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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?

Here is my take:

• Market Value is defined as consumption. It is a system of thought and action in which the individual is consumer. It is characterized by the indignity and hubris of inequality, measured by financial growth, and its failures are remedied with rhetoric, fundamentalism, nationalism, a welfare state and distributive justice.
• Civic Value is defined as production. It is a system of thought and action in which the individual is producer. It is characterized by the dignity of work, measured by social growth, and its failures are remedied with a combination of distributive and contributive justice.
• Moral Value is defined as enrichment. It is a system of thought and action in which the individual is humanitarian. It is characterized by the propriety of ethical behavior, measured by character growth, and its failures are remedied with equitable opportunity, education, and ongoing process improvement.

The three values above encapsulate systems of political thought and action over the last twenty-five or so centuries. 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. And to further complicate matters, this capacity-wisdom gap has created a need for a fourth value:

• Survival Value is defined as synergy. It is a system of thought and action in which the individual contributes greater than one part of the whole in collaboration with others. It is characterized by the inviolability of Life, measured by symbiotic growth, and its failures are remedied with universal education, cooperation and discipline.

For the moment we are stuck with Capitalism and the global politicization of Market Value, so though I believe it would be a better world if our efforts were focused on Civic Value, Moral Value and Survival Value, for now we must consider all four values and prioritize accordingly. The challenge of course is that in this moment all of our focus and effort is on Market Value. Further analysis, discussion, written thought, below:

Market Value. Market Value as a system of thought and action is a direct result of capitalism. Capitalism is failing. In this country, our entire political structure is found within the outline of Market Value. The difference between Republicans and Democrats mostly lies in their proposed remedies; fundamentalism and nationalism vs. a welfare state and the occasional sincere effort toward distributive justice. (In my mind distributive justice differs from a welfare state in that a welfare state includes a bureaucracy doling out humiliation flimsily disguised as accountability and the resulting stigma of being on the far end of the wrong side of the wealth and power gap; whereas distributive justice includes acknowledgement that the system bears a large portion of the blame and responsibility for failure and recognizes individual worth regardless of circumstance.) Both of our political parties utilize considerable rhetoric, including opportunity and mobility as talking points, but until civic value again becomes part of the equation, opportunity and mobility will remain paralyzed. And though the Republicans today appear to bring a slightly heavier dose of bias with the far right much more explicit, that does not excuse the middle to the far left who are often implicit to the point that they don’t even recognize it as bias. Explicit bias appears more divisive, but to repair the rifts, implicit bias must also be overcome but may prove to be a bigger challenge than explicit bias. Regardless, as long as Capitalism continues to fortify the wealth and power gap, there will be no natural, instinctive remedies for failures, and there will be no to slow movement toward civic and moral virtue.

Civic Value. Civic value as production and the individual as producer sounds academic and dry and feels like an extension of capitalism and though it may be these things, it is also a vehicle for meaning and purpose. To focus on and work to understand civic value strengthens the viability of capitalism (or whichever economic system is in play) by adding dignity and esteem, by extending and fortifying social bonds, and by adding options for remedying failures. Distributive justice is fuller access and more equitable access. Contributive justice increases dignity and allows for individual meaning and purpose. Within Civic Value, where and when the system fails, we can combine elements of distributive and contributive justice creating a more well-rounded effort that will also work towards cooperation and increase the potential for empathy and compassion which in turn moves us toward moral virtue.

Moral Value. Moral value takes into consideration an individual’s reach. In my mind, moral value should be a system of thought and action in which the individual adds value, giving back however they are able for the betterment of all, but most ideally in a system in which they are allowed to pursue opportunity consistent with individual ability, thus maximizing worldwide efficiency and output. In addition, where and when the system fails, there should be no shortage of resources, no shortage of empathy and compassion, and no hesitation. We are some distance from this Ideal. Just as successful remedies for failure within Civic Value move us toward Moral Value, to maintain equitable opportunity, to increase the number and availability of educational options, and to strive for consistent proliferative process improvement seem to be necessary steps toward Survival Value.

Survival Value. Survival value demands that the individual consider beyond their self and beyond those communities within the individual’s reach and, in collaboration with others, not only adds value, but adds more than their fair share of value. An unequivocal acknowledgement of the inviolability of All Life, (sentient, non-sentient, past, present and future), today is advantageous to the survival of our species. We must somehow care about everyone. In the last 40 years, because we have become more smart than wise, to save us we need to work to save all. This last statement is especially true in the context of today's us and them.

So, to survive, we must work within survival value. But to do that we must also rescue moral value, somehow prop up civic value, and keep our hands on market value (hopefully in order to one day throttle it). So extending this thought still further, let's be truthful; nobody truly cares about everybody. Everybody only cares about individuals. Even those groups I may believe I care about, (and in some cases actually do care about), are identified as an extension of me, the individual; my family, my friends, my cohort, my community, my culture, my state, my nation, my species. It all begins with me and radiates outward to a lucky few who are fortunate to know me or to be associated with me. To truly care about everybody is to deny oneself. To deny oneself is to abrogate human nature. To abrogate human nature is to elevate Life. To elevate Life is to deny God. To deny God is to deny Power. To deny Power is to deny meaning. To deny meaning is to acknowledge infinity. To acknowledge infinity is to embrace ubiquity. To embrace ubiquity is to deny Existence. To deny Existence is to truly care about everybody. Nobody truly cares about everybody. I believe that the best I can hope for is to create occasional moments in which I am able to elevate Life so I may be reminded to think and act in a way that consistently respects the inviolability of All Life. This direction is what is necessary for survival.

This is installment #3 of a sci-fi serial. Installment #1 was posted 1/23/21; appropriately a numerically-ordered palindrome. Follow the links forward from the last sentence and backward from the first sentence of each post.

Of course we have the ships and the capability to travel back into our future, but that world was in danger when we left, and now we are uncertain what, if anything, we may find if we return. As I have said before, time travel into the future is wildly unpredictable. If our actions in these past weeks have created or led to a divergence that extends past 2275, even if (as some of our science indicates) a third divergence is impossible and a revergence in 2030 is somehow forced, we will be unable to land in either of the two realities that now exist in that 2275 TimePlace. And even if we are able to land due to this theoretical corollary to the Law of Preponderant Sequentials, we will not know how the surviving possibility track or the intervening calendar years may have altered that future. We believe even a small alteration, one not large enough to prevent a landing, could greatly alter a time traveler’s reality, possibly creating a divergence in that moment of arrival. And then of course any ships other than the first one to land, would be left with only two possibility tracks. And as previously described, if we attempt a landing in the desired TimePlace, at cusp speed with no landing spot, like a game of hot potato we will (theoretically) be tossed from cusp to cusp until we do manage a landing and are able to recharge-reset to travel at SpaceTime speed. Remember, we have lost three fleets previously, attempting to land on less than three possibility tracks. Not only might we end up in an unknown or dangerous TimePlace, once there we are not certain we could find our way back. We have only mapped out the TimePlace pattern of cusps as they are nested in SpaceTime on a single WavePlane for the span from our current year 2275 to your more recent year 1959, and only for Earth and for our own planet. Mapping is a very complex process involving a larger ship traveling at orbital SpaceTime speed towing a small craft (technically) set for cusp speed which (because it is at cusp speed) is able to take pictures of the cusps relative to SpaceTime in the orbital plane surrounding the planet. The complexity lies in the combination of a maximum orbital speed of 20,000 mph coupled with the immense amount of SpaceTime (much enlarged due to the speed abrogation necessary to enter TimePlace) of which a statistically significant representation must be traversed at cusp speed even for this short span of 300 years. Once we figured out this towing system allowing us to see the cusps, the early stages of our time travel efforts into the past were still largely trial and error; hit and miss. They weren’t necessarily much more dangerous than they are now; we were just uncertain the specific TimePlace calendar year we might end up in, and when we were off in our theory, this created the need for additional cusp speed. Additionally, in those early stages, not knowing what repercussions might occur, it was always small teams to a nearby (TimePlace) year, with very limited to no intervention. In this way we hopped across our WavePlane in short hops at first, then progressively bigger hops to confirm our theories. This all took considerable effort and many TimePlace calendar years because of the small teams and because the necessity of cusp speed was more frequent not only when our theory was incorrect but also in order to verify accuracy and symmetry of spans. Today, with 300 years mapped, we can travel at our SpaceTime speed, (up to 650,000 mph), to the vicinity (we’ve gotten very good at pinpointing this) of the desired cusp entry point, reduce our speed to orbital speed, apply the TimePlace cusp map overlay to the actual (enlarged) SpaceTime overview, find the exact entry point for the desired TimePlace calendar year, reduce our speed to cusp speed, enter the cusp, land on the proffered possibility tracks, recharge-reset, take off at an orbital SpaceTime speed of (again) approximately 20,000 mph, and here we are. It is unfortunate that we can reduce to cusp speed in transit, but we cannot increase to SpaceTime speed unless stationary. And we are uncertain still, exactly when the SpaceTimePlace calendar changes. In this trip, for example, until we entered the cusp at cusp speed we are confident it was still 2275. And we believe that before we land on the possibility tracks, it is still 2275; we are fairly certain in this regard because otherwise we don’t believe our communication chain would work. But because we cannot see beyond the sheath, we are not sure if it is the act of landing on the possibility tracks, taking off from them at a SpaceTime speed, or exiting the cusp, that actually marks the perimeter between 2275 and 2022. There is differing opinion and it probably is mostly irrelevant, but because of the “pop” like a champagne cork that is both felt and heard within the ship as it gently stretches then breaks through, exiting the cusp sheath, most people believe this is the point where we cross over. There is widespread evidence as well (including the workings of our communication chain) that once engines are engaged to increase to a SpaceTime speed, we may for a few moments be partially situated in both SpaceTimePlace calendar times. Perhaps the most compelling argument though for the crossover to be cusp exit is the psychological fascination watching the sheath wall flutter as if caught in a light breeze, then lazily lay itself back down with cracks and folds and creases hypnotically erasing themselves as if a warship had never broken through. And it is also this last observation that leads many scientists and thinkers to believe that the sheath wall encourages reparations and the ultimate revergence of the three possibility tracks.

The discovery of cusps and their possibility tracks was an accident. Scientists and fiction writers before our discoveries have long considered the possibility of time travel, and (in a sense) scientists had proven the reality of traveling into the future, but according to most commonly held conjecture, believed that to travel into the past one must either find a suitable wormhole or somehow overcome causality. We have not tamed wormholes, but by accidentally discovering the process of speed abrogation (i.e. cusp speed) and the fact of three possibility tracks, we have discovered TimePlace. Since this initial discovery in 2187, we have found that TimePlace is separate from SpaceTime, the Laws of TimePlace (so far) supersede the laws of SpaceTime, and causality is a nonissue thanks to more than one possibility track. Essentially, if I go back to a time in which I already exist, I will reside on a different possibility track from my other self, which by itself will create a tiny divergence, which in turn allows causality to remain intact for as long as I am two separate individuals and despite the fact that both of me are in the same relative TimePlace. And as long as I am conscious and careful of the possibility of disturbing the Law of Preponderant Sequentials, the small divergence created will not adversely impact further time travel to my specific TimePlace. If I did widen the divergence, I would still not be defying causality, (we believe) I would be creating an alternate reality. We also believe that this divergence, this alternate reality, will reverge at a point when the two possibility tracks have again attained SuperSimilarity. This state of SuperSimilarity is the state of the three possibility tracks when only one has been taken and/or when any divergence is essentially inconsequential. This state of SuperSimilarity typically allows intertraversal between the tracks and appears to occupants of one or both tracks as one track. But now that we have begun traveling to and on a second possibility track, we find there are momentary spans in which certain aspects of one track seem momentarily inaccessible as experienced through a differing reality from a previous span; (in this context momentary spans or momentarily can mean anywhere from a moment to a day to a week to a few months). Fortunately, this difficulty is only experienced by the actual time traveler and not the native population, (except perhaps as a conversational Mandela effect), we assume due to a widening divergence to maintain causality. And if a craft comes in on one of these specific TimePlace points of momentary divergence, at cusp speed they can usually find a point before divergence or after revergence and land there. Unfortunately, because of the amount of energy required for speed abrogation and cusp speed, a very few months is the limit a ship can travel before having no choice but to attempt a landing in order to recharge-reset.

Below, on the left is a simple two-dimensional rendering of how SpaceTime is perceived in an orbital plane surrounding a stronger gravity field (such as a planet or a large enough satellite/moon), and/or at any SpaceTime speed. On the right is how the same cross section looks at cusp speed from outside of this stronger gravitational pull. Of course these cross sections are flattened. In space imagine the rendering on the right to be extended and wrapped around the planet (in this case, Earth) approximately where one finds the low Earth orbital plane. Each continuous wavy line encircling the planet is considered a single WavePlane. The subsection rendering below extended and wrapped around the planet is what we have named the TimePlace Orbital WavePlane. Mapping these peaks and valleys to equate to TimePlace calendar years proved to be less of a challenge than our scientists and mathematicians at first imagined due to the symmetry. In these early efforts we have estimated the furthest past extreme but not yet having seen past our current year we cannot say if the future is already potentialized or if the TimePlace cusps write themselves, are carried forth, as SpaceTime years occur. We can say that based on the placement of our TimePlace neighborhood, there is SpaceTime allowance for the extension of a nearly infinite number of TimePlace cusps, especially if (as we conjecture because the sheaths can widen) the cusps are able to tighten up to create greater capacity. Fortunately, relatively speaking, our planet is in Earth's SpaceTime neighborhood and our year (2275) is in the TimePlace neighborhood of your year (2022). To travel even several hundred or ultimately several thousand more years, (to the future or to the past), in order to map and/or to reach a desired TimePlace is a daunting, overwhelming thought; but of course we believe science will one day rise to this challenge.

So how did we stumble into this discovery of TimePlace and its cusps? It was a mechanical error on board one of our explorer ships watching the essentially uninhabitable planet Earth for signs of increasing life and habitability in 2187. A simultaneous failure of a coincidental combination of propulsion engines, maneuvering engines and some elements of the fuel supply process brought the craft to such an abrupt sudden stop that many of the crew described a momentary out-of-body type of experience in which they could see their self from behind and were then gently but firmly reinserted into their flesh and blood; (we have since found a pharmaceutical to negate this disturbing brain stimulation). Once an accounting of the ship’s crew and equipment was accomplished, the view to Earth was seen as shown in the TimePlace rendering above. Checking their speed the on-board engineers determined that though they were not in a negative speed (which has never been thought to be possible), they were definitely not in a positive speed, and they were also not simply sitting at zero speed. It was as if they were hovering on an edge, a precipice, rocking between absolute infinity, total inconsequentiality, and complete nothingness. It is this unimagined and unimaginable abrogation of speed that we have termed cusp speed. Though the ship’s officers and engineers soon found they were unable to reinitiate any sort of positive speed, they were able to maneuver and slowly approach the mysterious wavy conduits surrounding the planet Earth. After (according to their time) a few days passed, when they realized the system energy reserves were steadily decreasing, the ship’s commander decided to breech the (from close examination) possibly permeable sheath in an effort to find a solution. They of course found what I have already described and after some exploration, as their system energy approached dangerously low levels, they set the ship down upon the three possibility tracks, where they found they could recharge-reset and reinitiate SpaceTime speed. Upon doing so and exiting the cusp, they found themselves back in familiar SpaceTime and made their way to our planet. What surprised everyone at that time is that this ship returned in 2189, yet for the crew only two-and-a-half months had passed. Upon analysis of all the ship’s logs, we were able to theorize what had happened, (which was made more apparent by their jump to 2189) and replicate the exact combination of systems failures to replicate their time travel journey. Many things are apparent now including how they obviously moved along parallel to the possibility tracks before landing, causing the ship to advance two calendar years. (As with the vicinity at SpaceTime speed, we have since become very adept at pinpointing the exact landing spot on the possibility tracks for coming out in the exact calendar year, frequently the exact calendar month, and about one out of seven times the exact day we had targeted in planning the voyage.)

Once at cusp speed a ship will not, cannot, move in SpaceTime; location is locked. However, the craft can maneuver and adjust its location relative to TimePlace. At cusp speed, in TimePlace, it feels like you are moving, (though instead of miles or kilometers per hour your movement is measured in days per hour), but in actuality you are not moving, TimePlace is moving. Simplistically put, whichever direction you choose to face, you are pulling the curvature of the TimePlace Orbital WavePlane toward you, creating the illusion you are moving. To enter a cusp the ship will go nose down into a perpendicular dive, but is in actuality pulling the sheath toward them, another example of sheath flexibility supporting our theory of revergence. In TimePlace our maximum speed so far has always been ½ day per hour; and we are uncertain if we will ever be able to increase that TimePlace speed. So to go back (or forward) 300 years while at cusp speed in TimePlace following the wavy line of the cusp through all its peaks and valleys would take 25 years. But of course we can avoid this long way around by traveling through SpaceTime at SpaceTime speed and by using the map overlay. With the map overlay we can equate our SpaceTime position with the desired TimePlace location as long as we can calculate the degree of SpaceTime enlargement which differs according to latitude and longitude on the gravitational body below us; which of course at this stage is only Earth or our planet. In addition we have discovered that each cusp from peak to valley or from valley to peak is ten years. So far we have remained on a single WavePlane that encircles the planet but have determined that we do have the ability to cross WavePlane Gulfs. Due to our personal sense of urgency though, regarding this 300 year span, we have not yet explored the calendar time relationship moving from one WavePlane to another. And (at least on this single WavePlane), It is interesting (and convenient) that the instant we attain orbital speed above Earth or above our planet, the calendar time as measured from when and where we took off (at SpaceTime speed), adding (of course) actual number of days, weeks or months traveled, is always directly beneath us. So as long as we mark the exact moment we hit 20,000 mph above Earth, the map overlay works perfectly.

I am not a scientist. I have no advanced degree. I am not an expert in any field. I am merely an observer here to record what I see. That said, offering the lay technical explanations I have offered, has been a cleansing experience; cathartic; healing. It is helpful to focus on detail in the midst of so much turmoil.

Now, for the matter at hand…

As a species we have seen 200,000 years. Our civilization (marked by the advent of agriculture) has seen 10,000 years. From fossil records we know that a typical mammalian species can expect to survive about 1,000,000 years, and across all species average survival ranges between 1,000,000 and 10,000,000 years. As a species, in many ways we are atypical. Yet (literally) looking across time, in many other ways we are typical. Until recently, the past century or two relative to my year of 2275, we have acted in accordance with our atypicality as applied to the individual. We have forgotten, lost sight of, our commonness both individually across our species and as a species across all species. It is time. Today. Unless we remember, and act in accordance with our humble origin and our eventual unremarkable end, our atypicality will manifest as a short-lived mammalian species. Our legacy will last ten million years as the amount of time it will take Earth to heal itself after the damage we have inflicted.

Or we can change our trajectory to become a part of the healing process, and perhaps see our atypicality manifest as a long-lived species; perhaps even that same ten million years or more. The decision is ours. Today.

As observers we were asked to pen a plea to you, to help convince you of the immediate, urgent, important need for worldwide cooperation. I began by explaining time travel in an effort to bring you face to face with your future and in an effort to fill you with the wonderment of our potentiality as a species. In this moment, your year of 2022, we don't know if there is a future for us beyond 2060. We may have been mistaken coming to you for help. But we believed in you. We believed in us.

Now we are making plans to send explorers back out to our future and beyond. We do not know what we might find. Most of us will stay right here in this TimePlace and work for the future, knowing that there may be others in the future also working for the future. We will act as representatives for the future people. We should all represent our descendants. Depending on our decisions today, their future, our future, could be made more difficult, or possibly easier, or our future may not exist at all. It is up to us. It is time.

This is installment #2 of a sci-fi serial. Installment #1 was posted 1/23/21; appropriately a numerically-ordered palindrome. Follow the links forward from the last sentence and backward from the first sentence of each post.

It has been just over four weeks since my last observation and so much has happened. Sixteen days ago, in a coordinated effort, we unobtrusively secured 82% of your world's known nuclear weapons. We were in position to have at least some influence on the powers controlling the remaining 18% and we had operatives continuing to search for hidden stockpiles and still others continuing to infiltrate terrorist organizations deemed as potential nuclear threats. We did this as previously stated by dropping hundreds of thousands into millions of our scientists and trained operatives (and often their families) into your 1970's and 1980's. These experts in turn trained the next generation of extraterrestrial experts and many of these individuals, two generations worth, have been able to work their way into key positions of influence surrounding dangerous thought and circumstance. In addition, amongst these millions of extraterrestrials there were experts in the development of the technologies necessary to avert the (so far unavoidable) 2060 disaster.

So why didn't we do the same thing with politicians and diplomats? In an effort to simply control all the nations? And bring about a more peaceful solution? We considered this but look at your history; our history. The masses in your TimePlace are far too fickle and unpredictable. It would take only a handful of charismatic fascist or populist terrestrial leaders to subvert and circumvent our efforts. Success on this front would be too uncertain. Additionally, our thinkers were uncertain how individual power might corrupt our own after being immersed in your civilization for 40 or 50 years. (With one or two exceptions) we felt it better to remain in the background and come forward only now; as one.

Twenty-four. Maybe twenty-five. That is the number of nuclear bombs unleashed in the past two weeks; all of them smaller, between 15 and 20 kilotons. We don't believe the damage to be irreversible but the literal and metaphorical fallout will be felt for decades. Our intelligence tells us that there are an additional 8 to 10 hotspots that could still erupt. If the threat becomes palpable, we will (as we have already done) strike preemptively. Seven of the twenty-four (or twenty-five) nuclear weapons (so far) were ours. Millions, billions of stories. Seemingly unnecessary loss and devastation; from where you sit. From our perspective? Consequential sacrifice. So at this point, two weeks after our first strike, though we have been successful and feel somewhat secure in our initial efforts, we have concerns.

It is surprising the number of scary clowns in the upper echelons of power in so many nations that are some form of a working democracy in which the people could have chosen more wisely. Of all the pain and loss and devastation in this two weeks, it is this fact, this inability to see beyond the moment, this debilitating lack of imagination, this incontrovertible fundamental stupidity, that have our thinkers making new predictions about the coming span of TimePlace from now to 2060. We had initially believed and hoped that once subdued and faced with logic, you would at the least allow us the opportunity to provide and comfort (which we have made clear is our intention), and we had initially believed and hoped that you would ultimately (yet in fairly short order) understand and see the wisdom of cooperation. But even now, in this moment, surrounded by an overwhelming force of advanced technology, many of you, perhaps a large majority of you, are nowhere but in this moment; still focusing on your facts of divisiveness; still living in your reality of us / them; still making the same mistakes. We now believe we will need to divert much effort from the task at hand, (saving Humanity from itself), to managing your desire for autonomy that will (ironically) manifest as unruly mob violence, perhaps on a nuclear level. To incite herd behavior in the interest of individual freedom, we now believe, will become an occupation, a pastime, a hobby, a game, a calling, that may grow to pandemic proportions. Reassessing your nature, our thinkers now put the odds of surviving the 2060 potential for obliterative decimation at around 45%. Three weeks ago that number was 77%.

We still believe that creating more opportunity for productive, beneficial, compassionate individual thought will ultimately lead to the understanding, compassion and empathy necessary for long term survival, but we now question if we will attain the level of cooperation necessary for surviving the short term beyond 2060. This question is further substantiated by our consistent observations that even those leaders willing to cooperate, lack urgency. For the first time in the history of Humanity, you are literally face-to-face with your future, yet you still refuse to see beyond today. In this CalendarTime, 2022, this ignorance may or may not lead to your individual death, but it has led to today’s carnage, and it very well could lead to our death; and like it or not, we are you and you are us.

To complicate matters, we have lost contact with our future. We are uncertain if there was a breakdown in the cusp, or if simply by taking the actions we have in the past two weeks, we have perhaps created a divergence that has carried past 2030 where all three possibility tracks have already been traversed, thus either eliminating or changing a track which in turn has eliminated our ships in the nether in-between? This is the first journey in which we are preceding a time where the outer two possibility tracks have already diverged from the one in the center, so we simply do not know what will happen. So far, we have waited the equivalent CalendarTime between each TimePlace journey partially to confirm (as best we could) that the possibility track divergence had corrected itself before 2042 and/or that those first explorers were safely off of their own accord. But we still are uncertain about the predominance of one possibility track over another, so if we have created a divergence that becomes or supersedes a predominant track, we may have eliminated our future selves. And now our scientists and thinkers have expressed the fear we had all felt; that by tripping over time as we have done, instead of simply widening a sheath and weakening its walls, we may have ripped it apart creating an irrecoverable (fourth?) renegade possibility track. We had thought that there was a small chance that the actions we have taken in the past two weeks might result in our future seeing an instantaneous alteration of reality (which of course we are uncertain our 2275 selves will even see) and reporting back to us a future thriving, inhabited Earth. We had believed though that this invasion alone would not be enough to change possibilities that far ahead. We knew, we know, there is still a lot of work to be done, but in this momentary TimePlace, we do not know if our future (as we remember it) is still there, is in a diverged TimePlace, or no longer exists at all. Sheath flexibility and the possibility of a third divergence are the unknowns. We do not understand why each cusp houses only three possibility tracks and we do not know if a divergence will always, in some unknown future CalendarTime depending upon its sequential preponderance, reverge with the other two. Or, as already said, perhaps rip open the sheath and create an alternate reality.

So perhaps there are no longer extraterrestrials. Perhaps we are now singly, exclusively and truly you. Regardless, we have a lot of work to do to repair our current trajectory leading to 2060. Regardless, we can still speak, with confidence, as your future. Regardless, we must find productive, beneficial, compassionate individual thought that can come together not only as a connection, but as an overlapping; an intertwining; an entanglement; a fusion. If we are not able to do this, our world is in danger.

Early this week I spoke emotional truth; and I got in trouble for it. I declared to myself then that the rest of the week I was going to keep my mouth shut and make some popovers. I can't remember the last time I had a popover. Probably as a kid.

In fairness, on that day of reckoning, those in power expressed concern, but once I backed off the emotion and suggested that perhaps I had overreacted, they agreed. This agreement allowed us to move forward and allowed them to ignore a truth. I have expressed this truth before, calmly and with data, and it has been ignored, multiple times. The truth I have presented involves an entanglement of worthless private accountability reminders and my inability to take further steps and management's refusal to take further steps. So yesterday, when a version of this same truth, (I was held publicly accountable for a task not even yet due), was brought to bear upon me in this way that I am forbidden from using, I became emotional. As an hourly employee, apparently I can be held publicly accountable, but important salaried individuals not only cannot be held publicly accountable, but also cannot be held privately accountable by anyone that matters, nor can we even broach accountability from an oblique overview without naming names.

When I expressed emotional truth, I did overreact; to the specific circumstance of that day. But in the context of the bigger picture, there is truth that is lost; hidden by calling it an overreaction; a rose by any other name.

So, in this moment of written thought, now toward the end of the week, I have not made popovers, but I have kept my mouth shut. I haven't even written anything for two days for fear of another emotional truth rearing its ugly head. I have been reading fiction, watching Netflix, considering an upgrade from Minesweeper, and hiding from the discomfort of truth. Better that way. Right?

I am going to go make some popovers.

…continuing from two weeks ago.

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.

Today we spend more on broad interventions toward things like education, peace and prosperity than we do on narrow interventions toward things like climate change, environmental damage and readiness for future pandemics. According to Toby Ord in “The Precipice” today we spend more on ice cream than we do on existential risk. (Ord, 2020, p. 58). Yet from where I sit, our efforts, both broad and narrow, are haphazard and misguided. To me, it appears we have left opportunity out of the equation. To me, it appears that we continue to be blind to the coin flip that occurs at birth. And because of this instinctive ignorance, divisiveness runs rampant and reigns supreme.

We have new leadership in this country. Or do we? For me, leadership is not about intention and rhetoric; leadership is about action and progress. For me, leadership is not about today; leadership is about tomorrow. For me, leadership is not to be boss, or to think I know better or best, or to estrange, or to put others in their place; leadership is to listen and understand, with compassion and empathy. We will see if our leadership is new or merely a candy-coated version of the status quo.

But this is where comfort becomes dangerous. What if our leadership makes their constituency comfortable? Will they then continue to stretch for optimal productivity from the discomfort of existential threat? Or will they be lulled into a comfortable false sense of security? Simply leveling opportunity will not resolve risk. Greater and more equitable opportunity may encourage a more educated constituency to seek understanding and become a more active part of the effort toward long term survival, but if not properly guided, this advantage may also sidetrack or distract us with too many opinions, or (worse yet) we may simply create a larger false sense of security and allow the advantage to be spent on more selfish short-term us-them efforts.

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. In recent months we have seen our government send stimulus payments to individuals. I believe this has helped to restore some sense of validity (and yes, comfort) to many in need. Today I read that the IRS is considering withholding a next round of stimulus payments from those that owe the IRS. Withholding validity from those people who need it most and those people who have suffered most from a coin flip. Today I also read that some Republican leaders in the House and the Senate are once again rallying around Trump; despite some distancing as little as 10 days ago. Perpetuating divisiveness that hurts those people who need cooperation the most and helps to maintain the status quo. Oppression. Our government, our bureaucracy, once again blind to the coin flip, and once again instinctively maintaining the gap, and once again keeping “Those People” in their place.

I am screaming inside. Yesterday, three paragraphs above, I wrote “we will see if our leadership is new or merely a candy-coated version of the status quo.” It appears, on multiple fronts, that the question is being answered – We have (so far) entered an era of candy-coated status quo.