July 10th, 2025
As a follow-up to one of last year’s posts, “Common Sense 2.0 – A Human Kind POV”, I’d like to offer up a next generation Common Sense view. I have been thinking a lot lately about our reptilian brain. You might know it as that part of our brain that is the most ancient part, associated with basic drives like survival, fear, automatic instincts. Also associated with the 3 ‘F’s – Freeze, Flee or Fight.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been witnessing and experiencing all three of those lately. The state of the world, just glancing at each day’s headlines generates enough fear to have me frozen in limbo. Fleeing to a different country, or staying put and Fighting craziness like we did back in the 60’s? Sure, sometimes that’s where my thoughts go. We did end a war once. It wasn’t easy, lots of division. Pretty scary, but ‘We the people’ did what had to be done.
I’ve also been wondering about a fourth ‘F’. ‘Fix’ it. Probably not as ancient. But it does explain some of the behavior we’re experiencing, I think. MAGA is rooted in it. The left is struggling with its own version of how to Fix all of the broken parts of our society. Even before all of this craziness, most men, when confronted with a women’s emotional pain, often go right to that fourth F. Ignoring the woman’s expressed desire to simply be heard. Understood. Listened to. If you haven’t already viewed “It’s not about the nail”, worth the 2 minutes. Even if you had.
Maybe it’s time we all moved from the old three F’s and Focused (oh, a fifth F!) more on how to best go about Fixing this sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in. Join a local support group? Get out and demonstrate? March on Washington? We did help end a war once doing just that. Took a lot of marches to make it happen. Not just in DC. But it worked. Or just practice ‘random acts of kindness’. That alone can help change the world.
Let’s not lose hope. We may be a divided nation, but our country is mostly filled with kind, generous, caring individuals. Scared, yes. Needing a Fix. Absolutely! Not sure how to do it? Well, let’s find our own way, and get involved. Focus on how to Fix it, in whatever way works best for you.
Hoping this missive brings you a little peace and harmony,
Peter
July 9th, 2025
June 4, 2024
I grew up on Paine Avenue. In New Rochelle, NY. Only a 20-minute train ride to midtown Manhattan and just a five minute walk, down the hill, to the Thomas Paine Cottage. For those of you who aren’t as much of a history geek as I am, you may not remember learning about Tom in your HS History class. He was mostly famous for writing his renowned 47-page book, Common Sense. Google it and you’ll see that it was, when you consider the population of the colonies at the time—roughly two and a half million— the largest circulation of any book published in American history. His message was basically a call to arms to all Americans to pursue independence, by attacking the ideological obstacles that were separating us at the time.
Why am I sharing this with you?
Well, here we are again. A nation divided. With so many daunting ideological obstacles to overcome.
And yet… if you look around, and bother to look a little deeper, you’ll find that for the most part, not only as Americans but as co-habitants of this bubble we call Earth, we are a species that practices kindness, thoughtfulness and yes, even compassion. On a regular basis.
I know, I know. If you’re reading the newspapers or watching the networks, it sure doesn’t seem that way.
And yet… as I look around, I am continually finding people, and not just my friends and family – but my neighbors, and strangers, the shop clerks, emergency responders, my local farmers – almost ALL of whom are for the most part being kind and generous, caring and even compassionate.
So, I propose a Common Sense 2.0, grounded in the basic definition of the term ‘commonsense’ – sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.
Look around you. NOT at the news or what people might be gossiping about. But at how people around you are behaving. At least for the most part (we all have bad days occasionally). I’d say, from a commonsense perspective, the world is in a pretty good place. I am, oh so grateful for that.
Gratitude. A practice. That helps too. Commonsense? Maybe. I think so.
If you’d like to know more about how our current situation stacks up against where we’ve been historically, and feel a lot better about where we are now, I recommend Frederick Laloux’s landmark treatise on this very subject, Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness. Skip the forward, skim some of the rest, but definitely check out his historical perspective and his case studies that show how much better we’re doing than we ever have done before (even though, yes, we’ve still got a LONG way to go).
Thanks for listening. As always, please shoot me a line about how you’re doing, and/or, if you’d like to hear about other resources for positive thinking, mindfulness and/or selfcare.
Peace, and love,
Peter
P.S. For a little more inspiration, I’m forwarding this poem from a colleague’s post. Enjoy…
The longer I live, the more deeply I
learn that love
whether we call it
friendship or family or romance
is
the work of mirroring and
magnifying each other’s light. Gentle
work. Steadfast work. Life-saving
work in those moments when life
and shame and sorrow occlude our
own light from our view, but there is
still a clear-eyed loving person to
beam it back. In our best moments,
we are that person for another.
– Maria Popova
