Happy Revolutionary Reminder Day

Like many people, yesterday I finally got to enjoy the original cast performance of Hamilton and it was everything I’d known it would be.  My friends know I’ve been obsessed with this play for four years.  I’d listened through it dozens of times before I saw it live in SF (thank you times a million, Lauren Chain).  I’ve read all the books, watched the documentaries, and evangelized its importance to those important to me.  There’s a reason they released it when they did and I want to share my thoughts about that.

Now more than ever, we need to be reminded that we are a revolutionary country. But a revolution not based on identity, based on ideas.  The first of many with more to come.  If you think this is a “white supremacist holiday” I hope I can at least point you in the direction of your wrongness.

Obviously, we've yet to achieve the perfect expression of our ideals. American history is full of atrocities, corruption, and injustice. But despite their personal failings, their slaveholdings, their misogyny, and their religious dogma the founders of this country not only formulated the framework within which we have been given the mere possibility of freedom and a more perfect future, even more importantly, they were willing to die to do it.

Hamilton is a love song, not to the United States and its history or its founders but to the sacrifice and suffering of real people.  This is its relevance to today.  What we learned in history class was detached and devoid of drama.  What Lin Manuel Miranda did was bring the story to life in a way that can be felt and known by a modern person.  The founders were real people with friends and love and flaws and ideas.  Yes, they were men. Yes, they were white. Some were immigrants or foreigners.  But on a deeper level, the important level, their identities are meaningless. It's the ideas that were worth dying for.  “Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

The fact that the play was written by a person of color and performed by a mostly Black cast, unironically, is significant.  It shows us all that despite the obstacles and imperfections embedded in our institutions there was nothing preventing Miranda and the cast from embodying, truly grok-ing, the universal ideals the founders risked their lives for.  That’s how we know they are artists and not propagandists. 

 

Is there a single idea that you would die for? What I'm seeing is that many people aren't even willing to be made slightly uncomfortable in order to preserve the security of their own loved ones, let alone for something as abstract as equality.  Many of us would die for our families but that’s not an idea.  A global civilization in which people will only sacrifice for their kin is doomed, that’s a one-way ticket back to the caves.

What Hamilton did for me is bring that question right to the front of my mind and it's stayed there for four years. And I'm getting closer to answering it. In a sense, my depression and anxiety were a longing for something worth dying for. I could have joined the military in 2003 and gone straight to Iraq but that was not worth dying for. I could have thrown myself against a wall of cops last month. That would have been closer, but still not. The only thing worth dying for right now has yet to be revealed.

I've thought this for a while, I think I wrote it for the first time in 2016 right after the election, and it's my thesis here, the dogmatic husk of the United States of America is not worth dying or living for.  The concept of the nation-state is an albatross, anchoring us to a social system that no longer serves the well being of humanity.  It became irrelevant the moment the internet was switched on.  But the founding ideals and the progress that followed are absolutely worth celebrating as a milestone on our journey onward to something that only vaguely resembles the current paradigm.  The Fourth of July will always be a holiday, even when we live in a global collective of independent economic region-states.

It is our generation's mission to extract the sacred from the profane, rediscover and add in the ancient and the wise, and mix it all together to reveal a future worth dying for. Anything short of this will disgrace us in the eyes of both our ancestors and our children.  “History has its eyes on us.”  More now than any time in the last 250 years.

This doesn't mean we get to shit all over the old gods. This doesn't mean we can invent whatever fantasy world we imagine in our most woke fever dreams. It means we have to grow up. We have to do what grownups do and hold multiple, conflicting, difficult ideas within ourselves for an extended period of time so that we can put food on our tables and raise children free from deprivation. We have to take responsibility for everything we've done while simultaneously relinquishing our delusion of total control and security.  Our civilization will only mature when we as individuals make the necessary sacrifices and temper our childish ideologies with reasonable pragmatism.

Realizing that one must grow up is the single most difficult journey of an individual life.  Which is the reason it's the core of almost all of our culture's mythology.  We’ve all seen the coming-of-age tale hundreds of times.  On the most basic psychological level, growing up is the purpose of life. It is both universal and personal. It is singularly terrifying and utterly rewarding. There are a million reasons to not want to and only one path that gets there. Nobody can walk the path for us and the only guide is discomfort. It is the opposite of fun and the definition of meaning.

Realizing one hasn't grown up is deeply painful and embarrassing.  Remember being a teenager and thinking you were grown up but being told you couldn’t do something because you weren’t “old enough”.  Nothing hurt worse than feeling ready and being held back by authority.  Are we feeling that right now?  We were poisoned by the idea of “old enough” because then we thought all we had to do was wait to get older.  But age ain’t nothing but a number.  So many of us thought all we had to do was graduate high school, turn 18, or get a job and we’d be automatically initiated into adulthood.  Those are useful indicators but far from sufficient.

There is a strong affinity between these ideas and parenthood, and I think for good reason.  Much of the context for my commentary is what I see on social media from my friends.  I’ve had to stay away for a few weeks as I’m sure many of you have as well.  It’s toxic right now.  But what I’ve seen has revealed something interesting.  Of all my friends participating in what I see as well-intentioned but ultimately harmful sharing of propaganda, 100% of them are NOT parents.  I have yet to see a parent be swept away by ideological dogma.  Parenthood is not necessary, but it seems to be sufficient.  There’s nothing like total responsibility for another life to make one deeply consider the impact of their actions in the world.

“Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now.”  This might not seem the case but I’m sure most people alive in the colonies in 1780 thought they would lose and be punished by King George.  We are only in the early stages of the next revolution.  Things will likely get worse before they get better.  Sacrifice will be necessary.  Suffering is inevitable.  Try hard to imagine a future you would die to create, hold it in your mind, work to make it real.  Who will they be singing about 250 years from now?

Birthday Wisdom

June 2, 2020 

The country is burning.  Police brutality has led to protests which have turned to riots which have led to looting which have led to more police brutality.  When I see anger, I empathize.  When I see fear and confusion, my urge is to soothe with compassion and knowledge.  Anger is righteous and reactionary, it is to be seen and felt by all to motivate a healing process.  Fear and confusion are treatable obstacles to healing.  They are natural, but when persistent, represent human failure.  Not a failure of the individual who is afraid and ignorant but of the collective for failing to love and educate them. 

Lower Canyon Lake, Trinity Alps Wilderness, May 2020

Last week, up in the Trinity Alps I was oblivious to the murder of George Floyd and the initial stages of the unrest.  When I got home, I wanted to share stories and photos but I can read a room.  Jumping into the middle of the scene frustrated me.  I felt like I should be out protesting but also like I’d missed the boat.  By the time I was aware, the scene was dangerous.  Plus, I’ve lost faith in protest marches.

  

My only goal in life is to create a better world for everyone.  My personal obsessions are understanding and being understood.  For now, I am called to serve my community on the most relevant battlefield of our time, the human mind.  Nothing in our society will change (for the better) if we don’t change minds.  There may come a time when the sacrifice of my body is necessary to achieve my goal but hopefully, that won’t come until we have the blueprint of our prison in hand and a serious escape plan in motion.

When I say “my community” my intention is to draw a line around my area of influence.  I don’t pretend to speak to all groups’ lived experiences or unique struggles.  I am speaking to YOU, the individual human, my friends and followers, most of whom are white, almost all of whom consider themselves good, liberal citizens of this tragically flawed country of ours.  While I believe that truth is universal and that all people benefit from its pursuit, I simply want to define my audience.  It’s a movable line and I don’t care how many come inside but if you’re outside, feel free to ignore the pseudo-enlightened, exceedingly-privileged, white mansplainer.

Today is my 35th birthday and I had been planning on breaking a weeks-long silence to share some birthday wisdom.  But today is also #blackoutday so my sharing will be limited to the page until tomorrow.  This is probably a good thing because with so much happening and with so much built-up energy, I should gather my thoughts before blabbing to the internet.

It’s been a big year for me, maybe the biggest.  I made amends with someone over a trauma that had haunted me for two years; someone I’d thought I’d shared love with and a trauma that brought my ability to love into question.  Then, I fell madly in love with someone who used me then crushed me (twice, same person).  Thus, twice I fell into depression worthy of noting (cycles of depression have been a recurring feature of my life for at least ten years).  Synchronous with the second cycle, the entire planet was paused by the Covid-19 pandemic and I was living in one of the “epicenters”.  This was my turning point.

Prior to the pandemic, I had already made an appointment with a psychiatrist to discuss starting on medication for depression.  The fulfillment of that prescription came at the perfect time.  Isolation, vacation, and self-medication with weed and video games in my room in Oakland were fun for a week (It should be noted that during that week I was under the impression that things with said love interest were hunky-dory).  By week two, my heart had been broken via video chat and the fun and games took on a decidedly unsafe feeling.  After she finished her two-week self-quarantine having just returned from Spain and Morocco, I joined my mom at my childhood home in Rancho Cordova.  

That room in Glenn’s house had been everything I’d needed when I found it in 2013.  The ideal bachelor pad: hot tub, beautiful garden, cute dog I didn’t have to take care of, king-sized mattress, perceived privacy (the walls were actually quite thin and vigorous activity in the lofts caused major house-quakes, which are actually quite scary when earthquakes are a constant threat), a kindly older gentleman to “attaboy” me for every new babe I brought over (he himself is super gay but absolutely delights in hot, young bodies running around, in a totally non-threatening way), and all the accoutrements of a full apartment making it easily possible to stay within for days.  That place never failed to get me laid.

Expectedly, however, the needs of 30-year-old Tyler were supplanted by the needs of 34-year-old Tyler.  Add in a regional shelter-in-place order of indefinite duration, a growing realization of the disharmony between myself and the overly-privileged techno-elites of the Bay Area, and a stultifying two-decade-long love-hate relationship with cannabis, all fueling a persistent low-grade depression punctuated by brief but dependable periods of despair and what had once been a blessedly affordable oasis had slowly turned to a fearful hiding place.  On one trip back from my Sacramento retreat to water my plants, the realization hit me as soon as I stepped foot back into that room, “I can not be healthy here.  I need to leave now.”

Glenn in the middle.  Journalist, friend, pioneer.

I’ll be forever grateful to Glenn for welcoming me into his home, sharing his stories with me, listening to my opinions with serious curiosity, and being the big brother I never had.  He has his foibles and we’ve had our disagreements but there is nothing but love between us and I fully intend on returning there annually to at the very least trim his 80+ trees (seriously, I counted them). 

My first lesson of the pandemic was isolation doesn’t work for me (my actual first lesson was that I still really love playing Civilization).  Isolation doesn’t work for anybody actually but I’ll speak for myself.  I did not imagine that in my mid-thirties I’d be living with my mother, sleeping in the room I did when I was five.  But any negative reaction to this scenario is Old Thought.  It’s not like I intend to continue living here, this is an emergency situation and having somewhere to go, someone to hug and play backgammon with, and a social pressure to wake up every day and not be a degenerate POS has been a blessing.  

From this home base and with the support of my family (all of whom were nearby and touchable) I was able to begin to recalibrate my life.  Every morning (at like 10) I walked to the end of my street, stretched, ran the trails along the American River, and meditated on a peaceful bench.  Then I’d come home and do an intense 30-40 minute cardio HIIT routine (I really like Fitness Blender) followed by as big a breakfast as I could muster enjoyed in the backyard while listening to a favorite podcast.  I’d take my meds (Celexa), write in my journal, and try to do at least one thing to help my mom or our household and feel totally content if that’s all I did that day.  I was especially grateful for the solid ground on which to balance as I upped my dosages.  There were days during which the increased dose made me feel anxious and nauseous and I was glad I wasn’t having to climb 60’ up a tree in that condition.

About that job thing.  Bay View Tree Service shut down operations on March 16, the day the shelter-in-place went into effect.  Yes, we were technically an essential industry but honestly, we weren’t doing essential work.  Yes, we work outside and basically socially distance already but it just didn’t feel right to be going about business as usual while everyone else was making sacrifices for public health.  I applaud Mike and Ben’s leadership through it all.  The three of us who had been there the longest quickly and easily qualified for unemployment and Mike pledged to assist the newer crew through the shutdown.  

So there I was, on vacation and, thanks to the CARES Act, getting paid full wages.  Cable TV and Civilization 6 had me living 20-year-old Tyler’s wildest dream.  Then, my mental health intervened and I had to leave.  I’ve never enjoyed a job as fully as I enjoy working with Mike and Alex and Drew and Cookie and co., lots of days don’t feel like work at all.  When, over the last few years, I’ve contemplated leaving the Bay Area, I knew that I’d be giving up housing I’d never find again and the first job I’ve truly loved.  While I counted them among my blessings, there were times they felt more like ball-and-chain.  I’m immensely proud of the work we’ve done together as a team at BVTS and the reputation that we’ve built (hire them).  Due to on-going government intervention, the exact nature of our current relationship shall remain a mystery for now.  

It may be said though, that unemployment benefits (and my stimulus check) were the catalyst to this entire transition.  If I had wanted to leave the bay during normal times I would have had to shut down my social life for a month or two to save money, found a life somewhere else, and worked the entire time.  This global tragedy may have been the best thing to ever happen to me.  I am currently living one of the many arguments in favor of a Universal Basic Income.  Just think of how many people could transform their lives for the better with just a little runway and a little more security.  I believe the pandemic has moved us a decade closer to a UBI and Spain is now poised to be the first country to institute the policy (well, kinda but pretty dang close).  We have not seen the last of Andrew Yang, thank goodness!

Before the haters retort that I am being paid to do nothing and therefore have no incentive to work I assure you that is not the case.  Due to said government intervention, this too shall remain a mystery for now but I absolutely intend on getting back to work.  I was afforded a lifeline with which I could restore and heal myself so that I may be of greater service to my community.  The products of a healthy spirit are much more valuable to society than those of hands guided by greed and fear, no matter how much they sell for.

This brings me to perhaps the biggest change of the bunch.  It’s now been almost two months since I’ve smoked a spliff or a joint or cannabis of any kind.  I can’t say I’ve been entirely without THC as my CBD vape has some in it, but apparently not at levels high enough to prevent a wild rebound in REM sleep and dreaming (the CBD majorly helps with sleep).  That makes this the longest voluntary break in my cannabis use since 1999 (there were my six months of probation when I was 16 and my four months in Singapore in 2005, both fasts broken with delight).  I had dreadlocks from 2003 to 2007.  I won an elite-level joint-rolling contest in college.  I smoked hash in a stairwell in the airport IN SINGAPORE then took the pipe through security.  I was high for essentially every major, minor, and mundane event of my adolescent and early-adult life.  

I don’t think I can abstain while in the Bay Area.  It was too much a part of my identity to avoid among friends.  The supply was limitless and virtually free.  And alone in my room at night, I simply do not have the will to hold myself accountable.  For years now, my use has been limited to mainly parties and solo evenings.  I no longer got high for mundane chores, low-key social events, work, or road trips for the simple reason that it makes me anxious and introverted.  But still, I would tell myself (and I would hear from friends), there’s no harm in a spliff at night when the day’s toils are through.  Except that’s what I told myself for years.  That’s what I told myself when I’d get high instead of journey out for a social event because it was easier.  That’s what I told myself as I got no closer to my goals, as I lost even sight of those goals, as I failed to properly attend to relationships with real people who really cared about me, all the while watching legalization become a reality and the social acceptance grow and grow.

Weed felt to me like a big delete button.  I’d have a day, then I would delete it, then have another day, repeat.  There was no momentum in my life, just individual days in sequence, like Star Trek TNG episodes.  Familiar faces, predictable arcs, some drama, some pleasantries, but only a vague bigger picture.  In seven years in Oakland, I accomplished some things, made good friends, became popular in some groups, and played some awesome high-level ultimate but when it comes to my larger goals (with the exception of career, although career has never factored largely into my priorities) I am exactly where I was when I moved there in 2013; feckless, single, and childless.  

One of my takeaway lessons from this time is that friends, frisbee, and fun feel good but they don’t scratch the deeper itch for meaning in my life.  They are necessary but not sufficient.  (I know that only my friends are going to read this, I love you, I really do, I wouldn’t trade you for anything in the world... except maybe a wife and child.  Hopefully, that won’t be necessary.)

I won’t say I’ll never smoke again (in fact I'm still smoking tobacco and herbal cigarettes, I just love smoking so much more than being high) but right now I have no desire to.   I pass no judgment on anyone who uses cannabis for any reason, we’re all on our own journeys.  Psychoactively, THC is a chameleon, it is different for everyone; but beware the person who proclaims it entirely benign, every medicine must be taken mindfully.  And if you are like me, using to avoid responsibility or escape from feelings, I am here for you if you need some encouragement.  It feels so good to be able to answer the phone when it rings and to just know that if something happens I’ll be able to handle it and not hide from it.  For the first time in years, I feel like life is worth the attention I am able to pay it and for the first time in years, I am able to pay it the attention it deserves/demands.  My goals are clearer now than they ever have been and the vision of what would happen should I fail to meet them is equally clear and dissuasive. 

All of this change has happened against the backdrop of accelerating cultural collapse.  The easy days are behind us, forever (if you’re my age).  If you’ve read this far, then you must care at least a little about what I have to say.  I take your attention very seriously and would not lie or speak flippantly on subjects I consider life and death.  I implore you to prepare yourself.  If any of my story rings true to you, know that an immense responsibility is being laid at the feet of our generation and we are going to need every single person to carry as much load as possible if we want to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror in another 35 years and if we don’t want our children to look at us the way we look at our parents.

It just occurred to me that over the last 15 years of my life I have progressed through all five stages of grief.  When I was 20 and I awoke to the tragic deal that our cultural forebears had struck and bound us to, at first I just partied through denial.  By the time I graduated, I was enraged (mostly at my parents and their generation of failed hippies and sellouts).  I packed my bags and left the country.  But this isn’t the kind of pain one can run from.  Through my mid-twenties I bargained, “if I play as much ultimate as possible and work as little as possible, it’s not so bad.”  Then, the depression set in and it lasted longer than I wish it had.  I’ll never get those years back and there’s a great deal of shame that goes along with that.

Tyler mid-2000s, a collage I created in 2006 to be my FB profile pic entitled,
"Me doing what I love to do"  Weed, women, ultimate, dolphin?

A note on depression.  When I told people I was depressed some could barely believe me.  “But every time I see you, you’re smiling.”  “Yes, that’s because I only let you see me when I’m smiling.  Did you notice that you hadn’t seen me in a couple weeks?  Well, nobody else had either.”  I resisted medication for a decade, afraid it would numb me, convinced I could stay ahead of it with exercise and fun, hopeful it had some lesson to teach me.  I was wrong.  It could be noted that in conjunction with meds I also instituted the aforementioned major lifestyle changes so teasing out the exact contributions is impossible.  Even if they were placebos I’m sure the commitment of seeking and receiving help was beneficial in convincing my whole self that the situation needed addressing.  But as far as I can tell, it’s helped.  I don’t feel numb, quite the opposite.

As far as lessons taught by depression, I have one.  I don’t fully trust someone that hasn’t been or isn’t currently depressed.  Being perpetually happy or satisfied with one’s life either means a.) one hasn’t been through the stages of grief and is still dreaming or b.) one is totally fine with the world the way it is, total lack of empathy, untrustworthy.  Krishnamurti really nailed it when he said, “it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society."

Our culture (which we mistakenly refer to as ‘Humanity’) lost something more precious than any scientific advance or humanist fiction; we lost a way of life that fulfilled our needs, a toolkit earned by the blood and ingenuity of 4 billion years of our ancestors.  I’ve been grieving that loss for 15 years and it’s my belief that until we recognize and grieve this loss both individually and collectively, we will never transcend any of the problems so many of our social media posts hope to solve.  Even if we tear this system to the ground and rebuild, we will forever be haunted by the ghosts of those forgotten ancestors.  The pain of this loss is crushing but unavoidable and it is the only Real thing that binds us as a civilization.  Stories and ideas (i.e. culture) are real, suffering is Real.

I have looked into the eyes of my friends (many of them) as they glimpse, then flinch, then turn away from the pain.  “You’re idealizing the noble savage” or “But look at all this great stuff.”  It’s infinitely easier to share a post, order some woke reading material on Amazon, or get high in order to feel better.  But there’s no healing there.  Let ease be our guide; if it’s easy, don’t do it (or at least don’t kid ourselves that we’re helping).  Here’s another, if “self-care” is my hobby, I’m way too fucking comfortable.  We are stronger than we know.  We have been trained both implicitly and explicitly our entire lives not to look at our pain.  How else could a system built on the plunder of our deepest desires perpetuate itself?  ‘Go to work.  Take this pill.  Here’s a shiny toy.  Ignore the tribal peoples in the corners, they’re basically animals.  They don’t even have antibiotics!’  All they have is cradle to grave security, a suicide rate of zero, and a way of life they’d rather die than abandon.  And us?  We are literally dying to abandon our way of life.  The treasure is always where we don’t want to look, and it’s never freely given.

Finally, in my 35th year, I’ve accepted my mission.  I didn’t start the fire but I’m going to have to help put it out.  There’s no choice anymore.  The options are: death (either bodily or spiritually by assimilation) or progress, on a personal and civilizational scale.  I am in no way advocating a return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.  Progress will necessarily require us to extract the lessons from every phase of our development as a species.  A healthy adult emerges from a rebellious adolescent which began as a protected, inquisitive child.  Civilization is a teenager that desperately needs to grow up.  We think we are more mature than we are, we are driving the car too fast, our room is a mess, we think we’re invincible, and pumped up on hormones we are full of sound and fury.  But, unlike a healthy teenager, we’ve forgotten how to share, how to read, and how to play nice with others, all the lessons of the childhood that has been intentionally, criminally hidden from us.  We are entering adulthood now but we are in serious danger.  What happens to adults that never had childhoods?  That have never felt safe in their entire lives?  

I’ve remained comfortably detached, although laser-focused, on these topics my entire life and I have a lot to say about what’s happening.  This is really just a brief introduction to my actual birthday wisdom.  I will continue to read the room and try my best not to deflect the positive efforts of movements I support.

So, the immediate future for me looks like… trucklife.  All my worldly possessions are sorted and stored.  I’m fit, fitted, and facing the most uncertain future.  I have tools, skills, transportation, and a deep desire to build a world that promotes the subjective well-being of all life.  I’ll probably fall off the wagon at some point and mine is certainly NOT a success story (yet) but I hope I can help someone somewhere by sharing honestly as much of myself as I can.  All this, plus a very handsome cat, coming to a driveway/campground/farm/guestroom near you.

Bonus cat photos!

POTW #21 - A Primer on Everything Important: Sam Harris in conversation with Yuval Noah Harari and Bret Weinstein

There comes a point when the danger to one's mental health from not speaking honestly outweighs the potential social cost of doing so.  I've struggled with this a lot lately.  The bay area is a dangerous place to stick one's neck out, as I've learned in some personal and painful ways.  To see people I love suffering under ideological possession and unable to correct course out of their own fears or simple lack of understanding is a main source of my distress these days.  Especially while feeling like I have the antidote locked up between my ears.

Dishonesty deforms a mind.  The Buddha knew it 2500 years ago.  Virtually every major belief structure, be it religious or scientific, contains this knowledge.  It doesn't matter if one is consciously aware of their dishonesty, a life not based on truth will produce negative outcomes without fail.  We are all actively experiencing, on every level, the consequences of a culture built on lies (or more generously, misunderstandings).

I still listen to a lot of podcasts, an average of 15-20 hours per week, and at the end of most work days I'm virtually bursting with ideas I'd like to share.  Then I get home and the fear kicks in.  I have friendships to protect, status to maintain, a future to consider.  So for the last year (or three) I've retreated; mostly to drugs and media (my favorites being televised sports, optimistic science fiction, and spy thrillers).  But lately, the pressure from within has overtaken the pressure from without.  To hold my tongue any longer will only deepen my depression and squander whatever spark of creativity I've retained from my more idealistic youth.  I must learn to embody the eightfold path and know that regardless of the proximate or subjective consequences, truth in speech and action will create good.

But where to begin?  This challenge has often been the hurdle that lands me back on the couch. Then recently I was handed a shortcut in podcast form, a conversation between Yuval Noah Harari (author of Sapiens) and Sam Harris on Harris' "Waking Up" podcast in an episode titled "The Edge of Humanity".  Recorded last month in San Francisco, this conversation captured my attention so completely I feel compelled to share it as widely as possible.  In all my thousands of hours of podcast absorption, I've only had this level of experience one other time (more on that to come); of feeling as if I was having my mind spoken to me by someone else.  I've heard a few interviews with Harari on other shows but in this case I can say with certainty that I agree with EVERY SINGLE WORD Harari said.  It may not all be sunshine and rainbows but it's all important, like having a clean windshield while driving into the sun on a mountain road upon which nobody has ever driven.

https://samharris.org/podcasts/138-edge-humanity/

As mentioned, this was the second episode of Waking Up to inspire me in such a way.  I drafted a post on the first as well but at the time I was too fearful/lazy/distracted to finish and publish it.  The addition of the second piece of the puzzle, combined with my mounting need to express my mind, catalyzed its completion.  The first piece of the puzzle was another live conversation with someone I've heard on multiple podcasts and have come to greatly respect, Bret Weinstein, in an episode titled "Biology and Culture".  Weinstein's experience being ousted from Evergreen College where he was a beloved professor, which he explains in the episode, gives him a unique position from which to analyze the moral panic gripping the left and more specifically the universities.

https://samharris.org/podcasts/109-biology-culture/

When taken together, these four hours of dialogue form a concise and necessary primer on every important issue that currently contributes to the morass of modern life.  Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist, brings us from the deep past to the present covering evolution, race, sex, gender, freedom of speech, religion, and values.  Harari, a historian, picks up the story in the current moment and guides us into the future of human rights, culture, mindfulness, artificial intelligence and our impending irrelevance, nationalism, the breakdown of democratic ideals, and the need for global solutions.  All delivered with such clarity, depth, candor, and compassion as to leave me hopeful that negotiation may still be a possible solution to our problems; if only an understanding of these ideas could be more broadly distributed.

Therefore I implore you to listen to, discuss, and share these episodes.  If there are aspects of these ideas that make you uncomfortable that's good, it means you've just discovered a gap in your understanding and now you know in which direction to point your highly evolved, adaptable, powerful, borderline magical, human being.  If there are aspects of these ideas that inspire you that's good too, now you can take them to people you care about bolstered by new examples and with missionary zeal.  The memetic power of truth will both connect and heal us as individuals, families, and communities.

Highlights and takeaways from Bret Weinstein

"Something about modern protest is absolutely deaf to realities that ought to be important to it... the hallmark of what I saw at Evergreen is that the movement is utterly ineducable on the topics that it's focused on."

This in no way impugns one's lived experience or the reality of oppression but it does speak to the importance of getting things right.  It absolutely matters which particular ideas populate the minds of the people striving to change the world.  Criticizing someone's behavior or questioning their motives is not an attack on their human rights and personal sovereignty. In fact, it is what any good friend or ally does when striving towards a shared goal.  It is literally the only process we have for improving our common condition.  If someone asks you why you believe what you believe and your only response is an emotion, that's not a good sign.  You either don't understand the connections linking your belief to reality or you are wrong.  With humility, both are remediable.

His description of a metaphorical truth and the attending example involving a porcupine is very useful.  Years from now, Sam Harris will recall this moment as the first crack in his material truth fundamentalism.  Maybe now he and Jordan Peterson can have a reasonable conversation and merge their philosophies into a New Liberalism.

"Good people will agree on basic values... a fair, safe, sustainable, anti-fragile world that liberates them to do things that have real meaning and value in them."  Pretty much sums it up.  I'm not as ready as Weinstein to reject evolution's legacy completely but can agree that our current situation demands more from us than we've ever been able to muster as a species.  His brother Eric's concept of stigmatized narratives is a useful first step here in clearing the way toward the possibility of shared understanding. Whose story are you living?  "Many of the beliefs that you probably hold are actually the result of some process that has got us falsely viewing each other with suspicion when we don't need to."

Highlights and takeaways from Yuval Noah Harari

"Your heart may be a government agent."

Our minds are constantly and currently being hacked by interests contrary to our well being.  We are at a point now where feeling some way is not at all a reliable indicator of truth.  There is only one defense.

Step one: understand your nature.  What does it mean to be a human animal?  Half biology and half liberal arts.  Read Dawkins (not the atheism stuff), study psychology, read great literature, go to plays, talk to your neighbors not just your friends, go to a natural history museum, study prehistory.

Step two: understand your story.  What story do you tell about yourself?  This is your identity.  Is it based on truth or motivated reasoning?  This knowledge goes by the name mindfulness.  Mindfulness can be trained through meditation.  Meditation is perhaps the most egalitarian tool in existence, it is free and available to everyone.

Step three: understand our story.  What story do we tell about humanity?  This is our culture, an unfolding story told through generations in which you are perpetually living in the last sentence.  If you don't know the beginning and the middle how could you possibly understand the end/present?  Read Daniel Quinn, read Harari's book Sapiens, listen to music of all ages, go see art, travel, study religion.

We have until the birth of artificial intelligence to master these steps.  AI will understand us better than we understand ourselves in an instant.  The larger the discrepancy in this knowledge, the more painful will be our fall from the apex of creation.  It will not feel good to have robots telling us exactly how ignorant and sinful we are while they course correct the planet we were supposed to be stewarding.  

Harari's conceptualization of stories aligns perfectly with some of Daniel Quinn's most significant ideas.  Quinn's contribution was to elucidate the toxic story of our culture, the story that brought us from the Garden of Eden to the brink of annihilation, that "the world was made for Man and Man was made to rule it."  Our acting-out of this story is what has caused our existential problems.  Our realization of the falsehood of every aspect of this story is the cause of what Jared Diamond indicates is a cultural collapse.  This is what it feels like to have the foundation of one's life removed but on a global scale.

We need a new story, a positive vision for humanity's role on Earth.  Here Quinn provided his best effort at a stand-in, that we are "to be the first without being the last."  We are to be the gardeners in a world that grows consciousness, tending it so that other forms of intelligence may arise to share in this party we started but in which we dance alone.

Yet our leaders seem completely incapable of any vision whatsoever.  The right talks about borders, security, and fear; espousing a civilizationally suicidal set of ideas.  The left cries out for diversity, equity, and inclusion but offers no compelling reason (other than good feelings) why we should abandon conservative values, which served us well for millions of years, for these buzzword ideals, while simultaneously devouring themselves from within playing identity politics.  When was the last time a politician stood up and actually described a realistic world in which we might all want to raise children?  They can't.  They are constrained by the limitations of the system in which they operate.  In that future we actually want to live in there is no such thing as the United States of America but do you think anyone will ever get elected on a platform that promises a move towards a post-nation-state world?  There will be no half-trillion dollar defense budgets but will anyone ever get elected promising to close the Pentagon and shrink the military?  There could be no need for the exploitation of human labor but will anyone stand up and challenge corporate hegemony?  They are bound to the story that created this system out of both political necessity and the mistake of identifying the story as "what's really happening".  When there is nothing outside the story to step into, that step will seem like certain death.

Writing about my understanding of the world and humanity is both therapy and offering.  I hope I'll be able to sustain a level of creative output regardless of the results.  I am thinking of using Twitter (@jtylerwalker) as a writing exercise to store and share little thoughts as they arise.  These conversations are my passion; they reflect the sum total of my life's study and experience.  I believe they are fully half of the toolkit for building a better world; the second tool being acts of service to one's community.  Two tools for two hands.  When my hands are full is when I feel most connected to the meaning and value of my life.  The tools may be heavy at times, but the more weight carried, the more strength gained.  And we're going to need all the strength.

POTW #20 - The Basic Income Podcast

I’ve highlighted UBI once before in this series via a Freakanomics episode dedicated to the topic. Since then, UBI has exploded into the podcastiverse.

The primary source is now The Basic Income Podcast. Created in the bay area by Jim Pugh and Owen Poindexter, two of the most active leaders in the UBI space, this podcast has followed every recent UBI development through conversations with academics/activists working around this concept and occasionally in episodes sharing their own thoughts. Pugh was one of the original organizers of the UBI Meetups at which I was drafted into the movement and is a co-founder/director of the Universal Income Project and a founding signatory of the Economic Security Project. Poindexter was also a regular attendee of the UBI Meetups and has followed his passion for this idea into local politics, he is currently running for CA Assembly in District 15 (South Berkeley) on a UBI platform.

Their podcast is the easiest way to stay up-to-date on the state of the UBI movement. Episodes are 15-20 minutes and include talks with Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, labor leader Andy Stern, Dorian Warren on UBI and racial justice, TED Talker Rutger Bregman, UBI self-tester Scott Santens, and representatives from all the major UBI experiments world-wide. They recently informed me that UBI has been added to the official platform of the California Democratic Party! Please subscribe.

Aside from Jim and Owen’s weekly updates, UBI seems to pop up in my playlist on a regular basis now. It is encouraging to know that the concept seems to have cemented itself as a main point in every discussion of our economic future. We even have a 2020 presidential candidate running on a UBI platform, Andrew Yang.

Best of the Left weaves UBI into its episodes on economics and culture on a regular basis. Some of those episodes:

• #1119 The inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men
• #823 It makes moral and economic sense (Minimum Wage)
• #879 Capitalism will not set you free (Economics)
• #941 Taking food out of the mouths of babes (Poverty)
• #978 The future of work (Culture)

99% Invisible explored UBI In “The Finnish Experiment”. Planet Money has been mentioning UBI a lot recently. Sam Harris has mentioned UBI at least a dozen times in the last few years and while he hasn’t come out definitively for it, his insistence on putting it to his guests makes me think he’s a supporter.

UBI remains one of the only policies with supporters on both the left and right. Check out “The Conservative Case for the Universal Basic Income” from The Atlantic. The first modern proponents of the idea were free-market fundamentalists Friedrich Hayek and his protegé Milton Friedman (mostly through a negative income tax). Martin Luther King Jr. supported UBI in the last years of his life as he shifted his focus towards economic justice. And now UBI is an official part of the platform of The Movement for Black Lives. While it initially states “a guaranteed minimum livable income for all Black people” if you read further on it clarifies their point to mean “a pro-rated additional amount included in a UBI for Black Americans”.

I don’t think UBI is the end-goal of the progress we need to make in our generation. It’s not going to heal the environment or the manifold “-ism’s” that plague our culture. I do think it is the best means proposed thus far to use our current capitalist toolkit to move beyond late capitalism. A world with UBI will produce a mind-space from which we may collectively make the quantum cultural leaps necessary to survive another century. We are simply too weighed-down by our current system to imagine a better story in which to live, too traumatized by our conditions to see beyond the veil of our personal needs. UBI will be an analgesic that, while not a treatment in itself, will allow us to see beyond our pain and invent a new, healing, sustainable toolkit for future generations.

If you know any other good clips, discussions, or other sources on the topic please share.

POTW #19 - Joe Frank via Scott Carrier, Jad, and Ira.

On the drive to LA for Throwback a few weeks ago, a friend introduced me to a new podcast, Scott Carrier's Home of the Brave.  I've always really liked Carrier's contributions to This American Life so I added his podcast to my playlist.  The next week, while climbing a tree, I was listening to an episode titled "Two More Stories About Mountains" and the second story shook me from my day and brought me to the quintessential experience of art.


"What is this?  Have I been somehow transported to another world without noticing?", I was asking myself in that tree.  My audio universe was different now and I think it always will be, because I found Joe Frank.  This particular story was about a psychedelic "ascent" of K2 which I assumed would be a true tale.  I'm not even sure when (or if) I ever decided it was fiction.  I loved it.  I've now listened to it two more times with other people.  More Joe Frank, please.

Joe Frank, photo by his partner Michal Story

Joe Frank was a radio pioneer.  He died two days before I heard that story, though that episode was released weeks ago.  I learned he died from the next episode of Home of the Brave when Carrier shared another of his stories.  This week, Radiolab released a tribute episode containing Jad's interviews with Brook Gladstone (here's the full segment from On the Media) and Ira Glass about Frank's influence on all of them.  Listen just to hear Ira Glass say "fuck" more times than he probably has in the last 15 years combined.  Podcasts would not be what they are now without Jad and Ira, I'm happy to learn they share such a trippy, subversive radio ancestor.

I can't wait to listen to the Frank stories I've already found.