It’s not uncommon for a product or service to have certain markers of high quality that come to be recognized by the market for that good. Over time, marketers can start to emphasize those things over the actual quality of the thing in question. Those indicators might be easier to produce or cheaper to create than a quality product, especially if a quality competitor already exists that you can’t beat.

In other words, beware of the shiny packaging. Some things aren’t good, they’re just bright.

I was once standing in a circle talking with a handful of people whom I only knew very casually. Not even mutual acquaintances, just people who went to the same place I did sometimes. But a small conversation had spontaneously emerged, casual and without much depth. Then one of the guys in the circle piped up with a rant – several minutes long – about how the races should be separated or something of that nature, along with increasingly elaborate ideas about how to bring this about. We watched with horror, waiting for some grim punchline that never came – this was just what that dude chose to talk about before the rest of us extracted ourselves and made a rapid escape.

The first thing I did was check in with the rest of that group in a new location and asked them: “Do I strike any of you as someone who it would be, you know… cool to say that to?” I wanted to make sure it wasn’t me who was accidentally giving off “invite me to join your race war” vibes. Once I was sure that I wasn’t, I was able to relax somewhat. But the experience stuck with me.

A really, really vital skill in life is being able to “read the room.” Hopefully, even your most private thoughts aren’t running that vile, but we all have styles of humor or conversation that can run against the grain of certain groups. That doesn’t make them necessarily bad! A genuine and thoughtful conversation about the economics of gender disparity in pay might ruffle some feathers, but it certainly isn’t an evil conversation to have. At the same time, trying to raise that topic isn’t going to win you many points in the wrong room, so learn to read it.

I don’t like arguing in general, and this is the broader version of that same advice. Take it slow. You can change the topic, but don’t go more than one step at a time. If the room is talking about local politics, feel free to bring up state politics. But don’t go from local politics to Star Wars fan-fiction, you know? Test the waters a little.

If you talk to a hundred people, you’ll find a handful worth talking to a second time. Starting with that second conversation, you can start to really find the grand discourse that can ignite the mind. But when you’re a guest in a new room, talk less – and read more.

Tonight I took my children and met with a large chunk of my extended family at a themed Christmas village near us. We go every year; we watch the lights come on, drink hot chocolate, and ride the rides until well past bedtime. All the little cousins run around while the parents share stories and enjoy one another’s company.

It’s out of a storybook. It’s perfect.

It’s a recurring theme here, I know, but clan is important. Even if you can go it alone, it’s immeasurably more joyous if you don’t. If you lament the fact that you don’t have a family like this – stop. All “families like this” will have you. If you see us, come say hello – we have an extra cup of hot chocolate just for you.

When you travel with others, their interests become yours. Enjoy it.

You never know when the ride is going to get really, really good. Get two tickets, bring a friend.

Empires are built from within, not from without. When the world is filled with danger and uncertainty, you shouldn’t be looking to that same world for rescue. You need to put your own house in order first.

Take the smallest possible sphere of influence you can manage, and begin there. Often, this simply means your own mind, body, and soul. Be healthy, be ready, and be disciplined. From there, you can move to things like your job, your (literal) house, or your family. If all that is in place, you can work on your community or the institutions important in your life.

But that means looking within, first, always. If you don’t have enough money, then look for ways to earn more and spend less, not ways to borrow or beg. If a particular kind of hurt befalls you, then look for ways to insulate yourself from that hurt, not for ways to attack the source.

We sometimes play offense when we should be playing defense. We try to score a point when we’re losing ten every day because our own house isn’t in order. The world is full of danger and doubt and always will be, but your life doesn’t have to be.

When your house is in order (and this is a relative term, as you’ll never be perfect or complete), the next step is not to endanger that order by going out on the offensive. You don’t build a position of power to attack from it; you build a position of power to benefit from it. So the next step is to use your vantage point to find like-minded souls. Look for others with houses in order whose values you share. Bond with them. Form families and clans. Grow love and fellowship together.

If you wish to raise children, this is how to do it. Even if you don’t plan on having any, this is how you form a connection that will surround your life with meaning and joy. It comes from this, and only this.

Start with making your house into one that you would bond with. Be someone worthy of that connection, and the connections will come. To thine own house, be true.

What do we owe to future generations that have not yet been born?

We can’t know the future. We can’t know, for certain, what will benefit people in a hundred years, let alone a thousand. If we look at people a hundred or a thousand years ago, we certainly wouldn’t want them to cement our modern paths too much, would we? We want to have room to advance our knowledge on our own.

But still – certain broad strokes are pretty safe. We’re probably doing fine if, at minimum, we don’t arbitrarily reduce the resources or choices of future humans.

Consider: maybe in the future, the British Empire rises again and does all sorts of evil stuff. And maybe that would have been prevented if we made the ocean levels rise so much that the United Kingdom is swallowed by the ocean. While that’s… possible, it’s certainly far-fetched enough that we can say it’s probably better if we don’t start sinking populated islands any time soon.

If you plant a tree and it turns out that whoever lives on your property in a hundred years doesn’t want it, they can cut it down – and have the wood, too. But if it turns out they’d like the shade, shade in which I will never sit, they can’t come back in time a hundred years and plant the tree.

So make small choices like that, when you can. Improve resources, improve choices. And enjoy the shade that’s here now, thanking people who can no longer hear you.

Your view of the world is so incredibly narrow, skewed, and flawed. That’s not a criticism of you specifically; it simply cannot be otherwise.

Firsthand knowledge is one of the few ways to get any real information. And your ability to absorb firsthand knowledge is limited to such a minuscule fraction of the world that you simply can’t comprehend the sheer breadth of what you don’t know.

A coworker of mine, who lives in India, told me today about how pharmaceutical interventions faced an uphill battle there based on a plethora of factors including the fact that white is the color associated with death and mourning (as opposed to black, as if often is in Western countries), which meant that, among other things, people were freaked out by being asked to swallow white pills. And I get it! If a doctor handed you a black pill, it might freak you out a little.

(Side note: in the Western world we often think of “white” as something like colorless, neutral, default, etc. But it’s not – you have to color those pills white the same as you’d have to color them red or green. In fact, it takes a lot of effort to make most things white. Paper and cloth don’t just come that way.)

Anyway, I found this fascinating, as I always do when I hear about ways of thinking that aren’t my own. Because it came to me from another source, I can’t be certain of the truth of the information. Any of the horsemen of falsehood could be playing with what I hear. It could even just be a convenient falsehood.

And that’s all the more reason to go out and wander around yourself. Gather as much firsthand knowledge as you can. It will never be enough, but it can help you filter the secondhand information better. The more personal experience you have, the more you’ve seen the grass and dreams of the world, the better equipped you are to contextualize the information you hear from others.

Wander forth, and be unfooled.

No matter how strong that one rung might be, a one-rung ladder isn’t very useful. Imagine trying to climb anything with only that one rung!

And imagine what would happen if that rung were to break – or heck, even get a little slippery. On a normal ladder you can shift your weight around, rely on other rungs, or even skip the faulty one entirely and still make the climb. But with just one rung? You’re not going anywhere but down.

In your life, your mental health is a constant climb. Sit around and do nothing, ever, and it will erode. Keeping yourself mentally fit requires activity of all kinds. And the more rungs on your ladder, the better.

Some people invest what seems like ALL of themselves into one thing, one “rung.” Maybe they’re 100% driven by their job, so much so that it becomes their identity. Or maybe they’re so absorbed in their romantic relationship that they seem to have no identity outside of it. It could be any number of things, but that’s not a secure way to climb.

Consider what happens when someone loses their job if they’ve completely wrapped their lives up inside it, versus a person with many other things going on in their lives. The person with a well-rounded life can lean on hobbies, family, relationships, professional associations, lots of things to keep their attitude up while they replace that one slice. But for a person for whom that’s the whole pie? It’s a much darker time.

A person whose romantic relationship is one of many things going on in their life can react to slight turbulence in that relationship very easily – they have other people to talk to, ways to decompress, and a better attitude overall. But for someone whose entire identity is as “such-and-such’s spouse,” even a minor disagreement can send them into a spiral.

Think about the things that are important to you. If you want to preserve them as healthy sources of joy, then diversify! Be more than just one thing – the ladder works best with many rungs.