I don't put a lot of weight in the incredibly nice things people say about me. I am just a regular guy who grew a conscience in his midlife. That's all.
But one trait I will agree with and feel, unfortunately, is sorely missing in a lot of people is PASSION. I'm passionate. About a lot of things.
One of the reasons people liked to play in string quartets with me is because I'm passionate. (Isn't that why we signed up to be musicians in the first place? You can't imagine how many boring musicians are out there in the world.)
One of the reasons people like coming to my auctions is because I'm passionate.
I'm passionate about ending the torture of homeless people in America. I'm passionate about dealing with the real problems of our city, Akron Ohio.
I don't really understand what holds other people back. Are they afraid of showing their true colors? Or do they just not really care about anything all that much?
Another thing that I'm really passionate about is science.
I believe scientists and mathematicians are the people who are trying the most passionately to speak to God.
Math is the language of God. Our universe is so precise it's like a Rolex(except WAY better, Rolexes aren't actually very precise at all). The math of the universe proves out over and over again.
I can't read enough about the Large Hadron Collider, the largest machine ever built. Humans built this thing specifically to be able to either confirm or exclude the existence of the Higgs boson... The God Particle. We first hypothesized about this particle in 1964. It's THE vital missing piece of the model that physicists use to describe elementary particles and their interactions. We found this thing in 2012 using the LHC.
Is it the smallest particle in the universe? This is where physics gets so trippy. We don't know if it has any actual dimension at all. We just weigh these things. Their mass is more important than their tininess. The Higgs Boson is 130 times the mass of a proton or of a neutron. As elementary particles go, it is large in mass.
See... here I go again. I could probably just spend the rest of this article talking about this one particle.
I'm also really passionate about space travel.
I believe if you have any interest in humanity... people seem to love saving unborn babies, then we should all be laser focused on getting off of Earth. Staying stuck on Earth is like living the rest of your life on a life raft in the middle of the Indian ocean. It's too wild of a place to be living on one random rock in a vast sea of rocks.
Space travel is the only hope humanity has of living any meaningful amount of time.
So, I was REALLY excited to listen to the 2 hour and 37 minute podcast Joe Rogan did with Elon Musk.
Elon Musk is doing so many truly interesting things with his billions of dollars.
Here are some things he's doing with his time:
Those are his day to day jobs.
For fun he is:
His goals include reducing global warming through sustainable energy production and consumption, and reducing the risk of human extinction by establishing a human colony on Mars.
This is the kind of person that makes me want to get out of bed and do something with my life. He's a true inspiration.
I loved getting to hear him talk for two and a half hours. Long format podcasts are so much more meaningful than how TV forces people to jam all their ideas into little soundbites.
After all the cool technology talk he got to something important. He got to the essence of what drives him.
He talks about terraforming Mars.
"We could be a mult-planet species. That's what we want to be."
At 2:29:34 he say, "I'm pro human. I love humanity. I think it's great."
At 2:29:48 he says, "Strangely, I think a lot of people don't like humanity and see it as a blight. But I do not."
(If you are interested in seeing this, I recommend starting at 2:29:26.)
This is SO critical.
I know many people who are really down on humans. We are destroying our planet. We endlessly murder each other. We're just a piece of shit ruining our only home.
The problem with this theory is that it's these negative people that are the true problem. They have already given up. They always think we're in the bottom of the 9th inning with 2 strikes.
Some real pessimistic fucks setup the Doomsday Clock in 1947. When they first created it they set it to 7 minutes to midnight... meaning we are super near our imminent death. Today it sits at 2 minutes to midnight. After the Cold War. After the Cuban Missile Crisis. We are on the brink of our total destruction at any moment.
Today we "need to be afraid" of 2 existential threats: nuclear weapons and climate change. That's why we only have 2 minutes on the clock of humanity.
The Department of Homeland Security wants us to know that we are in a generational fight against terrorists. We need to be terrified of them.
All this terror and fear is instilled in us by parent-figures that believe negative reinforcement is the way to shape us up. "If we scare the shit out of them they will straighten up and fly right."
What it actually does is breed apathy and hopelessness.
We all sit in our homes thinking everything is hopeless and pointless.
A new Gallup poll shows that just 20% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing. The vast majority, 75%, disapprove of the job Congress is doing.
Yet we do nothing about it. We don't march on the streets. We don't throw them out of office. We do nothing.
I believe American politicians have stumbled upon a new form of oppression that is much more powerful than the oppression used by violent dictators in places like Syria. They use the tool of apathy and hopelessness.
Congress has not had an approval rating over 30% in ten years and we do nothing about it. They LOVE our fatalism and hopelessness.
This piece of shit mentality is baked into our Judeo-Christian culture. We are fallen and sinners. Thanks to women, by the way. (We have a built-in enemy right at the very beginning of our society's moral story: women.)
I see absolutely no point in this kind of thinking. It does nothing but demoralize us and depress us.
You can see very clearly that telling us that we're terrible sinners does nothing to make most of us be better. We are obsessed with money and things and pleasure.
But internalizing this loser mentality is working out great for rich people and politicians. We let them roll over us all day every day.
"Wanna give all our jobs to the Chinese and the robots?" That's fine.
"Wanna bankrupt us if we have a serious illness even though we have insurance?" Totally cool.
"Wanna saddle 20 year olds with $100,000 in college debt that they will have the rest of their lives and will be garnished from their social security payments when they are old?" Makes sense.
"Wanna let our country be run by executives that make 1000 times more money than their workers and then pay no taxes?" Nothing more American than that.
We are beaten down. And I believe it's intentional. Our leaders keep us beaten down so we will just give up and let them do whatever they want.
At 2:30:22 Elon says it: "This may sound corny... but love is the answer."
This is the ONLY way we will ever get beyond the muck and mire we have found ourselves in right now as a society.
Do you think the environment is important? Plant some trees. Become a vegan. Get rid of your car.
Do you love animals? Take in stray cats and dogs. Neuter cats roaming your neighborhood. Protest the meat sale at your local grocery store.
Do you think corporations are ruining the world? Protest in front of Walmart. Create some non-violent protests against Amazon.
Fall in love with what you love.
Find the passion within you. Let the fear go. Be yourself. Be true to who you are.
I truly believe everyone has the ability to be passionate about something. ANYTHING. It doesn't really matter what it is to me, as long as you aren't hurting other people.
Wanna dress up like a furry and eat dinner out of a dog bowl? Be my guest.
Think dancing all night long at the night club is the greatest thing ever? Get out there.
Wanna be a wold champion Fortnite player? Dedicate your life to it.
Just find your passion.
One passion will lead to another passion which will lead to another. This chain reaction will happen within you and the people around you. Passion is contagious.
This is a burning love that we have to find again in ourselves. We have to relight that fire.
Not only is it fine to be your crazy, weird self... you were supposed to be yourself the entire time. It's why you are on this planet. We NEED you to be you. Because together we make up the most amazing symphony imaginable.
When you cut yourself off from your true self because it's what you think you are "supposed to be doing" you are actually going in the wrong direction. That's not what the universe or God wants you to do at all.
Believe it or not, you being you is what will save all of humanity. Don't worry about the outcome. Just do it.
The answer is love.
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