A dream has to be so big it is just an idea, something difficult to put a number on it or a specific GPS coordinate. It is always somewhere on the horizon and always contains just a bit of impossibility (until it doesn’t). And in reaching toward it the possibilities of new roads not taken increase significantly. Hey. That last sentence sounds like an adventure, no? Ponder.