Author: letterstoleland

March 9, 2023

Dear Leland and Everett,

Today I want to talk briefly about righteousness. Briefly because I don’t think the topic requires extensive deliberation. But still worth a letter because of its significance and potential impact on your lives.

Righteousness is the enemy of truth. Righteousness and truth are not opposites, but when righteousness and truth overlap it’s coincidental, not causal. When we get righteous, however, we are utterly convinced we are right and that others are wrong. Our brains trick us into believing that we are in possession of truth when in fact we are at the whims of our emotions.

How do you know when your are being righteousness? Some things to look for: when your mind races for evidence that you are right and that someone else is wrong. Or when your mind races to collect evidence proving someone else is evil, and has wronged you terribly.

My coach likes to talk about the ‘drama triangle’, wherein participants oscillate between one of three roles. The ‘victim’ spends time convincing oneself that they are innocent of all wrongdoing, and purely the victim of circumstance. The ‘villain’ creates the story that someone else is the perpetrating evil and harming us. The ‘hero’ says thing like “I guess I’m just going to have to do it all myself”. When we are righteous, we tend to ping between roles on the drama triangle.

Perhaps most important, when we are righteous we leave no space for curiosity; if you are so convinced that you are exactly right that you are unwilling to entertain other possibilities, you are probably stuck in righteousness.

Leland, because of your rational bent, your form of righteousness mostly comes in the form of scanning for facts that support your argument (or at least your innocence in a confrontation). Put differently, I anticipate you will most often play the role of ‘victim’ when righteous.

Everett, because you are more relationship driven, your form of righteousness comes in the form of feeling betrayed. When outraged, you make statements like “x is a bad person!” or “x tried to kill me!” or “x did [whatever bad thing] on purpose“; these are, I think, ways of expressing the depth of betrayal in your search for justice. I expect you to most commonly fall into the ‘villain’ role when righteous.

Personally (and this is a very recent practice) I’ve found it immensely helpful to identify when I’m in a state of righteousness. Awareness by itself helps me to shift to a state of more controlled consciousness. I take deep breaths and let my nervous system calm down. From there, I am able to explore with more curiosity. When we are righteous it typically means we are gripped by fear or sadness; from a state of curiosity we are able to more honestly assess the sources that have overwhelmed our minds. Almost invariably, I’ve found that righteousness stems either from assumptions I’ve made (e.g. the reason someone else’s actions were outrageous are because it will lead to x, y, and z terrible things), and/or because of past experiences I bring to the situation (e.g. being in a situation where I’m reminded of being scolded by my parents, and so revert to the role of a child who protests his innocence). Identifying the real causes of my distress helps me to have more honest conversations with the counterparty involved, and sometimes even gives me awareness of emotional healing that I need to do independently (via therapy, coaching, or meditation).

Finally, beware interaction with others stuck in a state of righteousness. They, like you, are overcome with emotion. We are wired to assume that others’ anger is justified, but what I’ve found is that the relationship between others’ anger and truth is at best tenuous. Rarely is the topic at hand really what matters, and rarely will capitulating truly solve the problem, at least when dealing with people you truly care about or interact with regularly. Often others’ anger is connected to some genuine learning, and when you can let (or help) them calm down and enter a place of awareness, you can have a meaningful conversation about how to make things better. Sometimes, however, you’ve just stumbled onto someone else’s emotional scar tissue, and there is only so much you can do to help, at least without their willingness and participation.

The world as of this writing is enveloped in righteousness; we take turns triggering and being triggered by others, unconsciously broadcasting our emotional scars to each other daily. I’m hopeful that your generation learns more emotional awareness and can deescalate from righteousness. At the very least, I’m hopeful that I can arm the two of you to inoculate yourselves, and look to join communities where righteousness isn’t enabled. Even at our best, we need others to help us identify when we’ve gone astray.

I love you,

Dad

March 8, 2023

Dear Leland and Everett,

I listened to a podcast recently between Donald Hoffman and Lex Fridman that sorta blew my mind. I’ll need to give a very brief summary of what he said so that I can underscore what I find particularly interesting.

Dr. Hoffman started with an assertion that ‘spacetime is doomed’. He gave a bit of background of which I was not aware: in Einstein’s proofs, he posits spacetime as fundamental. Relativity and quantum physics held up in experiments, so we began to assume Einstein was correct in assuming spacetime was fundamental. Now, apparently, physicists are starting to realize that spacetime isn’t as fundamental as we previously thought, and that Einstein’s theories don’t hold up as universally as we expected.

The point is not that Einstein is wrong. For comparison, think of Newton. Newtonian physics are still incredibly useful: we put a man on the moon using Newtonian physics. And yet, Einstein proved that Newtonian physics were incomplete, and not valid outside of certain parameters (it just so happened that Newtonian physics held up within the parameters of what humans generally experience in life). In the same way, today’s physicists won’t ‘disprove’ relativity so much as they are discovering that it breaks down outside certain parameters.

This revelation interests me because so much of our current understanding of the world stems from the assumption that spacetime is fundamental. As Dr. Hoffman pointed out, biologists have spent the last ~70 years attempting to understand how human consciousness sprung from spacetime. The theory goes that, since spacetime is fundamental, somehow in the evolution of the universe, after magma solidified into water and rock, after the formulation of microorganisms, and later the evolution into plants, sea creatures, land creatures, and eventually humans…eventually human consciousness came into being, somehow manifest from matter in the physical world. We know consciousness exists, well, because we are aware of our awareness. But how did this awareness come into being? We’ve never been able to figure that out.

Dr. Hoffman posits that the relationship works the other way: that consciousness is fundamental, and that spacetime is emergent (e.g. that consciousness creates spacetime, not vice versa). I’ll leave speculation regarding whether Dr. Hoffman is correct to science and history. For now I just want to take a moment to underscore and celebrate what potential breakthroughs are upon us.

Humans have spent the last several centuries wrestling with the apparent dichotomy between faith and reason. There was a world we ‘knew’, insofar as we could experience, test, and replicate aspects of it; and then there was religion, which was balm people apparently used to explain away the complexities of the universe that they couldn’t comprehend. While the major religions have held up in the face of onslaught over the centuries, there’s a tacit assumption that we are currently in the process of moving past religion once and for all.

But a world devoid of spirituality is so bland! So lifeless! So devoid of wonder. Cut off from so much of our creativity. It’s astonishing how often artists (whether painters, poets, writers, or musicians) describe the creative process as if they were merely serving as conduits, allowing the art to flow out of them. Psychedelics are bending our understanding of reality, particularly when folks (like scientists) who should ‘know better’ talk about dimensions other than the physical world we live in, and talk about the experiences from their psychedelic journeys as if they were real. Not that psychedelics are required: a sufficient level of prayer or meditation can lead to basically the same level of awareness, the same sense of connection to the Infinite, and the same recognition that we individually are small and rather pathetic, but connected to God we are almost infinitely capable.

Rationalists (be they atheists, agnostics, or anyone else who doubts the existence of God) would likely argue that all spiritual experiences are in fact scientifically explainable. Perhaps we are accessing memories or other aspects of the mind when in altered states of artistic expression, prayer, or on a psychedelic journey. Perhaps! I’m starting to embrace duality, so no longer assume that this is an either/or distinction. But if forced to choose, I believe that humans have access to intelligence, information, and energy that rests outside our bodies, but can be accessed via purposeful spiritual exploration.

Reverting back to the schism between faith and reason: I’ve come to realize that this itself is a false dichotomy. No human is devoid of faith. Each individual rests his or her faith on something. In fact, people can put faith in many things (our parents, or teachers, or the New York Times, or the Republican party, or Western medicine, or free markets, or the American constitution), but I submit that every human rests their ultimate faith in something. Partly this is due to cost of deep thought: humans don’t have the cognitive capacity to always reason from first principles, and so by necessity take shortcuts. We constantly make assumptions, or (more importantly) establish certain authorities as having sufficient credibility that we trust what they tell us. These cognitive shortcuts are relatively automatic, such that we dramatically underestimate how many things we think we ‘know’ are really just expressions of faith.

But I also think people all have a core belief, some central article of faith, around which they build all others. For the religious, the central article of faith is generally pretty transparent: it’s some form of god. For the rationalists, I submit that they are putting their faith in human capacity for reason. I personally find that worldview flawed, because the human mind is just too complex and flawed a reasoning device to be so entrusted. But what’s more important to me is not convincing the rationalists that they are wrong, but highlighting that the rationalists, too, ultimately put their faith in something, even if they don’t believe that thing to be a god. Personally, I think whatever we put our ultimate faith in is our god.

We tend to get hung up when we talk about religion for a couple reasons: 1) the major religions have thousands of years of tradition and dogma, which when overemphasized can lead to rigidity and therefore division; 2) the major religions have thousands of years of history, some of it less than inspiring; so the religions tend to come with baggage. And yet: most of the major religions believe in some version of the Golden Rule. And most believe in some version of the Holy Spirit (the idea that some invisible but accessible force permeates all creation goes by the name of Chi, Buddha Nature, Atman Brahmin, and consciousness). Point being: the major religions of the world have more in common than in difference, at least regarding the big questions. And the point of religion is not to demonstrate our tribal identity, but to become aware of ourselves, and to maximize our gifts by living in connection to the Infinite.

I am so very curious to see where religion and science go from here. I think we’re going to break down the barriers between science and religion. And I think we’re going to see the world’s religions converge somewhat, as we all learn to help individuals connect with the Infinite. From a Christian perspective I think this will resemble a Third Covenant with God; whereas the First Covenant (the Old Testament) was with God, and the Second (the New Testament) was with Jesus, I think the Third will be with the Holy Spirit.

You can be the judge of how I did in terms of predictions. But hopefully this grounding helps you navigate the evolutions in science and spirituality you witness during your lifetimes.

I love you,

Dad

March 7, 2023

Dear Leland and Everett,

It’s hard to overstate the level of acrimony and antipathy in America today, at least relative to my lifetime and the lifetimes of anyone I know. To be fair: the hostility doesn’t seep into daily life for most Americans; most of us like our neighbors, like our communities, and generally feel safe and secure with the people we encounter face to face. But on the news, and on social media, we are exposed to an undigestible amount of boorish behavior, including violence, ignorance, and blatant tribalism. The tribalism is perhaps the most shocking to me: we pretty regularly see otherwise rational individuals convince themselves of incredible falsehoods, whether it be rationalizing the behaviors of the members of their own tribe, or demonizing the members of other tribes. Perhaps even more remarkable: all tribes have convinced themselves that they are the rational ones, and that the rest have lost touch with reality. The truth, so far as I can tell, is that all our tribes have lost touch with reality. And I speak from some experience: I’ve experienced the destabilizing effect of spending too much time watching the news or social media, and I’ve watched others go through similar experiences.

In our current culture, our default is to blame: it’s the MAGA Republicans! Or the Woke Democrats! Or the mainstream media! Or social media! We either blame another tribe for our individual and collective problems, or we blame the institutions we think should be protecting us from the bad guys.

I’ve spent a lot of time and energy disengaging from the ritualistic dance of our time, whereby we identify some boorish behavior via social media or the news, and get righteous and judgmental, only to have members of another tribe dismiss our concerns. Then another tribe will identify some boorish behavior, and then my tribe trivializes, dismisses, or justifies the behavior (or even blames the offended tribe of being the original cause of the boorish behavior). It’s all very…juvenile. And yet practically our whole society is currently sucked into participating in this dance of righteousness and judgement.

There are several contributing factors to today’s bitterness and hostility. The internet and especially social media are a new communication paradigm, where we haven’t yet established the rules for governance (interesting thought exercise: Adolph Hitler rose to power partly because he leveraged the new but as yet unregulated communication technology of his day: the radio; we later created rules of governance, establishing clear boundaries around what was acceptable behavior over the airwaves. But bad actors exploited the lack of rules before they existed). Our political parties are becoming more polarized, for reasons too complex to explore today. But one, I think, under-examined cause of today’s acrimony is the decline of spirituality and religion in our population.

Spirituality is almost impossible to define, so I’ll use religion as a proxy. From WWII until 1985, more than 70% of Americans claimed to belong to a church (or synagogue, or mosque, etc). From 1985 until almost the end of the millennium, church membership hovered in the high 60s% to low 70s%. Since about the start of the millennium, church attendance has fallen in an almost linear fashion, such that by 2020, only 47% of American claimed membership. Church membership has declined in all age groups, but the older (58% of baby boomers) retain church membership at much higher rates than the young (36% of millennials).

I am one of those who dropped out. My family attended church almost every Sunday while I was growing up; we also attended Sunday School, Sunday night youth group activities, and Wednesday night dinners at the church. Later, I attended church sporadically in college while I explored my beliefs. After college, I attended churches and served in youth groups until around the age of 30; since then I’ve rarely attended church.

The biggest reason for my dropping out is, I think, common: churches were designed with families in mind. The assumption was that families would join the church, where the family could get all the benefits that the church had to offer (typically with activities arranged for each member of the family, tailored by age, gender, and/or interest). As my generation (and those behind me) delayed marriage and kids, we didn’t really sense we had a place in the church.

And then there were the neo-evangelicals. For much of my younger life, Christians were in the news primarily when conservatives expressed moral outrage or banded together for political purposes. The neo-evangelical churches grew, partly because they solved some of the problems traditional churches struggled to overcome: they were more inviting, typically helped you find a small community right away (helping provide a sense of belonging), and provided activities to get you engaged (deepening your commitment to the community and cause). The problem was that the theology tended toward rigidity and shallowness. Traditionalists scoffed at the lack of nuance, but what the neo-evangelicals lacked in nuance they made up for in confidence and esprit-de-corps. Unfortunately, the intellectually inclined, especially amongst the traditionalists, wanted to distance themselves from the dogma of the evangelicals, and came to associate Christianity itself with the behaviors of the evangelicals. Today, particularly living on the coasts, one weighs the potential social stigma of joining a church.

Why does the decline in church membership matter? For one thing, a shared faith gave Americans some shared values. This helped people sort out their differences by appealing to common values. Today I find that we have few shared values, and hold few things commonly sacred. A lack of shared values makes compromise almost impossible beyond pure horse-trading.

Religion also acts as a governor on poor behavior. Religions provide us with a bit of moral code; the irreligious still have moral codes, but I find that individually-designed moral codes tend to be more malleable and fluid than religious morality. (To be clear: the religious have no monopoly on piety, and have indeed perpetrated innumerable atrocities. What the irreligious sometimes miss is that bad behavior is part of the human condition, and the religious are by no means immune). Point being: what some define as bad behavior is evolving remarkably rapidly, to the degree that our moral code lacks intellectual consistency.

But I think the biggest problem with our rapidly declining religiosity is that we’re neglecting our spiritual selves. As much as we try to convince ourselves that we are becoming homo rationalis, humans are spiritual beings. One could argue that our spirituality is a ‘bug’ (computer programming slang for flaw): it highlights the limitations of our capacity for rational thought, tacitly acknowledges that our rational minds are universally flawed, and at times exposes practitioners to pure superstition. I would argue that our spirituality is in fact a feature, insofar as our spiritual sides give us access to wisdom that, for whatever reason, our rational minds do not possess.

It was my own recent spiritual exploration that helped me see that my own hyper-focus on rationality was a dead-end, and that I had access to far more wisdom and awareness than I was utilizing. I realized that my focus on rationality was making me miserable, but was a burden I didn’t have to carry. I realized that a refocus on spirituality would give me peace, comfort, and clarity on a number of topics that were causing me too much pain and suffering. I still don’t go to church, but I think this is temporary: I anticipate I will find a spiritual community soon.

My prediction is that others will experience a reawakening similar to mine. As I mentioned previously, we’re pretty overwhelmed and miserable right now; I think others are ready for some peace and calm. Part of me believes that our current acrimony is a manifestation of our resistance to hearing God’s call to us. What I found, and what I think others will discover soon enough, is that letting go of the resistance to God’s efforts to communicate with us can bring us more peace, wonder, and joy than we can imagine (and certainly more than we would anticipate in our spiritual slumber).

I’m not sure that we’ll ever go back to a world where 70% of Americans are members of a church where they passively attend worship services led by high priests. I anticipate spirituality will become more active. But I do think we’ll rediscover our connection to the infinite, which will help us understand how connected we are, which will help us treat even our ‘enemies’ with empathy and compassion.

Here’s hoping I’m right. The alternatives are not pleasant.

I love you,

Eric

March 6, 2023

Oh, how we make plans…and then the universe laughs at our plans.

Last week I had a good week at the gym, in the sense that I enjoyed my workouts and can tell that I’m starting to get stronger. As recently as last week I reminded myself that I am still in discovery mode (meaning that I am still learning what works and doesn’t work, in terms of an exercise routine) and not optimization mode (meaning that I’m not trying to perfect said routine). And yet, exiting last week I unconsciously started assuming that I had found the workout routine that worked, and that I just needed to repeat it week after week until I got into shape like I want.

And then. I didn’t feel particularly well by the end of last week. I was lethargic all weekend. I struggled with heartburn the last few days, which is usually a sign that something is wrong with my diet. And heartburn makes me feel anxious and jittery, which is…not how I want to be spending this time off (if I wanted to be anxious and jittery, I would go back to work and at least be earning a salary!).

Originally I assumed that I had just pushed a little too hard last week, and that by Monday (today) I’d be ready to hit the gym hard again. This morning I felt a little better, but still not great. I decided to go back to the yoga class from three weeks ago. That class served as a bitter reminder just how inflexible I am, and that I might even be less flexible than I was three weeks ago. Put differently, my workouts might be making me stronger, but they might also be putting me on a path to inflexibility and therefore injury.

I intended to lift weights today, but decided against. I spent extra time in the sauna, where I used the heat facilitate stretching. A sad truth: I’ve never been able to cross my legs, or at least not not properly. So while in the sauna I sat cross-legged (or as close to cross-legged as I could) for ten minutes. The pain was agonizing. Fortunately I was alone, because I was practically yelling out in pain as my muscles released tension built up over decades.

Did I make the right decision to skip the lifting session? Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe I should have done a light workout. Maybe I should have pushed through. Or maybe I did the right thing.

I tell this story because it reminds me that I am still learning to pay attention to my body. We’ve talked about how you and I share a temptation to overthink, and ignore our emotions and spiritual needs. I should add bodies to that list. Our bodies are constantly giving us feedback and information. I am starting to appreciate that our bodies, when we pay attention to them, can illuminate wisdom that we would otherwise overlook. And yet recently, despite my best efforts, I have fallen prey to focusing too much on my rational thoughts, and not enough on my body. My rational mind convinced me that I had found my workout routine. It glossed over the fact that I hadn’t actually made a conscious choice that this was my routine. It hid the fact that I was rushing to make a routine because experimentation is cognitively and energetically expensive (having a routine is a much, much easier mental load). And of course it conveniently forgot that I was already inflexible, and that an exercise routing devoid of stretching is likely to lead to injury; my rational mind overlooked my inflexibility precisely because it knows how painful it will be to overcome.

But the inflexibility serves as a stark reminder that stretching is precisely where I need to be focused. And the heartburn from this weekend serves as a reminder that I need to revisit my diet: I haven’t been eating particularly poorly, but I decided to focus on exercise first, with the understanding that I would later refine my diet. This weekend’s heartburn merely speeds up the timeline with regards to diet. My point is that our difficulties sometimes highlight where we need to focus and overcome the temptation to neglect. And sometimes our bodies highlight those difficulties much more effectively than our rational minds.

I’ll admit: today was hard. As your dad, I try to be strong, to know what I’m doing, and to guide you thoughtfully. I try to do that even in these writings. Today, however, I find myself exposing you to my struggle, in the hopes that you can learn from my mistakes, but also in the hopes that if you ever find yourself lost, maybe my struggles will help you navigate your own.

I love you,

Dad

March 3, 2023

Dear Leland and Everett,

A hugely popular recent television show is Game of Thrones, set in a fictitious world that roughly resembles the European Middle Ages, but with magic, dragons, and other fictitious creations. The central theme of the show was the struggle of humanity to band together in the face of collective existential threat. The White Walkers were supernatural (undead?) creatures that supposedly last appeared centuries prior, but almost exterminated humanity. As a result, many characters on the show consider the White Walkers merely legend or superstition. Through the course of the show the White Walkers appear north of civilization, gather in increasing numbers, and begin to move down from the north and confront the civilized world, presenting an existential threat to civilization. Jarringly, most of characters in the show continue to ignore the threat, demonstrating increasing stubbornness and willful ignorance as the threat becomes increasingly obvious. The characters are far more focused on fighting amongst themselves for the throne in order to rule the realm. The show thus beautifully highlights an innate human tension: on the one hand we have incentives to band together and resist external threats; on the other hand, we have incentives to compete with each other for power and status. Complicating things, we are a complex, imperfect, diverse species, with blind spots and intellectual limitations.

What I didn’t expect was for the show to become prophetic. I assumed it was artistically pointing out the nuance, complexity, and tension innate to human society. As it turns out, we are increasingly living in a real-world approximation of the show.

One minor difference between currently reality and the show is that we arguably face multiple existential threats all at once. Global warming, geopolitical tension with China, Marxism, Fascism, AI, nuclear war, and capitalism are all considered by some to be existential threats to civilization. Amazingly…they might all be right; I certainly can’t definitively rule out any of the above, and could create plausible scenarios for each.

As in Game of Thrones, American society spends remarkably little time acknowledging and attempting to tackle any of the above. We spend increasing levels of energy infighting over baubles (e.g. the throne), while willfully ignoring the potential existential threats gathering (e.g. the White Walkers).

Collective American behavior appears rather foolish, as we find ways to politicize practically everything we do and focus on smaller and smaller objectives to solve. I’m struck in particular by our lack of ambition given the size and scope of potential challenges upon us. I think there are a few forces at work.

The first is that practically no one alive today has tackled the type of ‘whole-of-society’ challenges we face today. There are very few left of the WWII generation: that generation rallied to overcome the Great Depression, win WWII, and put men in space and on the moon. These were problems that required people and political parties to put aside their differences in order to conquer potentially existential threats (debatable in the case of the space race, though my understanding is that Americans were very worried at the thought of the Soviets ‘controlling’ space). As a result, this was a generation with ambition, confidence, and clarity of purpose. We, by contrast, suffer from a lack of ambition, confidence, and purpose. I think we’re ashamed at our individual and collective weaknesses, but refuse to look them in the mirror: we’d rather find someone else to blame, even if we need to manufacture the enemy, in order to avoid confronting the hard truths of just how small, soft, and weak we’ve become. America in 2023 is the obese man who would rather blame others for all the reasons they overeat and don’t exercise, rather than accept ownership, responsibility, and accountability for their outcomes. Said differently and more succinctly: we’re afraid we can’t do it.

The second challenge I see is related to the first, and it’s an unwillingness to acknowledge the magnitude of the problem(s). Take global warming, for example. Our arguments around global warming tend to oversimplify, forcing tribes into ‘yes’ (global warming is a problem) or ‘no’ (it isn’t) camps. Those camps tend to imply (and I’m oversimplifying) that we should either deindustrialize (in order to reduce greenhouse gas production) or ignore the problem (because it doesn’t exist or is overblown). Almost totally absent from the conversation: what about other countries? America currently represents about a seventh of global CO2 production, and our rates are declining thanks to technological innovation and organic behavioral change. By contrast, China, India, and Russia account for about four-tenths of global CO2 production, and the developing world in general is producing more CO2 as they industrialize. Any honest reckoning of how we will tackle global warming needs to account for the developing world: how will America and it’s developed-world partners help the developing world both grow and flourish economically without burning up the planet? Global warming isn’t an American Republican vs Democrat problem, but a global human problem. Until we are willing to acknowledge the true scope of the problem, we won’t explore the right approaches to tackling the problem. To refer back to my obese example: we have to stop avoiding the scale, or convincing ourselves that it’s broken; we have to accept the whole truth in order to take appropriate action.

The third challenge I see is related to the second, and it’s that our problems are increasingly global in scope, but we don’t have good mechanisms to tackle global problems. Covid in particular exposed this challenge, but so does global warming. Post-WWII international alliances were sufficient for maintaining global geopolitical stability. Today’s problems are increasingly global in scope, for better and worse, and we need global collaboration to tackle those problems.

Exacerbating challenge #3 (let’s call this challenge #4) is that America is no longer global hegemon, but hasn’t fully grasped the new reality. From WWII about 1990, the US and Soviet Union were the two global superpowers. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US stood alone as a superpower, and dominated global geopolitics for the next ~30 years. Now the developing world (in particular China) have achieved enough global heft to have tilted the scales and (on a relative basis anyway) reshape global politics. Put succinctly: the world will no longer just do what the US says. On the one hand, Americans don’t want the responsibility of serving as global hegemon (again, we’re afraid we’re not up to the task) but simultaneously assume the rest of the world will just do what we want because we tell them to (or because we asked nicely). Global geopolitics are about to get complicated in a way they haven’t been in 30+ years, and Americans have limited experience operating in a multipolar world.

Challenge #5 is related to communication and our individual capacity for worry. I have witnessed and participated in countless conversations where one party states “can you believe x bad people did y awful thing?”, whereby another party counters “well, but the real problem is that a bad people did b awful thing?”. Neither party feels heard, which outrages both. They assume that the other party is dumb, naive, brainwashed, or evil. The truth, I think, is that the parties have different priorities, and a limited capacity for worry and panic. It’s not unreasonable to think global warming is the most important existential threat facing the world today. It’s also not unreasonable to think that geopolitical conflict with China is the most important threat facing Americans today. But something about human thinking and communication styles prevents us from saying “I hear that you are very concerned with global warming. I don’t know as much about it, because I’ve been consumed with concern over China”. Particularly in the early era of social media, we are overwhelmed with scary stuff: scary headlines in the news (as traditional media attempts to keep up with social media for our attention), scary stories shared by our friends, or scary images or videos circulated via social media all overwhelm our capacity for empathy and worry. We shut down when others attempt to introduce a new existential threat: we already have enough to worry about.

The sixth (and for today, final) challenge is related to something I highlighted earlier: our institutions are outdated. We have enormous infrastructure, bureaucracy, and cultural inertia designed to solve old problems. We have very little designed to solve new problems (how to regulate social media? or cryptocurrency? or how to prepare for a world dominated by AI? or how to protect American interests against and increasingly combative China?) The old expertise and bureaucracy doesn’t want to die, and will frantically search about for problems they are still equipped to solve. We will need the discipline and fortitude to shift our attention and resources away from the old problems and bureaucracy and into the new.

We live in challenging times, and my hope is that we learn to accept and embrace the challenges in front of us. I fear that we will try to continue to ignore the challenges, Game 0f Thrones-style, delaying action until it’s too late (or almost too late).

Today’s post is of the “helping you understand the world you inherited” flavor. By the time you read this, you will know how history played out. I hope merely to provide some color regarding how we got there. And if I’m being completely honest, through the process of writing, I hope to clarify the situation in my own head, so that I might figure out how I might be of more help than I have been to date. Wish me luck.

I love you,

Dad

March 1, 2023

Dear Leland,

You gave a presentation at school yesterday. This was your first school presentation (though you did give a short speech at your kindergarten ‘graduation’ ceremony). Your teacher invited parents; I asked if you wanted me to come, and you ultimately decided that you did.

Your presentation did not go well. I was standing at the back of the room and could barely hear you, and could rarely make out what you were saying. Your teacher prodded you multiple times to speak louder. You mostly mumbled to yourself, looking down at your content and not at your audience. Your classroom had an iPad which allowed you to put pictures or pages under it to project to the class via a TV. You fumbled with how to use the projector; sometimes you showed your pictures, sometimes you showed the words you were reading, and sometimes nothing was very clearly laid out under the projector. Your teacher intervened a time or two to help you put content under the projector. Altogether the presentation was difficult to follow.

Your teacher was magnanimous, recognizing how hard it is (especially for shy or introverted kids) to get up and give a presentation to their peers. I talked to her briefly, and she generally accentuated the positive: that this is hard, that it’s important to get the experience, and that you will learn from it.

My first reaction to your presentation was shock and surprise. We had practiced! We had practiced speaking loudly, to the folks in the back! We had practiced showing your pictures while you read your words! You had even explained to me that there would be a projector, so we practiced placing your pictures under your projector while you read your words off to the side! Maybe it was the kid before you, who similarly mangled his presentation. Maybe when you saw him, you forgot what we practiced and decided to mimic him? Or maybe the girl before him so nailed her presentation that you didn’t think you could compete?

My afternoon was a wreck. I couldn’t focus or concentrate on anything. I struggled even to meditate; I just couldn’t focus and presence myself. Ultimately I just realized that I was very, very sad at how poorly your presentation went. I can’t exactly explain why: a 2nd grade presentation isn’t exactly life-altering. You are shy and introverted, so I never anticipated presenting to be your natural strong suit. And yet, I was just sad.

On the way to pick you up, I coached myself not to show my disappointment. I didn’t want my opinion to color yours, and I didn’t want to shame or embarrass you. Alas. After a couple minutes, I asked “how did you think your presentation went?” You responded with some version of “fine”, and then said “I only saw you give me the hand signal to talk louder once”. That was all it took: I couldn’t contain myself. I said “buddy, that’s because you weren’t looking at me. I was giving you the louder signal the whole time. I could barely hear you”. Later I asked why you put your text under the projector rather than the pictures, like we practiced. You said you didn’t remember that we practiced keeping the pictures under the projector.

I’m not proud of how I handled the car ride home. Ultimately I did want your perspective on how things went, and where you thought it went wrong (if at all). But I don’t think I hid my disappointment very well.

When we got home, I showed you and your mom a brief clip (I had recorded your presentation). Your mom asked you how it went. I was preparing dinner, so didn’t see precisely what happened next, but the next thing I knew you were hiding and crying. You didn’t want to be comforted or consoled, you just wanted to be alone.

Your mom and I got dinner on the table; you reluctantly joined us. But you didn’t eat. I don’t think you’ve ever skipped dinner, but you did last night. You sat in my lap and melted into my chest and arms. You didn’t talk and you didn’t eat, you just sat. You were so, so sad.

Ultimately I was able to get out of my own way and appreciate that you and I just needed to be sad together. We had prepared for your presentation together, and it hadn’t gone well. And we just needed to grieve. So we sat, for a long time, not talking. I held and hugged you, and checked in periodically, but mostly we just sat with our sadness, together.

I tell this story mostly to celebrate our eventual, if reluctant, emotional awareness. Both yours and my tendency is to blame others or make excuses for our failures. We both did some of that yesterday, but fortunately got past that and focused on what really mattered, which was the sadness you and I were both carrying. We needed to be with that sadness in order to let it pass (and not get stuck in our psyches, souls, and bodies).

You and I will learn a great deal from yesterday’s experience. You will learn the difference between a good presentation and a bad presentation. I learned that you need more prep than I anticipated, particularly when it comes to presentations. And collectively we will learn how to help you carry your practice into your performance; that’s one of the hardest skills to learn, but we will figure it out, together.

I love you, I’m immensely proud of you, and I am grateful I got to share yesterday with you. Thank you for being my teacher yesterday, and for learning and growing with me.

Love,

Dad

February 28, 2023

Dear Everett,

Last week I took your brother on a ski trip. This trip was, I think, the first time I have been away from home for more than an evening since you were born (it’s possible I took a work trip in your first few months; since your first birthday I’m sure this was my first extended trip away from home). Your mom and I enjoy being together, and typically plan as much time together as possible. More recently, we’ve experimented with trips to help us individually recharge; the results so far have been promising. We benefit from some time away and a change of scenery; a little time apart reminds us what we love about each other, that make a great team together, and that we do countless invisible things for each other.

The trip was momentous for another reason: you understandably felt left out. Leland had a friend going on the trip, but so did you. Originally I intended to take both of you. I decided to take just Leland for three reasons: 1) your mom wanted you to stay home with her (if I’m being honest, I don’t think she trusted me to take care of both of you without her); 2) I don’t know how to drive in snow, and the friend who offered to drive us up the mountain only had space in his car for me and Leland; 3) ultimately I realized I wasn’t prepared to take care of both you and your brother on a trip, particularly to an environment as unfamiliar (to me) as a ski resort. So I just took your brother, with the understanding that this would help me prepare to take both of you on a trip in the future.

You were disappointed, but handled your disappointment wonderfully. Partly this is because your mom made a great sales pitch: you would get to spend the entire week with just mom (and she made good on her promise, lavishing you with far more attention than normal). I sensed that you also felt a little pressured by the rest of us to go along with the plan. Your willingness to agree reminded me of an important distinction between you and your brother: while Leland is sensitive and particular, you (like me) are agreeable by nature. Agreeableness can be a wonderful gift: when others have a strong preference, we are more than happy to do what others prefer. But agreeableness can also be a curse if we lose touch with our wants and needs, or if friends, family, or even coworkers come to expect us to do what they want and neglect our desires and preferences. Everyone experiences others’ attempts to influence us into doing things we don’t want, but due to your empathy and agreeableness you will feel more pressure than most to conform to the will of others. In those situations, be purposeful about checking in with yourself: identify your wants, be honest about your willingness to do what others are asking of you, and when possible voice your opinions. You will develop healthier relationships with yourself and the people you love if you stay connected to and express your own wants and needs.

Separately, your mom and I noticed that you were angry with me last week, particularly when Leland and I called daily to check in. You were happy to talk to Leland, but generally ignored me. You wrote your mom a note saying “Momy is the best. Dady is the worst. Love Everett”. I tell this story because it reminds me of another important of your characteristics: you are very relationship-driven. While your brother is hyper-analytical and typically prioritizes facts and objectivity over the feelings of others, you typically prioritize relationships and the feelings of loved ones. Your understanding of facts can be heavily skewed by the desires of your loved ones. To be clear, I say this not to criticize, just to illuminate. Being relationship-driven is perfectly normal and common; it is simply important to be aware of your tendency.

Thinking back to your anger toward me last week: you could have been angry at your mom for encouraging you to stay home with her. You could have been angry at Leland for going on this trip without you. Or you could have been angry at all of us. You didn’t do those things: you directed your anger toward me. I think this is partly because you have learned that I am able to handle your outbursts and frustrations. But mostly I think you directed your anger at me because I am currently 3rd (within our family) on your hierarchy of relationships.

Again, it’s perfectly fine to be relationship-driven, and it’s fine to prioritize some relationships over others. As you mature, you will want to practice awareness of any ‘whipping boys’ in your life. In other words, who are the people in your life toward whom you disproportionately direct anger? These are most commonly spouses, but often include parents, siblings, children, friends, and even coworkers (particularly if you manage a team of folks).

You might assume I’m encouraging you to practice awareness toward the ‘whipping boys’ in your life out of empathy for the recipients of your anger. That assumption would be wrong: I encourage you to practice awareness of the sources of your anger out of compassion for yourself. You certainly damage the emotional wellbeing of others by lashing out at them. Far more important, however, you carry far more toxicity than you spew, and you damage your own spirit and soul when you mindlessly lash out at others. Becoming aware of your habitual expressions of anger will help you explore the sources of that anger with curiosity and compassion, which will help you learn and grow and, most importantly, let go of the fears and sadness that form the source of the misplaced anger.

To your great credit, as of this writing you process your emotions quite proactively and healthily. Whereas your brother has a tendency to suppress his emotions, you tend to feel yours deeply in real time. When you are sad you cry. When you are angry you scream. And when you are scared you appeal for help and shake. As you age, I hope you retain the ability to process your emotions healthily, but our society encourages the suppression of emotion, and you will feel pressured to bottle up your negative feelings as you mature. If you become aware of these social pressures in your life, I encourage you to return to practicing the healthy processing and release of your emotions; don’t hit or scream at others, but feel free to hit a pillow or punching bag, and feel free to scream away from others. These reactions will help you process your feelings and improve your long term health and happiness; they will also create awareness in those around you of how you feel, and those that love you will (and this can be counterintuitive) appreciate your honesty, vulnerability, and willingness to share how you feel. People appreciate and identify with honest emotional expression; we resonate with and are drawn to others who are willing to express their emotions authentically.

You have the gift of emotional expression, and I hope you never lose it. If you do, I encourage you to rediscover it.

I love you,

Dad

February 27, 2023

Dear Leland,

Last week I took you on a ‘dads and kids’ ski trip with some college friends of mine. Overall it was a pretty special week of exploration and connection. You and I bonded tremendously, and we both thoroughly enjoyed our time with friends.

Today I want to talk about some observations I made on this trip; first specific to me, and then applicable to you.

Self reflection

I was pretty anxious getting to the airport. I’m a nervous flier in general. You were a champ: cooperative, helpful, and curious. I really enjoyed the flight with you. You helped keep me calm and centered.

I was even more anxious the night before we skied. Heck, anxious doesn’t cover it: I was afraid. I’m not particularly good at skiing, and skiing can be dangerous. I was worried about my ability to protect and take care of you. There wasn’t much to do with the fear other than acknowledge it, accept that I was afraid, and appreciate that it was there to keep us safe. Ultimately, that fear reminded me that I shouldn’t push either of us too hard, and that we should slow down and prioritize enjoying ourselves over everything else (in particular: trying to achieve a targeted proficiency in skiing, and/or helping you catch up so that you could ski with your friends).

This was your first trip skiing, and you wanted me to teach you (rather than entering ski school). Given my own limitations as a skier, I suspected this would impair your learning curve, but I sensed that you would enjoy the trip more this way, so you and I stayed together the whole trip.

Of course, skiing is hard, so you got frustrated many times. And there were times where I got frustrated with you. Fortunately, thanks to my practice, I was able to recognize that my frustrations were ultimately internal (frustration with my ability to teach, concerns that I brought you into a situation where you wouldn’t have fun), which helped me limit the extent to which I took those frustrations out on you (by yelling at or otherwise attempting to punish you).

Observations of and suggestions for you

While skiing, you fell proactively countless times. Even if you didn’t sense danger, if you sensed that something was about to be too hard, you fell on purpose (though I’m not sure you recognized it was on purpose) to avoid falling during the anticipated hard part. At first this disappointed and frustrated me: you weren’t challenging yourself to attempt the hard parts, which over time limits growth. And then I recognized that I too have a tendency to resist challenges. You and I are alike in this way: sometimes we’d rather fail proactively than earnestly try and fail; our egos can be too fragile to handle failing when we are giving our best efforts, and so we keep ourselves inside our comfort zones.

You are too young to understand this now, but eventually you will want to learn that failing in order to protect your ego is ultimately self-defeating. You inhibit your growth; ultimately the impacts of those inhibitions compound exponentially, leaving you far short of your potential. Practice awareness of when you are ‘failing proactively’. Assess whether you would rather protect your ego or maximize your learning and growth. And if you try earnestly and fail, practice acceptance that your disappointment is useful: it encourages you to try again, to practice your skills, to develop the determination and grit you need to reach your full potential.

Of course, like me, you are also proud and competitive. So you did your best skiing when your friend joined us. That was when your fear of failure was outweighed by your fear of embarrassment. Fortunately, you can leverage your pride and competitiveness to your benefit, for example by making normally individual goals competitive. Unfortunately, your pride and competitiveness will only take you so far in life. Pride and competitiveness are aspects of the ego, and are ultimately hollow sources of fuel. They can take you far, but you will eventually want to find more sustainable sources of fuel like love, connection, curiosity, and growth-for-growth’s sake.

You and I share a deep desire to avoid negative emotions (fear, sadness, and disappointment in particular). I have learned, at the expense of much suffering, that suppressing negative emotions really doesn’t work: the negative feelings don’t go away, they merely get buried in our psyche, and then attempt to resurface over and over, while we resort to an escalating set of tools to keep them suppressed. Rather, negative emotions are meant to teach us. They expose us to dangers we might not otherwise identify, they give us opportunities to understand ourselves better, and (when processed healthily) enable us to live in congruence and feel fully alive.

You will be enormously tempted to avoid fear, sadness, and disappointment in your life (your brother, bless him, seems far more willing to be with and express his sadness, anger, and fear). I encourage you to build a community of friends, family, and coaches to help you understand where you are avoiding suffering, and then build healthy practices to face those demons and unlock the growth opportunities they are there to offer. You will live a fuller, healthier, more complete life if you do.

I love you,

Dad

February 16, 2023

Dear Leland,

I have some fear around today’s topic. Perhaps I am concerned I won’t be up to the task. Whatever the cause, I noticed signs of nervous energy throughout the morning.

A quick lesson here is that fear is not always bad. You, like me, avoid fear (your brother seems more willing to embrace his emotions). But fear sits right next to creativity. When athletes or performers talk about ‘nerves’ ahead of an event, they are feeling the fear that comes along as they summon their creative energies. Nerves by no means predict peak performance, but we cannot achieve peak performance without a willingness to embrace our fears.

Preamble aside, let’s go.

Yesterday I asserted that the world was about to undergo rapid change. Today I want to outline why I think this is so.

Start with technology; just in the last few months we’ve seen breakthroughs in AI (artificial intelligence) which augur increases in the rate of technological change. For most, the rate of technological advancement already feels breathtaking, and yet technology appears likely to start improving at an accelerating rate. That potential is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.

I also think we are ending several historical epochs simultaneously, the easiest to spot being the post-WWII era. After WWII, the world set off to incorporate into everyday life technologies such as cars, planes, and improved communications capabilities (starting with the transistor radio, and then extending through cable, broadband, and now wireless communication). All of our institutions, including governments, universities, schools, companies, and media (and especially the news media) were optimized for the post-WWII era, wherein we funneled individuals into large corporations, who through economies of scale were best placed to take (and share) the advantages these analogue technologies enabled.

Modern technological advancements are primarily digital. Thus, the scale economies of the physical world no longer apply. Systems optimize around chokepoints; the internet has moved the chokepoints in our systems. As a result, our institutions are ill-equipped to deal with the emergent problems of the modern world, and are stuck by design solving problems of decreasing significance.

Eighty years ago (1943) Americans were in the middle of WWII. Eighty years before that (1863) we were in the middle of the American Civil War. Eighty years before that (1783) we were in the late stages of the American Revolutionary War. Point being: American epochs appear to run in ~80 years cycles. Let us hope that the ending of the post-WWII epoch isn’t marked by another major war.

The second epoch I see ending is what I am tempted to call the ‘end of the age of Reason’, but that has too many potentially confusing connotations. A dear friend offered me a term: we are ending the age of homo rationalis (a made up species meant to signify the idea that humans are, or are meant to be, a primarily rational species). For the last 500 years or so, the Western world has been pushing at the limits of humans’ capacity for logical thought. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment shaped the world, with the Scientific Revolution laying groundwork for today’s rapid technological change and the Enlightenment shaping how Westerners think about how we organize societies and government and pursue individual fulfillment. These movements, and their modern echos, increasingly advanced the idea that human achievement relied on our capacity for rational thought, and deemphasized emotional and spiritual pursuits. Today we live in a culture that celebrates triumphs of rationalism and mistrusts emotional expression and spirituality. I posit that we’ve pushed rational thought, divorced of emotion or spirit, as far as it can go. I suspect that, in order to further human advancement, we’ll need to once again embrace our emotion and spirit; if for no other reason, humans are increasingly unlikely have a rational advantage over machines.

The third epoch I see ending has to do with religion. Most of the world’s major religions started with one man’s spiritual breakthrough. Think Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Confucius, or the Buddha. These breakthroughs so resonated that, over time, these religions became institutions themselves, with trained priests, elegant and sometimes gorgeous places of worship, scholars who examined the endless wisdom available within the faith, and rituals meant to help facilitate a connection to the religion and it’s god.

The ending of this spiritual epoch is perhaps the one that scares me the most (though none of them *excite* me per se, because change of this magnitude tends to be cataclysmic). As a Christian, I am not particularly excited to forecast a fundamental change in Christianity. And it’s important to say that I think Christianity will survive, and that the timelessness of religious teachings is part of what gives them weight: we can read, hear, and feel the distilled wisdom passed down over thousands of years. But religions have always faced ebbs and flows; the current era is an ebb, where religion does not particularly influence societal decision-making in any meaningful way in the developed world (and indeed, much of the developing world). The coming epoch changes will, I think, force a spiritual reawakening (there’s a saying, “there are no atheists in foxholes”), wherein cultures both learn the wisdom of the old teachings and find new lessons to pass down to future generations.

What will the new world look like? Well, that’s way too hard to predict with much accuracy. But I do think it will possess a few components: 1) we will learn to embrace technological change, while improving our ability to share it’s benefits more widely; 2) we will let the computers do more of the rational thinking, while we humans rebalance our energies between our rational, emotional, and spiritual capacities; 3) breakthroughs in scientific and spiritual thought will allow us to see that apparent conflicts between science and religion are imagined; 4) new religious practices will emerge that integrate the old and new, facilitate spiritual breakthroughs for more than a few giants, and enable the willing and practiced to access wisdom beyond their intellectual capacity.

I fear the coming changes will be cataclysmic. The ending of epochs tends to be: the old ways tend not to give way to the new gracefully, and the new tend not to ascend respectfully. But it’s time for me to stop avoiding these fears and acknowledge them, so that I may try to learn from them and, if necessary, prepare myself and others (including you and your brother) for the world to come.

I love you,

Dad

February 15, 2023

Dear Leland,

Yesterday I promised that I would offer my reasons for writing these letters as they applied to the daily topics.  So here goes:  a secondary reason why I write these letters is that I believe the world is about to start changing, rapidly, to the degree that you may live your adult life in completely different world than I.  It’s entirely plausible that your generation looks back and wonders what my generation was thinking regarding some of our collective actions.  These letters are meant to provide context on the world in which I live, so that you may understand more about the world you inherit.  

On Monday I talked about my individual overwhelm.  Sadly, I think I’m far from alone in reaching a state of what we colloquially call ‘burnout’, but what might otherwise be described as living in a constant state of overwhelm.  In my conversations with friends and peers, I have observed countless others in a similar state.  And I don’t think it’s just my peer group that is suffering.  

To help outline the problem, permit me to contrast the current world to the world of my childhood.  

When I was your age, if you wanted to make (or receive) a phone call, you had to go to a building with a phone.  This would most commonly be your house or your work, but if you were at the grocery store our out to dinner with friends, you didn’t call anyone, and no one called you.  Today, we carry our phones with us, and make and receive phone calls whenever we like, from wherever we like.  

Similarly, when I was your age, if we wanted to know something, we looked in a book.  Some families had encyclopedias at home to increase the number of answers you could glean without leaving your home.  Your other option was to go to either your local library or bookstore and look for the book that possessed the information you wanted.  Today, as you already know, we go online (you sometimes instruct me, “Dad, ask Siri”).  And the phones we carry are in fact mini supercomputers capable of connecting us to almost every piece of information the world has ever known.  

When I was your age, if we were bored, our entertainment options were analogue.  Sometimes we went out in search of others to ‘play’ with.  Sometimes we read a book, for pleasure.  Sometimes we sat down to watch a scheduled television program (because if you didn’t watch it as it was broadcast, you couldn’t watch it later).  Today we mostly pursue digital entertainment options.  We might text our friends to socialize.  We might go on social media to see what others are doing, including both friends and famous people.  We might scroll headlines, to see what is going on in the news.  Or we might sit down and watch almost anything that has ever been filmed via the internet.  

Finally, when I was your age, my dad went to work, did his work at work, and when he came home his workday was finished.  I later realized that he transformed into an entirely different persona each day at work, and then transformed back into my dad each night.  If some emergency happened, my Dad might receive a phone call at home (and later, he would carry a pager); but these interruptions were rare.  Today, we bring our work computers home with us each night.  And as already mentioned, we carry our phones with us everywhere.  We often take work calls, or send work emails, or do other forms of work, from home.  So as your dad I make that transformation from work persona to dad persona far more often, and far faster, than my dad ever did.  

In countless ways, these technologies have improved our lives.  We know more, we learn faster, we share information faster, and we have more individual choice than ever before.  Those are all wonderful things.  But technology is also overwhelming our physiology.  The temptation to look up that thing we don’t know, or go online and see what our friends are doing, or to ping our friends, keeps us on high alert.  And even when we decide we are ready for a break, our friends might ping us, or work might call or text, or any number of apps on our phone might give us an alert.  Each one of these interruptions provides a jolt of stimulus unknown to the world of my childhood.  As a result, many of us never really ‘come down’ from the rush of stimulus, and our systems remain on alert in a way that no prior generation has ever known.

From experience, I can tell you that the overstimulus becomes habitual.  I became so used to being overstimulated that I struggled, whether during family dinners, socializing with friends, or even during weeklong vacations, to reset to a ‘normal’ state of being.  This habitual overstimulation is precisely why I am taking this time off of work: to reset my system by dramatically reducing my sources of stimulus.  

As I approached my ‘mini-retirement’, I was fascinated by the responses of my friends and peers.  Many shared their own examples of overstimulus and fatigue.  Several expressed jealousy, and intimated that they themselves wanted to but ‘couldn’t’ do what I was doing.  Several expressed the same fear I had of not being able to find another job if they quit; on some level deep level we intuit that once we exit the game of overstimulus, we are unlikely to ever want to go back. 

I don’t think these problems are confined to my peer group. A huge and growing percentage of Americans are on antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and/or stimulants.  I found one estimate that, in 2020, 77 million Americans were taking one psychiatric drug or another.  That’s almost a quarter of the country, including kids.  We’re seeing news headlines about fentanyl use and more broadly an opioid epidemic. About 7 in 10 adults in America are overweight, and about 4 in 10 are obese.

We are increasingly overwhelmed and miserable, and are using anxiety meds, antidepressants, stimulants, and food to cope.

Americans today are the proverbial frog in boiling water, unaware they are being boiled to death. It’s entirely possible that I am only able to notice any of this because I lived outside the country. Your mom and I lived abroad for five years; when we returned four years ago, the country felt like a completely different place. It’s hard to comprehend how much the increase in digital stimulus changed in such a short time.

What we’re doing isn’t sustainable, not just for me, but for American society at large. The trajectory were on leads to unhappy lives shortened by disease. We need to find ways to reduce our digital stimulus. We need to ‘switch off’ and live at a slower pace, for a few hours a day and a few weeks a year, and probably even a few months every few years. We need to replace the ‘excitement’ of a text or infuriating social media post with time spent connecting with others, building or reinforcing relationships.

As of today, I can only help me. I can reduce the amount of stimulus in my life, and reset my habits so that I am not constantly overwhelmed. Hopefully I can encourage a few others along the way, and help find more scalable solutions.

Here’s hoping we start making changes to create meaning and reduce suffering. You can be the judge of how well we did.

I love you,

Dad