How do we get healthy again?

I'm worried about what I see happening among my American friends. They see America's in a bad place right now, but it's not for the reasons they're sharing - everybody's projecting. Americans have never been more polarized. So I decided to write a little of my own unsolicited advice from London (where we have our own problems but we've survived similar divides):

1. Turn off the cable news. No matter where on the political spectrum you live, no American cable news channel is your friend. Their business is emotion-hacking your attention and engagement; it's the nutritional equivalent of eating McDonald's and if you're doing it daily you're gonna get super sized and grouchy.

2. Find a collection of news sources you trust and understand their biases. In my case for daily sources I habitually use the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. And I use a bunch of others to augment them for example The Atlantic and Wired based on my own metrics for quality journalism and not on what the various tribes around me approve of. You'll probably have a different mix - as long as it's got enough diversity and quality, the exact mix doesn't matter so much as the quality of the information available for you to consume. These are your proteins and vegetables. Make sure to cook them before serving contents to others.

3. Consider the other programming you consume across all other forms of media. You can focus on getting the freshest fruit when it's ripe (this takes a lot of legwork but fresh and novel content tastes great) or you can focus on the most healthy processed mass-media explicitly designed to capture your attention but the key in all of this is moderation. You don't strictly need it, but life's way better with bit of sweet, stimulating entertainment here and there. Don’t judge yourself if you have an occasional binge but recognize that it’s all carbs and sugars so don’t make regular media binging a habit. Pick programming that engages and inspires you so you gain useful energy.

4. Once you start eating a healthy media diet, you're going to discover something about your friends. Some of them are amazingly supportive and people you didn't expect to notice will provide a lot more encouragement when they see you're serious. Spend more time with these friends if you feel you can be your authentic self in their presence. Others are resentful or discouraging or feel judged by your new habits. If they're willing to talk with you about this and you're able to move forward together, great - maybe they'll be motivated by your example and you can remain close and continue to spend time together. If not, don't waste emotional energy trying to fix this, accept that you'll find yourself spending less time together.

5. Allow every person and organization to do their thing so long as you can remain safe and healthy. That includes allowing yourself to do the same. Every life form (even artificial life forms like nations, corporations, and partnerships like marriages) has an authentic self that's messy, incomplete and full of paradox, hopes and doubts. Embrace it without judgement. This is the inner self and it's fragile and vulnerable and we instinctively protect it.

6. Understand that every person and organization also has their false narrative, their outer self. This is the voice in our head that justifies every action we perform and rationalizes every decision we make. Only the immature fail to recognize the difference between our outer self and our inner self. We work hard to maintain it. Paradoxically, the hallmark of immaturity is an inability to recognize it. We never fully mature during our lifetime. We hold ourselves accountable for our false narrative by treating it seriously, so when dealing with someone who's inner self is fragile, it's even more effective to treat their outer self as if it were credible and coax people to grow into them through genuine encouragement rather than tearing them down. We need to do this for ourselves just as much as our communities (and yes even our leaders). The alternative is far worse.

We'll make it through this much and it will be better on the other side when we can understand each other again. Trust me, it's worth it.

--Andy

London, April 2020