What must be said…loudly…to politicians

Do your job. Make the government work effectively and with luck efficiently.  Do your job. Repair what needs to be fixed, as in roads and bridges; pass a functioning budget; and follow the expert guidance of the commissions that you funded (such as reducing the size of staff).  Do your job. All other issues are peripheral – nice to help your popularity but not relevant if the government continues to malfunction.

Most experts in risk tell us that the number one long term risk in the US is continued dysfunctional government at all levels.  We all have to tell them to focus on the basics, or get out.

And it is time to get everyone to vote.

Acknowledging deep personal failure

I finally have to confront my own long term philosophical absolute failure, and share it.

1) Over time I am aware that I am extremely antiwar.  It makes no sense to kill so many people and destroy so much in commitment of life and treasure that most often has no result.  Yet we are fighting non-stop wars, and forward contracting for ten years for more war, while politicians cry for even more.

2) I work on economic development and progress in general, whether infrastructure or human capital.  Yet all around us the economic drivers of growth are in decline and neglected; and in place we have destruction and decay; while those responsible fritter away time on things none of their business.

3) Fifty years ago we worked hard, protested, and even marched against tribalism.  We devoted months and years of our lives to stop absolute adherence to tribal groups and practices like apartheid. Yet now everyone seems to cluster to tribal instincts – cultural, racial, or belief systems – and apartheid is back.

4) At the end of the day I am a bit of a humanitarian, recognizing that how people treat people matters. Yet everywhere we look we humans are practicing man’s inhumanity to fellow man. Somehow the simple delineation of what is right and what is wrong has gotten lost in cognitive capture.

I can’t watch the television news and commentary.  I cannot read short form articles.  I am a failure.

Remembrances of things past

We are a long distance from Swann’s Way in years, in attitudes, and in wear and tear. Events trigger echoes from our personal histories – it is wonderfully self-indulgent.  I find that the recollections are stream of consciousness, just like Proust, and filled with time traps where it is easy to get lost.  I do.

Although time has calcified dominant views, and as someone who really prefers plants and animals to humans the switch to autumnal colors and smells is better fodder for daydreaming. Later sunrises reveal and confirm Spinoza’s pantheism so we can carry on and grow older with no grace whatsoever.  I would surely prefer starting and finishing each day floating in fall tranquility, but everything intrudes.

The animals do not drive vehicles.  The trees and plants do not operate bulldozers, whose backup signals reverberate all day long for extraordinary distances even in the countryside.  The garden is not self-absorbed and tribal, but humans are. Perhaps we are all destined to be reclusive.