18 Years. Might as well be Me.

For me, the origin of this blog is a kind of central - well, some would say conceit - but sense of purpose that I trace back to late adolescence. At my 40th Reunion at Carleton College a week ago, I wandered the grounds, dared to speak deeply with old friends and mere former acquaintances.  Food service (SAGA), student governance, the college recycling program, Peace Corps interviews, dancing and romance... all in the orbit of my ego.

The origin of that Ego was a very religious or spiritual seeking period, contemplating becoming a Buddhist Monk, during high school.  My pal Jenny at our Carleton College 40th reunion last weekend noted that I had arrived at Carleton my Freshman year engaged to be married (to a different Jennifer), and how did that line up with the monastery mode I contemplated?  I said my guess was that a guy considering becoming a monk was attractive.  Jenny said she could definitely see that point.  And it was textbook Spiritual Materialism (Trungpa ref).  The adolescent was more likely to get laid by acting righteous.

This cuts two ways today.  On the one hand, even if I'm not particularly religious now, and more certain of uncertainty than of faith, I do advise young people that a 3-4 year period of spiritual exploration - even if Materialistic - will compound over your life. Like a launch pad. That period of striving to meditate and pray did, I believe, give me confidence the rest of my life to act as an Agent of Conscience - which was my stated goal at high school graduation. The root of the word "sin" is missing the mark, failing to hit the target you are aiming for. We all miss a mark, but the harder we try to hit it the less the arrow goes astray.

Another Carleton alum friend at dinner was speaking to me about my time as Carleton Student Association (CSA) President, when I was vehemently making noise about a 16% tuition increase.  I told him that the Administration told me there were two traditions to uphold... that Carleton was rare in giving the student association a vote on the budget.  And that in the history of the college, the Trustees had always been given a unanimous vote by Administration, Professors, and the Student Body Association.  I told my dinner companion that I said it was damn time to break that tradition if they were using students as a straw for federal Pell money (formerly grants, then converted to loans). I don't know if that vote against the tuition increase was the reason Carleton waitlisted my kids, but as I said to Admissions Officer Thibadeau, it was certainly their loss.  The point however being that my pal at dinner said that at the time, he thought I was making noise and posturing.  But he said in retrospect, I was absolutely right, and the colleges needed to be aware of the growing college debt they were introducing to a generation or two of students.

Swordfish ë, Part 1: How Modest Mentors Fish for Agents of Conscience, Surrounded by Tilapia

 

Sunrise in Vermont

We had the pleasure of connecting with Agabas Ayudor a few months ago, all thanks to a wonderful activist from the UK who reached out to me. It's funny how these connections form—perhaps Adam Minter wrote about me, or maybe it was the influence of this blog. This blog, while long-winded and dense, serves as a public record that orbits a solar system not centered around privileged individuals obsessed with egos and real estate values. Instead, it focuses on the best and brightest minds emerging from the Tech Sector in rapidly developing "LDC" Emerging Markets.

Within this vast landscape, there exists a rare breed—the 1 in 1,000 who discerns the manipulation of collective guilt management by entities like the Anti Gray Market Alliance/Planned Obsolescence, Big Shred, and the Charitable Industrial Complex. I'd even throw in a few foreign governments seeking to corral non-OECD markets using Basel Convention rules (we might need a catchy nickname for that). These discerning individuals, the "Swordfish," possess the brilliance or transboundary knowledge to comprehend the intricate topics discussed in this blog.

What sets the Swordfish apart is their potential to shape the future positively. Writing for an audience that values conscience over sheer numbers allows for a more profound impact on the environmental solar system. Sometimes, it's tempting to focus on gaining thousands of followers, but the real influence lies in resonating with agents of conscience.

How To Steer Environmental Movements: 15 Year Quarterbacking

I was rather concerned 15 years ago that the Al Gore - led carbon global warming movie was gathering so much steam that it was cannibalizing the "Rainforest" focus of the previous decade. I was concerned that, tactically, it was recruiting people away from Rain Forest action more than it was attracting non-environmentalists (though I conceded it was doing both). My suggestion then was that Gore, McKibben, and cohorts make habitat preservation as a "carbon sink" more front and center than energy generation.

About 10 years ago, a reporter friend, Ingrid Lobet, who had worked on NPR's Retroworks de Mexico coverage let me know she was going on assignment to Indonesia, where the burning of the rainforest was exposing so much peat and carbon sequestered (deep organics under trees) that it was turning the geography (former rain forest) from a "sink" into a top emitter of carbon.



Here's news about an agency making dead rain forest carbon a top issue. https://eia-international.org/our-work/ecosystems-biodiversity/forest

"Dad only knows how to talk about things that interest him."

My dad only knows how to talk about things that interest him.

If you tried to talk about something unique to you, he'll listen, but he is casting hooks, looking for things that would bring the conversation back to his list of topics.

It sounds horrible?  But wait.  Among the things that interest my dad were Greek logic, Roman history, mid-20th century psychology research, Russian literature, Dickens, John Jacob Niles, and 20th century India.  To name a few.

He has no email address, no Facebook presence.  For someone who taught "mass communications" (MassComm), he's uniquely unplugged.  But as his kid, growing up in the '60s and '70s, I would say I was exposed to more things than the kids across the street.

I confess I'm a lot like my dad in regard to listening.   The things that interest me are less historical, more future oriented.  Sustainability.

Some of us who are agents of conscience find ourselves less interested in other peoples mundane problems, or in discussions about the weather.   I don't share my mundane problems either.  Nor does my dad, so much, except to fit in with other people talking about their mundane personal problems.  He'd rather be speaking about his personal heroes, the people who shaped him, than about his ills and setbacks.  We'd be better communicators if we split our time equally with everyone else in society, worrying at least half the time about things that worry other people in the conversation.

Worry comes from cognitive risk, and if you are talking to other people who want to spend half the time talking about "shark attacks", rare and unlikely fears, turned into obsessions, you are supposed to compromise.  The likelihood that a sea container exported by a Nigerian from the UK is going to be burned by kids at dumps is pretty low.   But if that fear, that message of export impropriety, has been marketed everywhere to everyone, a polite conversationalist will want to give it equal time... But there I go again.

Dad was really good at watching cartoons with me.