May 30, 2022 Another Memorial Day

May 26, 2022May 26, 2022 by Dirk

Airports Tell on Us

It was few years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in an airport, on my way somewhere when I saw her. She would have stood out from the rest of the throngs milling around the luggage carousel, even if she hadn’t been in uniform. She had that “just got back from somewhere” look I recognized immediately, having seen it in so many others—and from personal experience. The culture shock of stepping back into the “real” world, so at odds with your reality from 24 hours before. Was she home on emergency leave or…?

An old B-4 Valpak came down the luggage chute and onto the carousel, conspicuous in it’s worn drabness among all the civilian luggage. The young woman snagged it with a practiced hand. She didn’t look old enough to have been around while they were still issuing B-4 bags. Perhaps it was handed down to her by her father or her mother?

But as she turned from the luggage carousel, I caught another glimpse of her face, the momentary disorientation sapping purpose. I grimaced in empathy. Even if you’re not returning from combat, returning for overseas service reminds you of what you’ve missed. Loved ones, of course. Time you’ll never get back.

But goes well beyond that. The music, the idioms, and dozens of other little cultural milestones we sense without noticing consciously have changed. Things others take for granted are foreign to us. As though emerging from a time capsule or year long amnesia, the sense of disconnection is even more profound if we’ve left someone (or ones) behind.

Echoes of Loss...

After multiple deployments, veterans inevitably become strangers in their own land. I often wonder what those who have died for us would think of what we have become. A nation perpetually at war, with a bloated defense budget at the expense of infrastructure and the less fortunate in our society they gave everything to defend.

So as we close in on another Memorial Day, remember the fallen and honor them. But when you vote in the primaries and later on in November, may I gently suggest that your honor also all those still living? We have many things we need to attend to if we are to have a future even remotely as illustrious as our past. And if we expect our elected representatives to do it without a rude nudge, we’re clearly not paying attention. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And the wait is over.

A Plea for Sanity…

April 30, 2022April 30, 2022 by Dirk

Can we stop monetizing social poison?

The day started well...

I got back from the House of Pain, a few mornings ago, still riding the uplifting burn of the morning’s weight workout and cardio. I opened my laptop, as I do every morning and went to my Medium feed to scroll through the day’s offerings.

As an unapologetic eclectic, I tend to think of myself as conversant with a lot of stuff and a master of nothing. Politically and philosophically, I’m an independent progressive with conservative leanings. Or perhaps, an independent thinking conservative with progressive leanings. It’s a matter of emphasis and perspective, I guess.

My point being, I read a lot of different takes on many topics, and the offerings in my feed reflect that. I expect—even seek—opinions at odds with mine and I try to keep an open, (if skeptical) mind. But on the day in question, the morning’s feed was overly supplied with some of the Downer’s who make Medium their home. And I’m seeing that, more and more, these days. Just two examples follow.

The War on Ukraine...

“Putin Really Could Nuke Us,” one writer opined. My best efforts notwithstanding, the crotchety old Marine officer bubbled to the surface. “Oh, ya think?” I muttered under my breath. “Congratulations, you just blew the lid off the previously unreported threat of nuclear annihilation.”

Please don’t misunderstand me. It’s maybe a helpful reminder, lest those prone to complacency may have forgotten. And there probably are a few out there who’ve forgotten Russia has nukes. A LOT of nukes…

But I didn’t see much in the post that hadn’t already been said on CNN, MSNBC et al. And his closing? I’m sorry, but not especially helpful. One needs not, if he/she has been paying attention resort to the doomsday scenario to remind readers of the fragility of life.

And at the rate we’re going, we may not need nukes to write finis to life as we know it. What if he doesn’t launch? What if (instead) his oligarchs come to the same conclusion the author reached, grow a pair and decide to “off” him, for reasons of their own? Wouldn’t be the first palace coup in Russia. In that case, might we be better advised to be working toward a better tomorrow—however we define it, irrespective of the murky goings on in Putin’s Russia?

The Demise of Sex...

“We are in the middle of the Great (Sex) Resignation,” another writer assures us. “Yeah?” I muttered under my breath. “Speak for yourself.” To be fair, maybe I’m the one who’s “out of step.” It wouldn’t be the first time. But based on the feed I get most days; I seem to be in pretty active company in that department.

And even if some of us aren’t “getting any” right now (or as much as we would like) this instant, I’m convinced it’s less a resignation than a drought. Are there studies out there suggesting that a statistically significant number of men and women are opting out, for now? Sure.

But barring the unforeseen, it’s a long life for many of us, with our sexual rhythms fluctuating for a number of independent variables all subject to change without notice. So I’m not moved, as yet, to herald the decline as a resignation—never mind a “great” one. It’s just as likely to be a pause.

And perhaps that’s not all bad, insofar as we’ve done a bang-up job (pun intended) of overpopulating the planet. In the end, however, I’m betting on libido reasserting itself. Maybe it’s too early for dramatic headlines, nevermind statistical inferences.

Nobody asked me, but...

Added to the mix are the steady drumbeats of an impending second civil war, dissolution of “The Great American Democratic Experiment” or the demise of the republic due to voter suppression and partisan gerrymandering.

The foregoing are all valid topics for consideration, and I should probably apologize for appearing to pick on the two foregoing examples above. They’re hardly alone, either here or in the “Mainstream Media.” My problem with these speculative doom saying stories isn’t that they’re wrong, or devoid of merit, it’s that they’re often premature leaps to conclusions. At the same time, they erode hope, obscuring possibilities we might other recognize, and further divide us.

To be fair, they’re not simply monetizing angst, though they’re most certainly doing that. There’s research validating their observations, even if we may disagree about the proximal causes for that division. A 2019, Pew Research study found two-thirds of adults in the U.S. believed “other” Americans had little or no confidence in the government at any level. This is an observation that would surprise few, these days.

But there’s an insidious side effect that oozes into our relationships with each other. The same study reported distrust of each other (as individuals) stood at 64%. And the Freedman Consulting Group’s joint study with The Partnership for Public Service (Paul Hitlin & Nadzeya Shava) wasn’t much more flattering, finding fewer than 30% of Americans believe the government listens to them, or is transparent.

Not an encouraging statistic in any society that literally lives or dies based on cooperation. As the narrative accompanying the study results opines:

“Trust is the elixir for (both) public life and neighborly relations…”

As I have suggested in previous posts, we are the answer to most of the riddles. Blaming “government” for how things are going is counterproductive if we’re not actively working toward solutions. And blaming government especially if we didn’t vote is irresponsible. To be clear…I don’t have unqualified faith in either of the two dominant parties in the U.S, today. They have at best become part of the problem, in their current forms, for different reasons.

We Are More Than Our Organizations

It’s the nature of organizations to develop agenda of their own. Agenda that inevitably leak out in ways that often bear little resemblance to how most of us feel. Which explains why there’s so much attitudinal spread in both political parties today. Most of us recognize the collective majority American consciousness isn’t well represented by either party.

Statistics on many of the seminal issues we hear/read about in the news bear that out. By way of illustration, Only 19% of all America is anti-abortion in all cases. Almost 80% believe it should be legal in some cases, at least. So what does the decades-long assault by fundamentalist Christian and Republicans on abortion rights and Roe V. Wade say about our politicians’ responsiveness to us?

How many believe the election was rigged? Even on the eve of 1/6, more than 55% of Americans believed Biden won. And why is it only 55%? We all know the answer. We have a polarized news media that caters to their stove piped viewers, many of whom have abandoned anything but the hyper-editorialized, for-profit news media. Have we become addicted to outrage? I’m just asking the question.

Taking Back Our Lives

The foregoing wasn’t meant as a political screed. As I’ve said before, I’m not especially fond of how either party is conducting itself. But one is generally better than the other and I’m not going to tell anyone hear who it is. Any reader of normal intelligence in possession of an internet connection can arrive at a thoughtful conclusion with a little unbiased research.

The point I’m making is we all need to spin back down from our hyper-partisan distaste our stove piped media are trying to fob off on us and do a little independent thinking. If you’re getting more mileage out of your outrage than the still moments of your life, is it maybe time to ask why? If you don’t like the answer, then maybe it’s time for a change.

It’s not just the life of our nation riding on it. It’s all of our lives, as well. We have important issues to deal with. But dealing effectively with them demands a clear eye, a touch of humility and the open willingness to work together to fix what truly matters.

D.B. Sayers is a retired Marine officer, former corporate trainer turned full-time author with five books in print and three more on the way and the facilitator of the OC Writers’ Space. Pick up your free copy Through the Windshield, Dirk’s anthology of short fiction today.

The Truth Hiding in Plain Sight

June 12, 2019June 13, 2019 by Dirk

Tomorrow is here...

From where I am at this point in my life, I see our time as a blink world of paradigm shifts, all happening at once and often working at cross-purposes with each other and humanity. It is partly the incessant bombardment of things to think about. Not that we weren’t warned. The Tofflers predicted this when they published Future Shock, in 1970. In the nearly fifty years since, most of us who have been paying attention are painfully aware the Tofflers were mostly right.

But you’d never know it, from listening to many of today’s “thought leaders.” Whether it’s anodyne corporate talking points drafted by some nameless HR functionary, or the sage advice of the self-help gurus and life coaches, I can’t help feeling that something’s missing. And don’t even get me started on most of the politicians already stumping for our vote in 2020. There are exceptions in all three of the aforementioned groups. But even the best of them gloss over or dance around the truth hiding in plain sight.

The old order is dying. Representative democracy as we have known it, capitalism and the self-absorbed American way of life are all sinking of their own weight. The political thinking grounded in the time before the Industrial Revolution was never intended to cope with the 21st Century in which instantaneous communications and could disseminate simple, seductive lies faster than the ponderous, nuanced truths of a more complicated world.

The underpinnings of laissez-faire capitalism will never adapt to a world in which unbridled greed, unlimited growth and minimal regulation are now literally the most direct paths to extinction. A society of 330 million people in which average voter turn out hovers between the low 40s in mid-term election cycles and the mid-50s during presidential election cycles does not bode well for sustaining a vibrant democracy. (See chart below excerpted from Pew Research).

The "back-button doesn't work...

As a purely practical matter, the indicators noted above need to change. Extracting a meaningful consensus from America seems unlikely if almost half the eligible voting population doesn’t vote, even in a presidential election. If these metrics continue, understanding how democracy might die without a whimper gets pretty easy.

If you buy much of the foregoing, it should be obvious that what worked in the past won’t work going forward. For the same reason we can’t build tomorrow’s fire with yesterday’s ashes, we can’t build a sustainable tomorrow from the ruins of yesterday. Change is the natural order of things. The “back button” doesn’t work on history and deep down, most of us know it. We need to stop looking in our rearview mirror for anything like a promising future.

Where the future is...

But in the midst of the angst, denial and motivated cognition, it’s worth remembering we’ve been here before. We’ve survived ice ages, volcanic eruptions, huricanes, earthquakes and fratricidal wars over religion, and the Industrical Revolution. We should also remember that progress is rarely linear. Sometimes it meanders, sometimes it even regresses.

One of the daunting things about our time is the uncertainty that comes with it. In a way, perhaps the most underappreciated spinoffs of the future shock as outlined in the Tofflers’ book is it’s paralytic effect. There’s no lack of uncertainty confronting us in the second decade of the 21st Century. But looking back at the history of man in general and America in particular, uncertainty has never stopped us before. The future does not belong to the timid or despairing, it belongs to the thoughtful men and women with a fresh vision and a hopeful, innovative spirit that dares. And to the intelligent followers willing to accept the risks while focusing on the pay off.

Tomorrow does not come with unconditional guarantees or even with a promise. It comes with a challenge, a smile and only the faintest whiff of a “maybe.” I can’t tell you what will happen if we smile back. I can only tell you what will happen if we don’t. So maybe smile with me as we together embrace our tomorrow.

Dirk Sayers is the author of West of Tomorrow, a contemporary literary romance and Best Case Scenario, Act I of Nyra’s Journey, the first volume in a new-adult series about one young woman’s search for her most authentic self. Through the Windshield, Drive-by Lives, a collection of Dirk’s short stories, is now also available and Tier Zero, Volume I of the Knolan Cycle a science fiction tale of first contact is due out in November 2019.

A Symphony of Complexity

September 28, 2018November 17, 2018 by Dirk

The Reductive Mirage of Simplicity

Maybe it’s an occupational hazard of being an author or maybe it’s advancing age, but for some reason, I find myself more and more preoccupied with matters philosophical. This would probably happen, even if I could avoid the news. I can’t and you probably can’t, either. We’re pretty much immersed in it. Can’t even get away from it on social media. (he observes as he adds a link to his latest blog post…). And I can think of nothing more catalytic of reflection than trying to puzzle out how the hell we got where we are.

The events of the last three years have led me to conclude that a significant number of Americans (U.S. Citizens to be absolutely precise) seem to have fallen for the notion that simple solutions to complex problems are generally our best answer. It’s not hard to figure out why. Virtually all of our political discourse, these days, is reductive. Whether it’s macroeconomics, international security treaties or negotiations, here in the U.S., we’ll bite on simple, despite of (or perhaps because of) the complexity of our world.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m sensitive to the undeniable elegance of simplicity. Reducing anything to a few simple concepts is a very seductive notion. And who hasn’t heard of the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid)? Maybe you’ve even used it yourself. I know I have. And nowhere is the siren call of simplicity more seductive than in political campaigns. Simple concepts are easy to understand. They lend themselves to clever slogans and effective if meaningless rallying cries.

With all that going for it conceptually, what’s wrong with trying to simplify things? I thought you’d never ask. Work with me a minute, here.

Complexity is baked in...

Let’s start with the observation that our world is home to a dazzling range diversity. It always has been. Never mind all of creation…just wrapping your head around one classification: Avians, let’s say. Ask any Ornithologist and they’re sure to tell you it’s a life study. Whether it’s something we think about or not, life writ large strenuously resists our attempts to simplify it.

Life thrives on diversity, in part because it allows for experimentation and adaptation, a bedrock of evolution. What adapts successfully survives, barring catastrophic events like asteroid strikes. Collectively, the dinosaurs were remarkably successful (and diverse) adaptations to their environment. Absent the hypothesized asteroid strike resulting in the climatic catastrophe that cut them short, might they eventually have developed intelligence we would recognize? We’ll never know.

In the same way that nature experiments through subtle and incremental genetic adaptation, humans (ourselves a genetic experiment) fiddle with ideas. Successful ideas adaptive to the environment giving rise to them tend to survive as long as the environment remains relatively stable. Please note, here, that I used successful rather than good.

It’s a distinction worth making. Successful ideas aren’t necessarily good ones, from an ethical perspective. It “works” in the context which gave birth to it, hence it thrives. A couple pretty obvious examples of bad ideas no longer generally accepted include the divine right of kings or the sun orbits the earth. But old ideas gave way to new ones.

Humanity and Context

But it’s worth remembering where those new ideas come from. Generally, they emerge from a new contextual reality. They are outgrows of a dynamic situation. The old wheeze “shit happens” is a pungent reminder that change is the lei motif not simply of our age but every age.

But there’s a pivotal difference between this age and all the ages that preceded it. Humans have always been change agents. But considering how much we contribute to shaping our environment today, it’s getting increasingly difficult to escape the conclusion we are now the apex change agents on the planet.

We are shaping our future and not always for the best. And like it or not, some of the pivotal change agents are not copping to their role either in that change, or for that matter that it’s even happening. For the record, it is. Consider the graph following.

The foregoing graph, even supported by evidence is unlikely to move the stubborn atavisms prone to cling to obsolesence. I’m reminded of the old AA wheeze, “Drop the rock, you’ll swim better!” To which the obstinate alcoholic shouts back, “But it’s my rock!” We all get it. Few things are more difficult than abandoning (or even significantly modifying) a paradigm that has served us well for so long.

As with the bio-genetic adaptation referred to earlier, our adaptation to an emerging reality, even before it’s entirely clear what that reality is pivotal. What is unique to our adaptation is that we are re-engineering ourselves on the fly, whether we’re aware of it or not. And the evolution is much faster. Estimates vary with respect to how quickly the rate of knowledge acquisition is occurring. But if Buckminster Fuller’s knowledge-doubling curve is even close, what we “know” collectively as a species.

A couple of important caveats are in order. For starters, the knowledge-doubling curve above is a highly speculative approximation of what the knowledge growth curve might look like if the continued expansion of what we know continues. As a forecast, it is unlikely to be dead-on accurate, nor is it likely to be even. We should also recognize that the distribution of knowledge across the 7 billion human inhabitants of this planet, will not be very uneven, nor will all of it be accessible or readily applicable in it’s immediate, raw form.

Half an hour West of Tomorrow

Those observations made, the prevailing trend isn’t particularly difficult to puzzle out. When we fold Toffler’s concept of Future Shock, it is no longer remarkable that we have a huge disconnect in attitude between those closer to the leading edges of knowledge acquisition and those who are either unaware or even resistant to it. It is also painfully clear that at some point, those who resist assimilating knowledge as it is gained run the risk of becoming irrelevant in short order.

So, does the desire for simplicity in our lives have a place? I think it does, at least on a personal level. It may even be an indispensible component of our personal sanity. But extending that yearning for simplicity to our exogenous life in general strikes me as an unerring path to frustration and rage. I suspect that we left simplicity behind when we settled down to plant crops and domesticate animals for food.

The more ubiquitous and powerful humans become, the more complex our interaction with the contextual reality we call life becomes. Making America, Great Again is not function of “returning to our roots,” or how they did things, “back then.” We can honor our antecedents best by recognizing what it was that made them great.

Irrespective of the political, social, religious or spiritual framework to which they adhered, our Founders and the ones who followed and made us greater still, successfully balanced honor for our traditions with foresighted innovative spirits. It is not that “simple” solutions, even to complex problems that we must resist. Sometimes simple solutions are the best ones.

Rather it is the reductive, simplistic thinking to exclusion of the evidence that we need to eschew.The future and the keys to it lie in our ability balance our yearning for a time when life was simpler with the recognition that, increasingly, simplistic answers are at best an illusive mirage.

It is okay…even essential…to recognize when we don’t know. Not knowing is the human condition. What must change is how we deal with it. We must collectively recognize the global community as a community. A global community in which each human has a vested and legitimate interest in the impact of others’ individual and collective behaviors. In the same way change is unavoidable, so is the global impact of that change. Disparaging globalists or deifying nationalists completely ignores the truth. We are the world. It may be a while before we fully grasp the implications of this new reality. But we can’t wait too long. The lives of our children and the quality thereof literally depend on it.

A Modest Lesson From My Road…

May 6, 2018October 24, 2018 by Dirk

It’s almost an article of faith, today, that we are a nation divided by conflicting identities and most of the evidence supports that conclusion. It’s hard to find commentary from either side of the political spectrum that does not extoll the virtues of “Our Side” & “Our” particular take on truth at the expense of the opposition.

Factions identified as “The Right” peddle alternative realities and conspiracy theories, rail against the “Deep State” or shadowy “Fifth Column” movements bent on bringing down capitalism self-reliance and rugged individualism. Factions typically identified as “The Left” seek to demonize everyone who doesn’t share their vision of a brave new inclusive world in which everyone loves everyone else, even if they don’t, really. Everybody should love everybody, after all…well, shouldn’t they?

Tribes and Tribulations

People who know me well know my first adult identity was as a Marine. It wasn’t a popular identity in the early years of my service. The military’s reputation was at its low ebb, in America, during Vietnam and for years thereafter. There’s room for debate with respect to how much of that contempt was earned, but most of us felt we were under siege in our own country and no where was this more evident than in California, where I was stationed after my first tour.

As a result, we turned inward. Many of us became Marines not simply first, but exclusively. Our haircut, our posture and an indefinable something others sensed set us apart, even out of uniform. Because we could not hide who we were, we wore our identity with tribal defiance, many of us choosing to opt out of “main stream society,” with whose views and values our own conflicted.

But lazer focus on identity in a society as diverse as ours is simply not sustainable. Like it or not, we own our society…all of it, not just the part we agree with. As the memories of Vietnam and the divisions it evoked receded, so did the animosities. Gradually, all of America came to realize a nation that continued to despise it’s military would eventually have a despicable military that lived down to its reputation, earned or not.

Unconsciously, we all came to realize this, though it took time. At first, Dirk the Marine officer, and “Otter” the surfer/shaper were different identities, inhabiting different orbits in the same geographical space. But over time, those identities merged into one, with neither identity conflicting with the other contextual realities that had come to define me. A surfing Marine was no longer out of place in the waves, or on base with surf racks on his/her car.

Road Songs...

Over time, my merging identities as Marine and surfer symbolized broader kinship. As permanent changes of duty station and my own incurable restlessness pulled me repeatedly across this great land, the inevitable stops along the way pulled me into conversations with other drivers. On one cross-country drive, I pulled a horse and trailer, stopping to stable my horse overnight and found kinship with other horse people whose take on things didn’t always dovetail with mine.

This divergence of opinion repeated itself with relatives in Texas, one of whom referred to my home as “la-la land.” But mixed in with the sediment of opinion, most of the people I came to know well revealed a generosity of spirit, even a nobility I could not help but admire. It’s a sensing we all would do well to recapture.

This did not change after I retired and traveled not as a Marine, but as a corporate trainer. Repeatedly, I was reminded of what I had learned earlier in my career as a Marine officer. Nobility, honor and generosity are not functions of class, race, origin or ethnicity. They are rooted in attitude. Ironically, I often noticed this nobility and generous-hearted love of country was most evident in immigrants who had come here by choice, rather than accident of birth.

Specialization and Synergy

Many years ago, I attended one of many Marine Corps mess nights which (like some mess nights) got a little wild. In the toasts immediately following dinner, a “toasting war” broke out over which Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) was or should be most valued.

First an infantry officer stood to make his case for the superiority of the infantry…to agreement by other infantrymen and numerous catcalls from everyone else. Then an artillery officer stood and said his piece, followed by a tanker, a fighter pilot an engineer, a communications officer, etc. Finally a quiet, bespectacled officer stood, and was recognized by the president of the Mess. He paused, waiting for silence, then spoke these words:

“To all the numbers! Together we’re invincible.”

(For those of you who might not know, all MOS’s have numeric designations). Tables were pounded and glasses drained to roars of approval. As every officer knows, he (or she) won’t last very long without the other. The fusion and synergy of joint warfare as practiced by the U.S. military today is legendary for a reason. We rely on each other and know that our brothers and sisters in arms would sooner die than let us down.

E Pluribus Unum...

My wanderings across this country have led me to understand what has made America the great nation it has become isn’t what’s different about us,either internally or externally. It’s how each of our self-images inform our individual actions.

In this age of swirling change and shifting paradigms, we would do well to remember this. I am convinced much of the disunion we see today is a spin-off of change greater even than the paroxysms of the Industrial Revolution. We should be unsurprised by the divisions those changes are tearing in our social fabric. Change by definition destroys nearly as much as it creates. And hidden in this maelstrom of change is unharnessed energy is both hope and rage. It is for us to choose what to do with it.

I now have way more runway behind me than is left in front of me. I’ve lived a rich life in terms of experiences. I’ve learned to question almost everything I think, because my first thoughts are often wrong…or at least out of balance. But this I know.

When we choose to divide ourselves…or allow others inside or out to do, we place all we value at peril. We should be suspicious of identity politics that seems calculated to divide us, rather than pull us together. We’re a contentious, rambunctious collection of differing opinions. That’s who we are but in that diversity there is great synergy, beauty, wisdom and resilience. And in the end, that’s exactly what we need.