“Did you enjoy the cocaine?” my fellow traveler asked, half-mockingly, and mostly patronizingly.

I don’t understand why you are even asking me this, their eyes divulged. I don’t understand why stores at the airport don’t clamor to sell coca tea, my eyes retorted, in total ignorance. Do you want to lose business?

One reason I’m grateful to be competing – not at war – with

We actually have a common enemy

But I’m glad to be in the ring.

Get your real enemy in your sights – ignorance,

the world is filled today with those who would hunt vulnerability, mine insecurity, or appropriate the ideas of the voiceless; but you can name your baby after a monarch or slap your company’s logo over the face of a renegade and still not automatically qualify to become a world leader. In the absence of a functional journalism sector, how many in power today are anything but followers in disguise? There are times when individuals need to separate themselves from the larger group and say what no one wants to hear, but this needs to be for the purpose of informing and empowering – not domination.

I know I personally do not want to damage or banish any organization today, and especially not any that have done immense good for the world over the years. My hope is simply to say I hope they consider getting in the ring. Not to strike personal blows or alienate anyone, but to test ideas so we can forge more durable relationships and move forward. Societies in which only personality followers hold power either break apart or move in circles.

Not always only in the shadow, proxy, and vigilante world of powerful, but virtually accountability-free, corporate media politics

God save us from influencers

get bett

make sure there aren’t any people in the way, and throw your punch