1/ Maybe the most important lesson of the exhaustive list from the next 365 tweets covering my most important non-obvious unusual + RARE things that happened this year…
2/ …is that nobody knows nothing, an uncertain future is eclipsed only by overconfident certitude of us humans, we are rarely humble, often wrong, more things can happen than will, and patience and sitting still is hard for me and…
3/ Genetics (nature) and other events + external (non-supernatural) forces acting on us explains way more than we wish to see, we have way less agency and “free will” than we believe…
4/ And as my late g’ma and Lux partner Adam Kalish diagnosed me with having + will forever have SHPILKES
with so many short-sighted, self-interested, greedy domestic* political + financial + media opportunists who profit by manipulating, provoking, stoking anger, fear, disdain that DIVIDES “us”
*foreign enemies seek to foment US civil war too—
2/
If I were Xi or Putin—i would have full-time intel agents exploiting democracy + free speech in the US
finding + exploiting EVERY possible US identity division
-Left x Right
-Rich x Poor
-Woke x Non
-Young x Old
-Future v Past
-Religion x Religion
-Capitalist x Socialist
3/
If i were Xi or Putin—I’d sow seeds of dissent + divide with rabble-rousing, publishing op-eds, endless TV guest provocations, organizing protests, chip away at institutions + authority—stoke distrust + disdain for ‘other’ + rip + fray the social fabric to destabilize the US
1/ China x Pakistan
economic corridor is fraught with rising tensions
At stake: competition of internal groups, rebel tribes, security + protection, access to infrastructure, unmet promises + anger over expectations…
in particular GWADAR…
2/ China builds the infrastructure and will get 91% of the revenues from the Gwadar port over the next 40yrs (Chinese Overseas Port Holding Company)—9% will go to Pakistan
Why does this port matter?…
3/ Why does Gwadar port matter?
-near Strait of Hormuz (between Arabian Sea + Gulf of Oman) where 20% of the world’s oil passes (!)
-China’s main goal is to use it to connect China’s Xinjiang (where millions of Muslims are in concentration camps) with the Arabian Sea
1/ A repeating rhyme of history is never ending competition between EXPLORERS vs EXPLOITERS
(Exploiters here doesn’t mean taking advantage of others—it means settlers extracting some form of yield from a previously explored + discovered opportunity—but sometimes results in it)
2/ And a feature of EXPLORERS is there are branches ENTREPRENEURS + EXPERIMENTERS + ECCENTRICS
Notably root words of
‘entre-preneur’(undertake; to grasp/seize)
‘ex-pert’ (out of; to try/risk)
‘eccentric (odd, whimsical)
All find the un- (or not yet-) known…
3/
Some may find it via TIGHT process + reason + logic (mathematicians, chemists, computer scientists)
Others via LOOSE imagination + dreams + drugs
(shamans, lost souls seeking community— and parties)