Author: markbartels

The power of words

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My father first got me interested in the weight and power of words. Understanding the meanings and root of a word added a whole new dimension to reading and learning.

Take the word love as an example. Next time you say you love something or someone, it’s worth thinking about what you mean.

Just for fun, here are eight ways to define love:

  1. Agape — Unconditional love. Altruistic, selfless, unconditional love
  2. Pragma — Enduring love. Love that has matured and developed over a long time.
  3. Eros — Romantic, passionate, and physical love
  4. Ludus — Playful love. The giddy feeling of young romance. The honeymoon period.
  5. Philia — Affectionate love. The kind of love that you feel for your friends.
  6. Philautia — Self-love. Being okay with yourself, kind of love.
  7. Storge — The kinship and the bonding love that happens with groups of friends, sports teams or alumni groups.
  8. Mania — Obsessive love. The crazy fanatical love that can be a little loco.
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For whom the dove coos

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A Mourning Dove cooing is an auspicious sound to me.

The bird and its call make an appearance during significant moments in my life.

On the day of my wedding, I was in the Presidio in San Francisco with my eldest brother. We decided to grab a quick bite to eat and take a walk on Crissy Field while everyone was getting ready. As we were walking through the Eucalyptus trees on the way to Crissy, I heard a dove cooing high up in the gum trees. The sounds calmed my nerves and reminded me of my family who weren’t with me that day.

The other time, I was with my other brother in Lafayette Park in San Francisco. We were waiting for some life-changing news and decided to take a walk to do something while we waited on the results. We were standing at the top of the park and looking down towards Sacramento Street when I heard a dove cooing. A couple of minutes later, I received a good news text from my wife that changed my life forever.

The other day I was dropping my youngest son off at school. We’d been away for a while, so it was his first day back, and the drop off went badly. He was crying his lungs out as I walked away from him and left him in the capable hands of the teachers. I felt awful. As I walked home, I heard a dove cooing on the quiet street. I took a deep breath and calmed down. Whenever I’m at my son’s school now, I listen for the dove watching over the school. 

If you listen carefully, you can hear mother nature whispering to you. Next time listen, look, and be still. 

“Out beyond the ideas of right-doing and wrongdoing, there is a field I will meet you there. It’s the world full of things to talk about.”

Rumi
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Teleportation from Mount Tamalpais

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I feel several thousand years

Younger, as I pause,

Closed in and breathless

On this moonless night wondering

When I had forgotten the sea

And the stars and roads that wind slowly.

Firetrail at Midnight on Mt. Tamapais by J.L. Stanley

Certain places I visit share the same frequency and feel.

It can happen in crowded cities, deserted beaches, or somewhere in suburbia. There don’t need to be dream catchers and wind chimes tinkling in the wind for me to get a feeling that I’ve tapped into a resonance I’ve felt somewhere before.

A couple of years ago, my brother and I were walking down a wooded lane in Mill Valley, California. It was early morning, and the sun was shining through the Redwoods. The road ahead of us that was leading up to the foot of Mount Tamalpais was mottled with patches of light breaking through the leafy canopy. We stopped for a few minutes and enjoyed the silence. As we were standing in the middle of the road, my brother remarked that the feel of the place reminded him of the time he’d spent in Cornwall in South West England.

We started walking again, and the next road we saw was named Cornwall Road. Someone had come to this place before us and tuned in to the same frequency. 

Next time you get that feeling that everything feels familiar, it’s worth pausing for a minute and listening. You’ll get to travel around the world without getting on a plane.

Waiting forever for perfection

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Waiting for the perfect moment to do something is a form of procrastination.

If you start saying stuff like, “I’ll start when I’m done with whatever I’m doing,” then it’s helpful to define what ‘done’ means. If you don’t explain it, then the definition of ‘done’ will keep morphing into whatever’s on your plate. There are no bookends in daily life.

You have to push the red button and tell the bus driver your stop is coming up, or you will keep on going wherever that bus is heading. That is why you hear people say that getting fired was the best thing that happened to them because it forced them off the wrong bus.

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Less is more

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“I make myself rich by making my wants few.”

Henry David Thoreau

If you earn a lot of money but spend more than you earn then you are on the treadmill like everyone else. You aren’t wealthy; you just make a lot of money.

Living within your means is real wealth.

If you earn $100k per year and spend $50k and are saving $50k each year, you are wealthy.

It makes a lot of sense:

  1. You accumulate capital and a safety net over time.
  2. It’s less stressful because you aren’t living pay check to pay check.
  3. You avoid debt.
  4. You won’t get trapped by a job because you can’t afford to leave.
  5. It’s less stressful.

Being rich can give you control over your time, but another way to achieve financial independence is to be frugal.

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What I want and what I enjoy

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The best part of getting older is that I know what I want and what I enjoy.

The hard part about getting older is that I regret not knowing what I wanted and what I enjoyed when I was young.

Some older souls know what they want from an early age. It’s like they’ve figured it out in a couple of past lives and go straight to the prize as soon as they can.

Others, muddle through and after some thrash and some reversible mistakes, they find their path.

Everyone is on a different learning and discovery trajectory.

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Sheeple People

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Humans are like sheep. We mimic the crowd and don’t like to stand out. Nobody wants to be first, but then when the dam breaks, everyone follows pretty quickly.

We are more comfortable wearing a face mask if someone else is already wearing one. It’s like anything in the fashion world – we first see a new style of clothing on a fashion ramp during Fashion Week, then we see it in a magazine, then some film star is wearing it on Instagram, and then it’s available at Zara or H&M. There’s comfort in conformity.

I noticed the reluctance to wear a face mask during the last two smoke filled fire season and now again during the COVID-19 pandemic. The same applies to proper etiquette for social distancing in grocery stores, public transport, and public parks.

Politicians, CEOs, and community leaders should set an example for others to follow. Most people want to do the right thing, but don’t underestimate shyness and the reluctance to stand out as a significant roadblock.

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The truth 100 years from now

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How will we retell the pandemic stories of 2020? If the news we read today is already editorialized, full of clickbait, and half-truths, then the history books 100 years from now will be even worse.

Imagine all the exaggerations and lies that will be spun in the coming years as we talk to our grandchildren about lockdowns, hoarding, Wuhan, border closings, social distancing, face masks, and Donald Trump.

We live in an era where everything is documented and broadcasted as it happens. Maybe platforms with community-generated content like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook will be the source of truth when people look back and seek out the real stories of the 2020 Global Pandemic. COVID-19 will be the most documented and written about virus in the history of the world.

I wonder if the truth survives.

Photo by Casey Nguyen on Unsplash

Closing down to open up

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“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” Jerzy Gregorek

Countries like New Zealand and Australia that mandated proper lockdowns and that had its citizens cooperate are now opening up for trade and commerce again. They will be the “Green” Free Trade zones in 2020.

Countries that screamed about fake news and conspiracy theories haven’t even adequately closed down yet. The failed states will be “Red” no-trade zones as they stagger through the painful process of herd immunity.
The reaction to COVID-19 is like one big The Rorschach Test. COVID-19 is a not a Netflix show that you can turn off when you get bored.

The virus has its own programming schedule and it isn’t On Demand TV like Hulu or Netflix.

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Qualified people and geniuses

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Immigration policy and criteria are good at spotting talented and qualified people. A merit-based immigration system favors nurses, accountants, engineers, and people with prescriptive degrees and qualifications. These types of immigration profiles are suitable for growing societies, and they tend to add value or fill a gap very quickly. The problem is that nurses and accountants tend to be risk-averse and probably won’t start a company or create the next Yahoo, Apple, or Uber.

Geniuses are a different profile and much more difficult to spot and screen. Geniuses are unpredictable and hard to put in a box. They can also see the future and see around corners. They are the wildcards who start companies that end up employing thousands of doctors and accountants.

A healthy immigration system attracts talented, hardworking people; as well as wild card geniuses who enter the country as refugees, students, farmworker’s families, and green card lotteries.

Geniuses change the world.

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes … the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. … You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. … They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Apple’s 1997 Think Different campaign