Josh Allred's Blog

William Shatner recently wrote about his experience going into outer space.

“My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral. It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness.”

He goes on to write, “Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong. I had a different experience because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.”

We tend to believe that the quickest way to solve our problems is to abandon them. Let someone else deal with it. And with the problems we face with climate change, we may be tempted to believe that maybe we can go find another planet. But that isn’t realistic. There isn’t anywhere to go. The majority of the universe is dark and cold. We are the source of life, light and heat. We need to take care of what we have inherited.

Anthropologist, Margaret Mead, has an interesting take on when civilization began. It wasn’t when we figured out how to use fire or when we designed the wheel. It was when humans learned to take care of each other. Mead wrote:

“In the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink, or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety, and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.”

I often think about what makes people human and one answer that satisfies me is when someone ignores their instincts. Yes, instincts can save our lives but they also get in the way–all the time. Yet, I shouldn’t care about my kids as much as I should because that isn’t what nature intended. And I certainly shouldn’t share my resources (including time and energy) with someone in need because that isn’t what survival of the fittest explains. I do those things despite what my biology says. Because they bring me joy. They bring purpose and meaning. It alleviates suffering. When we share, we grow.

This Madison Cunningham’s song reminded me of the many ways we can take care of each other in this lovely tribute to her grandmother.

It is increasingly getting hard to find things we agree upon. After all, the world is more complex with no easy solutions or clear paths going forward. And with this division, when we are creating a culture of us versus them.

How then do we overcome our differences to come together?

How do we set aside the hurt and loss to push equality forward?

How do we understand that the noise in our head is not the same as everyone else’s?

Division is simply a point of view. That when we learn to see things as they are instead of how we think they should be, we are setting up the building blocks to come together.

When I go camping, I always take a moment to go look at the stars.

Of course, the stars are always there. I just don’t take the time to appreciate them each night as I should. The same for the leaves changing, sunsets, sunrises, roses…

Indeed, when things are out of site they are truly out of mind.

Getting in a car crash can be fatal.

Getting hit by a bullet could certainly do it.

What isn’t fatal is giving a presentation to the class.

Getting rejected when asking someone to dance.

Or losing a job.

We confuse what are real threats and what are perceived as threats.

Sure, the path ahead might be inconvenient or difficult. But you don’t know for sure what’s up ahead–it might actually be for your own good.

Fueled by the disgrace of the Mexican War, in 1849, Henry David Thoreau refused to pay the Massachusetts poll tax funding the war. He was then arrested. His friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson came to his aid (without his consent), and paid the tax so that Thoreau could be released.

Emerson agreed with Thoreau in principle but thought it was all rather pointless to argue. It wasn’t going to change anything. When Emerson met with Thoreau in jail, Emerson asked his friend, “What are you doing in there?” Thoreau replied, ” What are you doing out there?”

Thoreau went on to write Civil Disobedience. An essay is mainly on the idea that people shouldn’t stand by and allow the government to enable them as “agents of injustice.” That, over time, we become numb and tolerate this kind of behavior when we do nothing about it.

Thoreau was right. More than we even realize today.

You have to start somewhere. Someone has to care to begin. Even when no one else does.

“I don’t like this project.”

When we hear the criticism, we internalize it. We think that this means they don’t like us.

It is difficult to separate actions from our identity because we internalize everything.

When we look in the mirror, we see our flaws and imperfections. When a police officer pulls you over, they look at your criminal history. When you are walking down the street, others see your gender and your race.

The problem in a world that is constantly bombarding us to fit in, we begin to believe that we are the choices we make. But that isn’t true. We are not the job we work for. We are not our resume. We are not our paycheck. We are not the clothes we wear, the car we drive or the house we bought.

Those are choices. And choices change.

So, we have to get to the root of the problem of why when someone criticizes our work, why then are we assuming it is a problem with us. One solution is to define who we are. Because we are far more than the choices we make.

We had an opportunity to speak with Nuria Rivera on her podcast about the work we are doing with Pivot Adventure. We touch on a range of topics from the origins of Pivot Adventure, the challenges youth are facing, how to tackle shame, your greatest hits, sonder, and many other things.

You can also listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

You can purchase tickets for the Dreamer’s Foundation gala on November 11th. All the proceeds will be donated to Pivot Adventure. Hope to see you there.

I have been having a lot of fun watching live concerts on YouTube. Here have been a few of my favorites that you might enjoy:

Father John Misty at The Capital Theatre.

Ondara performing Television Girl at The Current.

Lake Street Dive at Higher Ground.

Radiohead from the basement.

Beck at Ancienne Belgique.

The Roots saving our stages.

Explosions in the Sky at the Capitol Theatre.

Yola at NPR: Tiny Desk Concert.

We focus so much on what’s next, we sometimes forget to check out what we have already at our disposal.

This and that.

Us and them.

Good and evil.

Virtue and vice.

Reacting and responding.

The thing about dualism is that is conventionally perceived. We have to create the categories in order to catalog them.

But it is only from the perspective of the storyteller. The categories are fiction, not fact. It is why wars are fought because when we see people as one, we can’t help but change our behavior.