The battle of winter and summer

Recently, my daughter and I have been watching a Netflix series called "Tales from Arcadia: Trollhunters" by Guillermo del Toro.  It's fascinating, full of mixtures of different fairy tales and folklore.  I even saw the name Baba Yiga tossed in there which tickled my funny bone since my wife is Russian and I heard lots about Baba Yiga over the years.  Learning a new story for a kid always involves reenactment of the story, and since I'm the only one around who is able to play with her, I get to reenact it with her.  As always is the case, the story involves our own personal twists.  My daughter has been enthralled by the movie Frozen and probably was influenced by this in making the decision that instead of being in command of the sun, she would be in command of the ice.  And naturally, I had to be in command of the opposite of ice, which was fire.

This choice of opposites quickly reminded me of the Norse Muspell and Niflheim.  The void between these two places was called Gunnungagap and it was here, where the battle between ice and fire gave birth to life.  Having lived in Northeastern Minnesota for nearly two thirds of my adult life, I'm quite familiar with this battle between hot and cold.  The battle results in the formation of abundant water and the quick destruction of roads.

Today, this all took on a greater meaning for me.  All of existence is conflict.  It is the story of the world every where we look.  The cycle of the seasons is a battle between summer and winter, which corresponds with a battle between the light and the dark.  A twenty-four hour period is a battle between the light and the dark, the strength of which corresponds with the season and our location upon the earth. 

We exist.  And if we are to exist, we must come to an appreciation of this conflict, and use it to our advantage.  Many things do so.  The winter months are a time of rest for many.  Trees lose their leaves, store energy in their roots and wait.  These cold days of rest provide the opportunity for apple trees to produce apples for example, requiring a number of hours of temperatures below 45 degrees Fahrenheit just so they can produce apples.  Bears take the opportunity to rest, and give birth. 

On a daily basis, many use the hours of light and dark to benefit their needs.  In more temperate climates, hours of light are used to create while hours of dark are used to rest.  In hot climates, the hours of dusk and dawn are often used to create while the darkest and most light hours are used for rest. 

While plants spend much of the spring and summer months growing, a great many take this abundance of energy to consume plants for their energy needs.  And so down the line does the taking advantage go.  Some really take advantage of these opportunities by storing energy for later use.  Some great examples of this are the many rodents who store seeds for the winter months.  And those who produce alcohol..

This battle is both infinitely small, and infinitely large.  We can see the battle under petri dishes, and we can see it over scales of time.  Civilizations come and go because of this conflict.  Their period of relative light, or darkness, is countered by the opposite period.  And if the civilization in question hasn't learned to recognize that there are periods of growth countered with periods of rest, then they have doomed themselves.  In the great words from the motto of the Stark family in Game of Thrones: "Winter is coming."

American Civil War 2.0: The Media

Ironically enough, Russia Today beat me to the punch. One of the biggest reasons we could come to civil war in the USA is if people become so divided that they no longer are able to talk. During the election campaign in 2016, we heard plenty of stories of people unable to have Thanksgiving with their families because of the division present even then. It's been two, going on three years since then and one place you never stop hearing about how unfair it was, or just constantly taking jabs at Trump is through the media.

Nearly every time I turn on NPR in the car, look at news on the web, or check the major media outlets I am almost instantly bombarded with some news about how Trump is the worst president ever and how he is passing some legislation which is going to ruin our lives. The facts speak for themselves. More people are working. We haven't gotten involved in any military conflicts overseas. Overdoses seem to be going down. He, President Trump, is doing some much needed good. Some much needed good that neither a typical Republican nor Democratic nominee could have or would have. He does counter the good with a lot of stupidity, or narcissism. Not to necessarily defend him, but that is the American way.

The main, and important thing to realize, is we are being pitted against each other. The media especially is preying on people's emotions. Typical emotional response is either fight or flight. With things getting broken down into binary fashion, people are forgetting there is a middle ground. This is the commons. It's where common sense comes from. It is where compromise exists. As individuals within this country, we need to defend that ability and that option to meet on a common ground. A huge part of that defense means building up some resilience to the information wars we are exposed to. We'll delve into that next week!

American Civil War: 2.0

The first American Civil War happened because the nation was forced into making decisions which divided them. The same thing is happening right now. There are calls from both Democrats and Republicans that you are either for or against. You are for gun rights, or against gun rights. You are for hate, or against hate. You are for life, or against life. You are for the nation, or against the nation. Making all these binary choices fragments our society. It moves people closer to a binary choice of I am for this side, or against this side. And that is how strife erupts.

Let's take for example the American Civil War. T.R. Fehrenbach writes in Lone Star:A History of Texas and The Texans in chapter 18 Secession that the political crisis brewing in America at the time was based on social and economic reasons. “The real enemy of the North was Southern political power, insisting upon the strictest construction of the Constitution in a defense of states' rights that hindered and hamstrung industrialism and infuriated Eastern bankers, railroad magnates, and manufacturers. The true enemy of the South was industrialism itself, which threatened its agriculture with a worse colonialism..” He further writes “the two sections, doing what came naturally, had built two quite different societies”. Here a prime example of deep social divide existing based largely on lifestyles is described. It's hard not to see that current in modern grievances with a group of people demanding free, or affordable, higher education and healthcare. They often are the same group demanding that hatred and intolerance is growing in the country and that it is the result of instigation by the President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence, and all of their red MAGA cap wearing supporters, which are “all redneck white males”.

T.R. Fehrenbach continues that “With genuine economic and political grievances against each other, the Northern states and the South found their flashpoint in the question of Negro slavery. The Negro question made the states' rights question so crucial and violent. The South insisted upon states' rights to maintain the status quo, which the North was increasingly determined to alter.” Those economic and political grievances are mounting. The disparity between have's and have nots is growing. Many have nots feel they have no political voice. Legislation is being brought up to make changes to how the Electoral College works.  A recent NPR article about the Popular Vote Movement contains the quote from Seth Masket that "the status quo is unacceptable," he said. "This might not be the best way of changing it, but it's at least a way of forcing some change and forcing some discussion of it." Lines are being drawn. People are demanding change, often demanding it being changed immediately.

Does that mean Civil War is inevitable? There is still opportunity for people to discuss and bridge the divide. It will take willing ears and a lot of compromise. But the opportunity for a flashpoint exists, one which could firmly cement lines and division. We'll discuss next week how to identify these pitfalls and how to develop some resilience against reacting in a way with the flashpoints which could lead to further division.

Make America Great Again

A simple statement.  Make America Great Again.  It simple implies that people want America to return to greatness.  It also implies that America is suffering.  How can the average American take offense to that?  Do you take offense that people believe that the quality of life in America is suffering?  I'm not even 40 years old yet but I can see a country which has fallen in it's greatness.  The signs of decay are everywhere.  Our infrastructure is a mess.  Jobs are hard to come by and it's even harder to find a job which will provide enough to raise a family, have a house to live in, and save up.  Those weren't as common concerns prior to the 90s.

Since then things have steadily gone downhill.  Not for everyone mind you.  This chart gives a good impression of unemployment over the years.  It actually looks like since the mid 70s things have been tough.  Between those who lived in better times, and those who have only read about them, times now just don't seem as great.  It'd be interesting to see how many people were entrepreneurs over the years.  My gut tells me people felt more comfortable taking the risk to start a business before but feel much less so now.  This is supposed to be a land of liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.  A huge part of that involves feeling comfortable enough to take the risk to be your own master.   

Today, more and more people are wanting the government to be their master.  They want the government to pay for, or provide, lots of their daily needs, as if they are rights.  They want the government to give them jobs.  They want the government to regulate and decide what is right and wrong.  The problem with that, is right and wrong are up for interpretation, which is ultimately influenced by bias.  That in turn makes people feel more at risk.  Why?  Because, who is to say that the hard work you put into developing your business may not be taken away because of some bias lawmaker.  And then your opportunity to recover after that failure is less likely because there are less jobs.

So America certainly needs a return to this greatness.  The greatness that once existed.  Look to historical examples in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  People and families who often felt secure enough to take risk after risk but never felt that they'd be unable to put food on the table for the family.

Why else might people take offense to the simple phrase Make America Great Again?  Might it be simply because the connection between that phrase and our current president, President Trump?  I'd definitely say so.  As 10 minutes listening to the radio, watching TV, or just skimming headlines can tell you, he's not befriended by the status quo.  As I've already pointed out though, many people have good reason to not be happy with the status quo and for wanting change. 

What may then be hard for a lot of people to understand is that people wearing those MAGA hats, people who believe in Making America Great Again may not necessarily be firm Trump supporters.  They may just be people who realize something real needs to change so that there is opportunity for America to be great again. 

The Voyageur Institute/The Ranger School

Trees.  Plants.  Animals.  Flora.  Fauna.  Outdoors.  Nature.  Those things are not us, right? 

It seems that we live a life not connected with nature.  Our cities exist with a plentitude of buildings, streets, houses, and sidewalks but a very small amount of parks.  On a much grander scale though, the Earth and natural environments are the place where we exist and we've made bubbles within that macro environment.  We've made bubbles seemingly cut off. 

Cut off from the womb.  Cut off from the place which bore us.  Which provided for us.  Our civilization would not exist if it weren't for the resources which we've pillaged from the earth.  Our civilization would not exist if it weren't for the knowledge and wisdom gleaned from natural functions developing life.  Just like our civilization would not exist if not for the hard work and ingenuity of those before us.  The ground was tilled and planted and found fertile.  What shall we reap?  What shall be our harvest?

That's up to us.  We have many great examples to help guide us.  But we need some modern heroes.  People who are willing to do something different.  People who are willing to walk the road not taken, because that's what makes the difference.  We need people who aren't going to sit in front of the television/entertainment device all day.  We need people who aren't going to walk staring at their smart phone.  We need people who aren't going to buy their way out of the hole that's been dug but instead people who are willing to get muddy and banged up. 

We need people like Brad "Darby" Kittel from Tiny Texas Houses.  We need people like Brett McKay of  The Art of Manliness.  We need people like John Michael Greer of Ecosophia.  We need people who are willing to walk the talk.  People who make changes by being the changes.  Modern day Gandhis. 

Modern day people willing to make peace with living the change they want to see.  One of the biggest changes I want to see is more respect and communion with nature.  We've got some great examples from the past providing some headway into being in harmony with nature.  John Muir.  Henry David Thoreau.  Ernest Thompson Seton.  Aldo Leopold.  Sigurd Olson. 

What I'd personally like to start working towards over the next year is to lay the groundwork to start developing some nature organizations similar to the Woodcraft League.  Organizations which would both encourage and help people to get outside and develop a healthy relationship with the world from whence we came.  Would you like to help me or get involved somehow?  Post a comment!

The Perfect Place to Live

I spend a lot of time thinking about and researching the perfect place to live.  I've learned a lot about different ecosystems and gotten very familiar with the geography of not only the USA but various other places around the world.  Occasionally, the knowledge can be fun to share in conversation with others.  Overall though, it's been a complete waste of my time and life.  Sometimes wanting to find a perfect place consumes me.  What places have houses available that are affordable.  What places have schools I want my children to go to.  What places have a climate that I would enjoy.  What places will have snow during the winter holidays.  What places have mountains.  What places will offer the best opportunities for my children in the future. 

Place certainly is important.  It has a lot of impact on a person and their future self.  But what is perhaps more important than that is what you're doing with your life right now.  What skills are you trying to learn.  What are you practicing.  What are you developing.  What are you cultivating.  What are you learning.  What are you experiencing. 

With those things in mind, picking a place which imbues you with the energy to achieve the things you are interested in makes a lot of sense.  You get energy from your environment.  And it can be cyclical.  Areas that have longer winters may mean less energy in the winter and more in the summer.  Personally, I've been someone better with consistency, with fewer changes day after day.  Having a nice rest for a week or two is great, but a long winter is hard on me.  The same goes for short days and long nights, or long days and short nights.  I prefer more balance. 

Ultimately, I know I need to move somewhere to a place which is going to give me what I am looking for, a place which is easy to get outside in, to grow food and plants, to create parks, and opportunities for more time outdoors.  And more importantly, I just need to enjoy and make the best out of what I currently have.

Immigration

Somehow, immigration in this country, the USA, needs to be changed.  The world has become more globalized, due to the prior policies of the USA.  Citizens are all across the globe, and often leave their family members all across the globe.

My example is such.  I met my wife-to-be on the Internet.  A Russian studying Chinese in China.  After visiting her for two weeks and seeing the opportunity to find work, I gave my two weeks notice and came back to stay.  We lived together for 7 years in China and started a new family.

The single biggest reason that we never came to the USA during that time was the immigration process.  During those seven years, my jobs were all for Chinese companies.  I was unable to show the ability to financially support my family, despite the fact that since I was 18 I had been working, and thus had a history of showing I'd find a way to make ends meet.

So I was in a catch 22.  Stay working in China to keep my family together would not allow me the opportunity to find the gainful employment I needed in America to bring my family there.  The only option was to separate my family as I found work in the USA, then begin the immigration process.

After seven years, I finally tried it.  Now, anyone who has been together for seven years, who has gone through those ups and downs of being together and raising a family together, they've pretty well established that the basis for their relationship is not to take advantage of a system or a government.  I don't see why it is so god damned hard or necessary to keep a family separated for a year or longer.  What information will be found to detract from the meaning of this establishment the family is united under?

Unfortunately, the US immigration policies don't care.  The members of our government don't seem to care.  I implored my Democratic senator, Amy Klobuchar, for help in reuniting my family sooner.  This was the response.

Not very helpful.  And the reasoning USCIS gave was poor.  Humanitarian.  What does that mean anyways?  From Google:

 hu·man·i·tar·i·an/(h)yo͞oˌmanəˈterēən/
adjective1.
concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare.
"groups sending humanitarian aid"

synonyms:

compassionate, humane;  unselfish, altruistic, generous, magnanimous, benevolent, merciful, kind, sympathetic "a humanitarian act" charitable, philanthropic, public-spirited, socially concerned, welfare; rareeleemosynary "a humanitarian organization"

Geez.. so there was nothing humanitarian in my request to reunite my family in a timely manner? In the meantime, my step-son is having issues finding a proper education and my wife is having trouble finding a place to live resulting in them floating back and forth between Vladivostok, Russia and Dalian, China. They lack access to adequate healthcare over there yet I have a job which would provide health insurance for all my family once they are here in the USA. And then my son could have access to a more stable education. Color me stupid but forcing them to continue separated from their father and husband, and my daughter who is here in the USA with me, that is very humane.

This is the sort of garbage that gets my blood boiling. And just to set matters straight, I did try to bring my family here once in 2014 but had the petition withdrawn because I was unable to prove the ability to financially support my family in the USA. There's a case number and everything for it. I'm not sure why the process couldn't be started from there or at least sped up a little. All the casework had been done before.