Editor’s Note: Welcome to new subscribers. This week saw continued efforts by an American administration to force Ukraine to accept Russia’s crimes, more ineptness from the leadership at the Department of Defense, and continued removal of health and science from health and science agencies. Use these events to explain to your kids the difference between leadership and the facade of leadership, and the role of civil disobedience.
On to the piece.
By NVIDIA Taiwan - https://www.flickr.com/photos/nvidia-taiwan/27097146880, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59106866
When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spoke at Stanford last year, he gave the entrepreneurial students in attendance some unorthodox advice:
I hope suffering happens to you.
It’s not the typical message you’d expect from someone who has reached the pinnacle of their career—and is still climbing. Yet, it makes sense in the context of Huang’s central message: the integral role that suffering can play in achieving success. Huang recounted his time as a dishwasher and the menial jobs he took on before developing a company more economically powerful than most countries. The pain he described was emotional more than physical, but it laid the groundwork for his drive and his appreciation for what he’s achieved. He doesn’t take his success for granted. It wasn’t given to him.
There’s a profound duality in his message, and that’s the truth about life in America. We are both the welcoming light of Lady Liberty and the stern force of Uncle Sam. We want people to succeed, but we also want them to earn it.
Whether or not you consciously understand the concept of yin and yang, it’s in all of us. It’s part of who we are and how we act. The original concept is from Chinese philosophy, with yin and yang representing opposite but interconnected forces. We’ve thought of this in the West as the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other.
We exist as a duality—two opposing yet complementary forces in harmony. The symbol is a circle divided into two halves: yin, the dark side, associated with the feminine, passive, and shadow aspects; yang, the light side, linked to the masculine, active, and sun qualities. The small dot in each half signifies the seed of the other, representing their interconnectedness.
Day and night, hot and cold, life and death—we are constantly working to harmonize the duality of life. Some of us find peace with it. Others exist in chaos. If we’re out of balance, if we don’t spend enough time knowing ourselves, we project this internal struggle onto the world.
It materializes in countless ways.
We shop for things we don’t need. We help others because it’s easier than helping ourselves. We bring others down because we can’t lift ourselves up. We go along with the herd because it beats exploring our own mind.
Life is hard and full of fear—of both success and failure. The power of conformity in our culture is so strong, so comfortable, that most of us sleepwalk through our lives, willing to bend and enable when we should be questioning and breaking. How else to explain the level of discourse and distrust we have with each other? It has led to unnecessary wars, valuing waste over plenty, prisons over people, appearance over substance, building communities to keep others out (unless they meet certain economic thresholds), valuing men over women, and putting more emphasis on the unseen than real things that need our attention.
Acknowledging our inherent duality is the first step toward greater harmony. It forces us to see both our weaknesses and our opportunities for growth. Instead of working on perfection, we would probably do ourselves better by seeking balance. Not good, not bad, but somewhere in the middle. Let me offer a few examples:
Sometimes an f-bomb is the only word that captures the intensity of a moment—though it pains me as a father to hear my kids curse.
I always check to avoid door-dinging another car, but I won’t always return the cart if the corral is too far away.
I’ve said things I regret saying, but I’ve also been quiet when I should have spoken.
I’ve tipped garbage men, recyclers, and hotel housekeepers, but I wouldn’t want their jobs.
Once, a local homeless man who’s been arrested many times flipped me off. I returned the gesture. I regret it, mostly because my adult son saw it.
We’re too quick to lock people up, but too slow to execute those who are truly dangerous.
I once helped a security guard at work change a flat tire, yet I’ve also driven past stranded motorists without stopping.
Both my grandfather and father were ministers. Their influence is undeniable, but so is the corruption of spirituality by present-day charlatans. I would rather people find salvation without rules.
I once paid for a neighbor’s groceries when he forgot his wallet, but I pass by homeless people with signs every day.
I’ve stayed with the same internet company for decades, yet I once paid a stranger in England to share his streaming service. We both enjoyed “sticking it to the man” for several years.
Being more accepting of our duality would help us drop our masks more and be more supportive of others. People are complex and need room to grow—and that growth may require a dose of suffering, though we should never revel in causing it and always work to reduce it.
Remember the symbols of the Statue of Liberty and Uncle Sam, each embodying the opposing forces at the nation’s core. Lady Liberty, with her torch raised high, welcomes the “huddled masses” and symbolizes hope, freedom, and opportunity. Uncle Sam, the assertive American, calling citizens to duty and sacrifice.
Their presence in the American psyche is a reflection of our inner selves, and a reminder that the nation’s greatness lies not in choosing one side over the other, but in the perpetual balancing act between them—the yin and yang of our souls.
Once you recognize the duality of your own actions, you will see how unbalanced and dangerous one-sided thinking can be. Any movement that claims to make America great by purposely causing suffering is a charade. Normalizing what we’ve witnessed will corrode the soul. It is a refusal to recognize our inner shadow and an attempt to offload it onto others.
The real American dream isn’t about conquering this shadow, but learning to live with it—in harmony — as we’ve done for better or worse for three centuries — before it swallows us whole.
NO BS HITS
On The Future is a live digital event from The Atlantic, coming up this week with great programs for your brain and your fight. And you can get a free pass to watch it.
1971 on Apple TV+ is a fantastic series that will walk you through so much of how that year made America. Powerful stuff.
This study on bees, the location, and the type of pollen they collect is fascinating. Pair it with the trafficking of big ants from Africa, and it’s a reminder how important these small forms of life are to us larger beings.
Jacques de Gheyn II, "Vanitas" still life (1603), Metropolitan Museum of Art
There is so much wisdom in this piece from Jason Zweig of the Wall Street Journal, I wanted to include it here. I’ve written about our duality. Look at the painting above and consider what you see.
Take your time, then read his thoughts below.
What Do You See in a Bubble? by Jason Zweig |
“On Sunday, a cryptocurrency called “elizabath whoren” or WHOREN, which appears to be little more than a crude reference to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, went up more than 130% in about three hours. Dozens of digital currencies have been surging similarly. How should we think about this sort of mania? I wondered if I could find the answer in a museum. I recently sought out one of my favorite paintings. Like all great art, the longer you look at it, the more you see. |
A skull sits in a stone niche, grinning out at us. Above it floats an enormous bubble -- not sparkling, but with a dull iridescence as if it were blown from dirty dishwater. Gold and silver coins and medals line the lower shelf, every letter and detail glittering against the murky stone. A flame has just been blown out; a wisp of smoke rises from the vase on the right. By 1603, when Jacques de Gheyn II painted this work, Dutch maritime trade had been booming for decades, with shipping companies raising capital by selling fractional shares. The Dutch East India Co. was founded in 1602. The result was an explosion of what moralists regarded as wealth without working. Calvinist preachers thundered against the newfound opulence. To appease their conscience and advertise their piety, Dutch investors sought visual reminders that wealth is fleeting and the world isn’t always fair or sane. Such images, called “vanitas” or vanity paintings, were costly even then. You had to spend plenty of money to show that money hadn't spoiled you. Look again: On either side of the top of the niche is the sculpture of a man. Both point down at the bubble. The twisting figure on the left is the philosopher Democritus, who was said to find the world so absurd that he never stopped laughing. On the right, one hand held to his head in sorrow, is Heraclitus, who supposedly found life so tragic that he couldn’t stop crying. Most artists had portrayed the two thinkers gesturing at a globe that represented the world. In his painting, though, de Gheyn makes a bold leap of imagination: He replaces the globe with a bubble. He wants us to see that the bubble is a world -- our world. Not long before, the French writer Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), in his essay “Of Democritus and Heraclitus,” pondered whether it's better to laugh or weep over the world’s absurdity. “I prefer the first,” he said; “the things we laugh at we consider worthless.” Montaigne ended his essay by reminding us to look in the mirror before we mock others: “Our own peculiar condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as to be able to laugh.” On my visit, as I was about to leave, I got as close to the painting as I could for one last look. I realized with a sudden chill that the skull was the exact size of a human head: my head. To me, de Gheyn’s painting says we shouldn't laugh at how foolish other people are. We should laugh at ourselves for thinking we could never be as foolish as they are.” |
This is a marvellous piece of writing. We are experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance in our society, and the author here does a wonderful job giving some interesting history via the study of a cult and the enduring power of belief. Read it and consider what we are seeing today. It is a psychological phenomenon where people double down on the falsehoods because they are so heavily invested in them. Many followers of Trump persist in their support, rationalizing contradictions to protect their social identities and group loyalties. The author’s piece here warns that when truth becomes secondary to belonging to a group, that’s dangerous.
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I get inspired when I read pieces like this. It is the exact innovation that America needs to continue. This is a story that starts with Steve Jobs and what he wanted for the iPhone (another great piece on that design here). One thing should be clear from reading this. We have the solutions. We simply have to have the will. Such products would aid national energy independence, but government support is necessary to make them competitive and to overcome wasteful practices.
It is a public investment. An investment in our kids.
Had a great conversation with my youngest son the other day who has a class on architecture, including that of old movie theatres. I love theatres and when I drive through small towns I look for clues for the ones that used to be on main streets everywhere.
We are so influenced by our surroundings that design and architecture are more important to our health and quality of life than we may understand or give them credit for. It’s why we meander on walks in the garden, visit Disney World, go to museums, or travel to specific cities. This article covers examples from around the world on sustainable design. I look forward to seeing how our cities evolve.
The discovery of a new species made me reflect on humanity's hubris. Our time is a tiny moment on the known timeline of universal existence, yet we go about our lives as if it is all about us and our own needs. Many species have been here before us, and who knows what will be here with us or after us in the future. I’m still stunned with the power of nature and how it grows in a myriad of ways based upon location and climate and adaptation to surroundings.
Life is diverse.
This thing looks to me like some kind of Christmas holiday plant. In any case, it is beautiful and miraculous all at the same time.
My wife sent me this one to let me know she has always known my plan.
courtesy of the New Yorker
And Now….
Across the nation, semesters are coming to a close. Lots of hopes and dreams begin. Our responsibility is always to pass things on the best we can. In the current environment, that is going to mean more civil disobedience.
Get your summer reading prepared, continue to practice your gratefulness, and remember: Be a good human.