Buzzed Lifestyle: How Much Do You Invest in Living Well?

This may well be one of the most important questions in one’s life. And sadly, it is not a question that we can discuss easily outside of our “consumer driven” culture.

The temptation is, for example, to associate buying and using luxury items with living well. Like handing off your Lambo to the concierge at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. Is that it? As tempting as these items and experiences with them can be, methinks not. We are easily seduced by things, but no matter how delightful and sumptuous things may be, they get boring over time.

So what do I mean by living well?

It is a set of factors that when combined max out what we can get from life. Not just pleasure. As the great Kahneman pointed out long ago, pleasure is ephemeral. And experiencing pleasure does not correlate with enhanced happiness beyond the given moment. Indeed, our memory of peak experiences seems to be more important than the experiences themselves.

What is the value of pleasure? It opens our minds to new experiences. Indeed, Steve Johnson argues that our inventive impulses start with an idea for bringing pleasure to fruition., like carving a bone into a flute. Johnson makes this audacious statement at the end of the fun video below “You’ll find the future wherever people are having the most fun.”

We could talk about this a lot, but for purposes of this post, I am more interested in the limits of what we can get from pursuing pleasure.

So while I would include the pursuit of pleasure in my good life quest, I would not equate maxing out pleasure with maxing out satisfaction and meaning with the lives we can lead. We can think of this as a “measure of pleasure” AND other stuff.

So what is the other stuff?

The start with understanding something about life. We do not lead great lives in mechanical ways. There is no “secret sauce”. No “magic bullet”. No “key”. You cannot buy it off the shelf. Nor can you buy it as a bespoke item. There is just what we make of the opportunities that present themselves and that we nurture. In other words, we all experience great meaning and satisfaction in our own ways. The path to understanding this is what our personal identities are all about.

And so, a few of us may experience intense pleasure while hanging by one hand from a ledge on a cliff in bitter cold weather. They call it “mountain climbing” and are passionate about it. It is not for me, but I do not begrudge these folks their passion.

So maxing out what we can get from life has quite a lot to do with discovering what floats your boat, which in turn relates to who you are. Your identity. Not who your parents wants you to be, but who you want to be.

Not just that, we experience it in a growth path — or more simply — as part of a story. The story or context is where we find meaning and satisfaction. And so, our ability to max out satisfaction and meaning is highly dependent on our capacity to see and live in great context or stories.

There is more. One aspect of our living in this way is maxing out our physical well being. Not just “health” as in avoiding illness. But maxing out our energy, feeling of connection, and ability to move forward in tuen with opportunities.

There is more Another aspect of our living in this way is nurturing great relationships. Relationships where we can grow with people we care about. This need not be based on infatuation. Nor ego gratification by connecting to people who we perceive are “higher up” the social ladder. But based on people we care about for whatever reason.

There is more. As “connection” opens the door to growth, we also need to connect with our environment. Not just nature. But the environment in our locales. Our communities. Our ecologies where people live together. This is a learning experience where we master what owe can achieve together over time.

So we have identity issues. We have growth issues. We have well being issues. We have relationship issues. And we have ecology issues. These all come together in iterative fashion when we consider how well we are living.

So we return to the question at hand. How much are we investing in maxing out these factors to enable us to thrive in the knowledge era? That is, btw, the era where we have the opportunity to take control of our life stories in ways never before dreamed of.

Food for thought.

News from Trump World;: The Most Interesting Thing About Michael Cohen that Few Talk About

The media is obsessed with the “damage” that Michael Cohen’s testimony is doing to Donald Trump’s defense in the Manhattan hush money/election fraud criminal case.

This is the “meaty” story, and we get all sorts of commentary about whether Cohen looked at his former boss, Trump or Trump looked at his former lawyer, Cohen. And there is somewhat mixed reporting on whey Cohen’s testimony is relevant. A few sources point out how well the prosecution has prepared their direct examination — insuring that every thing Cohen says is backed up by corroborating evidence.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

But few sources are reporting about Cohen the person. I remember when I first heard about Cohen back in 2016. He was a scoundrel. Trump’s “fixer” who would do just about anything for his boss, Trump. He was nasty. Like a mobster. He did the dirty work so Trump could get away with all sorts of stuff. And, btw, most of the nasty stuff that Trump got away with has gone unreported.

That Michael Cohen is long gone. Where did he go? Where did the new Michael Cohen come from? Who is the new Michael Cohen?

My best guess is that Cohen benefited from very, very good legal advice. That advice: Cohen faced a choice in his life. He could go down in flames or he could admit to what he did and start growing as a person. Cohen chose the latter. And over the last period of years, we have seen remarkable personal growth on Cohen’s part.

As Ben Marseles points out, Cohen has great regrets. But he is a loving father. A family man. A person who is determined to do the right thing. And we see the result of that growth on the witness stand.

What about his opposite number, Mr. Trump? Trump has shown no growth ever since I started hearing about him more than forty years ago. To the contrary, he is declining physically and cognitively. I am reminded of the final part of Wells’s great character portrayal in Citizen Kane. A person who is emotionally frozen, lacking empathy, .and unable to sustain relationships.

For me, that is the most interesting aspect of the story that is playing out in New York.

Russia’s Foolish Gamble in Ukraine

From Mr. Putin’s point of view, the race is on. He wants to break through Ukrainian defenses before significant western military assistance arrives and the Russian economy falls apart. And to assist that effort, he has opened up a new front in Kharkiv, hoping to stretch the Ukrainian defensive lines to the breaking point.

So what is wrong with this?

It is true that the Ukrainians currently suffer from shortages in weapons, ammunition and manpower. The shortages in weapons and ammunition, however, will soon be alleviated. But there is the manpower issue.

And the obvious counter measure will be for neighboring countries to start sending in military units to assist the Ukrainians in rear guard and logistics. Estonia is already talking about this. My best guess is that the discussion will spread, and we will eventually seen contingents from all three Baltic states, Poland, Czech, Romania, France and the UK.

And there is more. At least part of the funds form Russia’s frozen assets will be used to accelerate Ukrainian weapons and ammunition production. That means more artillery, artillery shells, drones, spare parts, etc.

In other words, Mr. Putin’s strategy will kill lots more people, and end up escalating the conflict to a regional level. Meanwhile, the Russian push may result in short term gains, but is not likely to achieve large strategic objectives, like taking Kharkiv. And the clock is ticking inside Russia. Russia’s largest corporate entity, Gazprom is already down the toilet, Drone attacks are crippling Russia’s oil refining capacity. Inflation is high, as are interest rates. And Russia’s sovereign wealth fund is shrinking fast as Putin spends like a drunken sailor to fund the war effort.

Stay tuned!

Ukraine Update: Heavy Fighting in Kharkiv, Action in Kherson

News from the front lines on the Kharkiv border do not yet paint a clear picture. Some sources report Russian advances. Others report heavy Russian losses. Fog of war. Two issues are emerging. The Russians are taking heavy casualties.

NYT reports that the Ukrainians suffer from shortages in manpower and weaponry. Here is a quote from the article

“Ukraine’s forces are stretched thin and have minimal reserves to draw on, the chief of military intelligence said, in addition to shortages of weapons.”

There is news form the south in Kherson. Ukrainian troops have consolidated control over a key Dnipro delta island. This has tactical significance both for potential future operations and for defense. And the risk of further Ukrainian advance will prevent Russians from moving significant forces north to Kharkiv.

A Major Ooops! Moment in the Trump Defense of the Hush Money/Election Interference Case.

Strange things are happening in New York in Judge Merchan’s courtroom The prosecution is presenting evidence that Donald Trump was engaged in a conspiracy to commit various crimes, including violations of election laws and tax laws, made possible by his falsification of business records.

So what is Trump’s defense?

The first line of defense presented by Trump’s lawyer in his opening argument is that there was nothing to hush up. The Stormy Daniels thing never happened. Well, we can put that one to bed. There is an avalanche of evidence, including testimony from Stormy Daniels herself, that they had a sexual tryst. And there is evidence that Trump was concerned that this should not come out.

The fall back?

Even if Trump did pay hush money, he did not falsify business records. You can hear this argument from a Trump supporting lawyer on CNN below.

Hmmm … this sounds a bit far fetched as there was no other way to execute the catch and kill plan than to conceal the payments. And we have evidence that the falsification of business records was the concealment method used..

To be clear, the defense is that — even if all of the bad stuff is true — there is no evidence that Trump himself participated in a key part of the conspiracy, the falsification of business records. .

Aha! But there is evidence that he did participate.

The defense ignores that in litigation with Stormy Daniels back in 2018, Trump himself admitted on the record that he reimbursed Cohen for paying Stormy Daniels the hush money. These are Trump’s own admissions of fact. Ooops!

So the defense team will have to persuade the jury that even though Trump knew he was reimbursing Cohen, Trump did not know that the checks he was signing for large amounts — far more than Cohen’s normal salary — were for that reimbursement. BTW, to get this far, the defense team will have to discredit Michael Cohen who will testify in detail about Trump’s involvement in the reimbursement aspect of the conspiracy. Good luck with that one!

Alternatively, the defense team may try to persuade the jury that Trump knew the checks were for reimbursement but did not intend them to be concealed by falsifying business records. Someone else did that without Trump’s knowledge or consent. Good luck with that one!

Put in context, the defense would be that Trump knew he had to conceal the payments, the payments were made and concealed, but Trump did not know that the payments were concealed or intend that they would be concealed. The concealment sort of just happened.

Do you buy that? I do not and I do not think the jury will either. But who knows! Stay tuned!

Quote of the Day – Anything Wrong at the RNC? And Much, Much More!

From MSNBC

“Former President Donald Trump is both promising a big win and cutting investments in campaigning. That’s a dangerous combination.”

We know where a significant portion of moneys raised via the GOP are going — to cover Trump’s legal defense costs. But there is more — conservative donors are not as giving as they used to. So not only has Trump created a black hole on the expenses side, there is less money flowing into the black hole.

Inevitably, this will lead to frustration by candidates who want more support. And it will lead to divisions within the party on issues related to Trump. These issues will include whether to support Trump at all if he is convicted, whether to support his election fraud agenda, whether to exit the M*AA orbit, and so on.

How will this play out? Stay tuned! things are just starting to get interesting.

BTW, you can look forward to one of the most boring political campaigns in history from Joe Biden. Why should he try to grab the limelight when the GOP is self-destructing? On the other hand, there are questions about how Biden is addressing voter concerns.

In my view, the Biden folks are demonstrating two major political weaknesses, which in normal times might have been fatal.

As Steve Schmidt points out, Biden is a bit pugnacious when defending his record. Sure he has had successes. But voters want more than chest pounding, and Biden is proving not so great at delivering the messages they want to hear.

At the same time, the Biden folks have demonstrated a disturbing timidity when it comes to major foreign policy issues. As Ben Hodges pointed out many moons ago, the Biden crowd was slow to deliver aid that was obviously needed by Ukraine, and have never embraced “Ukraine must win” message. This created a dangerous vacuum in public opinion on whether aid was important. The Biden crew is doing the same with Israel. Sure student anger is worrying. But does Biden support Israel’s fight against terrorism or not? What is the message? It is muffled.

Fortunately for Biden, he has no serious rivals in the democratic party, and his GOP opponent is performing a self-demolition project unrivaled in modern history. I mean worse than Goldwater in 1964. Worse than McGovern in 1972. Worse than Mondale in 1984. Worse than Dukakis in 1988. Worse than Dole in 1996. Worse than Kerry in 2004. Worse than Hilary in 2016.

And Biden’s grip on power will grow stronger as voters realize what a disaster a second Trump term would be.

Stay tuned! This race is still at the starting gate!

Ukraine Update: Why is Russia Attacking Kharkiv Again?

Russian commanders have been building up forces on the northern border of Ukraine for some time. This has not gone unnoticed in Kiev, and the Ukrainians have taken considerable pains to insure that the border is secure.

Now the invasion has begun and it is a WTF moment. As brought out below, and confirmed elsewhere, the Russians do not have enough manpower to threaten Kharkiv. Not just that, they are led by one of the more incompetent commanders in the war. And they are getting shellacked at the border.

So why are they doing this? No one is sure, but it cannot be the result of military thinking.

My best guess — Putin demanded that the military open up a new front, believing that this would stretch Ukrainian defenses and enable a breakthrough. No one in the military wanted this sure to fail assignment, and so it was delegated to General Idiot.

This is the same sort of political intervention that Hitler pulled when he ordered Von Paulus to hold the line in Stalingrad that led to the annihilation of the 6th Army, and the same sort of intervention when Hitler ordered the counterattack in 1944 that led to the disaster at the Battle of the Bulge.

My larger point — if I were Ukrainian, I would be secretly applauding Putin’s interventions into military strategy. They will hasten Russia’s defeat.

Buzzed Lit: How Tolkien Transcended Shakespeare

You might not realize it from the film trilogy, but Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings written trilogy is steeped in political philosophy. The video below goes into an aspect of this — how Tolkien’s views are at least in part a reaction to certain aspects of Shakespeare’s works

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A quick aside — Tolkien did not “hate” Shakespeare. He had reservations about Shakespeare’s works, and he said so. I am confident, however, that if the two men found themselves across from each other at a dinner table, they would have gotten on famously. But in our modern web based vernacular, this nuance seems to be lost.

More importantly, what is this all about?

We might start with the question, what motivated Tolkien to indulge himself so deeply in his writing? As far as we can tell, the answer is that Tolkien was obsessed by what enables people to live well. By that, I mean, what enables us to live meaningful lives.

Tolkien believed — and he believed it strongly — that the more we strive to achieve things — the more we are driven by ambition or greed — the less we can actually find meaning. The reason is that our striving exaggerates what we believe can be gained by satisfying the ego. Thus, embracing this attitude is a fool’s errand that damages the soul, and is likely to hard others around us.

This is an old, old piece of wisdom. Remember King Midas? Oddly, while we may think of the Midas story as a fairy tale for children, the vulnerability that we suffer from — to strive and acquire — is not something that children generally suffer from. We trivialize it when it is at the core of our life challenge.

But, you may say, didn’t Shakespeare convey the same message? Isn’t Richard III, for example, a diatribe against striving? It is. And because Shakespeare had the same starting point, his work intensely interested Tolkien.

The problem arises when we take the next step. If striving is a dead end, what should we live for? Shakespeare does not give us a coherent answer. Tolkien does. Shakespeare suggests that there is no assured path to meaning. In this sense, Shakespeare is a precursor to modern existentialists Tolkien’s work is a polemic that there is such a path, if we are bold enough to take it.

What is Tolkien’s path?

Before we address this, we might keep in mind that Shakespeare wrote his dramatic works during the intensely egocentric Elizabethan era. Indeed, the strutting about on Shakespeare’s stage reflects the strutting about one would have experienced in day to day upper echelon life. As such, it is no surprise that Shakespeare’s works are tragedies caused by ego unleashed and comedies brought about by ego debunked.

And it is no surprise that Shakespeare’s works fell out of favor when the puritans came to power later on in the mid 17th century (less than 50 years after Shakespeare’s death). For them, this sort of strutting about was blasphemous. It was also very much vieux chapeau — what was wrong with the prior era. For example, I have some difficulty imagining Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell enjoying a production of Romeo and Juliet. If you need a historical parallel, consider what the Victorians thought of Regency period excess. The phrase “We are not amused” comes to mind.

Tolkien went beyond Shakespeare’s egocentric obsessions via his religion of locality and nature. Tolkien believed that the starting point for a good life is to connect rather than to assert. To connect with nature. To connect with history. To love rather than to lust. And to connect with divine aspects of consciousness. These connections are far more enduring and rewarding than ego gratification and striving. And btw, they are not puritan either, as they are sensual rather than sense denying.

In this, Tolkien is not a “modern” writer. He asks us to look back to pre – enlightenment, pre – renaissance thinking. That thinking is more Gothic in the sense that Sir Kenneth Clark portrayed. You might enjoy listening to Clark— one of the more eloquent English language speakers of the 20th century. — in the video below where he elaborates what he found striking about the Gothic era.

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In at least one sense, Tolkien got it right. Humans find meaning at the intersection of our beliefs and actions. These are places where our convictions motivate action that contributes to stories that are larger than the self. Thus my individual fate — while it may be endlessly fascinating to me — is less meaningful than whether what I do in life connects me to the history of my loved ones, my family, my community, in short, my world.

Our modern and materialistic ways of thinking fail to recognize this need for connection. We are at sea with no one but ourselves, drifting about wondering why we cannot fly. Tolkien’s stories — whether you are entranced by the plot lines — take flight.

Meanwhile, our more mundane embrace of materialism and ego gratification makes it difficult for us to understand the stories that are unfolding around us. Thus we are vulnerable to the siren songs of populists, con artists, cultists, and even authoritarians from abroad. I am reminded of one of the subplots of Gide’s “The Vatican Cellars“.

But why do I call this “political” philosophy rather than just guides for individual searches for meaning? Because the values that arise from the above dictate the political realities of the story. Yes, we are talking about power relations. Especially questions about what legitimizes the wielding of power, including the use of force. So these are not elaborations of the teachings of St Francis of Assisi, They are polemics about the value of our collaborations.

One last thought — going back to the first video above, I agree that stories told by the written word are potentially far more meaningful than stories depicted on the stage or in film. Writing provides us with a gateway to open the imagination, whereas depicting stories on the stage or in film limits the imagination. Yet we tend to treat books as commodities and pay huge money to watch films. Go figure!

If you wish to dive further into Tolkien’s political philosophy, the video below might be of interest. It gets into the issues that Tolkien had with modern democratic systems of governance.

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What to think of this? That would require a new blog post. Stay tuned!