Sunday May 9, 2021

This week we contemplated on our message for the last few weeks.

• We thought about the fact of everyone being isolated due to social distancing and maybe losing social skills.
• We thought about how people often have limiting beliefs in life and how it can prevent people from reaching their full potential and goals.
• We thought about TSLA and Musk and DOGE.
• We thought about how the world’s richest people can get divorced and how even though they had virtually unlimited resources of money that they couldn’t get the marriage to work.
• We thought about the FB bans and freedom of speech.
• And we thought about how people and naysayers talk about conspiracies and distrust of vaccination programs and how it had once been spurred by spy programs masking their true purpose and causing distrust in other countries. And despite the distrust that science still is science and helped prevent polio and other diseases over the decades despite some people with side effects. (We call this the Peter Pan syndrome and doing what’s mature for an adult and for family and others. Not always doing what we need to but what we have to.)
• We thought about a product review for a Linux phone.

In the end today’s post is about a video from After Skool on Dave Chappelle.

The video is one of those based on illustrated drawings that are sped up and coordinated with a message. You may have seen many of these styles with either pencils and a hand or other similar graphics. Only this was mostly drawings. They are fun to look at and appeal to the left and right brain and the kid in us. And they break down things so easily that the messages are easy to digest.

The message? Sometimes you need to walk away from the money so to speak…

There have been times in life that we find we are at a cross roads or doing something that has a really great advantage to us, but also at a great disadvantage. We came across an article once about how sometimes you have to “sweat blood” and take the bitter pill of truth so that you keep your ethics and wits about you even if it’s the hard thing to do. Perhaps you’re married and you really connect with someone and you could tell someone you like them and go on with an affair, or perhaps you tell the truth and show them your ring. And it’s not easy to sometimes reveal the truth. It’s like the expression that you’re sweating blood or in a really difficult bind and damned if you do and damned if you don’t. But a decision must ultimately prevail.

“Sometimes you do what you think is best whether anyone understands or not” is what the video says. You maintain your ethics. For some that may mean quitting your job. There were a few episodes of the Andy Griffith show that showed examples of this. Opie raced against another boy to win a job. But the other kid had a poorer family and so Opie said he had to play baseball to the manager and lost the bid for the job. Or Malcolm Merriweather pretended to be drunk so that Aunt Bea could be happy cleaning around the house again rather than everything done for her. Even though it was tedious to maintain the house, for Aunt Bea it was a labor of love. And Malcolm Merriweather “sobered up quickly” as he left apologetically.

We all face a “Crisis of conscience” at some point in our lives. In fact many times over for many including the CEO’s or leaders or head honchos. That doesn’t mean the little guy running the show doesn’t have decisions that are just as critical and life-depending. Perhaps the decision is whether to watch TV or spend time driving your kid to the baseball game. We all have time and decisions we have to make.

As the video goes on to say: “What you do in your lifetime informs the generation that come after.” We all want to be heroes and even though the saying is that you’re either a bad guy or live long enough to become one, we all root for the hero and under dog.
Innately we all know that in the universe there are things “Much bigger than ourselves”. And that “Everyone is connected”. Maybe the guy or girl that stood you up or didn’t go out on any more dates realizes that can’t be that father to your kids or the great girlfriend that some other person can be. Not everything is great or lined up or perfect. But sometimes it’s for the best.

People are really interconnected in many more ways than one and what happens locally ripples through the community. What happens with the protests of racial injustice, the decisions of previous or current administrations, voting, politics… the effects reverberate like a butterfly effect.

The actions we take can be a way to build a community or break it down.

The video talked about how ethics have become less black and white and often a choice between better or worse. The reasoning according to the video was that ethics and moral help you have an inner compass to find your way. And that a “person that only does what’s better or worse is the easiest type to control. They are a mouse in a maze that just finds the cheese…”
While this is catchy and sounds really good. The speech was for a graduating class, what is right or wrong is not always clear. Life isn’t always a DC or Marvel comics with good fighting evil. Sometimes there are difficult questions that can’t be answered because what’s good for one harms another group. However the gist of the saying about what’s better or worse if in the context of life and settling makes sense. If we just look for some job that’s better than the last and stimulate ourselves to avoid the pain of boredom or discomfort we might not get off our butts to reach for something better. If we just find a boyfriend or girlfriend that’s better than the last then we might settle and not reach our true potential mate or job etc. As the quote says. A mouse stuck in a maze… is basically a rat trapped in a cage doing a 9 to 5 and a zombie, a donkey yoked to a wheel teased by a carrot stick.

Ethics are important and to have a goal and a dream. Just because someone else’s dream is 50 million. Or to marry rich or to be a doctor etc, doesn’t mean you have to follow that person’s view of what a dream is. Not everyone needs the white picket fence or the idea of marriage and kids. And that’s what a lot of people and millennials are aware of and waking up.

We read about an article about how some groups they don’t really have electric appliances and modern technology and live in their old ways and attend religious groups and have a tight community but are secretive about abuse that happens. And everything is kept mum and hush. Society changes and it’s good that these equality movements are bringing to light practices and ethics and helping us question what we used to think and continually examining our ethics. As one other article said, people didn’t realize as same-gender biases and anti-rhetoric came out that there were actually many in the community and in their high schools and friends they had and they realized that being friends with people they grew up with was more important than hate.

In order for our society to get better we have to grow our community and diversify. Too often people don’t realize that people of different backgrounds, ideas, creeds, are okay. They are just trying to get buy and survive.

Lastly the video ends with the message that it’s “okay to be afraid.” And that one “can’t be brave or courageous without fear.” To a graduating class with their life before them and millennials it is confusing. 2021 is almost halfway through and the landscape has changed with social distancing and a pandemic that has ravaged many countries. Jobs and school and remote video work has changed how we do things. Students and businesses are afraid and scared how they will work and compete and survive. But that raises great questions and challenges. And it gives us needs. And necessity is the mother of invention so they say.

Lastly the video ends with a “be true to yourself even when people watching”. Or put another way, be ethical and do the right thing even when you think no one is watching because maybe some day some one will, and beside cameras are everywhere. You see all the people getting camera recorded and end up on the news and other things. Perhaps these people were in the wrong or just being their true authentic selves. It’s amazing how a camera these days can change a person or persons’ lives these days. Just ask all the people that were caught on camera either doing heinous or heroic acts. One day your acts will be held up for scrutiny and judgment.

People will always judge you no matter what. Whether stones are cast or not, people will always have opinions of what you do. But in the end you also have to be able to live with and fathom your actions.

As Musk said the other day when hosting a comedy show, he’s often been misinterpreted on his actions and sayings and deeds. But that’s what happens when you are a leader and captain of a ship. Someone has to make designated decisions good or bad and live with the fall out.

So in summary, make your decisions, don’t be afraid of making mistakes as they are inevitable to living and growing. Do something that you can be proud of and not regret.

… to the moon.