It is worth pointing out that much of the information today isn’t new but repeated. While a re-tweet is technically a new tweet, its the same tweet republished. Multiplied millions of times, our psyches can be tricked into thinking, “Wow, look how much I have missed.” But that isn’t an accurate lens. Hitting the repeat button isn’t new information; it is amplified information. It’s an important distinction.
Establishing culture is much more difficult than following it. For example, trying to write a show’s pilot is much more difficult than starting season 10. The jokes, the characters, and the overall themes have already been established. You just need to follow the formula. However, making that formula takes way more guts to establish.
It isn’t just with sitcoms. Nine years of blogs is much easier to write today because an identity has been established—day one of a new job instead of a retirement party. The first day of school is much more difficult for a new teacher than a veteran.
Because “this is how we do things around here.” Setting that tone isn’t written in the policy and procedures manual. We get to make up these invisible rules (if we are fortunate enough to not follow someone else’s).
It was assumed that money emerged from the world of bartering despite the evidence. Once we assumed one “fact,” more “facts” emerged. But this is a missed thought experiment. We can make “assumptions” that can lead us to more “assumptions.” And when we do this however, we can now leave room to be surprised. Your train of thought is only as good as your starting point.
We can mourn for the things we don’t have. And it can be tough when we think we are entitled to specific outcomes. Safety, security, affection…for example, are things all humans deserve. Except we don’t always get those things. Again, we can be sad that the thing we think we deserve doesn’t work out. But a better alternative is to look at things you do have. Celebrate them. If you don’t have the family you think you deserve, make one. If you don’t have the career you think you have earned, create it. And on and on. Focusing on the things you can control is a much more productive use of energy than focusing on the things you cannot.
In the end, specific outcomes are tied to our expectations of the world.
Which means they can be moved. The person setting boundaries is often seen as the villain. But boundaries don’t just show what is acceptable behavior–what we consider normal around here–they also define what isn’t allowed.
Boundaries vary based on context and relationship. The boundaries for an 8-year-old are different from those of an adult. A parent requiring their teenager to come home by curfew isn’t being controlling–they’re establishing safety. But to the teenager, it feels unfair.
A world with boundaries can feel restrictive to some individuals. Toxic individuals see any boundary as an infringement on their personal freedom. They can’t comprehend that their actions affect others. To them, being asked to consider consequences feels like oppression rather than basic consideration.
Dysfunction occurs when no one holds any type of boundary. Without them, chaos ensues because anything goes becomes the standard. What’s interesting is that the boundary-holder often gets portrayed as the bad guy, even when they’re preventing problems others refuse to see.
Perhaps some boundaries can be negotiated. They may occasionally be unreasonable. Boundaries can evolve and change as relationships and circumstances do. But someone has to be willing to establish them in the first place. (The absence of boundaries is much more dangerous than setting them in the wrong spot.)
If you choose to hold boundaries, don’t expect to be praised for it. Expect to be misunderstood. You won’t get credit for preventing problems that never happen because of your boundaries–in fact, you might get blamed for being “difficult.” Best advice: You’re not the problem. You’re often the solution to problems others refuse to acknowledge.
Life cycles depend on the stickiness of an idea to begin with. For instance, even though slavery ended, Jim Crow laws continued. So did redlining and caste systems. Racism didn’t die—just the outright treatment of owning another human. So much focus goes into changing one policy or another. But rarely does policy change the hearts of the people. The tricky part of managing a democracy is that everyone has a voice, even when we don’t agree with them, even when their take is despicable. The shortcut here is to censor. Perhaps a better path is questioning why someone draws these types of conclusions. No one is born racist. You become a racist over time, over many decisions.
Of course, this isn’t just racism. Xenophobia, homophobia, sexism…again, these are all ideas that stick in our culture. Why do ideas like this continue to hang around in 2025? The stories we tell do indeed persist because of the stories we tell. “How things are done around here” truly is a power we can’t negotiate in each individual life.
But not all hope is lost. As I mentioned above, slavery was legal until one day it wasn’t. We got rid of “Us vs. Them” and stopped scapegoating—in other words, we stopped fooling ourselves in what story (often market-related) we were telling and began to tell a better one.
Minecraft is one of the most successful video games of all time. And when you look at it, you are dropped into a block world where you gather material to build whatever you want. A digital sandbox. Some may ask, what’s the point? There are no objectives, no damsel in distress, no final boss, no village to save. That’s precisely the point of the game: you make it how you want to. The game’s value is in how you play it. Playing a little or none, well, there is no value. Verses the one who builds a Titanic replica, who sees tremendous value.
Sometimes, the reason is to protect ourselves from ourselves.
Other times, however, it is because someone imagined how someone could misuse the tool.
Imagining the worst-case scenario is a useful tool until it isn’t. Indeed, our imaginations run wild.
Capitalism isn’t magical. It’s both an economic and political system. It is a way to organize people, not the way. And the balance we can’t seem to achieve is this:
Social progress is often left at the expense of capitalism. If there is no market incentive (profits), why bother? But of course, we can’t live in that world. People exist in it. And we are not here to serve capitalism. Capitalism is here to serve us. When critiquing capitalism, we recognize the benefits it can bring and the areas it also exploits. I’m proposing to tip the scale back toward social progress, and yes, at the expense of capitalism.
Sometimes, we don’t get the thing we think we deserve. An abusive spouse would need treatment. And once they are better, they may not be able to return home. Its tragic and reality at the same time. Entitlement however can blind us from seeing things as they really are.
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