People have been asking me what my opinion is about the assassination attempt on Trump. I guess this is because I was a sniper.
My opinion is that it’s incredibly sad and also, unfortunately, there’s nothing about a bullied kid having a violent, remarkably public meltdown that actually surprises me.
The aspect of this that I really have an opinion about is regarding the people who are perpetuating the exact thing that contributed to messing up this kid’s mind in the first place.
I’m sick and tired of people in my field feeding the wolves made-up armchair quarterback play-by-plays knowing they’re really just offering more reasons to play victim. They should know better.
To me, it all comes down to this…
It’s ironic that what often passes for reason in the world is really someone’s opinion dressed up in facts that happen to justify it. Too many people with influence distort logic and facts for their own gain by building one argument and then hiding its counter-argument. And too many people are easily influenced by one side or the other. It’s out of this duality that all of this distracting drama is born. And people love drama. In fact, it’s become an addiction – but more on that another time.
Opinion-based manipulation is something we do as kids and it follows too many of us into adulthood – and that’s a dangerous thing.
Summer in Canada, 9:00 pm, sun’s out, people are enjoying long days at camp. It doesn’t look like it’s time for bed. My nephew and niece want to stay up with the adults past their bedtime. Once in a while, they do their best to convince us that it would be a much better idea for them to stay up. Sometimes they play cute, sometimes they pout, and once in a while, when they’re really serious about it, their reasoning becomes a full-on meltdown.
All kids go through this. They’re “get my way techniques.” And it doesn’t stop there.
Kids grow up, they become teens. They’re experts in “pushing the buttons” of emotional susceptibility in their family to win their way. With little power or influence, these manipulation tactics have little real consequence with good parenting. This is all natural in the growth process and actually serves an evolutionary purpose in our youth.
But consider how dangerous this emotional extortion is to our communities when we realize that so many of the “leaders” we have today haven’t evolved past that phase.
Here’s how this plays out.
- If your community is sensitive to rejection, the weak leader will communicate anger about how the opposing opinion has offended, injured, or wronged your community.
- If your community is sensitive to inadequacy, the weak leader will communicate how the opposing opinion criticizes and judges them by attacking their character, caring, or competence.
- If your community is sensitive to guilt, the weak leader will communicate how the opposing opinion has inflicted suffering within your community causing unhappiness or deep hurt.
- If your community is sensitive to pity, the weak leader will express the community’s own helplessness and victimization the opposing side has imposed on them.
When we see it, it’s simple.
There are too many manipulative opinionated people who are distorting humanity’s logic for their own gain.
They’re creating groups of people who are distracted by violence, or by condemning violence, or at the very least stressing everyone out. But here’s the thing.
Violence is easy. Condemning violence, also easy. IMO neither is very productive anymore.
There’s a better way to rise up… if that’s your thing.
In part, by building the character trait of farsightedness.
- Farsighted people have trained themselves out of participating in the exhausting human tendency of getting trapped by their own opinions. But they don’t sit idly by with passive acceptance of things being the way they are.
- Farsighted people are the ones who are going to know how to restructure a new economic paradigm that will really serve people instead of dividing it.
- Farsighted people are going to raise the next generation of strong leaders who will hold a vision of integrity that challenges all misrepresentations of universal truths in the world.
This isn’t a Kumbaya representation of reality. There are actually brilliant groups of people working on this behind the scenes right now.
So if it seems lonely to not be on one side of the drama or the other, I guarantee you, it’s not.
Free-thinking and farsightedness are where the strong reside. This is one of those secret clubs hiding in plain sight. It’s free to join but the threshold one needs to cross is a logically treacherous one.
Who’s with me?
Cheers,
Jeff Depatie