considering this week

thoughts on your impact

You, the readers of Actions Create Consequences, are proving more energetic, thoughtful, and responsive than any other week since I began writing this newsletter 23 months ago. This makes it the most gratifying week yet because people across the country (literally) are thinking, responding, and offering a variety of viewpoints. I suspect those of you overseas are holding back because we are quite a show in this country these days, aren’t we?

At least one loyal reader in rural Idaho offers fascinating applications of how actions play out in a community quite different from those most of us live in. He served in the U.S. Air Force so he has lived around the world but returned to a part of the world more determined to allow independent lifestyles and autonomous decision-making. I should add his responses are invariably thoughtful instead of some sort of predictable answer, often taking me down a path I never even remotely considered. His observations this week on the challenges of putting three people around a table, much less the dozens who went to Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention were direct and appropriately realistic as we search for perfection.

At least one of you still feels I am being overly harsh on the Former President of the United States; I regularly think a great deal about your comments because I see no point, repeat no point in any of us automatically assuming a political party or figure has the solutions since humans are so rarely that consistent.

One of you brings a distinctly different set of engineering frameworks to each and every response you send because you are mercilessly demanding for logic. Americans pride ourselves on our ability to solve problems yet logic seems increasingly AWOL along with basic literacy (as I harp about) on the basics of a functioning society. This individual never lets anyone utter a sentence without a real consideration because that is what he has found so crucial in his preferred field. This means that science, data, procedures, and repeatable steps lead to questions bearing on any action or consequence, often to a much greater degree than the rest of us recognize. Social scientists claim to do this but doubt they pass his tests often.

I could continue listing those who have written back to me merely this week but my point is that this interplay between such varying perspectives is the most desirable outcome I can imagine for Actions Create Consequences. No, we haven’t solved world peace this week and, to paraphrase something I used to see online, next week is not looking a lot better. The world is really, really, really complex. Single people rarely make a major difference; we live in a world where systems interplay with one another for good and for evil. But we are not simply shutting off each other nor are we deferring to a single voice—mine—which would be no better an approach.

One interlocutor send me a note day before yesterday lauding my self-awareness (I suspect he really means knowing my own foibles) amidst the discussion on Alexander Hamilton. I am blissfully happy to get things right when possible but additionally to own up to my errors when they unfortunately appear; there doesn’t seem a better path. None of us knows everything nor is any one of us completely ignorant. We are a mosaic, a blend, and an amalgam as people around the world. We are constantly learning, to a great extent because listen to and speak with others to allow others to share their perspectives in feeding our intellectual curiosity and resulting engagement. This is as important for the future as finding a cure for cancer because our interactions require surviving in this world together. We don’t have another one to shuttle off to (pun intended). Humans really don’t like isolation from one another, truth be told.

So thank you for the feedback. Thank you for the voiced frustration or support. Thank you for acknowledging my deliberate attempts to sarcasm and humor, at times, to lighten the tone where necessary. We live in a weighty world these days with no prospect it’s getting lighter soon.

So, please please send me thoughts, rebuttals, challenges, and suggestions. Thank you to those of you who subscribe: you genuinely make such a difference in this work. I welcome each of you, whether an occasional reader or a subscriber, however. I seek for us to recognize our own actions matter as our world turns.

I discovered that occasionally seemingly futile actions surprises us some times. I found this I kept throwing water on what I feared was a dead plant after our scorching summer, only to see this fuchsia blooming yesterday.

Actions really do create consequences.

Be well and be safe. FIN