I’m in the Delta Sky Club at SLC Intl Airport. I had forgotten (in 4 short months) that my Amex Platinum allowed me in here. Maybe I’ll remember from now on. Got chided about not taking photos in here. See below my comment on culture. Please note that the pictures I’m posting here were taken ‘against the rules’. 😊. I’m such a wild man.

Spent 4 days in SLC visiting my son and his family. Gave out presents. Well … Amazon gift cards anyway 😊. It was nice. I connected in a way with my son that I haven’t really done before.

Weather was great. Gray, overcast, and chilly but not freezing. I did a couple of walks (at 4500’ – 1500 meters) with no problem so I think the time in Medellín did acclimatize me.

The coffee shop place in called Alpha near Big Cottonwood Canyon. I really liked. Great Coffee.

I had lunch with one of my oldest friends while I was in Salt Lake. And we had an interesting discussion about feeling like we had a problem to do with telling other people about our lives and our experiences. Why? Because, in all due humility, we have led and are continuing to lead, lives that by any standards, have been incredibly rich with experience. And we both felt that if we talk to people about it, we had the potential of making them feel bad. I noticed this just the other day, in Columbia when I was talking to somebody about my age, but who had, clearly, only ever really lived in two countries. He lived the first 95% of his life in the United States, and then moved to Columbia because it was a cheap place to live. As I started to tell him a little bit about my background, I could almost visibly see his hackles rise. I don’t know whether this was disbelief, or feeling intimidated, or I don’t know quite what it might’ve been, but I immediately backed off. To tell the truth I wasn’t interested enough in the guy that I would’ve bothered to find out what the problem was. But it was not the first time something like this has happened, and it was recent enough that I remembered it when I was talking to my friend in Salt Lake.

What to do about it? Neither of us were really sure. Other than to be judicious and reticent to a large degree when speaking with strangers. Interesting dilemma.

I felt tired traveling all of a sudden. I wish I could just stay at the house in Las Vegas awhile (although a nicer location would be pleasant) … but let’s see how I feel after a few days. Felt lonely coming back to the house and my roommate not there. I understand how she feels now. 😊

A short philosophical discourse here.

An observation about culture in the United States. No, that is not necessarily an oxymoron. One aspect of American culture that I have noticed is this belief that Americans are a proud, independent, autonomous breed of people. The reality that I observe however, is that America is to some extent a nanny state. And becoming more so by the day. This is a country with immense bureaucracies, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of laws, that govern everything that is done or not done. This is exacerbated by the extraordinarily litigious mindset that this country has. There is the thought that yes, “I am a free, independent spirit from a long line of frontiersmen”, but on the other hand, “I don’t want to be responsible for anything and if I can possibly use a lawyer to make somebody else pay for a mistake I will do so.”. Which do you think is more prevalent in practice?

Denial is in full swing here in the United States as far as I can tell.

So … related to this there is an excellent article I ran across (I will include the link but it is somewhat dense reading for somebody not really interested in this sort of thing) but I will try to summarize it in just a paragraph or so.

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/practical-wisdom/

The ancient Greek philosophers, Aristotle in particular (a student of Socrates) differentiated between sophia, and something called phronesis.

Sophia, is wisdom in general, being educated, and just knowing about things in the abstract.

Phronesis, on the other hand, is practical wisdom. How do you apply what you know? How do you look at the unique circumstances and then deliberate to take the appropriate action that fits those circumstances and the people involved?

As author John Bradshaw puts it in his book, Reclaiming Virtue: Practical wisdom “is the ability to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason.”

Aristotle referred to this as the ‘Master Virtue’, and I believe that it has never been in greater scarcity than it is now.

To relate this back to my original observation about culture, we live in a very complex world that seems to have organically developed an extraordinarily bureaucratic and rulebound paradigm within which we all live. And everybody seems to be scared of doing anything that doesn’t follow the rules to the letter. There is no concept of trying to understand the judgments need to be made in reference to context and circumstances. Everybody is just afraid. They’re afraid that if they step one foot wrong, somehow a lawyer will be on their ass. And as a result, there is this thought that as long as one sticks to the letter of the rules, no matter how foolish they may be, at least one’s ass is covered. How depressing that people think like that.

I do realize that the fear of allowing people to apply the ‘Master Virtue’ is based on the foundation that nobody trusts anyone to do so without abusing privilege. ‘Business at the speed of trust’ rears it’s head again. I do wish there was a way to (ironically) write the ability to apply the Master Virtue into law. For example, It would be allowed with the proviso that decisions arrived at, could be, if required, reviewed by a panel (like a jury) made up of people with no vested interest in the decision. Obviously a simple concept but I believe it could be worth implementing.

By the way, full disclosure … I do tend to be a rule follower. It is part of my personality. However, I like to believe that I at least have the ability to judge when something is worthwhile doing or just silly or impractical in the way the rule was set up. Will I hesitate to deviate? Yes, I’ll hesitate. But if it really doesn’t make sense to do it, I won’t follow the rule. I probably don’t do that as often as I should, but at least I’m aware of it and I try.

And to be fair, this is not just America that is like this, but I focus on America because of this tradition that they are so independent and autonomous. Not.

Again, this is a generalization to a large degree. If you compare America as a whole, to other countries, it is of course quite obvious that American culture is indeed far less group centric than other countries. I.e. more individualistic. But I am not trying to compare American to other cultures, I’m trying to compare it with its vision of itself.

Read the link. I think it is pretty well written.

A link on some strange laws still on the books in the United States.

https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/31-strange-bizarre-true-laws/