No B.S Friday: most people make a big mistake when they set the trajectory of their lives.

In many ways, humans are a hot mess.

I don’t feel I really need to justify that. It’s pretty easy to find people just making a hot mess of themselves, of their countries or of the entire planet.

I don’t think it’s my case to make.

But one of the ways that I think humans are particularly hot and messy is that we have created a circular motivational system for ourselves.

So, ask most people what the point of life is, and I reckon 8 out of ten will tell you that the point of life is to be happy. To enjoy life.

That’s what we’re here to do.

The founding fathers of America enshrined it as a right – the pursuit of happiness.

We are pursuing happiness. We’re chasing it. Happiness is the goal and the target.

That’s a pretty mainstream and vanilla idea. Most people would agree with it.

Now, what is happiness? Well, it’s an emotion right? I think most people would say that. Happiness is something that you ‘feel’?

Again, nothing too controversial there.

Now, the real question here is, what are emotions?

Well, what I would say, and perhaps this is a little controversial, is that our emotions are our automatic guidance systems.

Every feeling we feel is.

If we are cold and we find something warm – like a bear-skin rug or something, that warmth is a motivational cue. It’s our bodies way of saying to us, “Hey, that warmth feels nice. Do more of that. Get closer to that.”

It automatically guides us out of the cold and into the warmth, which obviously improves the odds of survival.

That seems fairly obvious for things like physical pain, but I’d argue that all emotions are serving a similar role.

They’re there to guide us towards the things that are good for us, and away from the things that are bad for us. 

So we feel a loving bond to the people around us because we’re a herd species and we survive better in packs.

Laying out an abundant spread of food at Christmas makes us happy – happiness rewards us for creating abundance and enjoying food.

Watching your lover leaves you makes you sad because you now have fewer mating opportunities… and your complex needs for intimacy and understanding have also been dashed.

Over time we have developed some fairly complex needs – social status, actualisation etc. It’s not all just rooting and eating.

But what I would argue is that happiness is what tells us we’re on the right track in life. It’s the way of helping us remember situations that are good for us, and encouraging us to repeat them.

In that way, happiness is a guidance system.  

But have we gone and done?

We’ve made the guidance system itself the point.

When we pursue happiness, we pursue the signposts to the things that are good for us.

Happiness is not the thing.

And what is the thing?

Well, that’s what we have to figure out. We have to inquire into our souls, determine which drives are coming from our most elevated and inspired self, and shoot for those.

But if we’re just pursuing ‘happiness’ we’re missing the point.

Happiness guides us towards what we really want and what we are here to do.

But happiness itself is not the point.

We have set the guidance system itself as the destination. It’s like punching your GPS into your GPS.

No wonder we’re so confused.

No wonder we’re such a hot mess.

JG.

No B.S Friday: There are many lessons to take from the Easter stories. Today, I’m thinking about heroism.

I know most people know I failed school more than once. But did you also know I failed Sunday School seven times?

Yep. True story. You can fail Sunday School.

I had the same relationship with Sunday School that I had with weekday school. They wanted me to “just shut up and do your book work.” I wanted to overthrow oppressive authoritarian structures and play soccer.

We had to agree to disagree.

Still, as fraught as that relationship was, the things I learnt there found their way deep into my psyche.

And while colouring in a picture of the baby Jesus did seem like a colossal waste of time (time that could have been spent playing footy, which is a totally awesome use of time), there was something there.

Through it all, down through time, I felt there was some sort of transmission. And in many ways I’ve been wondering what that is exactly.

And I do find myself pondering the Bible and the stories of Jesus fairly often. There is a language here, and I think a code and a blueprint for fully realising our potential – for actualising our mission here on Earth, dare I say it.

And in all of that, it often feels like the Easter stories are the heart of it all. I think they are incredibly profound, and there’s so many ways to understand them – to learn from the example Jesus gave us.

Now, as I said, I failed Sunday School, so don’t’ be taking any theological advice from me without consulting an independent salvation planner.

And while I take a lot from the examples of Christ, even I’m not egotistical enough to compare myself with the suffering and mission of Christ.

My cross to bear is my rascally good looks and not knowing what to spend my money on next. For Jesus it was the entire sin catalogue of humanity and dying a slow an agonising death.

There’s no comparison.

But there are many, many lessons.

The one I’m reflecting on at the moment is how it feels like whenever we want to bring something beautiful in the world – whether that’s our creative vision, our generosity, our love, our walking in the light, whatever – there is a price that must be paid.

That’s the nature of this fallen world. Jesus, and all the beauty he brought, was met with the full suffering and sinful nature of humanity.

For us, will be tested and often disappointed. You might say you want to bring this or that through, but then the devil will say, “Yes, but look how hard it’s going to be. People might laugh at you. People might say nasty things about you on Facebook. People might stick burning crosses up on your front lawn.”

“Won’t it be easier to betray the better angels of your nature and just go to the movies or something instead?”

Following Jesus, as best as you are able, on the path he walked, is not easy. That’s the point.

The very beauty that Christ brought through only came through because he was willing to pay the price for it.

And if we can keep this sacrifice in mind – the one made by that hero of Calvary – then it steels us for the heroism our own life demands.

It spurs us on to the heroism needed to be true to ourselves and what we know to be beautiful and best.

And to do that, despite what the devil says, in the seductive voice of our own laziness.

So this Easter, remember that this is a festival of heroism.

And let it spur you on to fulfil your own heroic potential – in whatever shape you know it to be.

There. Now can I get my Sunday School diploma?

JG.

No B.S Friday: The agility of liberal democracy has been tested, and I don’t think we passed.

It may be the case that our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness.

Freedom is what makes little countries like Australia great, but I also fear it is being weaponised against us.

We know that the Russians were running general disinformation campaigns during 2020.

The most basic interpretation of that is that they just really like Donald Trump, and thought Trump would deliver more for their interests.

But I don’t really buy that, and I don’t think the Russians have much interest in short-games played out over 4-year electoral cycles.

Like the Chinese, like all authoritarian regimes, they play a long game.

And I think the long game is the weaponization of freedom, and the weaponization of confusion.

Think about why America has had such a woeful response to the Covid crisis.

Again, if you want to pin this on the Donald, I think you’re missing the bigger picture. Sure, he made mistakes. Sure, some of his decisions and handling was daft. But America’s failure was deep.

Think about it. America, as one of the richest nations on Earth, should have had one of the best Covid responses. Most problems give way pretty quickly to the sustained pressure of lots of lots of cash.

But that didn’t happen. And arguably, Covid hit America harder than any other advanced nation. America accounts for just 4% of the global population. Yet it accounted for 20% of all Covid fatalities.

That’s a long way out of balance.

And why did it happen?

I reckon that a key reason was of the freedoms Americans enjoy – the freedom to express themselves however they want. The freedom to question authority. The freedom to openly challenge the government itself.

These are great freedoms. I hold them dear myself.

But in the case of Covid, when misinformation was rife, it became difficult to organise a unified collective response.

China didn’t have that problem. There was one response and everyone toed the line. And that wasn’t just at the point of a gun. The Chinese people genuinely trust their government – more than any other people on Earth.

Wow. 82%. Are you kidding me?

And personally, if the price of freedom is being a little slower to organise a collective response, I think that’s ok. It’s a price I’m willing to pay.

But I do think it has exposed a chink in the armour of liberal democracies. Countries like Russia and China must be thinking that America’s commitment to democracy makes it weak and slow in a crisis.

That’s a weakness that could be exploited. Set up social media information campaigns that inflame existing divisions (with no agenda but to foster division), and bam, you have weaponised freedom.

It’s that easy.

The key challenge that the West faces now – and I’m thinking about this as we continue to fumble the ball on the vaccine roll-out – the key challenge facing the West is how we build trust in our collective institutions?

How do we maintain our commitment to democracy, while building our capacity to respond to a crisis?

This is the point that the long road to freedom has come to. This is the challenge for our generation.

What do we do with this?

JG.