We're Not Broken

 

"What is wrong with the world today?"

Ask anyone this question and you'll receive countless answers. Read through this list.

"Things are too expensive."

"People are idiots."

"We let far too many dangerous immigrants into our country."

"Processed food is killing us."

"Crime is out of control."

"Today's music, movies, and TV sucks."

"We have way too many dangerous guns in circulation."

"We don't have the same economic opportunities as our parents or grandparents."

"We don't have enough affordable education opportunities."

"Our food and fresh water supply is seriously threatened."

"Government and the dirty politicians who run it are corrupt."

"Religious liberty is being threatened."

"The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer."

"War and conflict is rampant."

"Climate change is destroying our planet."

"There's too much racism."

"Social media has hopelessly divided our society."

"The planet is being overrun by garbage and pollution."

 

Pretty big list, eh? 

I guarantee you nodded to at least a few items on this list.

I also guarantee you rolled your eyes at a few items on the list.

WHY?

In the two decades I've been intensely studying and experimenting with human behavior, one of the few constants has been the weird fact that EVERYONE believes our world is going to shit in some way, shape, or form. There's also a slew of people who believe the people who believe that are paranoid, deranged, or just flat-out stupid. 

What if they're all right? What if everything on that list above is correct? And wrong?

What if the problem is that, for the most part, our world is pretty damn good? But at the exact same time, very specific groups of people are observing that there are very real, valid problems? 

The Lab

This tiny bit of insight is the genesis of my latest, most ambitious project. I think I have a solution to most of our world's problems. It's a solution I've been toying with for a few years, but two events have pushed me to actually START the project.

The first event was the rise of Donald Trump. He very well could be my favorite president ever. Why? Because he has brought almost all of the variables and antecedents of those problems listed above into sharp focus. Personal opinions aside, I would not have developed the myriad of insights that have led to this project without his very specific brand of divisiveness. 

The second event has been connecting with the right people. For years, I've been surrounding myself with people way smarter than me, then pillaging their thoughts, ideas, world views, and so on. This blog will likely consist of A LOT of blog posts written about A LOT of really cool, insightful, brilliant ideas. And exactly zero are my own. I'm not especially intelligent, but I AM really good at synthesizing a lot of divergent ideas into novel applications. This entire project is a culmination of five major "groups" of friends: 

• My objective barefoot/ ultrarunning friends,
• My Facebook friends who, for years, have tolerated by dumbass, oftentimes abrasive arguing,
• The men who currently and formerly comprised our "Man Camp" group, also primarily on Facebook,
• My coaches and teammates from San Diego Fight Club in East County California, and 
  
• My teammates at the jiu jitu gym Shelly and I own in a small town in Western Colorado. 

I'll be tossing our A LOT of names as I explain each aspect of this plan in future posts. Pretty much every one of these people come from one of these five groups. To them, I am forever indebted to them for tolerating my oftentimes inquisitive nature.

So what's the actual project?!?

I'm creating a diverse "tribe" of people who will create and operate  a life-enrichment community school.

That's it. That simply framework includes a million elements that, when applied in a deliberate way, has the potential to solve each and every one of those problems above. 

At least that's the hypothesis. 

In future posts, I'll deliberately walk through each and every element of this plan, along with explaining the rationale for the element. This IS, however, a huge experiment. I'm a scientist at heart. This project may be a resounding success. Or an abysmal failure. Either way, documenting it will allow other dreamers to potentially replicate the idea to make it better. 

If the idea intrigues you, I NEED YOUR HELP! Like I said above, I'm not that smart. This entire project relies on incredibly diverse ideas from incredibly diverse people. The absolute best thing YOU can do personally is engage in conversations on the blog itself (in the comments, which I will moderate for stupid shit OR spam) AND engage in conversations on social media. As of right now, those conversations will occur in a Facebook group. Given the instability of social media as of January 2021, we may need to migrate the conversations around the 'Web. Should that Facebook group disappear for whatever reason, check back on THIS post to find out where we migrated. 

The Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thelabmontrose

My non-trolling Facebook profile (if we're not friends, shoot me a request): https://www.facebook.com/jaysinrobeeyard/

 Stay tuned for discussions on the nuts and bolts of the project!

 

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