 What can I make? Forty here. So one trope that I notice a lot in the news media is how mean Republicans are, how they are not friendly, that they don't care about people. Essentially they're inhuman, robotic, you know, slaves to Norton Friedman economics or some such. They don't recognize the humanity in people and this trope is getting a particular workout right now with regard to Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who's very likely going to be the Republican nominee for president in 2024 and seems highly competent. And Mark Lieberwitz was writing in The Atlantic about how Ron DeSantis is just too mean to unfriendly, just not enough of a people person to become president of the United States that campaigning will expose his poor personal skills. And I'm thinking about Clarence Thomas. Clarence Thomas is renowned among all the Supreme Court justices for being the most friendly. He's the most outgoing. He's the person who's most likely to talk to ordinary people. He's far and away the friendliest US Supreme Court justice. And where has that gotten in? What has that done for him? Okay, you have this trope that Republicans are unfriendly, that they're cold, cool, cruel, calculating, lack people skills. Well, Clarence Thomas has abundant people skills. Right? He's very friendly, very outgoing guy, Ronald Reagan. He's a friendly, warm, outgoing person, but doesn't affect the liberal news media tropes about how Republicans just don't care about people. They completely lack compassion. They lack people's skills. So, Mark Lipovich and a lot of journalists just absolutely sure that campaigning will expose Ron DeSantis' lack of people skills and will absolutely doom his presidential campaign. So, count me skeptical that he is a highly popular governor of Florida. Florida used to be a purple state. Florida used to be poised equally between Democrats and Republicans. Barack Obama won Florida in 2012. Ron DeSantis has probably played a part in turning Florida red. Also, I suspect a lot of people, Republicans are tired of living in blue states and they've moved to Florida. And perhaps that's also contributed to Florida turning red. But it's really hard to argue that Ron DeSantis has not been an effective governor. Like, he won his confrontation with Disney. Is there any major confrontation that Ron DeSantis has not won? I don't recall him backing down on anything important. And I'm not a Ron DeSantis partisan. I'm not a devoted to one candidate or another. But I'm a little more sanguine about his chances than the mainstream media. Just so convinced that he's like the typical Republican who shows no compassion, no empathy, no personal skills. It's just incredibly self-centered and predatory. Just treats people as instruments, just gets all he can from people. And when they're no longer useful to him, then he just lets them go. And I think these analyses are accurate about Ron DeSantis' personality, but I'm not at all sure that it's going to be an election killer for him. People use people. It depends on the situation. So when you're under the pressure of being governor of Florida and you're in the center of controversy, I think you're going to be much more predisposed towards treating people as instruments for getting what you need as opposed to when things are good and easygoing. And then there's often more room in your heart for love. I know how often I have felt kind of empty inside, ignored inside. That I was just being treated as a cog in the machine. That did not bring out the best in me. When I get hungry, angry, lonely, tired, that does not bring out the best in me. When I get disconnected from the people I love, that does not bring out the best in me. When I'm under tremendous pressure, I tend to treat people much more in an instrumental fashion. But when I'm aligned and I'm feeling good and happy, when I'm filled up, then I can be much more kind and loving towards other people. Happy people are naturally considerate and generous with others. If someone is consistently mean and ungenerous, then they're not very happy. They may be under tremendous pressure due to a situation or they've been wired a certain way. So they are not at ease with themselves. If you're at ease with yourself, then you're going to be much less anxious and therefore you'll be much less maladaptively preoccupied with yourself. And then you naturally notice what's going on with other people. And when you notice what's going on with other people, when you see them suffering, when you see them struggling with something, then you naturally want to help out. They're just people suffering and feel completely indifferent if you are basically at ease with yourself. So I've often thought, oh my boss is a big meanie. Oh my boss doesn't care about me. My boss is nasty. My boss is a jerk. But much of that those times is just the situation of the pressure that my boss was under. It led to him acting in a way that I thought was mean or selfish. So often Republicans who get attacked for being mean and selfish are Democrats too. It's just the pressure of the situation that they're under. Or it's the unfortunate miswiring in their system. So often unhappy people are told to be less selfish and that doesn't usually work. Like that didn't really work for me. Like I had to get to a point of ease with myself and so Alexander Technique helped with that. Ten years of psychotherapy helped with that. Having friends and community helped with that. But more than anything 12-step programs helped with that. Then when I felt at ease with myself then I naturally inclined to be a little more generous, a little more empathic with other people. When I was walking around with what felt like you know a gaping psychic wound I was not naturally inclined to be you know carrying an empathic towards other people. I remember my therapist said I have this image of you just you know sucking on the mother's breast and trying to get absolutely everything he can because he fears that at any time the guest the breast will be withdrawn and you'll never be have to have milk again. That's kind of how I was going through life. You know sleeping with every woman I can, getting all the sex I can, getting all the positions I can, getting everything I can, getting all the attention I can, getting all the fame I can. I was just greedily lapping it up, sucking it up because I was walking around with another feeling of you know gaping psychic wound inside. So you know maybe I'm sure there are selfish people who simply by taking on volunteer roles or by deliberately making an effort to be less selfish found that their capacity for empathy is caught fire right. But I think generally speaking people have to get tense of ease with themselves and their place in the universe. Generally speaking it helps to feel you know better in your body like to get into better shape, to exercise, to work out, do things like Alexander Technique, get the necessary physical therapy that you might need. People do much better when they feel at ease, comfortable, alert, alive, vibrant, healthy, strong in their bodies. That then has a dominating effect on our psychology. If you're tight in your body, you're more likely to be tight in your emotions and how you relate to others. If you're at ease in your body you're much more likely to be at ease with yourself with other people. If you're tired in your body your thinking and your emotions are going to be tired. So many of these dominating characteristics that we ascribe to people. Joe is kind, Jeff is honest, John is strong, Peter is generous, Phil is funny. Jack is great at running things. They're situational rather than essential. Leftists often make fun of the right preoccupation with essentialism that people's races, religions, cultures have certain essential qualities and in reality how their blacks, whites, browns, Asians, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha'i express themselves depends on situation, depends on time and place. You can't understand anything anyone said or done unless you locate an action in a particular time and place. So Ron DeSantis is a driven man. He very much wants to become president of the United States. People who want to become president of the United States are not normal people and so requires considerable sacrifice, self-abnegation and drive and energy to become president of the United States. That means frequently you're not very nice, not very empathic that you use people. So right now walking over the Brisbane River, I am 41 days into my Australian vacation. I feel good and at ease in my body. I just bought some new cushioned insoles. I've got two pairs of cushioned insoles. I'm racking up the miles. A physical therapist told me that my feet were associated, they were highly predisposed to injury and that I should give them a break and try to stay off them as much as possible. Well I found the exercises that I need to do and the cushioned insoles that I need to protect my feet and I'm knocking out about 10 miles a day on average during my stay in Australia. So that means one or two days a week I do virtually no walking and then the other five days a week I probably average 12 miles, 13, 14 miles a day and I've got very few obligations right now. So it's easy for me to feel at ease in my body, in my soul. I'm here with friends, I'm here with family, my body, soul and psyche are all being fed. I've got abundant spare time, I've got money in the bank, I've got very few worries and concerns. It feels a lot easier to display some empathy for others when I'm at ease with myself. Other people find me a lot easier to deal with when I'm self-loathing as I've struggled with much of my life and I tend to be much more harsh and cutting with other people. So I notice that how we treat ourselves pretty much predicts how we'll treat others. So theoretically if you're really tough on yourself you can be really generous with others and often hear that inscription about people oh he's really tough on himself but very generous with others. So I hear those theories and those statements but they're never true, virtually never true. In my experience I find people who are kind to themselves overwhelmingly tend to be kind to others. People who hate themselves tend to be hateful towards others in addition to have all sorts of unnecessary tension and restriction and compression patterns of you know muscular tension pulling down and in on themselves distorting muscular tension patterns tends to go hand in hand with feeling ill at ease with oneself and behaving in an awkward frequently anti-social manner with others.