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Julia Self-Help

How to Calm Down in a Moment of Anxiety/Dread

First, take a deep breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth, slowly…

Take a minute of deep breathing.

—

Then, ground yourself where you are through use of your senses. Do this by naming five things you physical feel (ex: your feet on the cool floor, the chair underneath you), then name five things you hear, and five things you see around you.

This action of grounding helps pull your thoughts to your present, from whatever you were ruminating on to where you literally are.

You can now go from this calmer, present state, to factual thoughts about the friendships you have and the support you give and receive. It also helps me to think about how in some way we will always been connected to those we love.

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Samuel Thoughts

Where Can I Fit In

In the current hyper polarized environment we all find ourselves inhabiting it is very hard to figure out where I can fit in with our current 2 party political system:

I love our country. I’m proud to be American. If I’m traveling overseas and someone asks where I’m from I say the USA, or Missouri. I would never dream of saying Canada to “feel safer”. I don’t disagree that the US has tons of problems, every single country has problems. Every society that has ever existed has problems.

I love civil liberties and freedom to be yourself. I hate racists, and people who try to force their way of life on other people (but I hate it both ways equally) I don’t agree with people who try and tell other people that they can’t marry the person they love, or they can’t do whatever they want with their own body. And I dislike people who tell other people that they can’t enjoy masculine activities like hunting, or fighting, or playing sports, or simply being a white man. I dislike people who generically vilify white people.

I love Hockey, Baseball, Golf, and I enjoy casually watching the UFC. Violence is not inherently bad when both parties agree to it (IE within the rules of a sport). Trying to smash out violence and masculine behavior from all boys is just another form of forcing people to live the way you want them too.

I hate people who treat women poorly, who take advantage of a drunk girl at a party, or put a girl down for the way she looks, or pay a women less for doing the same job as a man. These ideas and people all need to be eliminated from our society. Well the people can be allowed to change before we eliminate them haha

I like people who try and bring everyone around them up. Who compliment people when they work hard. Who don’t spend much, if any, time complaining or worrying about how other people live.

I like people who work hard and who don’t cast the blame towards “the system” or towards other people to explain their lack of a good life. Life is hard, we all individually have so much control over the good and bad in our own lives, and that is very scary for all of us.

I don’t like people who refuse to acknowledge that minorities get the shaft and they have to work even harder to succeed. This is not right, this needs to change. I don’t know how this can change. I don’t know how to walk the line of encouraging others to take ownership of their lives and go out and get whatever it is they want, while also acknowledging if they are a minority it will be harder for them. I feel that the current discourse is drifting farther and farther away from personal responsibility and into asking the government or someone else to provide for everyone. If you are born poor and a minority there is no doubt it will be harder for you to succeed. But many people have done it, there are examples out there for you. It’s not fair at all, many times in our lives we will come across things that are not fair, or rules that are not fair. There is only one thing to do, figure out a way around, over, under or above whatever the obstacle is. Keep pushing, keep moving forward. We can all make our own lives, and the lives of everyone we love better every day. We don’t need help from anyone else (although if help ever does come that would be a great bonus!)

I hate the idea of socialism. The government does not do very many things well, and I don’t want them to be in charge of more things. I would prefer they be in charge of less. A perfect example is the police.

I don’t hate the police, but I don’t think our current system is good and it should be completely rebuilt. Cops should not aimlessly wander around the streets harassing minorities. We should end the war on drugs. We should have community organized policing. We should have many different types of cops with different specialties instead of only 1 type that carry 1 tool (guns) and are forced to use it to try and solve a wide range of issues.

We should stop trying to abolish the 2nd amendment, people have a right to have guns to protect ourselves from our own government. In the age of Donald Trump its not too far fetched to see that even us here in the US we are not all that far away from a dictator being able to throw our 200 year old government aside.

That is just a few thoughts that came into my head and I needed to get them down so that they are out and gone from my head but not lost. I might come back and add more to this later.

Categories
Samuel Thought Experiment

Gov Policy Thought Experiment

My ideal presidential candidate’s platform in order of importance:

#1: End all foreign wars.  Close every single foreign base that we currently have. Bring every single troop currently deployed back to US soil. Take 50% of the money that we save and let the Military spend it on continuing to develop military technology and weapons.  Take the other 50% and spend it domestically on social programs to help our citizens.  Meet with leaders from all communities and figure out how to spend this $ to maximize its effectiveness.

#2: End the war on drugs.  Abolish the DEA.  Take 100% of the money saved and spend it on drug treatment, & mental health treatment options.

#3: Government Project: Similar to the space race, we will issue a decree. The United States will get 100% of its power from renewable sources within the next 10 years.  The new power company that will be created as part of this will be government owned.  It will provide power to all citizens free of charge.  It will bill all businesses standard rates to pay for its operating expenses.

#4: All public school funding for each state will be divided evenly among ALL schools. Currently schools in wealthy neighborhoods have way more funding than schools in poor neighborhoods.  This is unjust, and it will end.

                A sub item of funding, all billing and office administrative tasks for all the small municipalities in every major city will go through 1 central billing office.  Every city in the US currently has 50+ small municipalities that have their own admin staff which creates excessive administrative bloat, and massive government waste.

#5: Updated Policing: The police will now operate like the fire department.  They will come when called, they will not give speeding tickets or patrol around “looking for fires”. If they are needed and wanted they will be called, when called specially trained units will be dispatched based on the type of 911 call. Our current model is broken, we should not be sending officers with guns to mental health welfare checks.

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Samuel Thoughts

Trying To Understand

As the events of the past few weeks have unfolded I’ve found myself increasingly shocked.  Shocked at the way police officers are treating protesters and shocked at the level of deep seeded anger that many of the protesters have.  Watching videos like this one (https://twitter.com/chimdesires/status/1267198829775990787?s=19 ) I just don’t even understand what is happening.  Almost any ordinary white person you show that video too will have this as the first thought (my god that is horrible….. I wonder what those two did before that video started that made the police so angry). In fact for reference here is an exact quote from one of my very close friends. I sent him the link to that video, and he replied:

Just watched the one with the cops pulling people out of the car. Makes me wonder why they did that. I mean it cant be like a random thing right? Like there was surly a reason, not just pulling some randos out of a car kinda like the editing made it seem…

 It makes sense, most of us have never had a bad interaction with a cop in our life.  They are the people you call when you need help.  We (white people) are taught since childhood that cops are good, and honest.  We should respect them.  Almost every interaction I’ve had with a cop has been very pleasant. This is (hopefully) true about many cops but as I become an adult I can see that it is not a universal truth.  It’s possible the people in this video did something to provoke the cops, but what on earth would be bad enough to provoke that type of response?  Their car windows are bashed in, both front tires slit. The woman is pepper sprayed.  The main is tazed and then the cops yell at him to get his hands up while he is writhing around from the tazer shot.  Once they do get the man out of the car they beat him with a club.  What on earth could possibly warrant that type of response? And finally, what if they did nothing at all? What if they were just driving through, like the two White people in the car in front of them were, and the cops did that for basically no reason.  If you are a White person reading this think about that. 

/—Update —

The full police video has been released. The people basically did nothing to cause the treatment they received by the cops. The cop reactions is quite literally, complete insane. Full Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdOYCr3kQy4&feature=youtu.be

—/

I also realized, I think, why I have been so surprised.  I don’t have any close black friends in my life, and I don’t think I’m the exception for most white people living in the Midwest. I’m just a simple guy from Missouri.  I’ve always felt that I was not the least bit racist, I’ve been uncomfortable in so many situations when people I know or random people at a party make mildly racist jokes, but I’ve really never done anything about it other than just quietly fake laugh along with the crowd. I haven’t had a truly close black friend since freshmen year of high school.  Growing up, one of my best friends and the first guy I meet in our neighborhood, was black.  But guess what, they were the only black family in our neighborhood.  It just so happened that when I moved there at the age of eight, his family were also one of the first families’ to move into the neighborhood which was under construction.  I have so many great memories of spending time at their house, eating dinner with their family.  Riding bikes with Dale.  Some of my most vivid memories from that time span in my life (~age 8 – 15) was watching mike Tyson fights at Dales house.  His mom LOVED Iron Mike, and she didn’t care that we were two young kids watching brutal knock outs, it was awesome! Around the age of 15 though Dale started getting into drugs.  Drugs took Dale’s life on a quick downward spiral and he ultimately overdosed.  I remember seeing his dad for the first time after Dale’s death; I’ll never forget how sad his face looked.

Really though telling this story of my friendship with Dale is the only experience I have.  I have never had a close black friend since then.  That was 16 years ago.  I don’t see any quick way to improve our current situation.  We can’t realistically identify and fire all of the bad cops.  We can’t change the policing polices at the drop of a hat, that seems like it will take at least a generation.  I also don’t see any good or inspiring candidates running to lead our local communities and country out of this horrible situation.  On the presidential front the only good person I can see in close proximity is Michelle Obama, but she is not actually running and it’s understandable if she doesn’t want to put her family through another eight years of presidency.

So the only useful thought I have about a way to at least start to improve our current situation is that ordinary white people like me need to make an effort to have black friends; and by this experience we can learn and build compassion and understanding for a cause we had the privilege of previously ignoring. If ordinary white people like me actually get close enough to ordinary black people maybe we will understand and emphasize with their problems much better.  Maybe we would actually believe them when they say cops attack them for no reason.  Maybe together we could figure out how to fix some things.

So with that in mind I’m going to set a goal, a simple and modest goal.  I’d like to make one close black friend before 2020 is over.  That’s it, nothing fancy about it.  I’d like to make a friend, have good times with them, and learn from them.

Categories
Samuel Thought Experiment Thoughts

The Mind is Facinating

If you are trying to get your way with something petty. Take for example you want to watch the new show with Steve carrell about astronots on netflix. But your spouce wants to watch something else. Instead of getting in an argument about it, try the aloof approach forst. First bring up the idea incorrectly. Say something like: hey didn’t we want to watch a new show on Netflix? Spouce will think for a second and say something like: hmmmm maybe? Then you will give a main characters name: oh I think Steve carrell was in it maybe, can you look it up to see if he is in anything new? Spouce looks it up and then says the name: oh it’s X show. If your lucky she will say the exact phrase that you are wanting: oh we wanted to watch x show. But if spouce doesn’t say it incorrectly: ohhhh we wanted to watch X show (just mispronounce a part of it badly). Hopefully spouce will then reply: no we wanted to watch X show!

now you are in Business. The human mind is a weird thing. Once someone says a phrase, they seem to be wayyyyyyy more likely to agree to whatever that phrase is. Ever so slightly it seems to plant the thought, maybe even subconsciously that the idea was there’s. I know that sounds so simplistic, but I’ve experienced it many times. And before you sckof go ahead and try it. Just so it with something trivial, you really should never do this on anything meaningful because you have to let people you love make up their own minds without trying to coehece anytype of agreement of behaviour out of them. But when your in a business setting, where there is much more gray area in terms of how you can steer or not steer a situation so that you get the desired outcome, then to me in those types of situations it is much more acceptable to implement this kind of technique. The only reason I even used the spouce example instead of starting with the business one is because it’s best to try this out and refine your technique a bit before you attempt this with strangers or Ina setting with higher stakes.

i also want to add, before anyone rushes to judgment about me in their mind due to this somewhat tricky idea. The main way I found this out is through being not great at talking to strangers. When your talking to a new person, it always seems beat to pretend to not be as knowledgeable as them. You come off like a much better person, and it’s much easier to make friends that way. If you do actually know questions and ideas about subjects they like, it causes a little bit of friction. If you can let them “teach” you about things, it seems to form a much quicker bond. And then instead of working harder to show people that you are a good and nice person, who just reads a lot and has a wide range of interest, thus a pretty wide range of knowledge. You can just be yourself after that intiail first encounter or two and your off to the races becoming closer to a new person who might become a cool part of your life going forward.

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Uncategorized

Re: Privilege (a draft) for Sam

I read your post on “Privilege” and I took it as a chance to explore what I know about race and racism in America, and how this made me cringe while reading your words. You are my friend and are an intelligent person, and I believe your quest for knowledge is positive; but also that you should be seeking it without asking for others to do the work of explaining it all to you. In an effort to help begin your continued seeking and learning here is my response to your post:

— systematic exclusion and suppression of communities of color since the beginning of the American Colonies
— That social /public policies seemingly built for progress are explicitly designed to keep people of color from doing so (voter laws, predatory housing loans and denial of loans in areas minorities try to buy)
— How even after civil war and reparations Black people were criminalized (ex: states made vagrancy illegal, and then those with a record could not vote/ Poll taxes to vote/ Strict voter ID laws…the list goes on) and disenfranchised from participating in our democracy.
— (after 2012 election where more Black Voters than white…) 2013 US Supreme Court Ruling that ripped out section 5 of the Voter Rights Act (est. through the civil rights movement in the 1960s) – removing voter rights protection. Many states did not waste time putting old voter suppression tactics back in place. (same as above: strict ID laws, poll taxes, felony holders unable to vote. Don’t even get me started on the 1980s Reagan “War on Drugs” and how this criminalized drug use focused on Black Americans. and how this also plays into loss of voting rights for ostensibly low level drug related crimes; same as today for states who have not yet legalized Marijuana)
— Racism shapes everything for Black/minorities and for white people in america. from schools, to the quality of education at said school, what grocery stores are near you/what kind of fresh produce is available, etc.
–New Deal housing programs were to segregate/ “redlining” came from indicating where it was safe to insure mortgages, and you guessed it, Black and other minorities’ neighborhoods were not inside that line. Predatory practices still in place, like the average EIGHT percentage points higher a loan automatically gets raised if you’re trying to buy a home while black.
–Couldn’t buy suburban homes in the 40’s 50’s 60’s if black = no equity appreciation. So today, Black Americans may earn 60% of what Whites do, but they have only about 5% of the wealth. (i.e: unlike their White counterparts who used their home equity to send children to college or to have something to leave behind financially…black families could not progress this way)
— Despite Fair Housing Act in 1968, the inequalities and disparities continue, due to continued residential segregation and steering.
— Health disparities and access to care issues also very prevalent for Black and other minorities in the US
— Biases that establish white or fair as “nice” “good” and other positive attributes, and black or dark as “bad” and “dumb” and other negative attributes (Doll test for kids, in the 1940s and again in 2010 showed these results)


The Fucking “travesty is the inability or the unwillingness of White Americans to see clearly or understand fully this racist reality” – Joe Feagin

You cannot look at a mountain of evidence to the way our country was build around suppressing people, and still believe that everyone’s privilege is the same. Your ability to even think this, shows how privileged you are. This small but somewhat encompassing list I hastily threw together is merely several waves in the storm referenced in the tweet you want to know more about. We are not all in the same boat because we (white) people have not been affected by the systems in our country the same way as our black and other minorities have been. I hope this inspires you to read more articles, follow more people of color on social media, to listen more – and to learn. So the next time you talk about working hard to make changes in your life, you remember the context and the constructs people face who aren’t you. Everyone can work to make changes, but not everyone has the same freedom of movement or the same support (as black men and women and minorities face systemic inequalities, active oppression, or racism, or violence, or hell, even death by those who are sworn to serve and protect) along the way.