Where’s the balance between thinking independently and simply being stubborn? Reality today feels so different from twenty years ago. I find many of the changes are making things worse—frankly, almost all of them. I keep asking myself: is this just my own inability to adapt, or are these truly harmful changes? Even the way young people speak sounds strange to me. And why don’t they breathe through their noses?
I don’t know if it ever existed and is now gone. It’s possible that the very reasons I attribute to its disappearance are actually just the messenger exposing the fact that it never existed at all.
We humans change with age. Some become more certain of things, while others grow more aware of life’s complexities. Maybe all the following analysis is just me getting older. Maybe there’s more to it.
Paradoxically, the Information Age has made us blind to information. We have too much of it, and we are presented with information curated by algorithms—black boxes developed to maximize engagement and, perhaps, to create global chaos, although this last point is hard to prove.
Reality communicates with history, and human weaknesses do not change. The logical conclusion is to study the past. But if we know reality is portrayed by people and machines with agendas, who can guarantee our understanding of the past is accurate?
From a historical perspective, the most relevant human weaknesses are fear, greed, and ego. These are constant. The new addition that technology amplifies is the human tendency for addiction. In the past, one could abuse an addiction with alcohol, cards, food, etc. The impact of these was confined to one’s immediate environment. These days, with mobile devices, the internet, and social networks, human addiction is impacting a much wider environment. The toxic effects are spreading across nations and beyond.
Economically, inequality is deepening, or at least it is much more visible and discussed. It’s the starting point of any populist movement. Today, a non-populist leader can only compete by adopting a populist toolkit. All of this drives more negativity, misinformation, and divisiveness.
World powers are engaged in a new cold war, trade war, and social media campaigns to weaken other countries, encourage immigration, and promote drug consumption, all while taking advantage of modern democracies’ weaknesses.
Blockchain and AI are amazing innovations, but they are also being adopted by countries and money-laundering organizations.
Going back to history, go and find a century in which Western countries did not engage in wars. There are none, at least not in the last few hundred years. Why should that change, especially in light of the above?
Go listen to Dominic Sandbrook and get a wakeup call.
Individuals and countries tend to react slowly to the fast changes that technology brings us. Many aren’t even grasping it.
Do you agree? If so, what can be done? More next week.
Stressed. Feeling tired. It’s difficult to sit straights. You want to cry, to release it a bit, but you hardly cry. Tired from fighting or from seeing people fight.
You have everything but there is something missing. A hope. There is a little hope but it’s covered by fear. A fear that your kids will not grow up in a better world. A world that everybody is unite. Where information or misinformation is not weaponized, where technology is not used by bad actors, where power is not a weapon. Where we all go together towards a better place.
A kind place. A good place. A place where you belong. And it belongs to you.
Take the time you need. Deal with it in your way. And know – you have only one choice, to find a way to live your truth, and find the best future you can for your kids.
So maybe today is off, and the week is also but you will make it happen. Know this, you will make it happen.
Our mind is evolving with our experiences and age. We learn how to deal and cope. Some challenges we face still cause stress and fear, but the way we pass through them, and the way we deal with the outcome, no matter what it is, that’s the gift of getting older.
It means, maybe, that the more we actively experience and learn when we are young, then it pays off later when older.
On some areas, our weaknesses or fears, or what we consider as such, only grow with age. That’s exactly the opposite of the first paragraph. Why is that so? were those fears too deep, did we avoid dealing with them when younger?
Some adults keep adding more challenges and stress as they grow, sometimes life does it for them without a choice. I think a good goal would be to channel our life to moderate to no addition of challenges, at least as a wish.
And our body? that’s the part that keeps our feet grounded, You can grow, cope, achieve. At the same time our body demands more, able to less, our skin gets old, our health requires more maintenance. Maybe that’s the world way to show you can’t have it all, and where one area grows the other one goes back. We must accept it, because there’s no other way.
The best way, I think, is not to fight, not try to become younger because we can’t. Some people try, but it useless. Embrace it. Eat better, sleep, workout. Rest. And embrace the amazing mind growth we earn from our life experiences. It’s the mind and energy growing. The matter, is just matter.
We should connect our dots and signs from the past. Dots have a pattern that we can easily miss. Dots are events and thoughts we experienced or had.
Dots we feared at. Times that we ran to stuff that helped us deal but only made it harder the next day. Times where we raised our voices or confronted because we were scared or disappointed.
It’s easier to remember negative dots, it is harder to connect these dots to a pattern.
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