Greg Proffit Writing

Category: Blogging

  • Set

    This is surfing…

    Years ago, on vacation in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, I awoke at dawn to go for a walk on the beach, and I saw a curious sight. A guy on a bike was pedaling across the parking lot from the street, pumping away with one hand on the handlebars and the other gripping a surfboard perched precariously on his shoulder. The board was at least twelve feet long. 

    I glanced seaward and saw six or so surfers out in the cold, gray, early morning waters. NSB is known for two things: surfing and shark bites. 

    The cyclist chained his bike to a post and carried his board over to where I was staring out at the early-bird surfers. Some were prone on their boards paddling out into the breakers, some were sitting straddle-legged, bobbing in the swell, just beyond the whitecaps, looking out to sea over their shoulders towards the rising sun.

    I stood there for a few minutes watching, when I noticed the guy with the ultra-long board hadn’t budged. I said, ”Aren’t you gonna join them?”

    He kicked at some sand, kept peering intently at the sea, and said, ”Nah man, there’s no set.”

    I realized I hadn’t actually seen anyone up on their board riding a wave yet. Waves were breaking but the kids in the water kept re-positioning themselves, occasionally paddling furiously to try to catch a whitecap and giving up. 

    ”That’d just be a lot of wasted time,” the leather-tanned surfer said, squinting into the morning sun, ”Maybe later.” And with that he turned and padded barefoot back to his bike.

    That morning has stuck with me as a metaphor for wasted effort. The people in the water weren’t ”surfing”. They were wet, they had surf boards, they were cresting whitecaps, but they weren’t surfing. Surfing happens when you match your timing, positioning, and skill with energy that the wave provides. And when the waves are broken and irregular and without a ”set”, you spend more energy than the ocean does.

    Mr. Longboard had come to surf, not just to get wet. Since the conditions weren’t cooperative, he wasn’t wasting his time and effort. He was experienced enough to know it would have been a lost cause.

    Similar events happen in our lives. Times when we are maxing out effort but there is no flow, and few results. We’re busy, but not productive. Sometimes, it’s a conversation where the other person just isn’t hearing, no matter how many different ways you try to say it. Sometimes, it’s adverse market conditions. Or when the environment makes it impossible to concentrate and do your best work. And sometimes we give it our all, but things beyond our control prevent the results we’re hoping for. It’s important to recognize that it isn’t always about you. 

    We can learn to maximize the return on our efforts. We can be aware of opportunities to meld effort, skill, and timing to get the best results. And we can learn to spot when there is a ”set” and be ready to ride.

  • Do Not Waste Emotional Energy

    # 10 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Do not waste emotional energy over anything you cannot control. This does not apply to sadness or grief over tragedy or loss.

    My favorite athlete to watch in an individual sport is Rafael Nadal. He is currently second behind only Roger Federer in number of Grand Slam tennis titles won. If you don’t know who he is, you can look him up.

    I like him because he is the rare combination of innate talent with an unmatched, ferocious work ethic. He is also humble in victory.

    He is known for his relentless, never give up, never-quit-on-a-point effort. That, and his weird OCD including a ritual of pre-serve tics, and precision water and juice bottle placement. It’s fascinating to watch him place his juice down and give it an eighth of a twist to get the label pointing in just the right direction. As if that will matter.

    Rafa never argues calls that go against him. He never complains about points he loses. He just moves on to the next point. When asked about the apparent discrepancy of being meticulous about juice bottles and yet not arguing even questionable calls, he said, ”I don’t waste emotional energy on things I cannot control.”

    That.

    In a life with finite energy available. It’s better to spend it twisting a bottle you can control, than to argue with a referee you cannot. It’s very important to recognize the difference.

    You and I will never be Nadal. It’s rarified air to reach the summit of your field or profession, so that’s likely out of reach, too. But we can learn from him where not to waste our emotional energy.

  • The Golden Rule

    I am not a believer in socially or culturally relative ethics. I believe that ethical standards are based on principles that are more absolute. There are behaviors that are wrong in all worlds and at all times. People smarter than I am disagree about this.

    The ”golden rule” is a statement about ethical behavior that has widespread support across many religious traditions and cultures. Simply stated it enjoins a human to treat all other humans the way they want to be treated.

    Most people who consider ethical behavior at all think of it in terms of the restraints it imposes on behavior. They see ethics in the same light as religious systems, intent on the negative aspects, focusing on what ethics or a religion tells them not to do, and what to avoid.

    There are two related versions of this basic ethics that come from the Judeo-Christian tradition. – One says, ”Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” 

    – and the other, ”Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” 

    These two are nearly identical. Interesting that the verbs in both versions are proactive and positive. Interesting that neither one tells us what not to do, but rather what to do.

    Also of note is that neither says, ”Think kind thoughts about your neighbor…”.

    Now ”doing” may involve thinking, but it doesn’t stop with thoughts alone, right? This has some implications a lot us haven’t fully considered. 

    What if we looked at the golden rule as a positive? What if each of us has the ability to knit the fabric of our social net more perfectly together? What if the simplicity of consistently, actively, doing good to your neighbor is the greatest possible thing you can do to change the world?

  • Thoughts On Cain & Abel

    It occurred to me today that the first murder recorded in the Bible was the killing of Abel by his brother, Cain. I’ve read the story many times, but it never registered that this was the first mention of homicide. More interesting to me today, was the realization that this was a religiously motivated murder. 

    So, combining the concepts, there is a lot going on. There’s fratricide, religious murder, and the first homicide all rolled up into the same event. 

    People have many different views of the Bible. The inclusion of this story has many lessons for the reader, no matter what view may be taken.

    One is this, all murder is fratricide. We’re all members of the same human family.

    Another is that a person who tries to earn favor with God by works (as Cain did in bringing an offering consisting of the works of his own hands), will be outraged when those works don’t secure the righteousness they think it will. 

    That rage can be multiplied and converted to murder when coupled with jealousy towards one who is deemed to be righteous, not by working for it, but by believing for it, as Abel was.

    It is curious to see the relationships between religious works, disappointment, jealousy, anger, and murder. It is sadly curious that the combination of these is stronger than blood.

    This thread runs through the Bible (and human history) and culminates with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ by the religious rulers of his day. Let’s take heed and try to treat each other with decency and respect, we’re family after all.

  • Is Socialism Really All That Radical?

    There is nothing inherently holy about Capitalism. There is no mention of it in the Bible. Nor is it mentioned in the Constitution, by the way. 

    There is nothing that codifies it as the economic system that should be adhered to at all times, at all costs, in every arena of economic policy.

    This is a good thing, because it would be difficult to find a wealthy enough financier, a Capitalist, to finance and own and maintain the nation’s Army, for instance. 

    And even if we could find someone that wealthy, would it be wise and good to see if the same individual, say Jeff Bezos, or Warren Buffett, would like to own the Navy, too? The Air Force? Maybe we could farm that out to a corporation, like Apple, say. All the planes would look pretty cool with that iconic piece of bitten fruit on the wings.

    And who gets to own the nation’s Police forces? Mark Zuckerburg? Facebook S.W.A.T. units, nice. (They already know everything there is to know about the suspects).

    Who should own the US Postal Service? Maybe switch Bezos to this. Amazon’s good at delivery.

    Who wants to own the Firefighting services? Elon Musk? All-electric, self-driving fire trucks. I can see it.

    EMTs?

    Should all First Responders be owned by the same corporation, or individual?

    I’m being purposely sarcastic, ironic, and satirical.

    Think. About. It.

    The military (all branches), and the first responders (all types, except volunteers) are purely socialist entities. Yes, I said it. Our military framework is socialist. It is government owned and taxpayer funded.

    The Government, the State, owns the ”means of production”. It owns the forts, naval bases, and air fields. It owns the tanks, bombers, aircraft carriers, tomahawk cruise missiles, F-22’s. The State pays the wages of all the service members, too, via taxation of citizens. It’s about as purely Socialist as the socialist model will allow.

    We wouldn’t want it: Any. Other. Way.

    There are many instances that are similar. Care to look?

    If your neighbor’s house catches fire, the roaring flames threatening your house, do you want the firemen to show up, and a salesman jump out with a contract to negotiate to see how much money they can squeeze out of him before they uncoil the hoses and hook up to the fire hydrant?

    And while you’re thinking that over…who owns that fire hydrant and all the underground piping all the way back to the water tower or reservoir? Who owns the tower? I’ll be damned, I believe the State does, in the form of local government, public utilities departments.

    There’s radical socialism all around us! Who knew???

  • Exploration vs. Exploitation—Why You Should Know How To Do Both

    # 95 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Learn when to explore and when to exploit. Know how to do both.

    I first heard the concept of Exploration vs. Exploitation in the 2016 book by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths called Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions.

    Briefly, exploration involves the discovery of something new.

    Exploitation involves mining a previously discovered pleasure to extract more pleasure.

    Both have their uses. Both are valuable to a life well-lived. A good life consists in large part in the enjoyment of good experiences. Those experiences must first be discovered. Once found, a determination is made about whether it should be tried again.

    We are each living on borrowed time. Time that is ticking away. Do we explore? Or exploit?

    Back in the time when we could safely venture to do something as dangerous as eat in close proximity to total strangers in a restaurant, did you prefer visiting different restaurants or going to a favorite? Once there, did you like to try new items on the menu or did you order the same thing every time regardless of how tempting another selection might be?

    When contemplating a vacation, (another on the list of past dangers) do you yearn to see a place you’ve never been, or do you crave the experience of a familiar beach, bar, and scenery?

    The authors of the book suggested that the younger one is, the more likely the scale will tip towards exploration. I think they’re right and that this is part of why the young have had a much harder time with Covid isolation.

    This seems obvious, right? The younger one is, the more every new experience is virgin territory. Our younger selves don’t know what is worth exploiting. But, I think the inverse may also be true. Youth causes exploration, sure, but exploration also causes one to remain youthful (in outlook at least). Each new thing, even a new idea, is something tried out for the first time. It hearkens back to the time when every thing we tried was new. 

    On the other hand, exploitation is a key component of a contented life. I am not interested in a life I feel the need to escape from once or twice a year to go and live for a week or two the way that I really want to be living. What kind of life is that?

    I want to craft a life surrounded by books, music, coffee, wine, bourbon, foods, a best-friend-who-is-my-lover; a life that can be exploited each day for the simple pleasures that are just as rich at the hundredth or thousandth tasting as they were the day I discovered them.

    I’m the guy who finds a restaurant and eats the same thing on the menu each time. Now, I may like 20 restaurants, each for 20 separate things; but I can’t thing of a single restaurant where I’d be interested to try 20 different things from the menu believing each one would be as good as my favorite thing, the selection that keeps bringing me back, the one I exploit.

    How about you. Do you prefer exploring or exploiting more? Has that balance changed as you’ve aged? Time’s a wastin’!

  • Make America Great Again?

    Make America Great Again

    The political slogan above, shortened to MAGA, which adorns red hats and flags, is a rallying cry for a large segment of the American population.

    It is both a declarative, and more importantly, a comparative statement.

    It is comparing America of today, to some bygone era deemed to be ”Great”. And it urges a glorious return. 

    But a return to which one, exactly? And from whose perspective shall we determine “greatness”?

    Ask a Native American which Great America they yearn for. Which era makes them all warm and fuzzy?

    Ask the descendant of slaves. I would love to hear which Great America they consider worthy of a sequel.

    And if we could go back in history, we could ask the child-laborers and underpaid workers who ground out 80 hour work weeks to enrich monopolistic Robber Barons if they would advise a return to their time of Greatness.

    Skipping ahead, the Word War II generation is deservedly referred to as the Greatest Generation, but I don’t know any of them who feel they’d want to live through WWII again. 

    If you think about it, it’s difficult to know just where the Make America Great time machine should pull into the station.

    Maybe we pull up to the curb at the Great America of the 50’s…Ugggh…height of the Cold War with the existential threat of Nuclear Armageddon. Pass…

    The 60’s?…cool music, but an assassinated president, Vietnam, Kent State, segregation, race riots, murder of Dr. King? Let’s keep looking…

    The 70’s?…Watergate, Iran hostage crisis, Oil embargoes…

    The 80’s?…not that far to backtrack, nothing particularly glaring, but nothing particularly great either, unless we all keep watching replays of the Miracle On Ice…

    The 90’s?…same as the 80’s to me, but nothing worth a return trip.

    You head to the 2000’s and get housing crashes, corporate bail-outs, a multi-decades long war on terror, and the loss of more privacy and individual liberty than in the history of the nation. MAGA must have some other America in mind.

    My view is that the Civil War was America’s greatest era. It was the time when we struggled with what kind of a nation we would be. A time when we struggled to the death to put actions to our founding document’s inspirational, but un-manifest words. But I sure don’t want us to go back there. And I don’t think that’s what the MAGA crowd envisions either. I’m just not sure what they have in mind.

    You may read this and think I don’t love America. You can think what you want. I’m not afraid to love something that’s flawed. 

    Many people believe this country has never been great. I am in a camp that believes it has had some wonderful flashes of Greatness. But I’m not afraid to say America has NEVER been all it CAN BE. And I’m not afraid to love it enough, and believe in it enough, to reject anything less as unworthy of her. If we can pull together and Make America Great Once…then, sometime in the way-off future those red hats might actually mean something.

  • Wealth

    A few months ago, my soon to be 23 year old son asked me, ”Dad, what can I do to be rich?”

    This led to a more thorough conversation about what constitutes riches and wealth.

    I shared one of my favorite Henry David Thoreau quotes, ”That man is richest, whose pleasures are the cheapest.” 

    I have often spoken to him and to all my children about learning enough of themselves to know what they can be satisfied and contented with in life. I’ve warned them against becoming prey to fad and fashion and to advertisers whose aim is to probe at discontent. 

    I talked to him about ”necessity” using analogies from camping, when that which is necessary can be carried on your back. I told him my own view that whoever spends the least amount of time to provide for essential necessities is wealthiest.

    We talked about the simple pleasures of life. We spoke about the gratitude that can arise moment by moment from savoring the morning’s first sip of coffee, the beauty of a sunrise, the ability to take a walk. 

    We spoke about the comparative value of health, time, knowledge, character, and money. We agreed that it would be no blessing for a sick person to be granted endless days, or endless money, if their sickness could not be cured. And I think I was able to convince him that true wealth is immeasurable, but that it is very, very real, despite being subjective and not easy to quantify.

    I asked my son, how would I put a dollar figure on your kindness? Or on your ability to listen to your siblings and friends and me and share the insights you’ve already gained? Or on an hour of your life?

    But the main thrust of my conversation was to steer my son away from the futile effort at amassing the kind of riches that can be measured, and then measuring himself by that sum. A man may have money in stocks and in cash, but have no knowledge of the kinds of experiences that make it worth the effort to have amassed it. 

    A person can be so ignorant that they think the medium of exchange is a worthy end to pursue, failing to recognize that it is only a means to arriving at some other end, the most valuable of which cannot be purchased with money.

    As Thoreau also said, ”Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”

  • As It Is In Heaven

    “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done; on earth as it is in heaven…“

    I wonder how many stop to think how the will of God is done in heaven. 

    Some pray these words as if they are inviting God to impose His Will on the citizens of earth…even upon those who don’t want it.

    But the ”as it is in heaven” part. Does anyone imagine that there is a single inhabitant of heaven who does not want the Will of God to be done? That there are perhaps some residents whose obedience must be coerced by law, and who must be cowed by fear?

    I think not. In another place we are taught, ”Perfect love casts out fear for fear involves punishment…he that fears has not been perfected in love.”

    As a much younger man, I was willful and self-governed. I was free and un-fettered. I used my freedom to explore the boundaries of life, both external and internal. I discovered that life has an edge that one can fall off. I followed my will and used my freedom to strut right up to that edge on more than one occasion. Being persuasive by gift and curse, I convinced others to march to the edge with me. And I knew some who fell in, either outwardly or inwardly. 

    But in a place where I was not looking for governance, I was found by the Governor. I was found in a time when I was so sick of my own lies, that I was quite literally begging for Truth, so blinded by my errors that I stretched out my hands to be led. Like a lost and frightened sheep, I was found by a Shepherd who could see further down the road than I could see. One who knew where to find green pastures I could lie down in, and gentle streams I could drink from. One so strong, that when my enemies appeared, He would declare, ”Let’s eat!” and set out a table before me, so confident in His own ability to protect, defend, and keep me. 

    I learned by experience that God is Love. And what does Love require, but a lover? …I became determined that He need not look past me to find one.

    After many years, I still want to be governed. I need to be governed. I crave and value and relish and happily submit to the governance of my Redeemer. When I stray, He doesn’t have to threaten me. He doesn’t have to whip me. He doesn’t have to ridicule me, or exclude me. He loves me back to Him. And when the sunshine of His Love bursts forth, I am still determined that it will not hit me in the back. 

    Ive found that God Loves me better than I can. I’ve found that I can trust Him more than I can trust myself. I found that His Kingdom must start in me and when I enter heaven (whatever that may be), I won’t need any convincing to kneel, or to bow, or to worship. I won’t need a New User’s Manual. 

    God’s will is done in Heaven by inhabitants who are delighted by that will; by those who want nothing more, and who would be satisfied by nothing less. His will on earth (if done as it is in heaven) is done by the persons with the same heart. Not by imposition, but by supplication. Not by people having it legislated upon them, but by people who cannot get enough of it. 

    That is what the phrase in the Lord’s Prayer means. It is a crying out for the God who is Love to suborn obedience to His Will by that Love. For God to love the disobedient into submission. For God to win hearts and minds into the voluntary servitude of delight in His pleasure.

    God already governs the Universe, but the Peace of that government, the wholeness of it, is only enjoyed wholly by those who want to be governed, and happily yield. God governs, not because it is good for Him, but because it is good for us.

    How are they who do not know these things to find out? By law, by threats, by the sword? There are other religions who employ such methods. My God would rather be stabbed than stab. When He finds one who will not yield, He is the one with tears in His eyes.

    No-one will be dragged into heaven kicking and screaming. And every single unfortunate soul who falls into hell will fall there against every power God can wisely wield to prevent it. 

    The only place that the Kingdom of God can be found on earth and where His will is done, ”as it is in Heaven” is in those of us, like our counterparts in Heaven, who crave it so badly for ourselves we can’t get enough.

  • Requiem For An Invisible Government

    As I write this, there are only 22 hours left of the Trump administration. Joe Biden will be sworn in as the forty-sixth President of the United States, and the country will immediately return to tranquility. If only…

    In reality, Biden will be sworn in under circumstances eerily similar to those facing Lincoln at his 1861 Inauguration. A country divided, armed insurgents on the prowl to make good threats on his life, forced to sneak into Washington in disguise under cover of darkness. Threats of violence and secession in the news. A nation on edge.

    The present turmoil also brings to mind the degree to which politics and political matters intruded into the public consciousness both during the four years of the Civil War, and for the antebellum years immediately preceding it. Aside from that period, even during World Wars I and II, with the possible brief exception of the combined Vietnam and Civil Rights era, the past four year’s awareness, nay, obsession, with every tweet, speech, debate, vote, appointment, nomination, and pardon by politicians isn’t the norm. 

    As a rule, the rank and file citizens of America are not the most politically astute. We haven’t had to be. 

    Americans in general, and white Americans in particular, have historically been blessed with relative stability. This has been achieved both by notoriously slow-moving political machinery (thanks to the genius of the Founders), and a near universal ethos of public pride in our national identity. That combination has made the world of politics nearly invisible to the average American. During campaign season we might take notice, usually to complain about the proliferation of ads that interrupt our entertainment, but mid-term elections usually motivate such little fanfare and such a small turnout that they aren’t the cause of vida interruptus to the typical citizen. 

    The bygone general antipathy to politics means that a lot of Americans are not too well-versed even in our own system. (Evidence the fact that Alabama just elected a Senator who didn’t know the three branches of the federal government). Lest you think I’m guilty of overstating the political ignorance of the typical American, a 2018 article in US News, cites a survey showing 2 out of 3 Americans could not pass a US Citizenship test!

    https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-10-12/2-of-3-americans-wouldnt-pass-us-citizenship-test

    Up to 2020 this ignorance hasn’t necessarily been a bad thing. Americans have remained ignorant both of our history and our politics because we could afford to be ignorant. It hasn’t really hurt us. Ignorant or not, the government chugged along. The institutions worked. The politicians and bureaucrats did their jobs well enough to fly under the radar. Our government, with very rare exceptions, has operated invisibly. One can make a strong argument that it ought to be that way.

    Government by representation should be able to function without demanding the overweening attention of its citizenry. If we were a pure Democracy that would be different. The need for attention to every detail of government and familiarity with every policy debate would be expected. But we elect representatives so we can go about our daily lives leaving those details in what we hope are the capable hands of representatives.

    But the days of invisible government are over. 

    2020 marked the indelible tearing of the curtain. 400,000 dead Americans revealed a government that could not be safely ignored. We must assign blame where it is due. Hundreds of thousands of our countrymen needlessly perished from what turns out to be the unbelievable incompetence of our elected leaders. They were either too vapid or too uncaring to muster the strategic wisdom and perseverance to face a National Public Health Emergency brought on by a pandemic that was no one’s fault. But the failed response certainly is the fault of the administration which largely ignored the severity of it, and focused instead on changing the ”messaging” for fear of the political fallout.

    If that wasn’t enough, we faced a crisis of racial tension as once again we try to confront the ugly ghosts of our white supremacist, empirical past that we’ve drug with us into the present. 

    And those things combined seemed to bring out the worst in us as a people. I am old enough to have grown used to a crisis bringing out the best in Americans. Times when we would unite around our commonality, not splinter into hate-filled tribes waving the flags of our divisions. But that wasn’t the case in 2020 and right up to Inauguration day of 2021.

    When we needed to be the best possible Americans, united in common purpose, we devolved into a seething cauldron of grievance and mistrust. Mostly born of plain and simple ignorance. This climate became the perfect Petri dish for mixing in bald-faced lies about a ”stolen election” fed to us by the very representatives sworn to defend a document dedicated to uniting us more perfectly. I don’t know if there ever will be a vaccine for that.

    And on the day the electoral votes were to be counted and certified we witnessed the worst kind of anti-Democratic, murderous, occult-mixed-with-pseudo-Christian mob this country has ever amassed. And that radicalized mob despoiled the sanctity of our national Capital and sought to disenfranchise millions of fellow citizens to keep a lying autocrat in power.

    Good-bye forever to the relative stability we Americans have so long enjoyed. Good-bye forever to the blissful ignorance of the politically naive and unlearned. 2020 revealed just what happens when we put persons in positions of power who are only interested in the power, not in the ends for which the power is granted. We, the People are responsible for what has happened. We the People, are the only ones who can affect a positive change. 

    We have endured a year of unprecedented division, loss of life, distrust, and near insurrection made worse by the abject incompetence and servile vanity of our national elected leaders on both sides of the aisle. They proved themselves more interested in attacking each other than attacking the multi-headed crises we average citizens have faced. 

    I will forever long for the days when our government was functional enough to be invisible. But that invisible government is dead. 

    I’m afraid Wednesday’s oaths and Bibles and handshakes aren’t going to heal our country or our government anytime soon. But I’m certain that the path to healing is based on truth, on justice, and on our collective knowledge and attention to what our elected leaders are doing in our names.