PPPPs on Earth: Four P's #134
Sure, the Four P’s have been around for awhile, but we’re only three weeks into a newsletter version, and we’ve gotten over a thousand new sign-ups. Welcome to you newcomers, and thanks to everyone who has shared these stories. Each of these Four P’s are also available in video and as a weekly podcast. So there’s no excuse for not consuming these four topics…
Reclaiming the Moral Imperative.
Gratitude and Thank Pieces.
Don’t Quit Your Day Job.
Freedom from Distraction
SOMETHING POLITICAL: Nostalgia and the Rise of Evil
According to the running clock in my head, we’ve only got 48 or so days until a new President of the United States is sworn in. And right now on social media and in other news channels, there are concurrent narratives for those looking forward and those looking back.
While Trump continues to contest the election without any data or evidence, many are beginning to deconstruct the devastating impact of these past four years. But the foundations of this evil go back much further. And in order to prevent the same mistakes, as well as learn how to correct the recent ones, we must conduct an honest, objective, historical look at how we got here. Only then can we better understand, learn, stay vigilant, and work towards progress and a better future.
Twentieth Century: An Era of Radical Change
Cue the “We Didn’t Start the Fire” lyrics. Space travel, rock and roll, free love, civil rights movement. All of that radical change came to an end at the turn of the century. It was the Year 2000, and after studying government, politics and communication in college, I was finishing up a senior thesis asking: “Does the Man Make History, or Does History Make the Man?” Bill Clinton was about to leave office, the internet was still a quiet place for instant messenger and chatroom nerds, we had just managed to successfully avoid global annihilation by the Y2K bug... and the drive toward modernity was clearly slowing down.
20 years later, the desire for nostalgia in the U.S. hasn’t slowed down. A large portion of our country still prefers to look back… back to a time when things were better for them, their ancestors or “their own people” instead of looking ahead towards greater collective social progress and a better future. It reflects a broader stagnation that goes way beyond fashion or music. It tells us that America is stuck, both politically and economically.
How We Got Here
FDR’s New Deal in 1932 turned the U.S. into a modern, center-left country that looked after its citizens, providing secure employment, good pensions, relief for the poor and the beginnings of suburbanization. LBJ ushered in a wave of social reforms in the 1960s, and a great(er) society began to emerge.
Rich, white, right-wing elites grew terrified that they were going to lose their privileges forever. Through the civil rights movement and anti-war protests, they saw an opportunity to appeal to Americans who feared all of this upheaval. They played on nostalgia, on people’s desire for an idealized past, which was under threat from modernity.
With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 came the economic policies that rich, right-wing elites had long awaited. Along with it came the well-funded lobbying campaigns that continue to dominate American politics today.
How The Right’s Yesterday Rules Today
The leadership of the political right wing learned from the left’s protest movements, seized on concepts like individual liberties, personal capitalism and a mistrust of the government. By portraying the businessman as a victim, the right advocated widespread deregulation.
Meanwhile, liberals got complacent. 80’s culture, the “Back to the Future” storyline personified, promoted a past that was less radical, more steady, and, yes, more white. Nostalgia was appealing. And it remains at the root of so much of what holds us back now: Capitalism unleashed. Gordon Gekko as the hero. Deregulation of employee protections. CEOs gifting themselves company stock. New tax laws protecting the wealthy and draining Social Security savings. Moving from a manufacturing economy to a financial speculation economy. And transforming the federal judiciary... a Supreme Court still rooted in the Federalist Society.
Free Us From Financialization
So here we are today. The past 40 years, or what I call the “Financialization 40,” sees shareholder value, massive wealth inequality and debt. Why? Because a country built on innovation and industriousness became one focused on immediate gratification and gentrification.
Even with a new presidency in the coming weeks, the right controls the courts and the financial institutions that control wealth. Increasing automation will deplete the workforce while furthering wealth inequality. Or... we focus on new innovation I am areas like renewable energy and let the automated tasks be more low-function, higher repeatable tasks. And spread the wealth with universal basic income. By paying every American a lump sum every month to cover the cost of living, they’ll be shielded from the fall-out of this automation revolution. That’s not socialism. That’s social improvement.
The ways of the past are not working. The Greek origin of the word “nostalgia” literally means a “ return to pain.” Why keep doing that yourselves when there are much better ways?
SOMETHING PERSONAL: Thank Pieces
2020 has been a lost year... a year of loss. It started on Jan 1 with David Stern, then Kobe, then more friends, then my grandmother and last grandparent... and that was before COVID kicked in. Ironically, I started the year on a mission to share weekly one person who touched my life and share my gratitude for them while they’re still alive. I called it Thank Pieces . As many of the people I wrote about are people I’ve lost touch with, part of me was hopeful that this could be a year of reconnection, or reestablishment of those relationships, but it hasn’t been possible.
As COVID, continued to spread, and the election cycle distracted me, I admittedly lost my momentum around early August. This year kicked my ass in many ways, but it’s been an important project that I’ve managed to add to and keep up with, though maybe not as frequently as I would have liked.
For 2021, I want to make it a priority again.
Please know that if you’re hearing this, seeing this, reading this, you’re probably a person that touched my life in some meaningful way, whether small or large.
SOMETHING PROFESSIONAL: Don’t Quit Your Day Job
It only took 131 editions of the Four P’s for me to go in a rverse multimedia direction… Whereas this started as a video series 3 years ago, then adapted into a simulcast podcast companion, we’re now in the third week of a print newsletter/website version of the Four P’s thanks to everyone’s new, favorite newsletter platform, Substack.
A very popular tool for journalists and writers to go out on their own, leave the safety and security of big publications and paywalls, to create their own subscription-based content model straight to readers’ inboxes. Substack is a web publishing DIY meets DTC.
Back in September, the New York Times said we’re in a “Substack moment.”
For those writers and content creators charging their readers, it certainly better be worth it. Honestly, I love Casey Newton, but I’m not paying $100 to read just his “Platformer” newsletter on an annualized basis. And if it truly is so easy, any average bloke can start one up and immediately attract readers. The gap between readers and subscribers is massive, so is Substack truly scalable?
The risk for Substack is that anyone and everyone who has time, opinions and a web browser can flood the internet with more content. Clearly not everyone will be profitable, or even try to monetize their content. But low-quality volume is bad for business. I mean, just look at me… I already have several thousand readers each week (including you)… and I’m offering it up to you for free without any intent to charge for it. Ironically enough, for journalists, the more people you want to reach, the less money you’re likely to make. Which is why for writers far more talented than I, the conflict between reach and revenue will zig and zag. I’ve already talked about Podcast Fatigue… and “Newsletter Subscription Fatigue” won’t be far behind. My advice would be to not quit your day job. Unfortunately, many already have.
SOMETHING PRACTICAL: Freedom From Distraction
For generations, scientists and philosophers have pondered the existence of, and debated the realities of, parallel universes. Yet we are living in all of them right now. Here. On earth. Today.
Whether it’s in the morning or while having lunch, I spend a few minutes each day clicking through and reading the headlines from about 20 different websites, ranging from FoxNews, NewsMax and OAN to CNN.com, MSNBC and the Palmer Report. Concurrent narratives are not new, but the availability of information, and speed with which it can be shared and amplified is staggering. Now combine that with our decreasing attention spans, the increasing sources of distraction… and, well, you know the rest…
Human beings have developed a need for constant mental stimulation, and the modern world is saturated distracting options. This need has a big effect on our “orienting response,” which is that thing in our brain that makes us pay special attention to anything that enters our field of vision. Paying attention is a skill we build, by doing things like reading books, doing a crossword puzzle without interruption and playing a full game of chess. All of these are things that people do less and less today. Instead, we now prefer to spend most of our time engaged in activities that occur inside our own heads.
Technology keeps us connected to the world, but our distractability indicates that we are agnostic on the question of what is worth paying attention to. Technology does a lot of good, but also erodes our ability to focus, develop skills, form and express our own opinions and connect with other people in meaningful ways. It has ultimately estranged us from the world it aims to connect us to, dulling our perception of our surroundings and even our sense of self, and diminishing a variety of skills.
The uptick in depression and mental health cases can be linked to the decrease in specialized skills. It used to be much easier to construct a stable identity: people usually worked and lived in the same place for most of their lives. Today, we value flexibility and mobility, which means we’re encouraged to manage our digital presences, reinvent our personas and amplify our personalities. This results in people struggling to establish a sense of self, which leads to their feeling lost and depressed.
But hope is not lost. We can reconnect with the world beyond our heads and devices by honing our manual skills, creating constructive physical environments for ourselves and engaging in social interactions instead of shying away from them.
Step 1: Create a distraction-free environment for ourselves by minimizing all sensory input that might distract you from your goals. That means closing Facebook or Twitter while working, or keeping the phone in the other room while reading a book.
Step 2: Broaden your possibilities as you develop more manual, even physical skills. Whether it’s yoga, painting, woodworking, shooting hoops, whatever it may be… it’s great for your body, your brain and it’s also satisfying. Having control of your physical environment can be an excellent antidote to the feelings of helplessness and passivity engendered by the world of smart devices.
Step 3: Focus on others, and do good for them. Shifting your attention away from yourself is a much better way to deal with negative feelings like frustration or rejection.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week!