Desperation is a form of blindness

Growers Newsletter #043

Greetings Growers,

Filled with mixed emotions. It seems unbelievable that Martin Luther King Day and the inauguration of a criminal could be on the same day. I’m reminded by the more thoughtful from my follow list, that I can decide to show up any way I’d like. Right now, that’s resistance. I want to use my voice to dissent. Life’s complexities will provide this space with several topics, but today, I’ll continue to offer a sandbox for those that are as angry and frustrated as me.

-Justin

P.S. When I downloaded the cover photo for this post (with all 3 technocrats), I renamed it “The New Axis of Evil.” They legitimately look haunting and their collective impact is incalculable.

Links to More Me

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We hold these truths to be debatable.

When I opened Linkedin to schedule a post for a client, this was the first thing I saw:

Follow the post here.

I don’t know Becca. Hell, I probably know less than 1% of the people in my social media multiverse. Before I wrote this, I decided to double back to her profile. It looks legit enough, so I’ll forge ahead.

The world looked a lot different in the 90s. For instance, we still valued expertise. If you committed 8+ years of your life to medicine or research, people would gladly take your word over someone off the street. (Reminds me of Bill Burr pushing back on Joe Rogan.)

Political affiliation was largely a secret. I didn’t know who my parents voted for until my late teenage years.

Our lives were secrets to people outside our community, unless we did something newsworthy.

Friendships were built largely on proximity and the ability to get along — and wanting to do similar stuff.

Economically, there was a kinder distribution of incomes and wealth. A healthy middle class meant people weren’t constantly fighting for scraps everywhere you looked. Back then, some of our parents still had pensions.

It made sense that I believed in inalienable truths. There was no debate about the earth being round or if the moon landing was real. People were still racist, but you got the sense that the chattel slavery debate was done and dusted. There was no debate about whether the Holocaust took place.

Now, not only are all of these things debatable for a large swath of the U.S. population, there are hundreds of things for which we’ve moved from acceptance to re-litigation.