How I Experience Life
I joke about the small radius that encompasses my world as I don’t travel very far. I don’t feel that I am missing anything as I feel deeply involved in the world I inhabit. I also understand the world I don’t inhabit better than it understands my world. This feels like a healthful balance and works for me. I read quite a bit of daily news. Consumption of news is dicey business as most of the national news is an infomercial for either liberal or conservative thought, a filter through which all information is extruded and fed to us like questionable sausage. The best way I can find to experience the news of the world is to read from several different sources and find facts and figures that are reported in common, then come to your own conclusions.
Another way to find the truth of any situation is to follow the money, see who invests in what. People will gladly lie about what they believe in order to gain popularity but they won’t part with money to accomplish the same shallow goal. I experience the world through investments. It takes a lot of reading and thought to decide where to place your hard-earned money. It makes you involved in what is happening not only in that business but also the whole business climate. I also do very small venture-capital investing in new businesses. I invest just enough to receive investor reports which give you insight into the future of their chosen field.
While I try to understand the whole world, I want to totally absorb the world I occupy. You can read the stories about local government and be informed but attending these meetings or being on the board of a government entity is an amazing window into your own world. I enjoy following a project from one board to another to see how the whole process works. I have learned from these involvements that logic and common sense only win if you are persistent. If you do not stick to your guns, only the loud voices win and public trust is lost as a result.
When my dad passed some years ago, we all took a drive past some of the mileposts of his life. The place dad grew up, the place he played baseball, the place he went to school, his first home with mom and the place he was buried were within a circle with a 2 mile radius. Dad was involved on boards and enjoyed being involved in his world. Dad could only travel the distance as defined by the hours between the twice-daily milking of cows. I don’t think he expected to see the world but he wanted to know the world he lived within.
I think we all want perspective on our world. I have found that understanding the world and understanding the small portion of the world you live in are both important to this goal. It also reveals much of yourself when you choose to live somewhere and call it home. I choose to live here.
