The First One
“Imagine what our country would be like if the American Ideal was life, liberty, and the pursuit of goodness. Imagine a nation filled with people pursuing goodness rather than their own happiness.”
- Steve Leder, For You When I Am Gone
For tens of thousands of years, we’ve worked so hard, spent countless money, and dedicated our societal intentions to reaching levels of mastery that were once just dreams. Scientifically, and mathematically, we’ve accomplished things that were impossible as little as 100 years ago, just as they did for the people who lived 100 years before them. Try explaining Spotify to Louis Armstrong, or Shohei Ohtani to Babe Ruth… Bring them an iPhone and you’d get labeled either a god or a witch, likely sparking two very different, possibly violent reactions from the public.
What I’m saying is, we’ve done it. We’ve reached a point where we don’t need to break our backs hunting and foraging to survive; making it through winter by way of hopes, fire, and a few prayers. We (the fortunate ones) now have easy access to things like food, shelter, water, AIR CONDITIONING… We’ve done it, we’ve mastered survival.
So, why do we still have trouble living? Where is all this conflict coming from? Why does settling Mars seem more attainable than peace? Could it be, maybe, that we’ve committed so exclusively to our pursuit of survival, that we’ve abandoned that of goodness?
Of course, there aren’t answers to those questions. Better yet, there are so many answers, that finding just one is useless. That’s why I’m doing this. I’m trying to create a place where curiosities are furthered, rather than answered, and where discomfort and uncertainty are embraced, rather than vilified. Life and the human experience are unpredictable and chaotic, and I think our desire for reason— however natural it may be— creates a sort of conflict; a dissonance between what we want and what is. We want comfort in definitive answers, and when there aren’t any, we either exhaust ourselves trying to look for them, or we pick one and label others as opponents; two wholly counterproductive strategies. We don’t have to do that.
This blog should be mutually beneficial, in that you, the many many readers, and I, the brown guy with a lot of time, will get into some introspective extrospection: letting self-awareness lead the way for empathy and coexistence. Hopefully, we come across a little insight into what the hell is going on with us. From education to happiness (what is it?), to the hidden substructures of our brains and how they shape our human experience… the goal is to take confusing little big ideas and find the goodness within them. It can be a place to go if you want to move away from the dichotomized opinions on EVERYTHING, and simply focus on being
good.
