Hi, I’m Mike. I’m an entrepreneur, a mathematician, and a long-distance runner. I enjoy logic puzzles, word games, and teaching my son and anyone else who shows joy in learning. I’m tall, somewhat awkward, and have experienced great joys and horrible misfortunes.
But for the purposes of this blog, I suppose the thing that’s most important is that I’m an optimist.
Not in demeanor – I’m a pretty dry, sarcastic guy. I rarely get excited or anticipatory. And I’m much closer to a realist in what I expect in any given moment, hour, or day.
But I’m an optimist because I haven’t lost hope.
It feels like virtually everyone today believes that society is falling apart. This is blamed on various different forces: the radical left, the extreme right, capitalists, billionaires, socialists, China, America, the internet, social media, AI, lizard people running secret cabals, or ancient eldritch gods.
But the general trend is that most people seem to agree that something is driving us off a cliff; and that us everyday folk have little to nothing we can really do about it except to watch, scream, and brace for impact.
I disagree. Not that there’s not a cliff. Not that we’re not driving towards it. But that there’s nothing we can do to steer away.
I believe that human beings generally want each other to be happy. That despite status games and senses of superiority and ‘isms’ and everything else, there are very few people who actually can look at someone innocent who is suffering and think “good.”
Beyond that, everything is changeable. Our countries are made up. Our laws are made up. Our economies, companies, and ideas are all made up. We can, collectively, choose to change these illusions if they are no longer serving our interest.
Changing the world is not EASY. In fact, almost anything would be easier. Effecting real change requires you to not only pour your whole self in, not only to risk your health and wellbeing – but to even risk your self-concept as someone smarter, wiser, more dedicated, or otherwise superior to any others. It forces you to confront your weaknesses, admit your mistakes, and forgo distraction. It demands focus, integrity, and an ability to prioritize the outcomes over ego in how we get there.
Changing the world is hard in all these ways. But it is also simple.
You start by thinking. Think about why things are. Think about why people act the way they do, what’s really going on inside there heads. Begin to understand the levers that move you, your friends, your enemies, and society at large.
And then pick up one of those levers yourself, and move it. A mile, a foot, an inch, an angstrom.
My focus on this blog will be describing those levers. Breaking down what’s happening and why, and what kinds of moves can have an impact. That might not be enough – as they say, ideas are cheap.
But I believe ideas can matter. I believe that the more effort we all put into thinking clearly, the more we’ll come to realize that we do have the ability to change things – and the more we’ll come to unearth the conviction and energy to fight to do so.
Like I said, I’m an optimist.
