Humans
Humans have always been shitty. Now we’re just shitty – at scale.
What is Left
As I continue to work my way through The Good Doctor, the episode I’m watching right now involves an artist—a painter—who must choose a brain surgery that will destroy her creative ability, but it’s the only way to save her life. And because being an artist is her identity, she would rather die.
That’s making me think about the whole subject of identity, because I recently lost a huge part of mine.
We all see ourselves in a particular way: as an artist, a writer, a doctor, a pastor, a mechanic, a police officer, or whatever. And the thing that we do so often becomes the thing that we are.
But as long as we think of ourselves as being defined by the superficial aspects of our lives, we can never truly understand who we are.
We must make a conscious effort to let go of those things that we think define us and explore what is left.
Because what is left, when everything else is gone, is who we really are.
This is Real Now
I’m driving home from Whole Foods and the car next to me has no one in it. No driver. No passengers. No one.
No humans, at any rate.
It’s following traffic laws, navigating around construction barriers, changing lanes; it even wanted to move into my lane and waited for me to pass.
Of course I know that there are self-driving cars. I know that AI is getting to the point where it can be fairly agentic. But until today, it was all academic — for me anyway.
I watched it for a while. A car out driving the streets with no living being — correction, no biologically living being — inside.
This is now very real.
The Armchair Activist
Sitting here on my couch, thoroughly enjoying the show I’m currently binge-watching, I find myself with so many ideas about how to change the world.
In fact, all these thoughts are starting to interfere with my television watching.
Oh wait… the commercial’s over.
Consequences
Choices have consequences. But I would rather suffer the consequences of my own choices than the consequences of someone else’s.
Maybe that makes me an independent thinker.
And being an independent thinker has consequences.
🫤(Shrug)
Common Sense
Somewhere recently I saw the following quote: “Fund the systems that prevent collapse, not just the systems that manage it.”
Maybe I’m weird (OK, I’m definitely weird), but this makes perfect sense to me.
Why does our society prioritize funding crisis rather than preventing it? Our leaders will happily spend fortunes cleaning up disasters, but if you suggest preventing them in the first place, suddenly everyone looks at you like you’re speaking in tongues.
This is not a new idea, folks. Benjamin Franklin is reputed to have said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
And an ancient Chinese proverb says, “Dig the well before you are thirsty.”
I could come up with a hundred quotes supporting the same bit of wisdom, but it’s not really necessary. It’s common sense.
Hey, here’s a thought.
Maybe we should have leaders with common sense.
I know it’s never been tried, but it might work.
What do you think?
Offers Matter
They say, “You don’t know till you ask.”
But I say, “You don’t know till you offer.”
The world is full of needs. And often, those needs aren’t evident. You have no idea how many times you cross paths with someone who is hungry, or sad, or carrying a burden quietly. Someone who could really use some help.
Why do we put the burden on them to ask? Shouldn’t the burden be on us to offer?
What if we made a habit of asking people, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
The act of offering unsolicited help — of demonstrating kindness, of showing compassion and love — is something we really need right now.
Social Media
Social media is inevitably dying (or dead). Because of ubiquitous slop and bots, it simply no longer serves it’s purpose. It’s reached the point of being no more than brain-rotting, drool-inducing, IQ-draining drivel. But the question is, what comes next?
As long as there’s an Internet, as long as there are smart phones, humans are not going to give up their addiction. They will never put down those phones. Never stop scrolling.
So, either something healthier comes along to replace what is currently turning us all into morons, or humanity is most certainly doomed.
We have the temporary reprieve of Substack, but how long until the drivel takes control of that as well? Will we all be bouncing from platform to platform, trying to stay one step ahead of the slop wave? Will the most enlightened among us simply smash our phones and live outside of the digital social system?
I don’t know what the next stage in this evolution will be. But I do know that things are about to change. And we all need to be giving that some thought.
Agency More than Aid
Is agency more important than aid?
For decades, many nonprofits and charitable organizations have focused primarily on providing aid. And sometimes, that’s necessary. Immediate needs matter.
But as funding pools tighten and demand continues to grow, it’s more important than ever to move beyond relief alone and begin promoting agency.
When organizations prioritize agency, they’re not just helping clients survive — they’re equipping them to stand. To decide. To build. To move forward on their own terms.
Promoting agency doesn’t just strengthen individuals; it relieves strain on an already underfunded and overextended system.
Aid addresses the moment. Agency transforms the future.
Agency is the aid of the future.
Greed
The mass production of goods is grossly unnatural. Nature is always looking to maintain balance. The mass production of goods is unbalanced. Therefore it is unnatural. And this unnatural behavior is stimulated entirely by greed.
The greed motivating mass production isn’t even a greed for money. It goes far beyond the reasonable need for money. It isn’t even a greed for power. It goes far beyond necessary amounts of power. It’s more a feedback loop of destruction. Greed begets greed. Love of money begets love of money. Love of power begets love of power.
It’s like the 1000 pound person eating themselves to death. It goes beyond sustenance and becomes a death spiral of obsession.
There’s a sickness at play here. A mental imbalance. And this mental imbalance is creating systemic imbalance.
And if all of this were happening in one individual person, we would institutionalize them against their will in order to save their life. But how do we stage an intervention for all of humanity?
I don’t know.
Do You?
Real Value
I just saw a quote that said, “A forest has no value until it’s cut down,” as a description of capitalism.
That might be the most concise philosophical explanation of capitalistic thinking I’ve ever heard.
It could even serve as a kind of diagnostic test. Ask yourself: How do I value a forest?
If your answer is that it has no value until it’s cut, processed, and sold… that might reveal more than you think.
Because clearly, if someone believes a forest only has value once it’s converted into product, one might reasonably question whether that perspective, or person, is sane at all.
A Spoiled Life
I’m sitting here right now watching an episode of The Good Doctor. Such a wonderful show.
In one episode, at a fundraising gala, one of the doctors made a joke: “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” What an awesome thought.
But in my mind, I started applying it to everything — not just golf. How many simple pleasures in life do we spoil with constructed superficiality? Is there anything in life, for most of us, that we don’t spoil this way? A birthday party where we spend more time taking pictures than actually living it. Sitting in a café, enjoying a cup of coffee while scrolling on our phone instead of watching the world around us. A walk through the park with earbuds in, listening to music or a podcast.
How much of our lives are we spoiling like this?
For me, it’s way too much. Hopefully we can all learn something from a throwaway joke on a television drama.
And maybe that lesson will make our lives a little better.