Happy New Year Leander!

As we enter the new year, I thought it would be a good time to set the table if you will for what I think the year ahead might hold. With this podcast we will attempt to do just that in the coming year. Soon we will see the bloom know as political signage sprout up across the 39 square miles we call Leander, Texas. I look forward to renewing the conversations with the candidates locally in our series called Vote In Leander. And of course, I will encourage you to REGISTER TO VOTE.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/lean-in-leander--4783524/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:14):
Welcome to Lean in Leander. I'myour host, Andrew Nadine. As we
enter the new year, I thoughtit would be a good time to set
the table, if you will,for what I think the year ahead might
hold. As we've witnessed over thepast decade or so, and this is
my opinion, there would seem tobe a description of a crisis each time

(00:34):
we deem it necessary or worthwhile totake a minute to even notice. It's
arguable now that there is a widespreaderosion of social trusts and new extremes of
political partisanship that will once again becomethe dominant subject of the day should you
bother to tune into any network newsreport, and the same can be said

(00:56):
of your aggregated news feeds or socialmedia. What's interesting about all of this
to me is that with this abundanceof modern life, there's a tendency to
tune it out by ironically watching hoursof TikTok or YouTube each day. This
can't be where we land in humanhistory, but it's hard to see that
it turns out any other way.Right now, it can seem like something

(01:19):
is missing, and for me,part of that equation is what's being done
to address our collective challenges at alocal community level. There's a number of
issues that can rise to the forefrontand that need to be addressed, and
there's always many ways to address thoseissues. Some would call something a crisis
and someone else would call it businessas usual. But one remedy I would

(01:42):
suggest is for more of us tounderstand our own role and more directly take
responsibility for our part in addressing allthe chaos that we see in our corner
of the world. When we witnessa natural disaster, whether directly or indirectly,
we see what's no as a reflectionof human care and concern. It's
often pointed to as an example ofgoodness and human beings, but more often

(02:07):
than that, we see and hearthe symptoms of human minds being completely out
of control. Fear and hatred,and ignorance and false certainty are states of
mind that can reduce any conversation intoa clown show of parroted propaganda. Of
course, most of us can't changethe culture in any significant way. Generally,

(02:28):
we can't change the laws, andwe can't change our institutions. We
can, however, advocate for changeand add our voices to the conversation,
not so much here on social media, but by direct action locally. There
are very few people who can affectthings quickly at scale. However, each
of us can change the tone ofthe way we discuss those things that impact

(02:53):
our own community at large. I'mgoing into the new year with a plan
to share more thoughts of our ownlives and the lives of those closest to
us. I understanding an apparent truth. It's a podcaster by the name of
Sam Harris who said this, andI quote, we live under the curse
of partial attention. Partial attention tothe people we love and to our deeper

(03:16):
priorities, and to the ongoing consequencesof using our attention in such a superficial
way that we don't notice what wedon't notice. With the passage of each
new year, we can renew ourown appreciation of what we have in each
moment, what we are doing ineach moment. I have always stressed my

(03:39):
own children the importance of the abilityto pay attention, and with this podcast,
we'll attempt to do that in thecoming year. Soon we'll see the
bloom known as political signage sprout upacross the thirty nine square miles we call
Leander, Texas. I look forwardagain to read viewing the conversations with the

(04:00):
candidates locally in our series called Votein Leander, and of course I will
encourage you to register to vote.I do have some apprehension that we will
fall into a whole new chaotic year. It's obviously hard to predict the future,
but twenty twenty four seems a littlemore and I hope that we can

(04:23):
maintain as semblance of civility in ourown conversations, not only in local politics,
but as the twenty twenty four presidentialelection in the US is going to
be something else. Even the bestcase, it will be something that will
exasperate the divisions in our country andour local community, and we need to
focus more on what we can doto make that change. There's a Texas

(04:47):
sized thunderstorm of lies and misinformation headedour way. I honestly don't know what
to think about the state of theworld, but here we'll work to shine
some light on the people that areinvolved, at least locally. In twenty
twenty four, I'm going to domore of that, and I hope you
will lean in on occasion and joinme. I wish you all much happiness

(05:10):
in the new year, and lookforward to seeing you again here on the
next episode of Lean and Leander.