They do not grant us access to government.

We grant them access to our government on our behalf.

Don’t get it twisted.

Any politician who becomes more loyal to a party, a donor class, a president, or their own status then they are the people they represent has violated the basic terms of their employment.

I don’t expect any human being to be perfect, but I do expect someone who has been entrusted with the quality of life of me, my family, and my fellow citizens to do their damndest to uphold their end of the arrangement in good faith. The minute that stops being true then they can go seek employment elsewhere.

Beyond all of that, though, I measure their performance by how they choose to treat those among us who struggle, who are sick, who are hungry, who are poor. I judge them based on how consistently they value life and dignity across the whole spectrum of humanity not only in this country but across the world. The value of someone’s life doesn’t change when they cross a border, enter a new age bracket, or have a different color of skin. The laws that are made and how those laws are implemented and enforced damn sure better reflect that and if they don’t, they can go seek employment elsewhere.

There is a not insignificant portion of our population that has somehow been led to believe that these values constitute weakness or that strength is somehow measured by how calloused and cruel you can be. I don’t buy into any of that and what so many people today, especially men, seem to misunderstand is that strength is just a force. It’s how you choose to wield strength that defines your character and I am profoundly disappointed in our current leaderships understanding of that concept and that disappointment extends ALMOST across the board.

Public office guarantees neither comfort nor deference. It guarantees scrutiny because power and authority held in our name HAS to remain answerable to us.

This isn’t hostility, it’s what’s required to maintain and improve this democratically based system that we all exist in; good, bad, or otherwise. When we allow that dynamic to flip or we neglect that responsibility, that is when representation turns into ruling. I don’t know about you but that prospect doesn’t seem very appealing to me.

I’m Ian. This is The Decency Rebellion.

We have each been given the incredibly rare and special opportunity to experience what it is to be alive. To think, to contemplate our existence and our place in it, to feel all of the things that come along with life. The joy, the love, the pain, the grief, the boredom, the excitement…all of it. We get to go through all of it and that is incredible in and of itself.

I recently watched an old interview with Maya Angelou and she talked about life with such reverence and gratitude and, I think, that was the right perspective to look at it. She took a deep breath and talked about finding gratitude in the simple realization that the breath she just took was never guaranteed and the ability to keep taking breaths, by itself, is worthy of gratitude.

Beyond gratitude, though, I think she was giving the world a lesson on perspective. Where we find value changes depending on how we choose to look at things. I think the word that is truly important in that sentence is “choose.” We get to choose how we respond to the things the world offers us. When we choose to look at something as simple as breathing as a gift, it starts to feel like something that is valuable. It becomes important because we have changed the way in which we view it. We shifted our perspective. It is through these shifts in perspective that, I believe, we become able to discover something like gratitude. The thing we are “viewing” is what it is, we are the ones doing the changing and the moving. This means that being able to find gratitude can only happen when we are active participants in the search for it. That we choose to move and adjust and gain new perspectives.

A million years of almost-wasn’t carved your name into the fabric of reality. And mine. There could have been an almost countless number of versions of ourselves that could have existed but we are the ones who made it through, just the way we are. I think we often forget that life, itself, is the prize. How we choose to fill it is up to us. While we can’t control what happens outside of ourselves, we absolutely control how we choose to move and adjust as we make our way through this life we have been given. We get to choose where we stand and, by extension, how we see the things that exist outside of ourselves. Maybe, sometimes, we need to remember to think about the breath we just took and realize that it wasn’t guaranteed. And maybe, when we do that, life will start to feel like the incredibly rare and special thing that it is. It’s all a matter of choice and perspective and those things are up to us to craft.

Admittedly, it’s taken me some time to unwind from that kind of life but, like a crumpled piece of foil or paper, you can never really undo everything that environments like that do to you. They change you in ways that you don’t realize until years later. During the lockdowns in the height of the pandemic, I was often asked why I wasn’t bothered by the isolation and the social distancing. A lot of people really struggled with it, and to me, it just seemed a little slower but still mostly normal. It didn’t feel like isolation to me, not like the isolation you come to know on a submarine. I could still go outside and breathe fresh air, look at the stars, go to the store, feel the sun on my face. Nothing about that felt isolated compared to where I’ve been before. I struggled for a long time understanding why it affected so many people so profoundly but not me. I thought there was something wrong with me, that my experiences broke me and, maybe they did in a “what’s normal” sense. 

Part of the reason I recently went back to school to study neuroscience and psychology was, in part, to answer some of the questions that I had been made acutely aware of throughout the last 15 or so years. Things that always made me feel outside while everyone else was inside. I went from submarines to uranium enrichment with 5 days off to transition. I quickly found that my shift rotation wasn’t enough, so I did firefighting and emergency medicine work on days off. I needed to fill the time even more, so I finished a degree in engineering while working full time and doing firefighting and emergency medicine. I had a problem that I couldn’t seem to solve. The only places that I felt normal were in high stress, high consequence environments.

As I continued to learn and study over the last four years, the answer to this became clear. Most people deal with extreme stress and profound consequences in short and relatively rare circumstances. That is normal and absolutely the way we are driven to exist biologically. Peace is the objective of a normal life. I spent so much time becoming attuned to stress that peace began to feel like a malfunction. The minute we allowed ourselves to rest was the minute that our complacency got a lot of people killed. Peace became our enemy. 

One reality that I had to come to terms with, because it is very antithetical to how I view myself, is that some of my experiences put me in a very small minority of the population. I have always seen myself as just another person but, part of what makes us who we are is the life that we’ve lived. Only 0.007% of the population of the United States has served on a submarine. It’s a reality that I can only describe as pretty rare. I have to remind myself of that often and not only with people that I come across in the world but with my family, my kids. I have to remember that the world that I finished developing in is not, in any way, the type of world where most people’s frontal cortex finishes growing and maturing. This reality doesn’t make me better, but it does and has altered the lens through which I view challenge and adversity. Remembering this helps me lead with compassion and a willingness to listen to other perspectives. The world that helped me build the platform I stand on was forged in steel and blood and consequences. If I can learn to find stability in a storm, then I am confident that most people can probably get there too. The best building materials come from places that aren’t comfortable if you’re willing to stay in them long enough to find them. If the platform you’re standing on gets shaky in the wind, it isn’t the wind’s fault. It’s the platform we build underneath of ourself that needs the work.

I have been a witness to so many things in my life, as many of us have been. The lens through which I view the world was ground, shaped, and polished by the world I’ve lived in and the experiences that have pushed me into the uncomfortable places. I used to be afraid of those places. The ones where you hurt or the ones where the pressure feels like it’s going to crack your bones. Running into the engine room on a submarine when alarms are blaring knowing that maybe this is one of those times where getting something wrong could be the end. Rushing into a house to treat a critically ill person where seconds could determine whether they get to see their family or friends again. While situations like that were certainly formative, they aren’t the ones that come to visit me in my dreams or come flooding back when I smell a certain scent or hear a certain sound. The things that have stuck with me more than what has happened to me, are the things that I have witnessed in the lives of those around me. The mother drawing on all of her strength in a moment of crisis to keep her children calm and to let them know they aren’t alone. The stranger who drops all of their stuff on a sidewalk to run and help someone they have never met in their time of need. The quiet professional that knows that leadership under stress is often best displayed through restraint not force. The kids who step up to the challenge of a moment that is much bigger than they are because some instinct tells them it is simply the right thing to do.

I have borne witness to these moments and, I have seen the power that is held by the quiet ones. The simple act of holding a hand that instantly overpowered the chaos and noise of an emergency. The hug that created enough protection to allow someone just enough time to find their own strength again. The calm whisper of “I’m not going anywhere” that allowed someone to get back to their feet and face adversity with their dignity intact, knowing they are seen and valued. More than anything that has happened to me directly, these moments have burned themselves into my mind and have been the most constructive shapers of my lens. The weight is heavy but not in a crushing way. I used to be afraid of these moments because I didn’t know what to do with them but, over time, I learned I didn’t need to do anything other than learn from them. These moments aren’t there to break us, they are there to shape us. To grind away the impurities that cloud our field of view and bring about a more resolved understanding of the world and of our fellow human beings.

Beyond any of that, though, is the realization that all of the noise, chaos, and insanity that swirls around us all the time isn’t nearly as powerful as we might think it is. I have watch over and over seemingly small, quiet gestures of compassion, kindness, and care rip through the noise and render it powerless. I have watched, repeatedly, the quiet ones go change worlds in an instant without expectation of recognition or reciprocity. Where does my hope and optimism come from in today’s world? From these thousands of moments where I was lucky enough to witness the things that systems of hate, division, and chaos can’t metabolize. My hope comes from the understanding that, while loud, these systems (and the people behind them) are incredibly fragile and vulnerable. My optimism springs from the places where I have seen humanity bloom in the dark, cold recesses of the world and replace those things with light and warmth. I used to be afraid of those places but now I know that these are the places where the quiet ones fight and, where the best parts of humanity really get to do work.

I can never quite get over the cold weight that settles in after I’ve crossed a line I didn’t mean to cross. It doesn’t feel like an angry weight. On the contrary, it is quiet in its imposition. It’s the kind of weight that slowly shrinks space until you don’t have any room to hide from yourself. In this place, when your defenses have burned out, when your excuses aren’t working anymore, and your emotions can no longer find anything to hold on to…this is when the heaviness takes over. And it is here, when you are pinned down in this hollow and unguarded place that something else steps forward; the parts of yourself that have been waiting to be seen.

For me, I don’t think humility started as a virtue but as a consequence. It was born in the aftermath of my missteps where the person I try to be was not the person who showed up. Humility grew, gradually, in the discomfort of having to see myself clearly and honestly without the insulation of good intentions. I found humility in the moments where my reactions outran my wisdom, and my intensity overpowered my intent to care. I have not found humility to be the gentle softening I once imagined but, rather, a sharp shift that came when I could no longer justify the cost of not examining myself and my actions.

I call the parts of myself that slowly come into focus in these moments my monsters, but they aren’t monsters in a literary sense. They aren’t demons or snarling beasts. They are the versions of myself that are unregulated, unexamined, and unrefined. These monsters are the fragments of myself that were built in the dark corners of my history and were shaped in the moments when I had to grow too fast, or process more than I was ready for. They carry the wounds I didn’t have time to mend and the feelings I wasn’t equipped to understand. I see them when my instinctive pride swells when I’m afraid or when my patience disappears when I’m overwhelmed. Usually, though, they just sit quietly in the corners of my mind, waiting for those moments that are honest enough that I can’t ignore them anymore.

Humility, I found, is what allowed me to walk into the dark rooms of my mind instead of pretending they weren’t there. It is what allowed me to sit with those versions of myself long enough to stop being scared of them and to start listening to what they had to say. Psychologically, this is the work of integrating dissonant self-knowledge and it is said to lead to an increased ability to regulate emotions and helps develop a more mature identity. The lived experience feels much less analytical and much more like a reckoning.

Every version of myself that I respect today was shaped by these reckonings. The times in my life where I couldn’t escape the truth of my behavior and I had to acknowledge the gap that exists sometimes between the person I thought I was and the person I had just been. Humility didn’t diminish me, it refined me. It helped me become aware of the weight that I carry into a room, the energy that can be held in my words, and the emotional force that people feel before I ever do anything. Humility taught me that being certain isn’t the same as being right, and being right is not always the same as being good.

I found that humility is not weakness but regulation. It is the ability to slow the internal acceleration enough to avoid becoming a version of ourselves we might later regret. It is found in the strength and courage to sit in discomfort long enough to learn something from it.

When you can learn to sit in discomfort and realize it isn’t going to kill you, you might find that your “monsters” aren’t monsters at all, they are teachers. They show us the pieces of our history we may have forgotten or didn’t know how to carry. They show us the fear behind our anger, the grief behind our silence, and the duty behind our intensity. These teachers reveal the shapes of our burdens and the origins of our reactions. Sometimes, they can even show you that the logic that made them isn’t logic that applies anymore. Through this integration, we can transform humility from a consequence to practice.

Humility doesn’t make the monsters go away but it does help turn them into advisors instead of adversaries. In this, we can start to learn how to retain our force without losing our humanity and to hold our convictions without turning them into weapons. Humility doesn’t take away our power, but it does teach how to use that power in a way that builds instead of tears down. To learn, we first must be willing to admit that learning is possible. The first step in what will prove to be an unending journey.

The truth of our existence is not written in the number of days we have lived. Our stories are written in the memories of the people we have impacted. The people we have loved, helped, ignored, and hurt. Each of us are the authors of our stories but we aren’t the only ones who carry the weight of it. None of us exist in complete isolation and our actions radiate into the world whether we like it or not. Each time we do something or interact with another human being, we are writing a line in our story and we are connecting our story to theirs. Every action can be either a gift or a curse to those who witness it and carry the effects of it. I choose to be intentional in how I write my lines. As much as I can, I want to offer myself to the world as a gift, not a curse. Our actions are our pen and the world is the page on which we write.

Someday, I will wake up not knowing that it will be my last time. Someday, I will have to ask the same questions I’ve heard so many others ask of themselves. The world is full of noise and opportunities to get lost. Inside of the noise there are threads of value woven throughout. They are subtle and fine and often quiet compared to the rest of the world. Soft signals of value that shimmer in the dense fog of life. I have seen those who were able to find these signals in their lives and, I’ve watched them face the stopping of their clock. They didn’t recount regrets and they didn’t wonder if they had done enough. I am honored to have been able to learn from their life and from their wisdom as they faced the end of their time. I sometimes wonder if they knew how powerful a line they wrote as their last one? Were they here, I would want them to know that I am looking for the signals in the noise. I would show them that I am paying attention to how I write my story so that when the day comes for me, I can hopefully pass their lesson on to someone else.

Seneca once said: “Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.”

Live as though you were doing it on purpose. Become a signal in the noise.

I’m Ian. This is The Decency Rebellion.

As you get to know me and as we dive into these ideas more deeply, I hope that I can articulate how something like decency can be one of, if not the, greatest weapons we have against people and systems that drive division, seek to subjugate, and revel in suffering. I am not a soft person. I have spent years of my life isolated under the water on submarines. I have spent decades working in environments where a single mistake costs lives like nuclear power, uranium enrichment, emergency medicine, firefighting, and so on. But, more importantly than any of that, I have wrestled with what it means to be a good person. I have studied psychology and neuroscience to get a better understanding of how we work. I have studied philosophy to gain a deeper appreciation for critical reasoning and how to seek truth. I am not a soft person but, I am a person who cares a great deal about things like the sanctity of life, the value of dignity, and the precarious scarcity of time.

My conversations will move from science to philosophy to life lessons to politics to systems and will cover a lot of topics in between. I am a thread puller and a connector of dots but, I think more than anything, I am a seeker of deep truths and someone who wants to be of service in whatever ways I can muster. Decency, to me, is more than being kind. It is more than a whisper of nostalgia in an increasingly demanding and chaotic world. To me, decency is the foundation on which values become real, strength is constrained, and good is allowed to exist in spite of evil.

I produce content on other platforms but, sometimes, writing is just a better way for me to work through some of the things we are all being faced with. Our world is anything but simple. If you are willing to explore nuance and complexity with me, I would certainly be grateful for the company. My name is Ian, and this is The Decency Rebellion.