dichotomy

I’m reading the absolutely incredible book Facing the Mountain, and, most recently this line grabbed my attention:

To Higuchi, who had, in recent weeks, written so many sorrowful letters to grieving parents, who had buried the mangled bodies of so many good-hearted young men, it did not seem plausible that such extraordinary beauty and such horror could exist in such proximity to each other. For the first time doubt had begun to fray the edges of his faith.

Higuchi was a chaplain in World War II and he had the thought in a plush red velvet seat in an opera in Naples during a break in the action.

But that is the key isn’t it? How can a world exist where 22 year-olds have access to lear jets and yachts in Monaco and where other 22 year-olds are dying from harvesting toxic chemicals in Asia? How can there be such extraordinary beauty and such horror right next to each other? How can any kind of god with any kind of power just let it roll like that?

I don’t know. But I do know that I think we want to not have to deal with it so we try to cut them off in our brains. Those kids on the yacht aren’t happy - they’re spoiled. Or let’s pretend they don’t exist. Those kids harvesting chemicals are actually happier than the other kids. Or thank god I’m not like that and have such a better life. Or let’s pretend they don’t exist because it’s too much.

How can I be so lucky? How could I not have been luckier, like them? It’s this constant tension of life - the horror and the beauty that really does seem to get under my skin, if I’m honest.

So, what to do?

I’m not sure, except to face them both head-on and acknowledge them for the seeming randomness that life sometimes is… for what they are. What other choice is there that doesn’t lead to jealousy, ignorance, or trying to appease some power in the universe that we believe is handing out those dice - and doesn’t seem to be with any kind of discernible pattern.

2022

Happy 2022.

Remember the last time you felt awe? What if that’s the true nature of reality and everything else is just a cover up? So those moments in the mountains, with the lover, eating that meal, the overwhelmed with how amazing everything is… what if that is reality and always available? It’s just that it’s always so covered with all the other crap we don’t get to experience it all the time.

Here’s to breaking and taking off those covers in 2022.

10 things that I'm happy about from 2021.

I’m following Kottke’s lead and creating my own kind of list for 2021.

1. Formula 1.
   Holy crap. It started with the Netflix series and it ended with me and my daughter getting up at 5:00am to watch the last race live. I’m sooooo into it I can hardly believe how into it I am. Has it surpassed the NFL for me? Yes. It has. And that’s crazy.

2. Plants
   My daughter has been begging us for years and we’re finally all in. Full plant based diet - the whole family. It’s been a slow progression from not eating pork in restaurants, to not really eating meat in restaurants, to not really eating meat at home, to trying to eat less meat at home than plants to just all in. I can thank The Game Changers for being the final straw but it’s been a long time coming and the environmental and animal care/meat industry are still what drive me - though health is pretty great too. (For me personally plant-based means 90% plant consumption - or higher. There are lots of definitions but that is my personal one.)

3. All Those Marvel Shows
   Wandavision, Loki, Winter Solider and Hawkeye. Some are better than others but the fact that my kids are so into Marvel has made them all that much more fun. When we can watch them together, we do, when we can’t, we talk about them.

4. Alone
   Another show. Is it just tv that keeps me going? God, I hope not but there are some good ones. Season 8 was absolutely bonkers. Again, the entire family was obsessed but, more than that, it’s so encouraging all incredibly adaptive, strong, resilient, and all around bad ass the human body is and what it can do when the mind is willing.

5. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines
   It’s crazy that last year ended with the entire family getting over COVID (b/c we watch all that tv together) and it’s ending with me having had 3 shots of a vaccine that is saving lives and a modern miracle in its time to develop and efficacy. Despite all the news about it not working, it and Moderna and all the others do, and it’s amazing.

6. Hawaii
   The whole family snuck in a trip to Kaui. Good god, how is Hawaii so insanely magical in what it does? We surfed, we hiked, we marveled in the views and wondered why and how it just never gets old but actually better in each time.

7. Books
   I love reading and I love a good book. I found a lot this year including Dirty Work (which will help you stop eating meat and talks about some of the other hidden dark spaces in the American work force), The Molecule of More (dopamine - wow!) The Book of Eels (a magic book about a magic animal) 1491 (what the Americas were before the Europeans - yes, I want to live there) and Facing the Mountain (wow did I not know about the Japanese Americans of WWII and what they did - and went through). More books are here.

8. In and Of Itself
   Damn. If I could have done this, I would have. It’s everything I love about a live performance, smart, magical, meaningful, and so so so creative. Please watch it if you haven't already. I so wish I could have seen it live. Even better, someday I hope I can perform something like this live.

9. The White Lotus
   Okay, some people hated this show. My wife and I were obsessed. We watched it twice, almost back to back. With our daughter the second time. I don’t know what it is that I love about it but the writing is spot on, it’s in Hawaii, and there’s some kind of way it points out faults that I love. Beautifully done.

10. Those Kids
    My son is teaching High School math in Seattle and my daughter is a pediatric oncology Nurse at Seattle Children’s. As I’ve already said, my youngest is an environmental care wizard and using her power everywhere. I’m not bragging at all. I’m only saying it’s a marvel to watch a human go from birth to impacting the world and that’s part of the beauty of parenting. I look forward to continuing to watch and learn from them.

Here’s to 2022. May it rock!

Lights Like Us.

For those of you who have been following this blog, thanks so much!

It’s not ending but it’s definitely slowing down - obviously.

Lights Like Us started as a live event in May of 2018. Later, my wife and I turned it into a podcast and recently it’s become even more. We’ve revamped the website and I’m creating lots of of content (videos, design, and writing and more) via the “Wonder” page.

So keep following along here but definitely encourage you to check out Lights Like Us, if you haven't already!

A chapter a day keeps the mundane away...

Another little video for the new book Away to Z. It’s full color and it’s hardback and it’s filled with gems that might knock you out of your rut a bit.

It was also fun to experiment with After Effects and make a fun trailer. : )

You!

I’d love to hear from you if you have 5 minutes for a little research project. It’s about your life and your inspirations and it’s all anonymous if you’d like it to be.

It’s right here!

Pretty pretty please!

Away to Z.

Last year I wrote five little books from my hanging out with the teacher.

The full color hardback with all five books is now out and it’s a beauty. Check out the video below or check it out on Amazon.

Twin Transfusion Syndrome

Dr. Kyprianos "Kypros" Nicolaides is one of my new favorite people. He is a Professor of Fetal Medicine, a Fetal surgeon, and one of the world’s leading experts in his field, featured on the Netflix show The Surgeon’s Cut.

During the episode he talked about something called Twin Transfusion Syndrome. As twins develop they share blood from the placenta. In this syndrome, one of the twins receives more blood than the other. The twin receiving the least blood is called the donor and the twin receiving the most blood is called the recipient.

The thing is, obviously, the twin not receiving enough blood, the donor, doesn’t do well. This “smaller” twin stops growing from a loss of blood volume, a decrease in amniotic fluid, etc… and eventual strong chance of death.

But, the twin that receives more blood doesn’t do well either. The “bigger” twin receives too much blood in which the heart can be damaged from pumping too much blood, an abnormal increase in amniotic fluid, and basically, unless something is done, also a strong chance of death. Both twins will often die.

Dr. Nicolaides developed the procedure in the early 90’s that allows him to laser some of the vessels in the placenta and redistribute the blood, which vastly increases the chances of survival of one of the twins, and often both.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of my favorite word on the planet - lagom. It’s a Swedish word which means “not too much and not too little” and has references back to the Vikings who would sit around a table with a bowl of chow and look to see how many people there were before eating - he (generally) would make sure to take an amount that would leave some for everyone else. It’s, in many ways, a foundational element of Swedish culture.

Too little is obviously bad. But so is too much, not only because it creates too little for others but because it actually harms the one getting too much. The heart can only pump so much blood.

Or the soul can only pump so much greed?

Can we get Dr. Kypros to do some surgery on our culture?

no surprise.

I keep hearing “it’s shocking, but not surprising…” in regards to storming the capitol a week ago, and in regards to COVID deaths now at over 4,000/day.

And I think, “How could these people not see this coming? How could they be surprised by this?”

I have a new thought. They could see it coming. They aren't surprised. They were okay with it, or at least the risk of it happening in favor of whatever else they wanted.

So, the people who want to open the economy and not shut down and not wear masks… it’s not that they couldn’t imagine 500,000 people dying, overworked healthcare workers, etc… it’s just that they were okay with that happening compared to shutting down an economy, people out of work, etc…

The people who talked about fraud, stolen elections, etc… it’s not that they were surprised with what happened at the Capitol, it’s that they felt it was worth it, and potentially, still is.

I’ve got to change up my tactics. It’s not that no one saw this coming… it’s that we just disagree on what we want to come.

the difference.

It’s hard to put into words but I think we all know there’s a difference between…

… a literary classic and some pulp fiction…
… a song for the ages and a pop radio hit…
… an Oscar winner and a summer blockbuster…
…a profound perspective and rehashed non-fiction…
…investigative journalism and propaganda…
…spirituality and religion.

Sometimes the two can merge but it seems like most of the time there is a difference.

So, how can we tell the difference?

Maybe we can’t. Maybe only the creator of the art can.

Because there’s also a difference between a driving passion for success and a driving passion to express the human experience through art.

the disconnect.

I was recently with a financial advisor who said something along the lines of “It’s my job to make sure you pay the least amount of taxes you can. To basically work around taxes…” I was recently with a fairly wealthy individual who said, “Ryan, you don't get it. You can raise taxes but I’ll find ways to not pay them.”

But…

Both of these individuals complained about taxes being potentially raised on them.

And both of them hate debt.

It seems to be the same thing with masks and shut downs. Instead of just wearing a mask, people refuse and then complain that the government keeps shutting things down. Or they complain that shutdowns don’t work…. while people don’t follow the very rules of the shutdown.

What is this phenomenon? The cup is leaking and instead of plugging the leaks we create more leaks and then complain that the government makes a bigger cup to try and hold water for longer.

As Colbert said, it’s a bunch of people asking for a government handout for an election win, instead of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and working for more votes in the next election, while complaining about lazy people getting government handouts…

The disconnect and hypocrisy is overwhelming.

I’m not saying the government is perfect by any stretch - but it’s just an extension of us. It’s not going to get better until we help it get better.

Right?

I don’t know if this is a uniquely American thing but it does seem to be uniquely worse here than other cultures. I suppose, at the end of day, it’s just selfish, short-term, individualistic thinking but, damn, it’s maddening.

I’ll add this to my 2021 list… less complaining, more contributing.

Poisoned roots...

Everyone has said everything about yesterday and many far more eloquently and profound than I could, but after a historical day like that, you can’t just be quiet and pretend nothing happened.

So, the only thing I would add or at least document is… from one of the best books I’ve ever read… Caste… by Isabel Wilkerson…

America is an old house. We can never declare the work over. Wind, flood, drought, and human upheavals batter a structure that is already fighting whatever flaws were left unattended in the original foundation…

…We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it. We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now. And any further deterioration is, in fact, on our hands. Unaddressed, the ruptures and diagonal cracks will not fix themselves. The toxins will not go away but, rather, will spread, leach, and mutate, as they already have. When people live in an old house, they come to adjust to the idiosyncrasies and outright dangers skulking in an old structure. They put buckets under a wet ceiling, prop up groaning floors, learn to step over that rotting wood tread in the staircase. The awkward becomes acceptable, and the unacceptable becomes merely inconvenient. Live with it long enough, and the unthinkable becomes normal. Exposed over the generations, we learn to believe that the incomprehensible is the way that life is supposed to be…

Like other old houses, America has an unseen skeleton, a caste system that is as central to its operation as are the studs and joists that we cannot see in the physical buildings we call home. Caste is the infrastructure of our divisions. It is the architecture of human hierarchy, the subconscious code of instructions for maintaining, in our case, a four-hundred-year-old social order.

This isn’t Trump. This isn’t Ted Cruz of Texas; Josh Hawley of Missouri; Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi; John Kennedy of Louisiana; Roger Marshall of Kansas; or Tommy Tuberville of Alabama though all of their names (along with many others) should go down in history as self-seeking cowardice leeches.

This is America (as Childish Gambino said it). This is who we are and the names above merely tapped into those evil roots and destructive foundations and “inspired” people with them (and technology makes it easier than ever).

Many in this country demand the caste system not be broken and that system has white men at the top and it always has. It was founded that way, built that way, and perpetuated that way. Many have also demanded a god who goes along with it all, a fantastical god built out of greed and power and violence - not love or unity or peace.

But some repairs are happening. The first black senator from Georgia was just elected as was the first black (and) woman Vice President as was a whole host of other things. Even yesterday seemed to open some eyes to the reality - confederate flags and nooses are still being erected as symbols? What do those have to do with a stolen election?

As Van Jones said eloquently on CNN - sometimes you have to believe to see and he believes there is hope and change coming and possible, and when you believe, you start to see it.

So, I hope despite the long predicted chaos of yesterday, that some better destruction is on the horizon. The destruction of the uneven pillars and joists and the eradication of the toxins lurking in the soil. If not, we’ll just do this again, even if it gets buried for another few years.

With that destruction is going to have to come listening and empathy and kindness too… and radical honesty and self-reflection and selflessness.

So here’s to better and bigger change on the horizon that will take all of us to help carry out.

But, you were so careful...

We’ve been one of the more careful families since COVID came on the scene. We definitely haven’t been perfect and we’ve definitely taken our fair share of risks but we’re the family that doesn’t let their daughter go hang out indoors with 3 friends when we’re told not to by the governor.

So it’s funny when we got COVID how we wanted to say things like “wait, we got it, us, what about them?” and it’s funny how some of our friends, including my daughter’s teacher who knows us, said “but you guys were so careful…”

And all of that is true but it also speaks to a very Western thing and not the ONLY reason we were careful.

It’s not about us. It’s about Us.

Our daughter goes to school twice a week. Our son teaches at a school that has been… shall we say not the most careful… so when we don’t let our daughter go inside with 3 friends it’s not just because we’re scared of her getting it, we’re scared of her giving it.

Which, it turns out, she would have had we let her hang out with her 3 friends inside the night before our son tested positive. That could have been 3 families. Which, it turns out, we would have potentially given it to my parents and my wife’s parents had we hung out with them. And on and on it goes.

You see, the response isn’t always '“but you were so careful, how did you get it?”

Sometimes it’s “you were so careful, thanks for not spreading it to more people.”

Keep wearing masks. Keep social distancing. Keep doing all the things, yes you might protect yourself but you will also protect others.

For 2021.

Every year around New Year’s Eve, the fam and I take out note cards and write down at least 5 things we’re grateful for or loved about the year we are ending and we flip it over and write down at least 5 things we’re dreaming for/planning for the upcoming year. We put them in an envelope and then read them the following New Year’s Eve - we’ve said all these cards for the 6 years we’ve been doing it.

I won’t share with you all 5 of mine but here’s 1 of them - they are starting to get longer than the 1 word stuff we used to do.

Less meat, more veggies.
Less news, more science.
Less twitter, more books.
Less drama, more curiosity.
Less outbursts, more calm.

We’ve been shooting for less meat for a while as a family but COVID really set us back a bit. We’re back to trying to get to 5 days a week no meat. I know there are some Keto people out there but this is primarily for environmental reasons - raising cows, quite frankly, is destroying the planet.

All 5 of us got COVID over Christmas break (fun times) and I decided for my own anxiety that I really needed to stop with all news while I had it - to try and stay calm. It was amazing what it did for me. So much that I’ve decided to really slow down my news consumption and instead read Science magazines and nature magazine on Apple news - it’s way more uplifting than Trump and McConnell and COVID - which I still somehow find out enough about.

Less Twitter. Twitter was becoming pretty addicting with the election, etc… and it’s another stress raiser for me. I trimmed down my follows - mostly science and nature and discovery - and prefer to look at a book when I feel the need for information - currently reading a Genghis Kahn book - wow.

Ted Lasso quoted (a falsely attributed) quote of Walt Whitman that said “Instead of judgment, choose curiosity.” Loved the line and slightly changed it for me - instead of drama about what is happening or what is not, I’m trying to choose to be curious and ask questions, stay receptive to wonder.

My wife calls them outbursts - imagine me in a car when someone cuts me off - and then take that to all kinds of things in life - like a lightbulb being out. When I was really making attempts to stay calm, I noticed how much stress and pressure those outbursts put on me, so I’m choosing more calm this year - which means I’m choosing more mediation - to better enable that calm.

There ya go. Here’s to 2021.

lazy.

To all of those who hate “the lazy people who get free checks” please, for the love of all that is good in the world, can you stop being educationally lazy yourself, and do some research on something you believe to be true, and then read a book or two, and then read another article instead of forwarding along the absolute informationally lazy garbage that you do?

Please.

You’re better than this. I know it.

America, you have to do better.

Thomas Jefferson, you know, one of the main contributors to this system we live under, said this:

An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.

Things like this don’t make me feel good about our level of education:

“North Dakota is currently at the top of the list for both COVID-19 cases and deaths. They have also elected a state legislator who died from COVID-19 a month ago. Now the state Republican party will be tasked with appointing a temporary fill-in for the job until a special election can be held.”

Listen, I get that we can have different “educated” opinions. But, when people elect a dead person, I don’t take that as a very educated citizenry, and given much of the information about socialism, the economy, jobs, etc… there is LOTS that points to a very uneducated citizenry.

No matter which way this election goes, America it’s clear we need to start educating ourselves quite a bit more! Put in some effort. Put in some sacrifice.

Put in some work, for that freedom we claim to value so much.

here we go.

On this momentous and potentially historic day in American history, here are some thoughts.

I don't care about politics.
This is fine but just know that you also don’t care about health insurance, minorities, gay rights, women’s rights, equal pay, the military, immigrants, the economy, the environment, traveling on a plane, police, fire, water, electricity, the internet, education, health care, and all kinds of other things.

They both lie.
I hear this a lot about Biden and Trump and while true, it’s also true that both soda and draino are bad for us. One of them, however, we drink, and one of them we know will instantly kill us. There is a spectrum of “bad for you” just like there is a spectrum of “lie”.

We’ve been through this before.
This is definitely true. And at every point in the history of humanity when people had to make choices about which direction they wanted a society to go, some people made a helpful choice, some made an unhelpful one, and some didn't make any at all. Just because my child dates someone who isn’t that great, when they start dating someone again, who they say isn’t that great, I don’t say, hey it’s okay you’ve been through this before… just keep going.

My vote doesn’t matter.
Also kinda true. But imagine if we could vote in a party that agreed with this and wanted to change some things so that every vote did matter. Then would the vote matter? Also, if the vote doesn’t matter, just go ahead and vote for… Biden. Or Trump. Wait, it’s not that easy? So… it does matter. Maybe just to you?

I’m anxious, scared, nervous, excited, and just want this day over!
Today is either going to be really really good day where it feels like we shine a little more light on a pretty dark year, or it’s going to be a really really hard day where it feels like the darkness gets more suffocating.

I can hardly do anything, but I’m hoping America finds its way (or at least a better way) today.

pt barnum and trump.

Since I heard that Trump was going on FoxNews tonight to show his health to the nation, I thought of another story. P.T. Barnum started his career by selling ticket to see a lady he said was 161 years old and had been a nursemaid to George Washington. Truth was that she was a poor woman who was blind and a slave. Barnum rented her for the shows.

Word got around that it might not be real so Barnum staged an autopsy to prove she was 161.

No matter what Trump discovers tonight - which I’m sure he will be more perfectly healthy than anyone has ever bee - here’s the critical piece of the story:

The surgeon who performed the autopsy declared that it had been a hoax—Joice Heth was no older than eighty. But this news didn’t harm Barnum’s career; it made him. He played it for publicity, telling story after story to the New York press over the course of many months—Heth was actually still alive, the corpse had been a different woman, Barnum had been hoaxed, Barnum was the hoaxer. He understood how the new media worked better than almost anyone (at one point he was said to have twenty-six journalists on his payroll), and quickly realized that truth and trustworthiness weren’t the keys to his career; notoriety and the ability to supply an entertaining story were.

Phillips, Tom. Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullsh*t

conman.

This is Part Fourteen. Part One is here.

—

Conmen have been around a long time. They have lied to people for years and convinced them to believe all kinds of things in exchange for all kinds of money. There is a great book called Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullshit and it documents many of these cons. 

But here’s the part that got me. Some psychologists did some research on conmen and their personality traits. Here’s what they had to say: 

…con artists are lacking in empathy, narcissistic, greedy and self-justifying. When caught, they will deny and deflect, blaming just about anybody else rather than taking responsibility. They often justify their actions with the belief that they’re simply reflecting the behavior of others: everyone else is crooked, too, and the victims deserved it because they were equally greedy and corrupt.

In addition, con artists often have what Frankel calls an “addiction to unrealistic dreams and overwhelming ambitions”; comparing the skills of the con artist to that of an actor, she suggests, “It may well be that con artists act the character they have long been dreaming of.”  

“Their belief can make them believable.” 

Here’s the thing… so many of us are being conned. Let me phrase that differently. What if you are being conned? By Trump? Of course, maybe I’m being conned?

I’ve thought through it quite a bit. If I’m being conned to believe that this is a momentous occasion, that voting matters, that the world should be more equal, that wealth should be spread out, that the climate matters, that socialism, communism, and Marxism are not things we are going to become but we might add some elements of them, that America is not great and is actually pretty racist, in debt, violent, and very short sighted, then I’m okay with it. 

You, on the other hand, Trump voter, what if you’re being conned? 

See I know you. I know you’re better than that. You’re smarter, you care more and you know, at the end of the day, that money isn’t the thing that makes you happy anyway. I know you care about people who can’t make ends meet because the whole system has been built from the ground up to be against them and you know that Trump is honestly a narcissistic, bully who doesn’t deserve your vote. 

Don’t you? 

I’m done now. Thanks for listening. It’s now my turn to listen to you. Feel free to comment and/or write me or share this with your friends and family who might be voting for Trump or not voting. 

I’d like to be fair on this - and open. I will post any updates and rebuttals and things I was wrong on - on this blog.

More love. 

the end.

This is Part Thirteen. Part One is here.

—

Let’s end this way. 

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, higher than that of Russia and China, with a rate of 655 per 100,000. The United States imprisons more people, 2.2 million, than any other nation. Yes, more than even China. How? (We’re ending so I can’t get started on the fake drug war that started from racism and goes after black and brown people way more than whites but read Chasing the Scream if you want to know more.) 

American women are more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than women in other wealthy nations. With fourteen deaths per 100,000 live births, the maternal mortality rate in America is nearly three times the rate in Sweden, according to the Commonwealth Fund. Part of this reflects the woeful maternal death rates for black and indigenous women in the United States.

Life expectancy in the United States is the lowest among the eleven highest-income countries. I said this one already but it’s worth repeating. 

Infant mortality in the United States is highest among the richest nations, 5.8 deaths per 1,000 live births, as against a combined average of 3.6 per 1,000 live births for the richest countries, as against about 2 per 1,000 in Japan and Finland. 

American students score near the bottom in industrialized nations in mathematics and reading. Fifteen-year-olds in the United States scored well below students in peer nations on math literacy, below Latvia and the Slovak Republic, among the dozens of countries that exceed U.S. test scores. 

By the time that the first woman major-party candidate ran for president in 2016, some sixty other countries had already had a woman head of state, including India, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and smaller countries such as Iceland, Norway, Burundi, and Slovenia. 

And, in perhaps the most important measure of all for citizens anywhere, the United States ranked eighteenth in happiness in the world, just above the Czech Republic, according to the consortium of organizations, including Gallup, that publishes the results each year. The United States has fallen seven spots since 2012, a testimony to our continuing discontents.

(all of these stats are from Caste - again you should read it.) 

America is 33rd in access to quality education, 33rd in child mortality and 31st in clean drinking water.  

But our stock market is up!

Again, this does not make sense. Does it?

Also I haven’t even brought up the wall, immigration, and so much more. Because, well, at some point we have to stop. But before we go… that wall. Just so you know as of May 2020 there have been 16 miles of new wall built. The rest has been fixing old wall - although much of that has fallen down. 

5 miles was built by a private firm that raised money and then was arrested for money fraud. 

Oh the price of that 16 miles is about… 3.6 billion dollars - taken from the military budget. (I mean I love that it was taken from the military budget but 3.6 billion for 16 miles is a lot of money. 

Which kind of sums up a lot of Trump and brings us to the final point.