Dear Friends,
At the end of last week’s newsletter, I threatened to share “big thoughts” about depopulation, immigration, and artificial intelligence. But I need a break from artificial intelligence and you probably do too. So on to more cheerful topics — like flowers! Early Saturday morning, Coco and I hopped into the Subaru and drove down the 101 from Monterey to Highway 58 to experience the mythic super bloom.
So insane is our hypersonic, insta-identity, meta-news narrative that, I was plagued with the existential weight of 1) Do I even take photos of these beautiful flowers? and 2) If I do, I won’t share them on social media, right? The Wall Street Journal declared that by taking photos of wildflowers, I was part of the “apoppycalypse” while the BBC and New York Times warned that I was contributing to a “blooming backlash” and might find myself named and shamed on the eco-blacklist Public Lands Hate You.
The LA Times dared to ask “has wildflower shaming gone too far?” To which the Modern Hiker Substack responded with a carefully researched and nuanced piece advocating the use of the “counter-hashtag” #Nowildflowerswereharmed to certify responsible bloom sharing. 😂
I’m making fun, but if I pause to consider, this back-and-forth debate is the kind of messy and necessary deliberative democracy that keeps the whole system intact. Ours is a species that is prone to excess and exaggeration, but our culture and institutions can’t correct those excesses without some messy deliberation. The ridiculousness is requisite.
So what was my actual experience? I was in a euphoric mood listening to Tom Petty while winding through Central California’s electric green hills covered with glowing rashes of yellow, orange, and blue wildflowers. Each individual flower, a tiny star in a stunning Milky Way. It was Saturday afternoon — probably the peak day of flower viewing — and I saw few cars until I came to Shell Creek Road. Around 30 cars were parked orderly on both sides of the road. There were two clearly marked walking paths that cut through endless acres of yellow brittlebush, orange poppies, and purple lupine. We were all on our best behavior, in awe of nature’s beauty, and a little sheepish that we couldn’t resist capturing it with the little cameras on our phones. Only once did I see a group of three teenagers lying down in the flowers to take a group selfie. A mother about my age gently admonished them and asked them to stay on the trail. They looked more annoyed than regretful, but they complied and the flowers beneath them bounced back with resilience.
I was in a great mood. I continued my unhurried drive down the highway toward LA while listening to the audiobook of a colleague. I heard a throw-away line about our perceptions of immigration that applied perfectly to our perceptions of wildflower viewing: “What people believe is happening out in the world overshadows what they actually experience in their own neighborhood.”
So did I share my super bloom photos on social media? Damn right. And here I am, sharing them again.
Earlier in the day while drinking my morning coffee, I stumbled across the following journaling prompt (on Instagram, ironically):
Oh no! Was my wildflower viewing an aspiration of my ego rather than a true desire of my heart? And was sharing on social media what determined the difference?
These are uncomfortable questions that previous generations did not consider. They didn’t have an active editor in the back of their mind questioning whether to keep something private or share it with one person via text, with multiple people via group chat, or with “followers” via social media. They didn’t use their cognition to decide whether something ought to be a story, post, or reel; a newsletter, email, or tweet.
Imagine a world where nobody shared anything at all: every experience and observation we keep to ourselves. Or, imagine a world where we share every experience and reflection with as many people as possible. And while I’m sure we all know people who sit on the extreme ends of that spectrum, somewhere in the middle is a well-adjusted middle path of living in community. My hunch is that most of us would be better off sharing more of our lives with fewer people … the ones we care about the most. But that requires a level of vulnerability that doesn’t come naturally to most of us.
I have more to share on the matter, but perhaps I’ll save it for a conversation with my wife and closest friends. 😋
🧰 A (maybe not?) useful tool
I finally found a promising alternative to Twitter: Substack’s new Notes feature. You may be wondering: Why do we need an alternative to Twitter? Wouldn’t we be better off without it? Nine months after Luis and I published a podcast episode on what we learned from our first 15 years on Twitter, I’m still wondering whether there is something inherent to short-form writing that brings out the worst in me. But for now, I like Substack Notes a hell of a lot more than Twitter and see the potential for it to get even better. So if you like to tinker, please come play.
👏 Kudos: FUSE Fellows
I came down to LA for many reasons: to spend the week with Iris and Coco, to catch up with old friends, to help out my mom, and to attend a board meeting for FUSE, a nonprofit organization that places mid-career executive fellows in city governments to work on projects that make those cities more equitable. I’m a huge fan. I joined the board in February 2020, just a couple of weeks before the world shut down; and so this week was my first opportunity to meet my fellow board members in person — along with the executive director and several fellows who work in city and county government in Los Angeles. There was much for us to celebrate. From 2020 to today, FUSE’s annual budget increased from $9M to $11M, the number of active fellows increased from 48 to 60, and the number of cities where those fellows are placed increased from 15 to 23.
We all know that the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), & the CHIPS & Science Act amount to $2 trillion in new spending over the next ten years — much of it flowing to local governments. But few of us then follow how that money is spent, or what it accomplishes. So it was a delight to hear directly from FUSE fellows about the opportunities and challenges they are facing as local governments try to rebuild post-Covid amidst a competitive job market and uncertain economy.
More kudos:
My friend and superstar athlete Chi has started her own Substack with a lovely first newsletter about Vietnamese desserts (and much more).
I feel like I have known Kari for years. So it was one of those 21st-century experiences this week of meeting someone for the first time who I already knew so well. Mom blogs aren’t really my genre, but I love the “slightly irreverent take on navigating the wild world parenting” on her newly launched blog.
Marsha, on the other hand, I have known for years. We were colleagues at Gates Foundation and she was fan favorite on the 12 Inquiries podcast episode attempting to craft a positive vision of masculinity. I love how Marsha shows up in life and admire her work supporting immigrant entrepreneurs in Los Angeles at Found/LA. Check out some of the amazing entrepreneur profiles on KCRW.
Don’t worry, I’ll spare you my Tom Petty playlist. But I’m holding onto my threat of “big thoughts” about depopulation, immigration, and artificial intelligence for next week.
Until then, have a great weekend!
David
Wow FOUND/LA is giving off Issa Dee’s THE BLOCC vibe from Insecure. I enjoyed the more “light reading” of this week’s newsletter. And yes to Notes. Time to curate my feed.