Fields Notes (e.9): A banquet of consequences
Finding consistency and stability when both are difficult to find in the outside world
Hi All,
In the midst of so much, I hope this finds you healthy and well.
It’s hard to believe it’s been 5 months since my last note. So many societal symptoms reaching critical mass all at once has left me with a lot to learn and little to say. At times it’s felt like days are crawling by — yet somehow it’s September.
I’ve spent the vast majority of my time in recent months attempting to assemble a more robust framework for understanding how the base layers of our shared life together work, the ways in which their effects manifest themselves in every day life, and why so much of society appears to be functioning so poorly.
Over the past few years, I’ve been struck by how many of the societal symptoms I’ve researched seem to share the same root cause: economic and monetary policy. As a result, I’ve spent the majority of my study time the past few years focusing on that general topic. The more you peel back the layers, the more the shared-root-cause makes sense. I’ve been using a software analogy to illustrate the relationship between economic policy and society:
As a capitalist society, economic and monetary policy are effectively the Operating System our society runs on. The incentive structures that drive everything from politics, to industry, to daily life run on top of (and are largely defined by) the conditions set by that base layer.
All that to say, I’ve been finding economic policy to be a helpful lens to describe and process key aspects of this season of upheaval and change (which is why these notes have been taking on an economic slant as of late).
I’m writing now to share a few high level observations that have “gradually, then suddenly” come into focus for me during this season. The “gradually” part is the reason it’s been a while, and the “suddenly” part is the reason this one's a bit longer than normal :)
Without further ado...
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Field Notes, Entry 9
13 September 2020
Sacramento, CA
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A banquet of consequences
Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
For months it seems, we’ve been hoping the dust of 2020 might settle. But like the uncontrollable wildfires here in California, decades of deterioration of our society — our economy, our shared life together, our environment, our government — have left a cascade of failings that have yet to lose momentum. The reference a previous note, the probability sphere is still quite large.
As painful and uncertain as this season has been around the globe, the silver lining is that, this season of societal winter isn’t a new phenomenon. As renowned historian and demographer Neil Howe writes in The Fourth Turning, once every 80-100 years, our society enters a Fourth Turning, a season of “crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one."
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, the stakes feel high, make or break — because they are.
If you’re curious or anxious about the “why’s” that undergird our society and the collective moment we find ourselves in, I implore you to read the book. In the midst of so much disorientation and uncertainty, it slaps big, metaphorical “You are here” sticker in the middle of it all, and provides a macro framework for understanding where we are and where we might go from here.
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Enough is enough
This phrase has been on my mind a lot this year. As a millennial looking through the lens of The Fourth Turning, one of the more painful aspects of this moment is having to account for and root out brokenness that we inherited. I spoke to this on Instagram recently, and I think it bares repeating here:
Enough is enough...The America we are today isn’t good enough. The architecture that underpins our shared life together is broken, unequal, and unjust. We as a society must be better. We have a shared responsibility to stop inherited problems from becoming amplified and propagated ones. It’s on us to ensure these atrocities stop with us. We are it. There is no one else.
To reference the earlier quote: We, in this moment, find ourselves at a banquet of consequences whose roots run decades and centuries before us. But, the good news of the Fourth Turning is that once every 80-100 years society (much like our 1920’s home) enters a season where a full-scale remodel is not only possible, but essential. In other words, once a century we collectively get an opportunity to say “enough is enough” and set a different course for our shared life together.
This moment is heavy, because this moment is fraught with as much danger as it is laced with opportunity. And history makes it clear good outcomes are not guaranteed. Many aspects of our societal architecture are inadequate and eroded and our response to that reality is TBD. Just to name a few of the issues we as a society need to navigate:
Our democracy feels like it’s in the middle of a false tug of war between Fascist and Socialist forces (I say false, because both are Authoritarian and dangerous to free people and markets).
Our inflation-based economic and fiat monetary system, adrift since the 1970’s, is buckling under the deflationary weight of technology and the aging cohort of Baby Boomers who are entering retirement and ramping down spending.
Our environment is buckling under the ravaging weight of unquenchable industrial growth.
Our society is wrestling with the uncomfortable truth that racism is far more prominent and engrained than many are willing to admit.
These are huge issues and where we ultimately land on them as a society matter greatly for everyone, everywhere. And because the responsibility to address these issues has fallen on us, now — I’ve been feeling the weight of responsibility we all share to educate ourselves about where we are and how we got here so we’re able to constructively engage in shaping the path forward.
As I said before: “We are it. There is no one else."
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A thousand simple things
In the face of such existential challenges and uncertainty, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
The forced transition for so many from a highly complex and fast-moving life to a highly quarantined one, has left us with a transition and new reality that is difficult to process.
Mark Boyle, in his essay Not So Simple about choosing to live off-the-grid, captures this dynamic well:
This way of life I have now adopted is often called “the simple life,” but that’s entirely misleading. It’s actually quite complex, made up of a thousand simple things. By contrast, my old life in the city was quite simple, but made up of a thousand complex things
In seasons like this, I’ve found building a framework of (healthy) daily habits and routines will save your life by providing consistency and stability when both are difficult to find in the outside world.
A couple personal examples:
I’ve been using this season to focusing on establishing a strong set of nutrition and fitness habits. As is true with so many aspects of daily life, the individual tasks are inherently simple, but the complexity and challenge is doing an array of simple things consistently. So after spending so much time traveling these past years, the fixed environment of quarantine has provided an opportunity for consistency that wasn’t as present in my life before — so I’ve been very intentional to try and take advantage of that.
I’ve developed a habit of fully resetting the kitchen like a restaurant would each night (where I hand wash, dry, and put away everything instead of using the dishwasher and running it over night). I started doing it without much conscious intention, but I think this is the reason why: In a season of so much uncertainty, where I feel stretched so thin, I don’t want to leave tasks for myself tomorrow. I don’t want to wake up with chores waiting for me because I don’t know how I’m going to feel tomorrow, I don’t know what’s going to be asked of me, what the world and life is going to throw at me. And so instead, I’m finding a meaningful amount of peace in resetting as many of the simple, everyday pieces of our life here at home in the moment, before my head hits the pillow. I sleep much better knowing a lighter, cleaner slate is waiting for me when I wake up.
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On my Kindle
The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe
The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth
Home Deus: A brief history of tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
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From the web
This piece in the New York Times that offers more perspective on the Cantillon Effect and our need to find more neutral ways to distribute money through society
This short piece by Michael Lopp about Anti-flow aka the random connections your brain makes on a problem, a thought, or an opportunity when you aren’t thinking about that problem, thought or opportunity
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In my headphones
Here’s some other tracks I’ve recently had on heavy rotation (I’ve added them to my Field Notes playlist on Spotify):
Styrofoam Cup by Wolf
Loveless by PVRIS
Skin to Skin by Movements
Bounce Back by Rexx Life Raj, G-Easy, Jay Anthony
Twenty Something by Nightly
Entering by Library Tapes
Everybody Does by Julien Baker
Say No More by Fickle Friends
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From my camera roll
Japan’s been on my mind most days lately…If I could live anywhere else, it’d be there. Here’s a shot from the bar at our favorite Gyoza spot in Kyoto, Chao Chao when we were there this past October:
Until next time,
Travis / @wrightology
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