Moral Trickery Files: Ancestral Guilt

Here's an opportunity to practice philosophical detection. Consider the headline and main quotes of this article:

African Union criticises US for ‘taking many of our people as slaves’ and not taking refugees | The Independent

“The very country to which many of our people were taken as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade has now decided to ban refugees from some of our countries,” said Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

The statements of politicians worldwide are loaded with moral trickery... fallacies intended to confuse you so that you simply concede the point.

I wrote the following as a comment to this article on a friend's wall.

I must reject the person quoted as a person who panders to the notion of Ancestral Guilt. His assertion deems Americans today to be as equally guilty of slavery as the ones who actually perpetrated it in the past.

Effectively, one could abstract this and say that the speaker believes that You and I assume moral guilt for the actions of those who came before us. This is a mess, because where does it stop. Could the same tactical maneuver be used to re-assign the blame earned by Muslims that kill onto the ones that do not?

Further, what of the African collaborators involved in the slave trade?

"The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."

"...The African role in the slave trade was fully understood and openly acknowledged by many African-Americans even before the Civil War. For Frederick Douglass, it was an argument against repatriation schemes for the freed slaves. 'The savage chiefs of the western coasts of Africa, who for ages have been accustomed to selling their captives into bondage and pocketing the ready cash for them, will not more readily accept our moral and economical ideas than the slave traders of Maryland and Virginia,' he warned. 'We are, therefore, less inclined to go to Africa to work against the slave trade than to stay here to work against it.'"

Perhaps history forgives the villany of African slavers because there is no political gain in flogging it.

Much as I agree that Trump's order is an immoral clusterfuck, this article's premise is objectionable due to the moral shell game described above.

A Thousand Years by Christina Perri - Ukulele PDF

One of the songs I've been working on the last couple weeks has been "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri. I love me some ballads in 6/8.

What's nice about this tune is that I've had to learn it on the Bass Guitar in the past to play with Mama's Black Sheep when I used to play bass more and they let me come out and play.

What's nice was that the song was already really familiar to me and I like it a lot despite a source that is guaranteed to revoke anyone's man-card: the movies from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Series.

Screw the source... it's a good song. And getting it down on Ukulele was even more enjoyable than learning it on bass because the chords have really nice musical lines.

Below are Youtube Links to recordings of this song by my beloved friends from Mama's Black Sheep and the original recording by Christina Perri.  Have a listen to both and tell me which one you think is better.  

The Mama's Black Sheep version is publised on the depicted "Live at the Bevy CD/DVD set" and you can buy it at their Sheep Shop.

Civility's Requirement: Live and Let Live

In the context of politics, civility cannot thrive unless all sides believe that a fundamental task of government is to establish and protect the ways that people who disagree, who perhaps even hate one another's ideas, can disagree/hate peacefully, each being left alone to live according to their own mores on their own property.

Today, I predict we will witness an impressive amount of uncivil behavior.

Rationality: Willingness to Observe and Not Being An Arrogant Fool

Rationality depends on 2 things:

  1. Being willing to look a phonemena and make observations about fact.
  2. Accepting/learning that it is possible to look at coincident facts in some phenomenon and come to the wrong conclusion about causality at work in that phenomenon.

If either of these 2 aspects are absent you can still make assertions but you may not say that the assertions are rational.

Rationality is thus at odds with hubris, which assumes your own infallibility.

It is also at odds with faith.

An application of rationality to an assertion which begins as faith can be regarded as rational but can no longer be regarded as faith, which eschews the need for evidence. The more one rejects the need for evidence, the more one's faith is said to be strong.

No Mere Cog

Many people hold in esteem the concept of believing in something "greater than the self"... or being a part of something "greater than the self". It's not something they question a lot... just sort of sounds right.

What if the challenge of being a human being is not to find something "greater than the self" but rather to realize that you are a self that is worthy to stand apart on his or her own merits. Yes, you take part in things, but the things are not who you are.

To desire to be part of something "greater than yourself" strikes me as similar to the desire to be a cog in a machine.

I don't know anyone who aspires to be merely a cog. I know unique and beautiful human beings all trying their best to find new ways to be more fully themselves.

90-day Look Back - 2017 1Q

90 days ago, I declared my key projects: Franco Now: October 8, 2016

This post is a look-back at what I actually did with my time.

Key Projects

Ukulele

I did really great at making Ukulele my #1 priority in my non-work hours clocking 60-120 minutes of practice and study a day. I bought two Hawaiian-made Ukuleles: one from Kanile'a and one from Kamaka. Very exciting.

Practice/Study includes the following areas:

  • Right Hand Techniques: Strumming, Fingerstyle, Dynamics, Rhythm
  • Left Hand Techniques: Chord shapes, Hammer-on/Pull-off
  • Chord progressions
  • Solo Instrumentals
  • Harmony and Theory
  • Swing

Practice materials and songbooks include:

Also, a nice resource is being a regular at the NVUS Ukulele Meetup.

#Uke50ByHeart

The project is organized around memorizing 50 songs by heart but there is no formal restriction on how easy/hard the songs are nor whether they are vocal or solo instrumental.

Vocal songs involve more to memorize and risk that song will not fit my vocal range and ability and may need to be transposed or scrapped.

Solo instrumentals take longer to practice but are really gratifying and are not subject to my feeble and unpracticed vocals.

As of 1/2017, I now have about 15 songs that I have played through 5 times or more without a lead sheet. This is my crude measure of a song being roughly ready.

Other Projects

Nearly everything else was not given much time. I haven't done any sketching or lettering for a couple months now. I might like to add that back in but will continue strong with the Uke while it calls to me.

WDS Local DC has been slow to start but I booked 3 dates for 1Q 2017 and we will see how those go.

Clojure and functional programming is done during work hours only and is given a LOT of time since I am paid to do it.

Practices and Experiements

Follow the Sun

#FollowTheSun has changed given the winter. Presently, we shutdown for bed around 9-930 and go full lights-out at 10pm or thereabouts. Wake up time is around 730a.

Cash Mostly

#CashMostly is going strong and will likely be a permanent part of how I manage money. I was chatting it over with a friend and he asked me what good it does at all for me. I replied with a question: what good does it do to give money with every single swipe to a small set of corporations that seem hell-bent on lobbying the Federal government without any scruples? I'd rather not play their game. Choose my rules. Determine when my convenience is really important and take on a bit of diligence as a practice against always choosing convenience at the expense of everything.

Exercise and Movement

I gave myself a break from running after finishing the Army 10 Miler. Now it's time to start training in earnest for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon. My next race.

Winter has been more sedentary than I would like but I get out for a run a couple times a week.

Time Theming

I've gotten used to ignoring my daily themes. This is probably a sign of imbalance or a need to reconsider priorities.

Time with Friends

Mixed bag here. I've done a great job of scheduling phone time with friends afar. And I've done a really poor job of keeping in touch with friends in-person. I pretty much saw my local friends about once during 4Q (except the ones I work with).

Weekend morning hikes help with this. And perhaps some board/card game days would also help.

Reading

I read the following books to completion during 4Q 2016:

I did not read what I set out to read... instead just whatever was interesting enough to keep my attention.

I am presently reading Time Enough for Love (also by Robert A. Heinlein). I don't know what will be next.

Aphorisms

I am collecting great quotes from the things that I read in a new section of my website: Aphorisms

Circle of Fifths... A Case for Rote Memorization

In general, I don't approve of rote memorization... learning by repetition. I think it's a cultural value-judgment that has served me well in general but I think it has been holding me back in music.

So, I have decided to pursue rote memorization to bolster my understanding of fundamentals of musical notation and theory. It's a lot like learning basic arithmetic for the first time. I am counting on my fingers and writing things down that would be simple enough to do in my head with practice. And in time, I trust that I will be able to ditch the paper (though I suspect my fingers will always come in handy).

The Benefits So Far

So far, I am already getting faster. If you had asked me to name the notes in the Eb major scale a month ago it would have taken me more than 30 seconds to answer and I might have needed fingers or paper. Now I can pretty quickly arrive at Eb F G Ab Bb C D.

I also a second approach to that which I can use to double-check my work. Having memorized the order of flats, I know that the scale of F has one flat, and Bb has 2, and Eb has three. The order of flats is Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fb.

Thus, the Eb major scale, having 3 flats, includes the notes: Bb Eb and Ab.

What to Rote Memorize

The C Major Scale

If I were starting out, I would grab my favorite instrument, a metronome, and sing along as I play the C major scale, which has no sharps or flats: C D E F G A B.

The Pattern for Major Scales

Then I would recommend that you read about the pattern for the major scale as expressed in half and whole steps. Half steps are very easy to see on piano: any keys that are directly adjacent (with no notes in between) are said to be a half-step apart. On the bass guitar, any notes that are adjacent frets are said to be a half-step apart. Whole steps have a single note in-between.

Once you understand that, you try to take in the fact that the major scale is a relationship of 7 notes as follows:

R - W - W - H - W - W - W - H - (root-octave)

or, as applied to C major

C -w- D -w- E -h- F -w- G -w- A -w- B -h- C

Notice:

  • Given any two neighboring notes, most have a whole-step between
  • ...except for E-F and B-C... they are only a half-step apart.

The F and G major scales

Given the notes separated by only half-step, scales other than C have to be altered using sharps and flats to achieve the same tonal pattern.

F and G each have one altered note in their scales to maintain the same relationships between the scale tones.

F has Bb, G has F#... and the scales look like this with the whole/half steps written between:

F: F -w- G -w- A -h- Bb -w- C -w- D -w- E  -h- F
G: G -w- A -w- B -h- C  -w- D -w- E -w- F# -h- G

Major Scales express altered notes either by adding sharps or adding flats. Never both. So the next thing to memorize is the order of sharps based on the circle of fifths.

The Order of Sharps and The Circle of Fifths

This is a badly drawn section of the circle of fifths diagram relevant to the scales that have sharp notes:

Here's what I committed to memory by raw verbal repetition: F C G D A E B. I won't go into detail on how the order of fifths came to be but the name gives you a hint (C is the fifth note of the F scale, G is the fifth note of the C scale).

What matters is that it is a time saver... And here's how I use it.

  • Remember that C has no altered notes. Start with C.
  • Looking at the circle, observe that G is the next note on the circle (the next major scale). The G major scale has one sharp.
  • Continuing in the same direction around the circle... The D major scale has 2. A major... 3. E major... 4. C# has 7 (all notes sharp).
  • The order of sharps is always the same and travels in the same direction as the root notes, starting with F.

If we apply this to the table we can determine the altered notes for each of these scales:

G:  F#
D:  F# C#
E:  F# C# G# D#
B:  F# C# G# D# A#
F#: F# C# G# D# A# E#
C#: F# C# G# D# A# E# B#

To take this exercise further, I have started to memorize the scales as altered. For example, G and D:

G: G A B  C E D F#
D: D E F# G A B C#

If you do this daily, you will begin to be able to intuit the scales.

The Order of Flats and the Circle of Fifths

Here is a similar section of the circle of fifths diagram relevant to scales that have flat altered notes:

And here's how we use it.

  • Again start with C, which has no altered notes.
  • We travel in the opposite direction this time heading toward F, which has one flat.
  • As we continue, Bb has 2, Eb has 3... Cb has 7.
  • The order of flats travels in the same direction as the root notes travel and starts with Bb.
  • Bass players: note that the order of flats is very similar to the notes of the open notes on your bass in ascending order (for a 6-string bass: BEADGC)

For sharps I memorized FCGDAEB.
For flats I reverse it: BEADGCF.

And so we end up with a similar table of altered notes:

F:  Bb
Bb: Bb Eb
Eb: Bb Eb Ab
Ab: Bb Eb Ab Db
Db: Bb Eb Ab Db Gb
Gb: Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb
Cb: Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fb

And similar to the sharps, I recommend memorizing the full scales in actuality:

F:  F  G  A  Bb C  D  E
Bb: Bb C  D  Eb F  G  A
Eb: Eb F  G  Ab Bb C  D
Ab: Ab Bb C  Db Eb F  G
...

Do this patiently and you will begin to develop a sixth sense for the sharps and flats in a key.

The Circle of Fifths

both.png

This is what I draw at the top of my practice sheet each morning before I begin. It establishes the order that I need to work through to memorize the scales.

As I practice each morning, I write up one of these on a blank sheet of paper:

Why Rote?

My goal with rote memorization of these facts is to have them available to me instantly when I need them. Effectively, I want to put thinking about them out of the way so that I can focus on the rhythm, tempo, and feel of the music I am trying to practice.

Every attempt I have made to avoid memorizing this information has led to something slow and boring. Given the choice between that and "fast and boring", I will choose fast.

More Resources

If you want to get deeper with these concepts there are two resources I can refer you to:

  1. Harmony and Theory (affiliate link to Amazon) - This is the book I am working through and it will teach you the theory behind what I have mentioned above in detail. It is the number one book recommended by Anthony Wellington.
  2. Bassology by Anthony Wellington - A lot of what I am getting serious about today was originally presented to me by Anthony Wellington, a brilliant teacher who specializes in Bass Guitar, but whose knowledge goes well beyond. He teaches you how to practice and think about music and if you think you need some direct coaching over Skype... reach out and see if he has any openings. I cannot recommend him highly enough. And, regardless you can just follow his Facebook Page.

Staging a Self-Intervention Using A Low Information Diet

An aquaintance on the bookface asked what she ought to do about the fact that she has experienced a panic attack each morning since the election. How do you redirect the fear into constructive action.

I gave this advice with the idea that the fear doesn't have to be accepted at face value. Reality is mostly constructed and we are using some pretty manipulative sources in recent years:

Honestly, I would stop getting your news from social media and cable.  Cable wants your eyes glued... so they scare the shit out of you if they can.  Social media wants to cut through the noise so they need outrage  and fear as an attention grabber.
I'd suggest a low information diet for 3 weeks starting today.  Announce  it to your friends and let them know that you will not be on social media as much and to please TEXT or CALL you if it is time to fight in the revolution.  
If you use a password manager, randomly generate new passwords for all of your social media sites.  Then turn off auto-login.  Then logout... everywhere.
No news for 3 weeks.  Then after that, international news sites only for a month.  International news sites will be dialed in to a different cultural demographic which is just a bit off to plug directly into your gut.  It will allow you that crucial extra little bit of mental wiggle room to not be manipulated by the outrage and fear peddling.
Finally, yes... there is real shit going on but no one is being loaded on trains and it's not time for open revolt yet.  You will know when your friends can no longer speak their minds without being arrested or detained or threatened with **physical** harm.  For now, I simply expect that the news vortex you have subjected yourself to has created your world of constant anxiety and panic.  
Time to intervene on your own behalf.

And if you want a great audiobook that will inspire some thought about how we can open up possibility with the stories we tell ourselves, consider this book: The Art of Possibility. The audiobook version was strongly recommended by Seth Godin and I rather agree it has a lot of good ideas on how to work with your mind to achieve open-ness and orientation to what is possible.

An Affiliate link for the same book on Amazon follows (you may have to disable adblock to see it):

Multiculturalism According to Hoyt: An Equivocation of Culture and Genetics

The afterword for The Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein was written by an author named Sarah Hoyt. It is a really good essay premised on "Heinlein's idea that the individual was the source of the authority–and the money–of the government..." and makes me want to seek out her written works to see what they are like.

This passage from her afterword lays bare some of the confusion that exists in the way we tend muddle the concepts of culture and ancestry:

There are days when I get up in the morning and I take a look around and I think we have lost our civilizational confidence; that the West as the West is ripe for the taking. Part of it is that of course democracies are more likely to self-criticize. And part of it is the misguided–and poisonous–twin notions that a culture is genetic and therefore all cultures are equally valid. (i.e. to condemn any culture is to be guilty of racism, since culture is inborn.)

(If you don’t believe me on this, look at any school curriculum. Culture and ancestry are used interchangeably as they are in almost every conversation. I’m more acutely aware of this than most, since every stranger finds it incumbent upon him or herself to tell me that I must teach Portuguese to my American-born American-raised sons, or deprive them of their “culture”. I would accept the idea that it would be good for them to know the language spoken by half of their ancestors, but Portuguese has not now and has never been their “culture”.)

On the heels of these misguided notions follows the even more poisonous notion of ancestral guilt. That because our ancestors were “imperialists” or oppressed people in other parts of the world, we owe anyone who was ever oppressed–a fate that is bizarrely assumed never to have befallen any Caucasian population–the courtesy of rolling over and dying on command.

Culture is not genetics... it is an amalgam of practices. Any culture should be fair game for criticism since cultural practices can result in tragic violations of rights, wanton destruction, oppression, nihilistic hatred of the good, or mere waste. These deserve to be discussed and argued against.

If we can't talk about what's wrong about what we do, how can we hope to ever do better? The false coupling between culture and ancestry ought to be discarded along with the notion of ancestral guilt, which doesn't to anyone a lick of good.

We Are Wary of Outrage... and No Mob Can Have Us

Those of us who refuse to be whipped into a mob are few but feisty.

We arm our intellects. We prepare ourselves to recognize manipulation and deception. We know our core principles and convictions.

We are wary of outrage... We know it to be seductive and a key tool to uncenter us without our notice.

We acknowledge and affirm that no one can ever take our reason from us without our acquiescense and that we can surrender it in subtle ways. We make a practice of not yielding it.

We commit ourselves on this day and each day forward that we will move only on our own best individual judgment... never in haste or anger... responding, not reacting... with resolve or defiance as the situation calls for it.

We are no mob and no mob can have us.

What You Can Infer About Voters

In my social media feed there is a lot of shock and grief. And there is a lot of anguish about the narrow majority of Americans that elected Trump in spite of his outrageous behavior and pandering to bigotry.

To my friends of the liberal sort, their most important criteria was Trump’s blatant bigotry and they considered it important to vote for Hillary in order to vote against bigotry. Though a significant number were also truly enthusiastic about her “qualifications” for the office.

My friends of the conservative sort had many valid reasons for voting against Clinton. Handing a symbolic defeat of bigotry may not have been their most important criteria for voting. For some it was about gun rights. For some, the threat of more liberal activist supreme court justice nominees that would have been guaranteed under a Clinton regime. A large number on the conservative side were enthusiastic about him as well.

I think the idea of getting enthusiastic about someone running for president is ludicrous. Which person would I like to dilute and destroy individual rights this time?

I tend to vote based on who I think would be the best steward to protect the fundamental American rights to life, liberty, and property. In this election, neither candidate was good on fundamentals. Primary after primary, we choose candidates who do not even give lip service to these rights, but I don’t go so far as to say that a majority of voters repudiate these values.

I do think that individual rights are not given enough weight in the minds of voters because they don’t know how important they are to human thriving on Earth. They take these rights for granted… that so long as we have the vote, we can enact any government program and it won’t destroy these rights. It’s simply untrue.

All of that being said… It is not logically defensible to judge exactly what voters in this election repudiated just because you happened to declare that the election was about some specific priority. The individual is the unit of decision making power. Maybe they agreed. Clearly they didn’t. Everyone had to decide for themselves what was the most important thing to defeat and vote or not vote accordingly.

So what can we actually infer about voters based on the election results? They expect politics to be dirty. They expect the other side to lie and spin. They create their own social media echo chambers so they no longer have to hear offending opinions.

Do they reject social equality? Some do. And some reject the manner in which it is being exploited. But the election says nothing about this other than it wasn’t top priority.

Do they reject gender equality? Some do. But the election says nothing about this other than it wasn’t top priority. (Also, observe that it is every bit as sexist to vote for someone because they are female as it is to vote against them if it is one of your key criteria.)

Do they reject political correctness and multiculturalism? No question. And on this point, I believe they are right to do so. These are the biggest threats to free thinking and free speech. They cause self-censorship and foster no discussions on important topics. When you can no longer discuss things, people tend to resort to force because it is the only means left.

At some point, the elephant in the room must be dealt with. If you prefer non-violent means, you must discuss.

A presidential election campaign is not the place to have a discussion on what kind of society we wish to have. It fosters the worst kind of communication possible. Every message is guaranteed to get mangled and distorted by the opposition. What comes through is a mere caricature.

We cannot afford for elections to be the main expression of our hopes and values. Voting is just about the least important civic action as a citizen in a free democratic society. A final summation to all of your thought, action, and discussion.

The appropriate place for thoughtful discussion to begin is on our blogs. Here we can reason out our ideas for what is good and bad. Think things through. Support our positions thoroughly, eliminating fallacies and hyperbole through the process of editing.

We can read the arguments of others in good faith.
We can follow up with face-to-face chats.

We still have a republic that respects free speech. Let us use it.

If we do not exercise the right to speech in order to defend individual rights over and above all other government priorities, it may one day come to the point where freedom of speech is no longer respected by the government. And where you cannot speak, you must fight or escape.

Project Update: #Uke50ByHeart

Following WDS 2016, I decided a couple of things. Primarily, that I don't have singular focus and that I am not sure what I would be willing to focus on at the exclusion of all else. I've been a guy with too many hobbies for a while: Dance, Photography, Bass Guitar.

One of the small-but-powerful ideas I took away from WDS came from the artist Judy Paul from Austin, whom I had the chance to go for a couple runs with while out in Portland. She had been a graphic designer and, when she decided to buckle down and start shipping art, began with 50 pieces themed on trees. (check out her instagram... it'll really spice up your feed)

So I decided that it's okay to settle on projects that have this structure: "I will ship X number of some creation". And the first project supports something that has been in progress for a year now. I've been learning to play ukulele since summer 2015.

Structure and Accounting

To put a serious structure around Ukulele, I have committed to this 50 songs by heart project with the goal that I can take my Uke anywhere and just start playing songs. I started this back in late August or so. And I have noticed since that this is the sort of project that can drag on and on.

So in order to ensure it won't drag on forever, I have this fancy spreadsheet to track what songs are on the list and how I am doing. I don't have a specific timeline for completion but I think I am just around the corner from working out a system.

  • I will practice a song without the sheet music before me first and only if I forget a chord or lyrics, I will immediately use sheet music and consider it cheat sheet practice. If I can complete the song, it counts as a "play by heart".
  • I am collecting information on when I mark a song active and when I consider it ready.
  • When I have played it 5 times by heart, I will remove the song from active and consider it "ready".
  • Over time, I hope to establish a sense of velocity and be able to estimate a finish date.

Doing It In Public - Youtube

As part of the process of doing this project, I am documenting my progress with recordings and publishing videos of me playing songs.  Over time, I hope to have a progression of videos where I suck at the beginning and I slowly morph into a Ukulele Master.  

In case you were worried that I'm going to get a big head, let me assure you its already much too late for that.  And also, the results of my videos are really quite humbling.  I am learning how to sing in addition to how to play and doing both at the same time is quite a challenge.

It took quite a number of tries to get this rough version of "Georgia On My Mind" down. In truth, I really hadn't practiced it quite enough and I was mostly trying to test the recording setup.

This video of me performing "All of Me" is my second attempt to publish anything. It's my 4th or 5th attempt at recording anything at all. (They're not all keepers and shouldn't be. Some things need to be created and tossed in the wastebin.)

I like this recording much better and it features "The Birthday Uke" which my family helped pay for and is my first K-brand Hawaiian Uke.

No Clear Timeline, But...

So there you have it. Project is in progress. There is no clear timeline but I think I am doing a better job of working out a practice regime that will allow me to complete the project in my lifetime. :)

Define: Debate

I think I finally have this definition laid down.

A #debate is a theatrical production where two or more parties who do not agree and will not change their minds pretend they are engaging in rational discussion of how to deal with specific kinds of problems. The audience of a debate is not there to change their minds on anything substantive or to make any decisions they haven't already made.

A Concerned Letter from Your Best Friend

America. Hi, it's me. I know... we haven't talked in a while.

Look... I know you've been dating and flirting with a couple of presidential candidates. They've convinced you that they're going to come in and everything will be better. There are a whole bunch of things that you don't have to worry about. You'll be taken care of. You'll be great again.

Look. We're friends so I have to say that it's been really hard for me to watch. In fact, it's because it's so hard to watch that we haven't spoken in so long. But as someone who cares about you and believes in you, I really feel like I had to get off the sidelines and say something.

You don't need someone to come in and make everything great again. You don't need someone to come in and fix everything. You never have. You're good just the way you are and getting better everyday. At least, that's true when you're not obsessed with the idea of someone else coming in and fixing everything.

You're hardworking and you're very capable of figuring anything out that you put your mind toward. You're intensely creative and productive. You don't need to be "made great" again. You already have everything it takes.

And lately... you're not yourself. Around these people, you're neurotic and anxious. You're tearing yourself apart as if you're at war with yourself. Frankly, I would never let anyone else mistreat you the way you're mistreating yourself. It's not nice.

These people... they're not good for you. I know they talk a good game but... They're not going to "complete you" no matter how many promises they make.

Personally, I think you should ditch them all and move on. But human nature being what it is, I suspect that you will only come to see how bad your situation is when you can look back upon it having finished your journey through this moment.

So... in this moment, at least choose just one. And choose for yourself the best available, most stable partner that supports and nutures your creative output. Choose the one that helps you to see yourself at your best when you are around them.

Whether you listen to my advice, remember this: You're my best friend and I'm sticking with you no matter what you decide. I believe in you. I always have. Yes, this is true even when you're not yourself for a while. I am here for you.

WDS2017 Tickets: On Sale Now

Here's an event to consider in 2017: The World Domination Summit. https://2017.worlddominationsummit.com/

I enjoyed #WDS2016. I high-fived more people than I can count. I walked across much of Portland. I saw lots of inspiring talks. I got out of my shell.

It's a good place to go if you are committed to generating some movement in your life.

Choose: A Joint Search for Mutually Satisfactory Solutions OR A War of Wills and Ego

However you might feel about the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag and the larger movement, I think we can widely agree that "no parent should ever have to explain to their kids how to talk to the police so that they don't become an innocent victim someday".

If we put together all of the people that agree with that assessment, it is my opinion that we would have a clear majority in America.

Yet, much of the language that I see in the discussion of this is expressed in the language of a war of wills. Those-of-us-who-do chant the hashtag will continue to do so defiantly until those-of-us-who-do-not all give in. Or something...

We don't really know what the end game is. We don't know why we're arguing. All we know is we are labelling more and more people racist. (Once upon a time you actually had to do something against someone to be racist. Now all you have to do is take a nuanced position.)

I'll hazard a guess on the endgame if we continue down that road. A war of wills turns into a war of ego. No one likes to give in and they remember it in resentment when they do. (Yes, this is nearly verbatim from "Getting Past No." Wisdom doesn't have to be original... just true.)

The time for a program of awareness has come and gone. The people who care to be aware have overwhelming evidence that something strange is going on and it's going to be hard work to change it. The time is now ripe for a shift from awareness toward the joint search for mutually satisfactory solutions.

We need ideas. Specific ones. Ones that condemn neither Black Americans or Police Officers as being inherently wrong or at fault. Ones that don't attack white people for having been born white. Ones that don't condemn people who mean well but aren't sure what to do.

Condemning is cheap, lazy, and seductive. Do you have it within you to propose instead?

With specific proposals, we can leverage that majority that I think exists. We can name specific action. We can lead.

None of us chose this situation. No human being would. But it is in the nature of life as human that we must rise to take responsibility for things that are "not our fault".

My Technicolor to a Black and White View of America

Today I read this quote:

In this country, American means 'white'. Everyone else has to hyphenate.

We live in this marvelous age where it's easy to find the words of anything that has been requoted enough times, but really hard to find the original and in-context source from which the quote is lifted. Oh well.

Here's what I notice:

  • A lot of people seem to have repeated this quote. Maybe it means they see a deep truth in it. Maybe it means they already buy into a narrative of victimization and this resonates with that.
  • If I wanted to stoke the fires of a victimization narrative, this quote is pretty damn good for that. How dare they? Grrrr...
  • What's it called when something matches an existing pattern in your brain? recognition.
  • That being said, I don't really hyphenate when describing my nationality. I haven't felt the need. It's the juxtaposition of perfect English coming from an Asian face that I'm counting on for recognition.
  • In some cases though, maybe I am a "black swan" event for them. They never knew Americans like me existed. Well... now they know. And next time, or the time after that, maybe they'll recognize.
  • The hard truth is this: America is a country found on principles. Not religion. Not race.
  • My opinion? If you accept principles and the responsibility of living in a free society and you expect no one else to pay your way unless they want to, out of the kindness of their hearts, you may call yourself American. I'm really big on any "giving" being fully voluntary. (and... Volun-told is not voluntary)
  • Anything you are born into, you didn't have to earn, and you won't immediately understand it's value. It doesn't make you automatically any more or less worthy of being American. It just is.
  • I was born on American soil. While that gave me automatic status as an American, I didn't start calling myself "an American" until my 30s when individual liberty became a deep personal conviction for me.
  • What happened in my 30s? I read Ayn Rand. (Whoops, I just lost half the audience. That's okay. I know what I learned and I know where I learned it. Wanna learn the core values of America? Read Rand.)
  • Sometimes people who meet me ask where I am from. When I grok that they are inquiring about nationality, usually if they are immigrants, I answer with "where my parents are from" and then I say that I am American: Born in New York... raised on Pizza by Tom and Jerry and GI Joe and My Little Effing Pony.
  • Yeah.
  • No kidding.

Notes From Poke The Box by Seth Godin

  • You may have heard, "there is no try.". Yes there is a try.  Trying is the opposite of hiding.
  • "This might not work" can generally be said about the important things you will start. 
  • Find low-risk and low-cost ways to find out how smart and intuitive and generous you are.