Observations From the Spectrum

Mike Tyson knocking out Marvis Frazier in 30 seconds is an example of truth. Hulk Hogan beating Andre the Giant is an example of truth by feeling. They are not the same yet we are being conditioned to believe they are. This is a problem for ALL.

When we are kids, we are given books with dots and numbers and as we learn the number system by connecting the dots and making pictures. It’s fun. We are delighted when we finish and there is an animal staring back at us or a ship that we can imagine sailing off into the horizon on. It’s creative and fun and the stepping stones to reading.

Then something shifts when we hit our teens and we are taught to think games like connecting the dots are childish and a waste of time. Instead, we should be given more challenging problems to uncover the dots so that we may uncover the picture. This is the arts of predicting, inferencing and hypothesising. It’s the ability to think simultaneously up close and personal and from a distance.

The problem is that thinking as a tool is more powerful than the gun and those who wield the guns, have power and rule us, don’t want us to think individually and especially collectively. If we did the latter, the house of cards would topple and their guns would be rendered useless against us. 

But here we are. The modern era will be looked back on, and I am thinking and predicting here, as the era in which we gave up collective power and the ability to use it for eye candy and the slow accidental boil of the species. The lobster or the frog in the pot. It accepts its fate because it can’t feel that the temperature is rising to its demise.

Here’s a hypothesis to test. Go out and ask your fellow citizens if everything in America is working. My prediction is that this is the only point in which ALL Americans agree. That America is broken and change is needed. Collectively, the one point we won’t disagree with is that the car won’t start. Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess really.

My guess is simple. I think America feels broken because the foundation has been cracked because truth has been exchanged for the feeling of truth. There is a world of difference. The truth should be easy to define but it has become a grey area with many preferring the feeling of truth instead.

I read an article about Floyd Mayweather and his exhibition fights against MMA fighters. He said it is entertainment, not sport. He’s there to give the fans a show and to take home a paycheck. His words, not mine. 

And this is evident elsewhere. I loved Hacksaw Jim Duggen when I was growing up. Why? The WWF was the apex of sports entertainment and it still reigns. Fans pack stadiums and arenas to watch men and women in tights play fight amongst each other. It is entertainment to the max. It is not a sport. Sport has the element of truth not the feeling of it.

Think about Mike Tyson in his heyday. He was truth in sport personified. You would miss factual sports history in the making if you missed the first minute of some of his fights. That is truth for truth’s purpose. Do you think anyone wanted those fights to end so quickly? Those who were profiting off advertisements certainly did not. 

I would imagine that there were some arguments behind the scenes between the Tyson corner and others about just that. We need the fight to last longer for us to make more profit. It’s why I am always suspicious during championship series. Have you ever asked yourself why do they usually go the distance?

So here we are in a period of time in which the feeling of truth is what many use as their barometer for choices. Not facts and data but a feeling, and it has led us to a precipice that allows education to be run by textbook companies instead of teachers, the sports industry to be run by profit not fairplay and politics to be run by Wall Street not politicians. 

Every year teachers are told that there is a latest and greatest tool for the students to use that is like a magic pill. It is the best ever. I have been to many of these meetings. They make me sick to my stomach. But the administration eats it up because they are not educators. They are managers. They textbooks and designed curriculum through the lens of managing and profits either economically or in time savings for themselves. 

So every year master teachers are forced to sell part of themselves for the feeling of truth. It is sad to see. Teachers who are told not to give a student a D or F. This may seem theoretically positive and it probably is at certain levels, but a kid who doesn’t know his or her ABCs shouldn’t be in the same class with a student who is at sentences and paragraphs. That’s a harsh truth but it is a real one.

Imagine your kid is the next Lebron James. You can see it. His coaches can see it. The news is already reporting on it. Would you want him at a school with kids who can barely dribble or lack the stamina to run up and down the court? No. The feeling of truth might say yes, but the truth says no. You would not be providing the best environment for your students.

But we accept this scenario in many places. We allow the feeling of truth to beat truth. No where is it more clear than with Trump. If you are a supporter of Trump, check the premise. Why? Because his message resonates with you and makes you feel good or because he is the best person for the job? The answer is there if you are willing to connect the dots.

And if you hate Trump, you need to ask the same question, why? Hate breeds hate. That’s the truth. It has been defined. SO if you hate Trump, then you are building a nation of hate. It goes both ways.

But the bigger question has yet to be asked and delved into because those with the guns and the power to wield them want us to be actively fighting against our feelings of truth. And they have done a good job.

We are all sitting in a car that doesn’t start on a train track with a train headed our way and we can’t agree to leave the car and get out of the way. Some, because they are by the doors and frozen with fear and others because there is no one to connect the dots of truth for them.

The answer is clear if we hang up the feeling of truth. A third party with a viable, useful candidate is needed. All Americans should be able to go to the doctor without fear of the bill. All educators K-12 should be supported to do their jobs without having their hands tied. And most importantly, put the feeling of truth up on the shelf and replace it with some answers that are harder to come by and some that are simpler.

We, the People, means ALL and that ALL has changed over time. Get over it. Since the beginning of shorty we have been on a trajectory of change. Some is easy, some is hard. But this is a fact. We are a culmination of the connected dots of history and should act as such as a nation. We don’t all have to like each other. We need to view others as citizens of the same nation and that word, citizen, is rarely used by those who govern us purposely. They want us feeling the truth in our bones at the end of their muzzles and we allow it.

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