Welcome to column 21.22, and thanks again for reading, subscribing, and sharing. For nearly 3 months I have been sharing thoughts based on my foundational learning. Those of you who read my emailed version may not know that I often correct (yeah my mistakes) and update them on my substack link (richardferdman.substack.com). Subscribe if you can to navigate between posts (that you might not have read) and to laugh at my mistakes.
My early essays commented on the impact of fear, group dynamics, following our motivations to experience life, embracing the paths we take and the acceptance of others, embracing our realizations, and seeking to hold the world accountable for being transparent about politics, health and technology. I then moved into discussions on how that applies to our commercial enterprises, our health and life, how we move forward, how we can be controlled, how our leaders can make a difference, and how we can unify in our focus as humans through thinking, clarifying our messages and their meaning.
For me there has been joy as each essay and its “snapshot of ideas, beliefs, questions, and hopes” has been a joyous journey for me. Many of our challenges in life come from clutter, diversion, missing and avoiding the things in front of us, and ultimately making suboptimal decisions - some of which we regret.
As always this column is part of my quest for a unified world and country that can become a better (make that .. Great) place for all.
It can be difficult for any of us to stay focused. Staying focused with integrity and honesty is extraordinarily rare. To be focused, have ultimate integrity and honesty and consider everything and everyone and never have regrets for decisions not made, is herculean and the rarest of all. Below I will talk about Political and personal examples.
From the political and personal attempts to create clutter, I suggest we focus as we :
Eat well so that we can enjoy every day as much as we can (e.g. fight disease and inflammation)
Mentor others to share deep learning and understanding
Ask for advice from trusted sources/ advisors
Exercise and meditate to maintain our health and mind
Study and Work making sure it brings joy
Focus on our significant others and children
Focus on cultivating friendships
Focus on messages, goals and plans - because it helps us accomplish and be grateful for accomplishments
Pay attention to the world around us and seek to understand the patterns of our behaviors and those in power
Vice President Mondale’s words uttered shortly after their 1980 defeat, summing up Carter and Mondale’s four years in office: “We told the truth. We obeyed the law. We kept the peace.” In reflecting on those years we can see that focus, integrity and honesty can still lead to bad outcomes (for Carter/ Mondale) and a lack of honesty can lead to good ones (for Reagan). A few snippets of those years:
Carter’s “Camp David” accords between Israel and Egypt,
Carter’s the 4 years of No wars (a rarity for sure),
Carter’s continuation of mis-reading of the Shah’s brutality in Iran and our years of acceptance of his child-like support of the west - leading to his overthrow,
Carter was talked into bringing in Volcker who ruined our economy for many more years with ultra-high inflation rates which squelched hiring and purchasing and only helped the wealthy. The Federal Reserve now knows to balance unemployment and the economy.
Reagan’s side deal with the Contras and the arms for hostages deal (Iran giving the hostages back in exchange for arms going to Iran for a price and the sales of those arms funded the despicable contras as they were killing Sandanistas who wanted to improve Nicaragua.
In 2001, George W Bush leveraged his focus on Iraq and post-9/11 fear to falsely promote and / or believe non-existent WMD and investigate the true relationships of Al Qaeda. He countered his poor job ratings stemming from the economy and low acceptance by further diverting attention by moving against Iran and Afghanistan. Having known some Afganis, the most anti-American sentiments were in Pakistan (which had a nuclear bomb and had shared its technology with the North Koreans) and Saudi Arabia where more harboring of violent extremists were under way.
When we kid ourselves, focus on on the wrong things, divert attention, we create undue hardship. For years we have avoided a depth of focus in this country associated with:
Fairness in our laws/execution of the laws and judicial system,
Climate change (Coal, outsourcing manufacturing to China that uses heinous Coal),
Fighting wars that have no positive outcome and replace an anti-corporate-American regime with a pro-American one that often is just as bad or worse while ensuring the populace increasingly becomes anti-American.
Facilitating poverty in this country and globally,
Leveraging under-tested chemicals in our food/water supply chain that impact our health, and many other under-reported and overly-impactful maladies.
This is my “What the fuck went wrong with mankind” list taking the words from “The Overstory”.
But we personally create clutter and confusion while avoiding important things:
Focus on work rather than relationships,
Focus on hobbies or sports or buying things rather than work or family,
We eat (maybe not well) rather than exercise or study,
We avoid things by triangulating (with other family, friends, church, work, hobbies) rather than focus on the one person or thing that is clearly an issue or at risk of failure.
I am not immune:
I have worked my 100 hour weeks at the expense of my health and then-relationship so that I could feel more successful and confident about my future,
I have exercised rather than focus on my work and financial situation so that I could be more confident,
I have focused on relationships rather than my career in the hope of becoming happier, and
I have let significant others “triangulate” me to avoid developing intimacy,
I have studied and focused to feel better about myself while neglecting things for which I lacked confidence,
I have enabled the ending of relationships and work situations due to frustrations (generally for being mis-understood).
As I wrote above and want to reiterate, let us pay attention to the world around us and seek to understand the patterns of our behaviors and those in power. Correction is always a good thing.
Thanks for reading and until next time!
Joyously,
Richard at richardferdman@substack.com
Books, Articles and Podcasts inspiring this or referenced within include: Hadza,T he Mineral Fix, Defining Intelligence, Philosophers, Grass-fed, Grass-fed beef benefits, lab meat problems, science of fake meat, Paul Saladino, Omega-3, Émile_Baulieu, The Overstory, Trials, mammals, 4% : lack of wild-life, bio-mass, human made materials, 83% of life destroyed by man, Grass-fed beef , wild salmon, supervolcanoes, Video on Toba , review of toba, Toba eruption, Iran Contra affair
If you go to https://richardferdman.substack.com/ you will see the latest version of the columns (including any new post-publishing edits/ corrections). You can choose to become a friend of mine on Goodreads at this link.
All content above is © Richard Ferdman 2021, Photo below is from April.
Please tell your friends!