Learning to Say the Quiet Stuff Out Loud

My all-time favorite saying is from the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, who noted that until the tide comes in, you don’t know who’s been swimming naked.

Think about that concept. Swimming Naked. Metaphorically and in practical terms. Pretty much from the beginning of Trump, and the nakedness it exposed.

So, too, there is the nakedness of the tide that 2020 exposed, and the damage it wrought.

God willing, we will tell our grandchildren that 2020 was one for the ages, not soon to be seen again.

Having lived through my share of societal firestorms (Watergate, Staglation, S&L Crisis, Dot Com Bubble, 2008 Recession, COVID-19, Trump), the tangibility of the tide coming in is no metaphor. It’s real.

I’d be lying if I didn’t allow myself the sense of dying a thousand deaths (see Bardo Experience in Buddhism), emanating from the shock, disappointment, sadness and anger, with our astonishingly bad COVID response as self-fulfilling.

So many exposed, so many different ways, as having been blithely swimming naked.

The disdain of science. The moral and institutional corruption that underlies it.

Case in point, you can draw a straight line from:

1. Climate Change denial to COVID denial; and the lying & abandonment of ownership of soundly managing either crisis.
2. The lying, cheating and corrupt operator that has ALWAYS been Trump (he has a 50 year public history, after all).
3. The racist, whose family was sued for discrimination, who famously called for the execution of the Central Park 5, to Trump, the leader of the white supremacy movement.

This is Twilight Zone realm in the sense that it’s a case of #Truth being stranger than #Fiction. #WTF!

But from this cauldron, CAN and MUST arise a resolve.

To get there, we must recognize a fundamental truth. So few of us take inventory, get clarity on personal truths, and hold ourselves into better account, with an earnest, reflective pursuit of self-improvement.

That we are not taught this -- how to take inventory, learn to measure twice & cut once, with direction and purpose -- is a failure that all of us, as parents, teachers, children, students, neighbors, co-workers, fellow congregants or fellow human beings, must take ownership of.

Self Reflection and Empathy as a practice, towards a clearer and better purpose.

It starts with I, me, you, him, her, all of us holding ourselves accountable to push back with enough force to change the direction of our times.

We don’t have to wait until the tide comes in again.

We have already seen — clearly — that 75M people are okay with totalitarianism.

They have bought into the "inevitability" of divisions among people, and so are willing to make a faustian bargain with a Devil.

So in that spirit, what follows is my version of the Proust Questionnaire. 

The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, who believed that in answering a specific set of questions, our True Nature is revealed.

Now is a great time to say the quiet stuff out loud, but focused on taking inventory who we are as individuals, human beings, friends, partners, parents, children, co-workers, teachers and teammates.

What we need is a national conversation, whose purpose is to socialize the following questions on the different takes on current policy, practice and pressure points in America:

1. What is our baseline premise when it comes to positions on Diversity?
   1. Specifically, where do we stand with respect to co-existence, acceptance, acclimation and accommodation?
   2. How willing are we wiling to embrace differences in sexual orientation, religions, economics, ethnicities and education?
2. What’s the right amount of Safety Nets when it comes to?
   1. Education
   2. Medical
   3. Roof over Head
   4. Personal Safety
3. When does WINNING justify all? When DOESN'T it?
   1. How do we need to change the incentives to yield the right outcomes?
   2. How do we need to change the penalties to yield the right outcomes?
4. Is there an explicit duty to not Lie, Cheat or Steal?
   
   1. For Individuals
   2. For Governments
   3. For Politicians
   4. For Corporations
   5. For Corporate Executives
   6. For Clergy
5. How much Corporatism is OK?
   1. How much responsibility does one place on companies to be held accountable as good corporate citizens?
   2. If they gain too much power, how do we recognize unfair advantages, how they are unfair and where curtailment is necessary?
6. Considering that the GameStop saga touched a nerve for everybody:
   1. Was the ambush that it represents good and fair?
   2. How is is different than short selling?
   3. Irony (and hubris) is a company called Robinhood actually proving to be a Reverse Robin Hood in selling arbitrage packaged as "FREE," yet, this is 100% the game High Frequency Traders and Hedge Funds have been playing for a decade plus.
   4. If one is not parasitic, why is the other?
7. What do we expect from our Institutions in getting things done?
   1. What specific things do we expect them to get done?
8. Being able to execute policy relative to the above begs the following questions:
   1. What is each political party’s (i.e., Democrats and Republicans) specific policies on the above key initiatives?
   2. What would each party hold up as their most representative legislation passed?
   3. What would each party consider their most important legislation to get passed?

The tide of change is upon us. To ride it where we want to take it, rather than being carried away by it, we have to learn how to, then practice...saying the quiet stuff out loud.

Light is the best antiseptic.