let's agree to agree. shall we?

i sometimes wonder about what keeps it all together. i'm curious about the invisible hand threading the needle that binds the fibers of our delicate social fabric. why do we decide to stay together? what animates the bonds that keep us together as families, communities, countries and societies?

i think it has something to do with the power of collective hallucination. there are few social forces more powerful than when a group of people come together to agree upon a way of seeing things. it's an agreement to agree - the highest leverage contract that exists. an agreement to agree is virtuously mercurial. it at once leaves room for infinite debate and even contentious competition, while critically constraining all parties with their own self-imposed commitment to reach a meeting of the minds.

for better or worse, its the grease that keeps the gears of our governments turning. it's the fuel that holds together our marriages and friendships amidst the bobbing waters of the human experience. and it's the nod of the head that keeps our tribes and communities in tact through time and space. it boils down to the simple concession that we don't have to figure it all out today, but we can trust that we're in it together, and we will ultimately get to "yes."

it's about commitment as much as it's about hope. but most fundamentally, it's about the compelling power of the unifying idea: the family, the community, the religion, the country, the worldview. a powerful idea combined with a group assembled in agreement to agree, in preservation of that idea, can either be the recipe for transformative social progress or stubborn stagnation.

it's up to us. let's agree to agree to move the ball forward for the sake of humanity. the alternative works for no one.

term of the day: comity. an interesting concept at various levels of abstraction.

song of the day: "Closer" by Goapele. This melody moves me incredibly for some reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb9fkGCCV1o