There was a time when the world went through open borders. Free trade. Free movement of people. New waves of immigration poured into the New World. As they flocked the major urban centers, these ethnic minorities were looked down upon. Discrimination on the base of nationality, what we now call xenophobia, was rampant. Then the greatest city in the world, in sharp contrast to the rest of the New World, elected someone from that minority as their new mayor. The son of a family of immigrants, he defied the corrupt establishment against all odds. His election would usher a major shift in American politics.

His name? Fiorello LaGuardia.

I am figuring out my swimming schedule for the rest of the year. On one hand is the University swimming pool, which just reopened after a year-long renovation. It is as pristine and immaculate as a well endowed University can afford to pay . On the other hand is the local Masters Swimming club, where practices are in a less attractive pool. I tend to prefer the Masters club for a few reasons: the workouts are given by a coach, and the people who show up become your accountability partners. In the long run, what gets you ahead is not the fancy environments you practice but the people you choose to surround yourself.

Yesterday I was hanging out with some friends and friends of friends at a bar. One of them noticed someone had left their sunglasses (of low quality) and proceeded to pick them up. Said person floated the idea of selling them online. I managed to get the item out of their hands. Oddly enough, I felt good taking them, since I was not going to sell them. But it was still misappropriation. I could have left them with the bartender in case its original proprietor came back looking for them.

I wonder how many of us are fooled when confronted with a few unethical choices, they feel good about themselves by picking up the least unethical. I wonder if there is a name for this cognitive bias that I clearly fell into.

Today on my way to Philadelphia the SEPTA regional train was full of American citizens on their way to do citizenship work. Citizens looked cheerful. Citizens were looking at each other’s eyes. Citizens were reading each other’s creative signs. It was a rare but refreshing sense of trust in the air. These weak but emerging networks of trust (horizontal by nature), if nourished, can make authoritarianism impossible. It is as if American citizens have for once taken notes from the Ukrainians, who are ready to rescind their atomizing and isolating egos in favor of networks of citizenship.

The key to finding value (friends, relationships, projects) is to offer value. We live in a culture of consuming, of expecting, of receiving. Before consume, produce. Before expecting, deliver. Before receiving, give. Before asking for value, offer some value.

Penn professor Angela Duckworth recently delivered a commencement speech at Bates College. Her advice to graduates? Be judicious on where you leave your smartphone. Trivial at first, but surprisingly insightful on closer look. After all, it has been found that the mere presence of a phone within reach significantly diminishes your brainpower. Americans are now expected to spend about 17 years of their adult life looking in front of a screen. What are the implications for our politics?

Smartphones, and addictive algorithms in particular, are fragmenting everyone’s attention. Everyone is getting dumber, and because everyone is getting dumber, nobody is noticing it. I feel bad for Gen Z, the generation that we treated as guinea-pigs. I feel bad for myself, as I struggle to not check Instagram for a new dopamine hit. Knowing how these things work does not shield yourself from addiction.

If the most consequential decision you can take is where you place your phone, I suspect the second most consequential one is if and how to train your attention.

More coming.

I’ve been thinking about red lines recently. The one thing to learn from Europe in the 1930s is that people ignored the red lines they once drew. They made excuses not to leave. They rationalized their decision to stay. “My real estate agent is busy and I can’t sell my house.” “I will leave when my kids finish school.” “I have parents to look after.” And so on. They did not draw a red line, and if they did, once it was crossed, they did not listen to it.

The one advantage we have from Europeans in the 1930s, if there is one, is that we can learn from them. That is about it.

Where do you draw the line? And more importantly, will you listen to it?

Today I spent the afternoon inventorying books, journals, and catalogs in a new work environment. It was a productive and focused afternoon. It is surprising how the room you choose to do work influences the character of your experience. To be stuck in the same cubicle every weekday flattens the work life and ultimately dulls the spirit.

It is a privilege to be able to work remotely. It means one can choose their environment and be in control of their work ryhtms. Perhaps I should dedicate a day of the week to work from a cafe, a new cafe every week. Then you get more motivated and discover new spots in the city.

Things are bad. And they are getting worse by the hour. The most powerful person in the world and the intelligent people behind him are brewing a new Reichstag Fire. Institutions that were supposed to keep people safe are now creating unsafe and violent conditions. Agencies meant to ensure the rule of law and due process will now have break both national and international law to meet the boss’ daily quotas. Loyalty to the Constitution has been replaced by loyalty to the Leader. Everything is escalating. The temperature is rising. The steam fog is forming.

And in that fog, we will get confused with our own little moral compasses we each carry.

But those little moral compasses have been a bit off for a while now. By gradual exposure, the needle has been subject to new magnetic forces. The compass normalized every new pull. It started to point to a new north. And with a new direction, we carried on with our lives. We looked away. We thought it would never happen to us.

Navigating life with broken compasses, we behaved very much like the frog being slowly boiled alive, never noticing that the circumstances were changing, and by adapting, we also changed.

There is a problem with the frog analogy, though. In defense of frogs, they do actually jump.

Today I spent the day inventorying books, magazines, and other materials. It was hard to begin, but once I got the groove of things, it became evident to continue. I had planned splitting the day with other projects, but it became evident to ride the wave of flow. It is very difficult to land in that precious state of focus, especially when your attention is hijacked by other pressing projects, people, or events. It is a luxury to be in a state where time passes without you noticing.

I now wonder if there is a way to get more days with prolonged states of flow.