You should always default to not categorizing a human being.

Never assign a label.

Once you have established that "object"' you can begin to assign attributes such as 'man', 'tall', 'Hatian' or 'intelligent'.

But, first, start with 'human'.

Ultimately, democracy expects the individual to both understand the consequences of their vote as well as desire the outcome. If the individual cannot comprehend the outcome, what is the point of exercising the vote?

An unavoidable responsibility of the electorate is to accept the consequences of their voting decisions.
Nobody who chooses to vote can claim that they were not informed of the consequences. That is always a prerequisite. That responsibility is embedded in the vote itself.

Oops.
I just found out that I literally brought down a critical system at a large healthcare provider yesterday.

Yes, apparently that is possible.

Insight: Concern yourself with the well being of your community. But, as the scope of your community increases, your ability to have an effect on it diminishes.

Therefore, define your community carefully. Your control of your anxiety depends upon it.

Enjoy San Francisco this afternoon

Prediction:
Gavin Newsom is the new leader of the Dems and Kamala returns to CA to run for governor in 2026.

So cool! The guy I supported just got elected Mayor of San Francisco!
We hosted a party for him early on in his campaign and he sold all our neighbors on his vision.

It's good to have some cred with the mayor!

The American male is having a serious identity crisis at the moment.

We really need to understand this better.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with women suddenly becoming their equals in just about everything except most professional sports.
Lots of competition - and they are threatened. For millennia men didn't have to concern themselves with that threat. The last 2 generations have had to.

And, at the core of that, is the use of Man/Women where "Human" should be used.

Do not take emotional ownership of things you cannot control.

If your default is to let "it" get inside yourself, be conscious of your propensity and systematically decouple yourself from "it".

You have the ability to do so.

It is not You.

You are always in control.

And in other news, the Monkeys are loose!
https://apnews.com/article/monkeys-escape-alpha-genesis-south-carolina-66a78279a7abe57c5f8fd0953359368a

I now believe that we have:
- Good People (ideological, moral and rare)
- Bad People (ideological, conscious of the negative impacts of their intent, and rare)
- Philosophers (System-thinkers, intellectually fearless, and rare)
- Average People (Internally-focused, intuitive thinkers, influenced only by examples, anecdotes and stories and the vast majority.)

Insight:
Climate Change is an abstraction.
Rain and drought are tangible.

Trumpsters do not have a place in their brains to manage abstractions.

The impacts of climate change must be told in story format. That form of information and argument is well supported by all humans. Stories of too much rain and drought and waves crashing into communities is the only method that will change opinions.

Use this difficult time to improve a part of you that rarely gets challenged: Your Identity.

Consider that horrible feeling in your gut. That's the part of your identity that is bruised.
That's the part of your identity that you allowed to be out of your control.
That's the part of your identity that is outside of yourself.

Comprehend that exposure you are allowing into your core identity.

Work to separate yourself from it.

Use this time in your life as a gift to grow stronger.

Advice I give my friends:

I recommend decoupling your sense of identity with anything outside of yourself.
Just be a person.
Don't be an anxious Trump-lead American-person.
Decouple from it.

America is not unusual in that it is trending more to the right.
Many other countries are as well.

My theory: Because we rely upon the average person to make a decision on who will lead them, we rely upon their ability to discern what is best for them.
We assume that they understand what governing and governance actually is.

We assume they understand the context that causes all of their angst: economics, world affairs, public health, justice.

They don't.

And they can only react.

Periodically we walk by a mirror and actually see ourselves.

America did that tonight.

Unsure of the source, but this could be the data we'll have to accept.

If you currently have a sick feeling in your gut, look inside and ask "is my identity too closely tied to my country?"

Is that an exposure you are comfortable maintaining?

You are always in control.

Morality, criminality, rights and governance are all abstractions.
There isn't much tangible in these concepts.
If you have not been trained to build models in your mind using these abstractions you cannot use them to make decisions.
You default to your gut.
To intuition.
To the tangible examples.
To the anecdotes.

America is just a bunch of humans.
Not bad.
Not good.
Just trying to make sense of it all.
And it is getting harder and harder every 4 years.