It’s Still Winter

It snowed overnight, meaning winter is trying to maintain its grip. The forecast is for snow to continue until 10 a.m. It will all melt, maybe later today, tomorrow for sure.

I reread wrote here yesterday’s post and stand by it. There is more work to do to flesh out what happiness means in measurable ways. It has to mean more than staying busy. I need to get busy with that, though.

There is lots to do today so I’ll leave this piece I wrote in 2012. Guess I’m feeling somewhat indigenous today.

At some level, we belong to an indigenous population. We are not that different from everyone else. I grew up in a neighborhood, and socialized with a cohort with whom I continue to have occasional contact. While elementary school teachers did their best to break us from our tribal leanings, some of us gripped our native culture, and the idea that we were all on the same footing. We wouldn’t let go as the teachers attempted to split us into groups, a talented tenth, and everyone else. I continue to have a strong sense of the culture shared with my cohort, even after so many years, and diverse experiences since the sixth grade.

Regular readers may be familiar with my usage of the “what’s in it for me” culture. This mindset is present in society, especially in business, but in other places as well. Where people have reasons for participating in things, and growing out of the need to make a profit, behaviors turn utilitarian, and therefore alienating. If there is nothing in a behavior that serves to profit me, why do it? In this scenario, the question, what’s in it for me requires an answer.

Individuals should strive for self-sufficiency, but not to the detriment of society and the commons. This includes managing our lives so we give more than we take from society. It includes managing the vast sea of words seeking its way to our consciousness. It includes dealing with tough problems that are greater than any individual, in concert with others. It includes the idea that there is no individual without the one of which we are all a part.

The Indigenous We by Paul Deaton Aug. 17, 2012.

Make it a great day!