Reflection on September 11

I was in Manhattan over September 11. I was in London over 7/7, and a beach (Ao Nang) in Thailand about 30 minutes before the tsunami.

I meet many people in their 20s or their teens and 9/11 and 7/7 are pieces of history. The US/UK withdrawal from Afghanistan is one sense a closing of a chapter that started on 9/11, as the US pursues Bin Laden and that involved hunting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. If you’d like to dip into this more I recommend Garrart Graff’s oral history book, Only plane in the sky, and recent podcast, Long Shadow.

 I recall 3 small reflections. 

 The smell and the noise. In particular the smell. The burning hair, acrid burnt plastic stench that moved in the wind direction. The smell hit your senses as a visceral reminder that something had happened, that there had been an attack. 

 The kindness. A distant acquaintance took me out of the city to the New Jersey suburbs. Everywhere I saw kindness. Shock, hurt and all the expected emotions. But I recall a great deal of kindness. 

 A bar at the end of the world. There was a scene that lives in my memory as “ the bar at the end of the world”. I don’t recall clearly, I think it might have been the Library bar at the Hudson Hotel. There were a mass of travellers with no where to go. Everybody was out of joint. Uncertain. Far from home. The vibe was mix of oddly relaxed - because what could one do - with a background current of tension but overwhelmingly with this - well let’s have one more drink as it might be the end of the world but - to my point above - mixed with kindness.

 I was lucky. Maybe I was also lucky to come across this vibe. At least in this version of the Inn at World’s End, it was fair old place to hang out. Not the place, but the people and the kindness of strangers.

I wrote in 2005:

I still believe one must live life 

And I quoted Jeffery Sachs writing:

“...“Yesterday when the bombs went off in London I was about a mile away. I therefore witnessed one of the greatest triumphs and resources of modern life against the backdrop of yet another heinous crime. Londoners reacted to the disaster not with shock, violence, or disarray, but with unfailing professionalism, industriousness, concern, and emphatically, civility. There were no pogroms, attacks on London’s large Muslim population, Rather there were statements of praise for the Muslim community, for its integral role in London life. There was no rush to judgment, no bluster, no jingoism, only the steady voices of British politicians directing a democratic response to this most undemocratic of deeds.

London, in short, showed even in a moment of real peril, uncertainty, and grief, that it is truly, uniquely one of the great centers of a world civilization, a civilization in which all races, religions, and creeds can live together peacefully, creatively, productively. I feel about London what I feel about my own home of New York City. Both are what mathematicians call a “proof by existence,” in this case a proof that globalization can work, that divisions among people according to religion, ethnicity, language, can be overcome through a commitment to common purposes among people living in close proximity…”

Life Advice

I’ve been asked for “Life advice” a few times recently, which has given me pause for thought. I think advice of this type should really be tailored to individual experience, so I’m a little reluctant to espouse generalities but, I have some ideas - most based on personal experience (so take them with the usual caveats on anecdote) of the nurture part. I’d go so far as to say ignore what I say and go read stuff (which is one of my top pieces of advice).

You may not be able to change your genetics but, outside of a few narrow domains, the interaction with the environment and the culture you create, or find yourself in, are still very important.

One other caveat is that I grew up without internet and its arrival has changed life in ways that were hard to comprehend.

These are my thoughts on being successful:

Immerse yourself deeply in at least two domains, preferably a few more if you are inclined. If two of the domains are not closely related, so much the better.

I was average at Art, but engaged productively with it A-level, gaining an A grade and winning prizes with my photography. I was also well-immersed in clay work when younger and with the broad arts in my teenage years. Art was my 5th A-level when most people did 3 to 4 A-Levels (the remainder of my courses being Maths/Physics/Chemistry-focussed). I also started my interest in theatre and began directing plays at a young age. And later, poetry.  Some of those practices stay with me - a notebook journal that has visual elements. An understanding on how to look at art and poetry. The processes of creativity.

The skills and knowledge of a deep domain are very valuable today. For instance, my friend (who is more gifted than I) has deep knowledge of programming C (as well as many other matters) this skill has provided decades of value. But, being able to cross-silo expertise into other areas can create unique and valuable insights. 

Shallow knowledge is not very useful, especially in the internet age.

I wouldn’t worry too much on how “marketable” this domain knowledge is. Certainly, computer coding in C has a bigger market than poetry, but if you are driven to go deep, it will help you.

Evidence: Tim Harford in Messy quotes several studies and case studies on what he calls slow-motion multi-tasking. Essentially successful creatives go deep on a “hobby” outside of their core domain and also have many on-going projects in different areas. Short blog here.

Be (or learn to be) curious. About everything.

While I think there do seem to be aspects of curiosity that more naturally occur in some people (like me). I also think it can be taught or nurtured to a high degree.

A deep curiosity about why something might be can also lead to deep domain knowledge (see above). It also means you are less likely to be idling time on addictive mobile games but seeking out knowledge on areas you are curious about.

You can’t command people easily too simply work hard at matters they are not interested in or curious about. So cultivating curiosity partly solves both work ethic and domain knowledge.

You also seem to learn better when curious (see study above) and it will lead you to better knowledge and judgements about true states of the world.

I remain immensely fascinated by many things still. It makes my story telling better and it makes my investing better too.

Evidence: States of curiosity modulate hippocampus-dependent learning via the dopaminergic circuit (Gruber et al. 2014)  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4252494/

Be (or learn to be) empathetic.

Similar to curiosity, while I think there do seem to be aspects of empathy that more naturally occur in some people, I also think it can be taught or nurtured to a high degree. It’s clear to me that it occurs (and can be taught) to autistic spectrum people - once thought not to be (at least typically) empathetic.

Empathy will help you in relationships of all kinds - romantic, friendship, family, work and even fleeting day-to-day.

Personally, making all types of work and my personal life work has involved understanding and empathy, some times over deep domain experience.

Evidence: Science of Empathy https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5513638/

Read. Read. Read.

I hardly know anyone successful who doesn’t read a huge amount (I think Donald Trump is the only one I know). I suppose podcasts (which I find slow) and other inputs of the modern era would also count. (It goes hand in hand with deep domain knowledge referred to above).

Build and nurture connections.

Social and relationship capital is built in the connections we make with others. Small and fleeting. Long and lasting. (See above on empathy).

But, I think the internet can bring connections to a level I didn’t have while growing up. 

Binding together the ideas of deep domain knowledge, empathy and curiosity will and can lead to building connections with and to friends.

Choosing your friends will be important as the “culture” you surround yourself with is an important factor in your life trajectory. This feels true to me on the micro-culture of your friends as well as the wider culture of your school/work/country.

Evidence: Power of Connections here and Esfahani book.

Learn how to communicate effectively

There are at least two levels to learn this at. First, the art of one-to-one or small group conversation. Here the advent of mobile phones has been a disadvantage, so needs more work. This also comes down to having strong social skills. (And even if not top quartile, a passable level is still useful - look at Bill Gates - who has many of these things, but had to be forced to learn a moderate amount of social skills and then public speaking).

Essentially, you need to be able to cultivate the ability to listen and comprehend well and respond (with empathy).

The next level will be the ability to communicate ideas or persuasions through public speaking. High level rhetoric may be beyond most people, but a decent skill level is within everyone’s grasp and is important.

There is another level in the small-medium group communication class which depending on how your life proceeds you may also want to be skilled in - although with many similarities to the above two categories.

The ability to influence and tell stories is a vital skill in persuading other people. It goes hand in hand with the above, and without it, it can leave your deep domain knowledge as less useful as you can’t communicate it to others.

Less obvious is that it can be taught and learnt to a large degree. (Yes, the ancient Greek had whole important works dedicated to rhetoric and communication).

Evidence: Supposedly, the job survey evidence puts this as the soft skill employers want. I think it’s a little weak, but it seems obvious to me that communication is vital.

A few more personal musings…

Learn how to cook food you and others will love. 

Everyone eats, not everyone knows how to cook. The ability to cook a wide variety of dishes will be: 

• good for your health. Cutting out processed foods, takeaway etc. will be good for you.

• good for forming strong social networks and conversation. If you cook for friends (and more) you engage with one of the most ancient forms of human bonding.

• teach you about other cultures and history, if you decide to be even a little bit curious as to how your recipe and foods came about.

Cooking has been an important part of my life and has created important bonds with many of those close to me, or even only in passing.

Learn how to make physical things or craft in the real world.

I would count cooking as a form of making. I would count many creative arts, like poetry, also as acts of physical creation - drawing, crafting, as well. Ditto gardening, knitting, building - soldering electronic circuit boards, carpentry, sewing and so on.

There are plenty of skills embodied in the learnings of a physical act and it grows brain skills in a different domain to almost whatever you’ve decided to do as your primary domain.

I’ve learnt many ideas on what makes things work by being engaged in physical creation like art, gardening, crafting. These learnings are quite different and thus useful plus there is deep satisfaction in making items by your own hands.

Prioritise experience over objects/consumerism

Buy experiences with your money over throw-away items. Experiences live longer and more positively in the memory and contribute to greater happiness. There’s a fair amount of strong research on this.

Evidence: Atlantic pop science article overview plus key Psych study.

Learn to think for yourself

This seems self evident but I find much of what many people tell me is flat out wrong.

One recent example, in a conversation with someone who was a sustainability investor of soughts, he claimed 5 “facts” and studies, which I knew simply to be wrong and he would have had other around him believe him, if I hadn’t said what I thought was wrong, and why and where you could find information to check yourself. It could have been awkward (but see social skills) I used a lot of humour to deflect (!)

Think that you are running your own race, or playing a game with your own rules. Not another person’s race.

Don’t think about your learning or your life trajectory as a competition with others. 

Sure, work and products and the like will all be about competition. But, many domains won’t be about competition and you might want to think about the route you are taking as your own path.

No one I knew at school was squeezing in Art A-level between double Maths. I don’t know any playwrights who are also successful investors. Often, it may help to think about taking your own path and not worry about everyone else.

Travel.

The last one for me was to travel and live for a time in other cultures. This really exploded many assumptions I had (see my time with the Wana Tribe) and gave me a much larger view point on the world. Maybe  in today’s connected world this is less important, or perhaps, it’s even more important now to go and really find out what things are like.

Finally, also feel free to ignore all advice that doesn’t seem helpful.

Other advice:

General Job/work Advice from 80,000 hours

This is a super summary of work orientated processes and ideas you can use.

Paul Graham (start up founder of Y Combinator) on how to do what you love (2009) but still insightful:  http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

My Grants programme

If you are interested in a micro-grant for positive impact check out my programme. 

Zen and the Art of Toliets

What’s my name ?

We answer.

What’s my brother’s name?

We answer.

What’s my Mummy’s name?

We answer. 

What’s my Daddy’s name?

We answer.

What’s my pet vacuum cleaners name?

We answer. 

This ritual has been a constant waking up refrain for the last few weeks.

Ritual plays a heightened role in my son’s life. Not the typical rituals of hand shaking or eye contact or waving or using cutlery - no, the rituals of an inner life and, I imagine, a fabulously rich world that I have only glimpsed access to.

Pico Iyer in his Guide to Japan writes:

“...During the war, the Japanese referred to B-29 planes as “B-san,” meaning “Mr. B.” As if the planes had minds of their own. Deferring to forces larger than oneself is a large part of how Japan carries itself, seeing the advantage of waiting to pushing ahead. • “Now, Life Is Living You,” says the large sign in English outside the big temple that greets you as you proceed one block north from Kyoto Station. • On Naoshima, my wife and I had to ride a private train up to our room; within moments, Hiroko had dubbed the vehicle “Tom.” Suddenly the green six-seat contraption that rattles up and down a hill, a single lamp at its front, had as much character and warmth as a beloved train-set, and we were being careful with it and looking out for Tom’s arrival as fondly as if we were awaiting a small nephew. • Returning from our trip, I noticed that the photos Hiroko had taken of stuffed animals were far more full of feeling and poignancy than the pictures she took of friends and family. The humans, after all, always flashed peace signs and put on smiles, as if to render themselves generic. • My neighbors think nothing of flocking to a station to wave to a train that’s being taken out of service, bringing flowers or presents for the carriages—or sending a teddy bear on a journey if they can’t make the trip themselves. A school of local thought holds that “mountains and rivers, grasses and flowers, can all become Buddhas.” 

What do you see when you enter a toilet ?

What do you deeply see?

I’d venture. Not much. 

Before my son, I’d not see very much either.

Now I see a different world. Of course, it is the same world. It’s not parallel, if anything it’s reverse.  Or contradictory. 

Again, Iyer quoting Wilde:

“Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern,” we read in An Ideal Husband. “One is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly.” • “Consistency,” Wilde declared in an essay, “is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” • “Life is far too important a thing,” we hear in Lady Windermere’s Fan, “ever to talk seriously about.”

This is part of the world we see. 

Not an invisible roof - but circles and shapes and details.

Patterns and colours.  

Shapes out of place. 

The makers of taps. The logo of hand dryers. 

Such items some times to be covered up. 

The colours.  The lines. 

Form trumps function such that we never get beyond the threshold if the forms can not pass the impossible tests.  

Some of our most expensive artists of all time expend effort to place items such as a toilet in a space - on a pedestal - for us to view.

Part provocation part joke part philosophical engagement  the art-ification invites us to view these items as something other.

My son feels these objects and patterns deeply. 

“Take care of things,” as the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki said, “and things will take care of you.”

If you were to transport my son and me or my wife on stage as we about to enter a toilet it would qualify as provoking Performance art.

Critics may cry that this makes a comment on the state of performance art.

I would gently suggest our performance would reach heights of comedy and tragedy that would be deeply human.

What is it…? What is… it? What…. is it?

It’s a - it’s a - it’s a

Dysoooon.

Let’s dance back.

Let’s dance forward. 

Let’s shut our eyes at the intensity of reality. 

Let’s flap our hands.

Switch it off.  Switch it off. Switch it off.

Take a photo.  Let me take a photo.  

Make a video. 

What sound does it make?

Brrrr-shrvvvbbr-brrrrr.

The visceral blast cooks our brains

Excited and repels us.

Let’s wash our hands.

Is it automatic?

Where’s the soap….?

Is it a Gojo or a Mr Soapy Soap !

It’s a Deb!

Pause. 

.

.

.

.

An unexpected crack.

A sticker out of place.

A dispenser crooked.

Let’s observe and reflect on the enormity of unrightness.

“Zen is what remains when words and ideas run out. • What we see and smell and hear is real, it reminds us; what we think about that is not.”

No one else I’ve ever met has looked - really looked - at this hand dryer with such intensity

As if the answers to world problems would spill out if only we knew how to unlock it.

I only glimpse and dance around my son’s world.

But it feels the same to me - if only I could properly see, I’d understand.

We can share the will to share 

Seeing us dance you can share 

In our humanness but we fail to share

The meaning of the hand dryer

We can laugh or cry at it all. 

“When one of his Western students was having trouble cleaning toilets, Zen teacher Suzuki suggested she speak to the toilets as if they were her friends, telling them how happy she was to get the chance to look after them. It worked.”

And so our performance ends only to repeat. 

What’s my name ?

We answer.

What’s my brother’s name?

We answer.

What’s my Mummy’s name?

We answer. 

What’s my Daddy’s name?

We answer.

What’s my pet vacuum cleaners name?

We answer.

---

More on autism here:

5 lessons autism taught me

Farewell City. Bone, pipe, pot - hunting on the river thames.

Farewell City. After about 20 years, I’m leaving the City and moving offices to Mayfair for work (same company different offices). Apart from a short gap at Canary Wharf, my 20 year working life has been in the City.

Despite the build and re-build of the City over the years to me it remains a human scale place. A plethora of curvy lanes with names going back hundreds of years pertaining to bread, milk and silk. Churches and guild halls. Ancient stone and modern glass. 

To mark this farewell, I took a little time to be slow. There is plenty of fast pace in the City, mostly faster than anywhere I know save New York or Tokyo and perhaps the Seouls and Shanghais. Yet, there is still plenty of pockets of still and slow. People lazing in pockets of green. Prayer, meditation or bell ringing.

I took out my new license to explore the foreshore of the Thames. As a sign of the times (a reflection of the current tide in the City) of regulatory creep and litigation protection, you need a license to pick items along father Thames now.

The Thames is a tidal river. You need to check the times to know when it is safe on the shore. The current entry points to the shore are not obvious today but all hark to the busy waterlife the Thames has always had.

I pick along the easy south shore. I can see in javelin throwing distance, Thames Exchange, my first office at the tail end of James Capel already being absorbed into HSBC. And to the other direction, the office I am saying farewell too, which sits relatively new in this riverscape.

The water laps at low tide. The river is noisy. Boats and ships constantly moving. Sounds from the crowds of the tow path filtering down. 

I move slowly. Partly as the stones and sand are wet. Partly as my eyes are spying out any shapes out of place. Partly as I’m taking in these moments. I stop. For a slow moment I commit the riverscape to memory, my first place of work, my current place of work. 

I spot a bone. I can’t tell if it is fossilised or real. It has a certain weight and dark burnished hue which seems more stone like. A small cylinder clay shape lies half buried. A small remnant of the once popular clay pipes. A shard of pot, it may be newer or older I’m unsure. A rusted stub of iron, perhaps a large nail in another life 

Bone, pipe, pot - the debris of our life passing us by.

I mark these moments. As for now, I bid farewell to the City, my damp footprints already vanishing.

---

Tempted to read more?… Imagine for a moment that you walk into a bank. There are 50 other people in the bank. A robber walks in and fires his weapon once. You are shot in the right arm. 

Now if you were honestly describing this event to your friends and coworkers the next day, do you describe it as lucky or unlucky?

…. I’ve been thinking about positive counterfacts read more here about this resiliency technique. (3 min blog)

---

A story about delicious pressed duck and one of my only racist incidents in my youth.

Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter

• Max Roser @MaxCRoser examines this for @OurWorldInData in this essay: https://t.co/aZcovskaC7 Obesity, opioids, hi… https://t.co/qcq3PArGco

  14 Jul 2022, 9:27 am

Winning the sack race and happiness

I watched my 7 year old win a sack race. And more surprisingly “the javelin.”

I’ve written several times and what we seem to know about “happiness”.

The importance of experience over items. They live longer in our memory and give more enjoyment.  (I had to stop the urge to video the experience but live it!)

The importance of purpose / meaning / connections / community  for fulfilment / eudaemonia / contentedness-happiness over transactional immediate satisfaction (but that lack of immediate basic satisfaction eg persistent hunger, if it can’t meet a hurdle is still a problem).

The recognition of challenges / failures / mistakes as part of the human condition but from that learning / improvement / fulfilment can come.

So I’m glad I took a break from saving the world  - being on the work cog - to be connected. You should too.

As eudaemonia / happiness —> success not the the other way round.

https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/meaning-happiness

https://www.thendobetter.com/blog/2018/9/20/power-of-small-connections 

---

Current highlights:

Listening to legendary theatre agent, Mel Kenyon. 

Some writing tips and thoughts from Zadie Smith

How to live a life, well lived. Thoughts from a dying man. On play and playing games.

A provoking read on how to raise a feminist child.

Some popular posts:  the commencement address;  by NassimTaleb (Black Swan author, risk management philosopher),  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes;  JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Charlie Munger on always inverting;  Sheryl Sandberg on grief, resilience and gratitude.

People change you, you change the world.

Life is messy.  Yet what unites and binds humans is greater than what divides us.

For all the noise in the media, there are still spaces for people to meet.

More than spaces.

While in our daily lives we may have to be defined as left - right - up - down - multi - coloured - plain

Daughter - mother - spouse - blonde girl with glasses -

When we meet we know we defy labels - we delabel.

But we have to meet. We have to constructively clash so our ideas can be born in the fire of debate.

.... music, dance, food, drink - art - poetry - conversation - these core pieces of humanity - these are the fuels...

When we humans meet in these activities they are the concentrated renewable energy that fuel our discussions - our debates - our loves - our passions - our fights - our peaces.

It may seem we are in a divisive age.  But I’d like to suggest we continue to be also in an age of hope.  Many matters of humanity (cf Hans Rosling) are improving. We live longer, we read more, we are healthier than we’ve ever been - our challenges are still great and terrible - but to meet them -

Concerned - passionate people are still meeting.

And when we meet we listen and exchange - and we will stand for each other -

And so it will be when a synagogue is in danger - we will have connected and we will stand -
When a mosque is in danger - - we will have connected and we will stand - when a church is in danger - - we will have connected and we will stand - when humanity is in danger - we will stand -

We will argue over freedoms - but will stand with freedom
We will argue over humanity - but we will stand with humanity
We will argue over rights - but we will stand with rights
We will argue over people - but we will stand with the people


Does this happen only with the so-called elites? De-label. No. It is everywhere.

Where we meet - we still exchange and leave all the better for it - drained and replenished

It’s messy. Answers are missing only some times found. Lines are crossed. Redrawn. fudged. Drawn again.  It’s gloriously messy and absolutely worth saving - perhaps that’s what I found in what it is to be human in the months travels.

---

Read about lessons from Autism or the power of small connections.

Take a look at the idea behind crossing silo thinking and a social anthropological lens.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn below.

• 
  Max Roser @MaxCRoser examines this for @OurWorldInData in this essay: https://t.co/aZcovskaC7 Obesity, opioids, hi… https://t.co/qcq3PArGco

  14 Jul 2022, 9:27 am
• 
  Thank you @stripepress team, @s8mb @salonium @rebeccahiscott + Team, for publishing Pieces of the Action. Beautiful… https://t.co/DTqutWaqG2

  13 Jul 2022, 10:52 pm

Aisling Bea. On her father's death.

By Aisling Bea (a friend of a friend): a very moving piece in the Guardian: mine headline and her letter below - but read the whole piece - link in the mini headline.

The comedian’s father killed himself when she was three. She was plagued by the fact he made no mention of her or her sister in the letter he left. Then, 30 years after his death, a box arrived.

"My father’s death has given me a love of men, of their vulnerability and tenderness’

[...]

To Daddy, here is my note to you:

I’m sad you killed yourself, because I really think that, if you could see the life you left behind, you would regret it. You didn’t get to see the Berlin wall fall or Ireland qualify for Italia 90. You didn’t get to see all the encyclopedias that you bought for us to one day ‘use at university’ get squashed into a CD and subsequently the internet. You have never got to hear your younger daughter’s voice – it annoys me sometimes, but it has also said some of the most amazing things when drunk. I think you would have been proud to watch your daughter do standup at the O2 and sad to see my mother watching it on her own. Then again, if you hadn’t died, I probably wouldn’t have been mad enough to become a clown for a living. I am your daughter and I am really fucking funny, just like you. But, unlike you, I’m going to stop being it for five minutes and write our story in the hope that it may help someone who didn’t get to have a box turn up, or who may not feel ‘in their right mind’ right now and needs a reminder to find hope.
Aisling

• In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found atbefrienders.org

Brain Test

Had a good test of slow thinking (rationale thoughtful) brain vs fast thinking (emotional flight fight) brain this week.

S had to under go sedation to fix a tooth hole. His sensory sensitivity from his autistic traits made a traditional operation impossible though he tried very hard.

"Don't worry. I'm a resuscitation specialist!"

Strangely that's not the thought you want running through your mind.

I see a lot of the world through the lens of healthcare. Nothing is risk free.

Aspirin takes away headache pain with a chance of a stomach bleed.

Car helps you travel with a risk of a crash.

Living and loving makes you feel like nothing else does but with the inevitable pain of a loved one's death (which also makes you feel like nothing else).

A hole in a tooth would inevitably lead to infection and then quite possibly lead to severe illness or blood poisoning and death.

Sedation medication has a tiny chance of severe allergic shock or overdose that the need for a resuscitation specialist is so small as to be almost meaningless to calculate.

That's not what hits your brain first though when you think your child might die.

Our sense of risk if often inaccurate. It is tied up in our emotions. It is tied up in stories. It is tied up in the narratives we hear.

Even the language of risk we hear differently. We hear two out of three as a different risk to 66.6%.

We fear our children kidnapped on the streets. The stories we hear amplify that fear. And so today we believe our streets are less safe than before and our children lose the benefit of play and making decisions for themselves; and perhaps living free too. The loss is real. The risk fears are close to fantasy.

Yes. There are child gangs. But fewer than 100 years ago.

Yes. There are child groomers. But men and girls can still dance.
Yes. We still die. But life expectancy is at an all time high

... if we can but grab on to life and not fear.

Another personal piece in my thanks to Gideon.   If you'd like to feel inspired by commencement addresses and life lessons try: Ursula K Le Guin on literature as an operating manual for life;  Neil Gaiman on making wonderful, fabulous, brilliant mistakes; or Nassim Taleb's commencement address; or JK Rowling on the benefits of failure.  Or Charlie Munger on always inverting.