johnmaconline

Yesterday I spent some time cleaning out the paint cabinet.

I feel great. Lighter, even. Not only is my workshop (where the paint cabinet lives) much tidier, but I’ve reclaimed a bunch of space.

We’ve lived here a long time, so that cabinet had accumulated all sorts of partially used cans of a million different colors. Gallons, quarts, spray cans — bunches of them. Some almost full, and some mostly gone. Some were dried up and useless.

I’m a bit of a hoarder. I’m the kinda guy that saved all the paint cans. Because, you know, I may need it someday. You never know when you might need to reach way back into that cabinet to retrieve a long-forgotten color.

In fact, as I went through the dozens of cans, I realized that some of the colors were from rooms that we had painted two or three times since. I couldn’t even remember in which room we used them.

You probably have one also. A cabinet, shelf, or corner somewhere that accumulates all of those partially used paint cans of long-forgotten colors. The ones that you convince yourself that you may need someday. Go ahead and dig in on a Sunday afternoon.

This message isn’t about paint.

What’s the easiest thing you can do?

Follow your beliefs.

Do what you believe in. Do what you believe you can do. Do what you believe you can be successful at.

Whatever you’re currently doing is something you believe. Whatever you’re not doing? That’s the thing you don’t believe in. That’s also the hard thing.

Sometimes we have to suspend our beliefs and do the hard thing.

A tree lives alone in a field near my house.

I run or walk by this tree many times per week. Sometimes, I keep right on moving. Occasionally I stop and take a photo. But I always look at it. 

I’m always curious about its mood. 

I’ve seen its mood shift each day, sometimes multiple times a day. The season, the weather, the time of day; each of these external forces pressing their will upon the tree and providing background and context. The tree simply internalizes and then reflects. 

How could it not?

I used to believe that my understanding of its mood was about it — the tree.

But as part of my great unlearning, I realized that I was leaving out the most important factor affecting the tree’s mood — myself and my story. 

As it turns out, my interpretation of the tree’s mood is all about me and my story and less about the tree and its story. 

I learned stuff because of where I grew up.
I learned stuff because of who I grew up with.
I learned stuff from the system in which I grew up.

Since then…

I learned stuff from my circle.
I learned stuff from my experiences in the world.
I learned stuff from the back of all of those who have come before me.

I’ve learned a lot of stuff, and all of it informs the story in my head. The story about who I am, what I can do, how the world works, what is right and wrong, and what is true.

That’s my story. The story of how things make sense to me.

But I’ve realized that I’m on a journey. A journey started with an unknown destination but has since become clear.

I’m on a journey to unlearn everything I’ve learned.

Not because what I’ve learned or who I’ve learned from is wrong or doesn’t have value but because it’s the only way. Unlearning what I’ve learned is the only way to see the other. The only way to engage with the other. The only way to access other abilities and perspectives. The only way to create something different.

This journey of unlearning isn’t about right and wrong. It’s about the story I tell myself.

What should you unlearn?

Climate change isn’t happening in Eastern Pennsylvania. 

How do you know? Show up and look around. 

None of the forests are burning out of control and threatening neighborhoods. Farmers aren’t starving, nor have they had to adjust their crops or livestock. We haven’t had any “out of the ordinary” droughts, floods, or winter storms (every few years, we get a banger summer or winter storm or have a month or two of drought — as always). We don’t have a coastline, so nothing to see there.

So this climate change crisis is a hoax, right? A non-crisis marketing scam propagated by a particular tribe to instill fear, increase their control, and extract finances.

A big nothing-burger.

Maybe.

But before we jump to conclusions about climate change — or COVID, racism, MAGA, crime, academia, etc — based on personal experience alone, let’s remember it’s a big world out there.

We all have a story we tell ourselves. One of the biggest inputs to that story is your personal experience. Personal experience is always a valid input but doesn’t usually tell the whole story. 

But if climate change is your biggest personal worry, maybe you should consider moving to Eastern Pennsylvania. There is no climate change here. 

Anti-vax or anti-science?
Anti-socialism or anti-capitalism?
Anti-smart or anti-dumb?

The tribe demands you pick a side. The algorithm rewards it. The mouthpieces celebrate it.

Here’s the truth: you don’t have to pick a side.

Once we realize that the sides were fabricated, and the answers lie within the humanity between, we can finally move forward.

In 1975, the third fight between Ali and Frazier (dubbed the Thrilla in Manilla) was seen by an estimated 1 billion people. The UFC earns close to a billion dollars each year. 

The right. The left.
The right versus the left, or the left versus the right.
Good versus evil.

No wonder our public platforms and channels amplify the fights between good and evil. 

Fights sell tickets. 

Just like each of us (yes, you, too) should be required to play baseball or softball as a teenager, here’s another mandate I’m putting in place when I become king:

Mandatory living (i.e., service time) in each of urban, suburban, and rural communities.

Between the ages of 25 and 40 (assuming you make it that far), you will live in a community within each type of housing zone. That’s five years in each, baby.

I’ll be very generous with the implementation — you know, because this is a free country, after all, and you are free, sentient human beings. And I’m a benevolent dictator.

You are free to choose the order. You are free to choose the geography (don’t worry, we’ll tell you which communities qualify for which label). You are also free to move around within those communities or from one geography to another.

The only other rule is that your service time must be accumulated contiguously — i.e., you must live in each for five years in a row. 

I can see only one other way to avoid this mandate.

That’s if each of us can find the generosity and empathy to realize that geography and community add to our personal history. And our personal history informs the story we tell ourselves. And the story we tell ourselves becomes the lens through which we see the world.

Our story doesn’t make us dumb or smart. It just makes us us.