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I think the whole idea of grace is to remind us that life is a gift.

Gift: “something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned.”

From March 6, 2021:

• “Grace alone implies a complex design of predestination in which everyone is equally base and no one is deserving.”
• “Grace insists on a respectful, unpretentious, humble compassion for All.”
• “If Grace insists on a respectful, unpretentious, humble compassion for All, then a lack of Grace insists on an inconsiderate, pretentious, selfish disregard for all and everything beyond this moment.”

Capitalism lacks grace and (today more so than ever before) encourages me to take individual credit for this gift that is life and believe that it is not only earned but deserved, and believe that I am not only entitled but gifted. These impressions of course are erroneous but consistently thought they become entrenched and for most of us there is no turning back.

Yet to move forward we need to turn back not only to grace but also to civic and moral value.

From February 27 2021:

• “Political discussion in recent years has retreated from a substantial, meaningful debate on civic and moral virtue to an entrenched academic exercise calculating market values. Going as far back as Confucius and Plato and as recently as Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr, moral and civic virtue was a consideration; part of the equation. What has happened in the past 40 years?”
• “It may be an oversimplification but I believe our recent decline is a result of our increasing capacity for learning that has enabled rapid technological progress and at the same time stymied our ability to think. We are so busy creating, we have left no time to consider potential outcomes or repercussions. We have grown smart faster than we have grown wise. So we have fallen back on this system of Market Value because it appeals to our current level of acuity and does not require the thoughtful, careful depth of consideration necessary for inclusion of Civic Value and/or Moral Value.”

I need to understand that regarding Humanity’s progress and survival, wealth and power is the equivalent of the kiddie pool. I need to understand that individually being better off materially does not make me the better person.

From January 16, 2021:

• “My natural state, (with no artificial encouragement), is discomfort. To be consistently comfortable I must be constantly comforted; and that comforting is not going to come frequently or fast enough from others, …therefore I must constantly soothe and reassure my self myself; in every moment. This leads me to the realization that constant comforting is more comforting if I am constantly improving or getting better; and in our capitalistic world what better way to be better than to be better off. Not only better off than others, but also (and perhaps more importantly) better off than I was a few years or months or even moments ago. And it does not matter that I am better off because (or in spite) of others being worse off. What matters is that I am comfortable because I am comforted by my wealth and/or power relative to those more deserving of less; those on the wrong side of a coin flip that I have conveniently misremembered.”

I need to understand that compassion, progress, survival is not comfortable.

From January 30, 2021:

• “Perhaps to reach optimal productivity from discomfort, we need to first establish world-wide-spread comfort. If we have a comforted / comfortable constituent base that feels secure in opportunities for education, peace and prosperity, then perhaps the burden of the necessary awareness from discomfort can be properly placed on the shoulders of more thoughtful worldwide and community leaders and experts, who are capable of mitigating existing and unforeseen threats to our long term survival. As long as we have a constituent base mired in discomfort and on the less preferable side of widening wealth and power gaps, we have an audience for populists, despots, tyrants, autocrats, oppressors, and fringe fear-mongering fascists spouting divisive rhetoric. And as long as we have that audience, we will have an us and we will have a them.”
• “We are in a difficult place. We must seek discomfort to become aware and to encourage change, but we must create comfort to discourage divisiveness so we may work together; or at least work on what is important. And we must narrow the gaps, yet we are still operating on a strong instinct to widen the gaps. It is a multi-level entanglement of contradiction and hardship.”

I need to see the last four to five decades for the cluster they have been.

From December 12, 2020:

• “As appalling and repulsive as it is to think, it truly appears that we are a nation of elitist bigots. Until we overcome this empathyless national infirmity, those who look different (minorities and immigrants), those who fall into circumstance created and perpetuated by rich white men (poor people, single moms and felons), those born into less opportunity than advertised, those who don't take advantage of the opportunity there is, and those who are on the overcrowded side of the ever-widening wealth gap, will continue to be victimized. The funny part here, (at least funny to the rich white men and the 9.9% born on third base), is that even though the potential victims constitute a large majority of all Americans, somewhere around one-half of this majority remain active, bona fide, card-carrying elitist bigots, and I would guess that at least half of the remaining half are (to varying degrees) closeted supporters.”
• “I will never understand why or how someone would or could prioritize their bank balance over the needs of a victim. Whether that victim could or could not have made a better decision at some point in the recent or distant past to alter their trajectory should make no difference; statistics show they will, regardless, land on a ladder rung very near to where they began, and be prohibited from climbing too far. So, if today they are a victim, (as are 90% of us in this country), why would we choose to withhold available wealth and rob them of their personal sense of significance? Why would we choose to turn our backs and allow them to question and doubt their self-worth? Why would I choose to believe that I am any more necessary than they are?”

Truthfully, America has never been great; but it has been better, more thoughtful, considerate, concerned.

• Grace.
• Civic Value.
• Moral value.

With effort, perhaps America can be better again.

Affluent comfort is security; freedom from care, anxiety, or doubt.

Compassion requires effort.

Effort, done properly, creates discomfort.

Thus affluent comfort rejects-refuses-repels compassion.

Affluent comfort is the realm of those with wealth and power.

Though a large majority of us do not live in the realm of wealth and power, a majority of us have been initiated into its hopeful pretense, and as initiates a majority of us have come to be comfortable within our servitude.

Thus our proximal comfort also rejects-refuses-repels compassion.

In our culture, comfort, affluent or proximal, has become the driving force for the majority.

The force of comfort, (an interesting juxtaposition), has always been a driver but the difference in recent decades is that technology makes attainment easier, so less effort is expended on improvement and progress. Less effort equates to more comfort and that in turn negatively impacts our ability to discover, to understand, to care.

To care, to want to right wrongs, to fight for Good, one must be rationally, actively angry and in turn one must listen for and learn from others’ rational anger.

Anger, justified or not, creates discomfort.

Compassion requires anger.

Anger comes from truthfulness.

Truthfulness requires effort.

Truthfulness creates discomfort.

It is a dilemma:

• I am not allowed to be truthful.
• I am not allowed to be angry.
• I am only allowed to work hard for myself or for the comfort of others.
• I am only allowed to be compassionate quietly, within my reach; and my reach is limited.

To choose compassion (even only within my individual realm) I must embrace truthfulness, anger, and effort, and I must consciously, consistently reject comfort.

Broken: reduced to fragments; fragmented; ruptured; torn; fractured; not functioning properly; out of working order.

We as a nation are broken. Yet we remain tied, bound, gagged to a system that is safely entrenched in practice, ritual, convention. And I understand that for those with power it is more comfortable to choose our moment over the care and consideration of future generations. And I understand why many of us with little or no power also choose to be safe within what we know rather than risk relatively comfortable moments for the untested turmoil that would be required to work for the future. Promising decisions are hard. Routine decisions are easy. To be safe is to abandon Justice, both today and for future generations.

Hard decisions are necessary in the face of injustice. Yet (by dressing up routine as promising and presenting status quo as progress) our system in this country has evolved to convince the oppressed that injustice is just; that they are better off in their shattered fragment than they would be seeking Justice for other fragments even if theirs would also benefit from that search. Our system in this country has taught us zero-sum thinking – that first and foremost it is about me, my comfort, my pretense, and secondarily it is about my fragment because opposing fragments are out to get what’s mine and there’s no such thing as mutual beneficence.

So to seek Justice, to attach urgency to actual hard decisions, I must do the following:

• Admit that it does not have to be a zero-sum game.
• Consciously realize that there is no such thing as a good decision.
• Begin to recognize myself as pretense.
• Risk comfort for untested promise.
• Risk the moment for tomorrow.

We are not functioning properly. We are not functioning according to Beauty, Truth, Wisdom, Justice. We have warped Form, Function, Discipline, Indulgence and elevated bureaucracy, convention, certainty, division.

We are broken.

Regardless of who makes a decision, instinctively…

• When a decision is made and it works to my advantage, it is smart.
• When a decision is made and it works to my disadvantage, it is dumb.

After instinct, decisions are according to their intent and/or outcome…

• When a decision is made by me and meant to impact only me, it is singular. Largely because singular decisions influence future decisions, they very rarely (if ever) impact only me.
• When a decision is made and it works to the advantage of the decision-maker and to the disadvantage of anyone else, it is manipulative.
• When a decision is made with little or no thought or process, it is careless and unreliable and the decision-maker is lazy, specious, untrustworthy, and potentially intentionally duplicitous.
• When a decision is made with significant thought and process, it is promising. Promising decisions are often untested and uncertain. Promising decisions are hard.
• When a decision is made from habit or in the course of practice, ritual, or convention, it is routine. Routine decisions inhibit potential for improvement. Routine decisions maintain status quo. Routine decisions are careless but thought to be reliable. Routine decisions pretend to be promising. Routine decisions are easy.

Is there any such thing as a good decision?

It feels like most decisions characterized as good decisions are in actuality routine decisions following practice, ritual, or convention. We tend to believe that safe is good and untested decisions made for change and potential improvement are risky and bad.

To be safe is to abandon Justice.

I am working this week to reconcile competence and improvement with understanding and equity.

• To be understanding is to be nice; as it should be.
• To be competent is to be truthful; construed by some as insensitive.
• The incompetent still need to be significant, contribute, and (in today’s world) earn a living.
• Objectively, an individual is a resource.
• Incompetence is not a reflection of an individual. Incompetence is a misplaced human resource.
• A reallocation of human resources is required for improvement.
• Financial compensation is a resource.
• A reallocation of financial resources is required for equity.
• Improvement requires competence.
• The long-term survival of Humanity requires improvement.
• Equity requires understanding.
• The day-to-day survival of the individual requires equity.
• To reallocate resources requires power.
• Power is afraid.
• Power is afraid that a reallocation of financial resources would diminish their compensation thus their power.
• Power is afraid that an equitable reallocation of human resources would require a reallocation of financial resources.
• So, power has created a system in which the privileged are gently guided on unique journeys to amazing accomplishments as enablers and defenders of the status quo.
• So, power has created a system in which the underprivileged, (the majority), are gently misguided, ill-advised, misled, divided, misused, stirred, manipulated, set against each other, distanced, displaced, oppressed.

So I believe I have determined that though competence and improvement appear to be at odds with understanding and equity, they are so only when we accept or believe the superficial rhetorical definitions spewed by power. Power wants us to believe that equity hinders improvement because power is afraid. It is power that holds us back, maintaining status quo, working very hard to keep us not only from equity but in turn competence, improvement, and understanding. If power weren’t afraid (and all-powerful) we could reallocate and make strides toward both long-term and day-to-day survival.

Here is an example of how power works to maintain. Today higher education is still largely for the privileged and the potentially-privileged (a potential that is still largely determined by power). The concepts, gently guided – unique journey – amazing accomplishments (from a bullet point above), came in an email directly from a large state university’s Student Success office reminding faculty and staff that “student success and retention are at an all-time high,” and encouraging us to continue this trend. When the students appear to do well, we look good and everyone is comfortable and happy so why wouldn’t we continue to gently guide each other into the jaws of this self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is our idea, (i.e. power’s definition), of understanding and equity – enabling the privileged and aspirants-to-privileged to become enablers and defenders.

Having worked for more than 20 employers over 5 decades, I also see this dynamic asserting itself more and more in the workplace. I believe the correlation between competence and compensation in the workplace has become less and less in recent decades. I don’t believe it has ever been what the ‘American Dream’ would have me believe. I am currently in a circumstance in which there is little to no correlation between competence and compensation, and I believe the larger an organization the more so this is true. From where I sit, the process by which compensation is decided is more strongly correlated with the extent to which one is an enabler and defender of the status quo than it is with competence. And just as with the students, we are all amazing and outstanding and phenomenal and great and happy and comfortable. Though obviously this comfortable lack of progress should not positively influence one’s compensation, and though one might be inclined to argue that competence should more positively correlate with compensation (as I appear to do up to now in this paragraph), if incompetence is merely a misplaced resource, then instead I would have to argue that one’s degree of competence or incompetence in a specific job should also not positively or negatively influence one’s compensation but should instead trigger a reallocation of human resources. And some might say, “yes, reallocate – the incompetent should be fired and sent on their merry way to find a new job.” But that is not understanding or equitable partially because this method of reallocating financial resources is moving in the wrong direction and (perhaps) largely due to the multitude of interpretations for incompetent. Again, incompetence is not a reflection of an individual; incompetence is a reflection of a system in which a human resource is misplaced.

Yet there remains a stigma associated with incompetence – there should not be. The shame is on power, and on secondary power; all those who work so very hard to maintain status quo. The irreconcilable difference here is not between equity and improvement or between understanding and competence; the irreconcilable difference here is between the pretense of entitlement and the day-to-day and long-term survival of the individual and the species.

Shame on me, shame on you, shame on us.