It’s fascinating that human beings are able to climb every single mountain on earth without supplemental oxygen.
Think about that for a second.
Mount Everest is 29,032 feet. In comparison, Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest/tallest mountain in our solar system, is 69,648 feet.
It makes me think we have evolved to be able to handle any challenge that may come our way here.
One constant force that is part of the human condition is problem-solving. There is always another problem to solve.
The idea that we can solve the final problem, the problem that solves all others, is ridiculous.
Inbox zero is nice but don’t expect that is the end of email.
If we solved all our problems, there wouldn’t be anything left that makes life interesting. The hard, while uncomfortable, is preciously the point.
Currently, I am sitting here typing at my computer.
Where is that?
In my home.
Where is that?
In Sandy.
Where is that?
Salt Lake County.
Where is that?
In Utah.
Where is that?
In the United States.
Where is that?
In the western hemisphere.
Where is that?
On earth.
Where is that?
Part of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Where is that?
Part of the universe, I suppose.
Where is that?
The universe? I don’t know.
I can’t answer where the universe is which means I can’t answer where I am. How can we know anything or what is or how it got here if I can’t even answer the simple question of where am I?
Indeed, it is a conundrum. Everything I know is from the perspective of “me.” Which is quite ignorant even if I pretend I am not.
Before science, we used myths and legends in an attempt to explain the unexplainable.
Today, thanks to the hive mind of the internet and the scientific method we can observe and test. As a result, dismiss many of these false beliefs as superstition.
What predictions or promises has this organization or person made that have come to pass? With time, many things can be proven or debunked. One only needs to examine the history to see what was said and what has happened to find inconsistencies.
I heard recently that resiliency is the product of agency. Knowing what you can do can make a difference.
Notice this isn’t about having the right answer but rather understanding what you are capable of doing.
Some people wait for help. Others go find it.
It is generally understood that when you go alpine-style meaning you travel fast and light in the mountains, you are not going to carry all the comforts of life. In fact, you are carrying only what you need to survive. The least amount of gear to safely give you passage. When you strip away to the bare bones, you are now free to climb faster.
This mentality does not just apply to climbing but also how we approach our very lives.
Could you simplify your budget, the food you eat, and the relationships you put energy into? Could you cut TV time or how many times do you check your email? Do you really need social media (or does social media need you)?
When you simplify your life you will be surprised to discover how fast you can move.
You are not Wonder Woman. There is only one of her.
You can try to follow in her footsteps and do everything for everyone. At the end of the day, however, you will come up short.
Instead, you can be really great at a few things. And let others have an opportunity to be superheroes. Allowing that space, being vulnerable enough to say, “Can you help me?”
The reason why superheroes struggle to thrive in our culture isn’t the lack of superpowers, it is because we struggle to ask for assistance.
Pain is heavy but desire can be stronger.
When you love something so much, you are able to push through the discomforts of the challenge that lay before you.
This is why we don’t hesitate when your child needs a kidney or when a family member needs a couple bucks to make rent.
Indeed, love conquers all.
A dollar is just a piece of paper until we all agree it is a means of exchange for goods. Unless everyone agrees it has value and if it is scarce, we then use it to run an “economy” or to bring status, and yes, bring meaning to some people’s lives.
We can touch paper but we can’t point to the economy.
Therefore, things only have meaning when you decide to put meaning into them.
Art
Family
Friends
Parents and siblings
Credentials
Authority structures
Traffic signals
Flags
Symbols
Permits
Exercise
Learning and education
…
The only art you love is the love you give art.
Recently, I came across the letters of Vincent Van Gogh. They are incredible. Anyone striving to become an artist (which I have argued for quite a while everyone can) should stop and read.
One excerpt from Van Gogh to his dear friend Theo:
That rakes up the eternal question: is life visible to us in its entirety, or before we die do we know of only one hemisphere?
Painters – to speak only of them – being dead and buried, speak to a following generation or to several following generations through their works. Is that all, or is there more, even? In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing.
For myself, I declare I don’t know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream 90 times shared. Share this highlight
in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream.
Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France.
Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star. What’s certainly true in this argument is that while alive, we cannot go to a star, any more than once dead we’d be able to take the train. So it seems to me not impossible that cholera, the stone, consumption, cancer are celestial means of locomotion, just as steamboats, omnibuses and the railway are terrestrial ones.
To die peacefully of old age would be to go there on foot.
As many of you know, Van Gogh struggled for most of his life with depression and poverty but eventually became one of the most important post-impression artists in history. Of course, he never lived to see all of that. The path of becoming an artist won’t always go viral or come with fame or fortune but it can fuel us in the lows to keep going.
If you could have something that makes you so rich inside, how could you ever be poor?
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