Make, Protect, Teach: My Top JUST PRESS RECORD '24 Moment #7

I wanted to get Paul Millerd and Ben Hunt together to talk about communities.

The biggest industrially structured ones - like fortune 500 employers and political parties, and the tiniest community situated ones - like local interest groups and, hey, the online communities they’ve each built (Ben at Epsilon Theory and Paul at Pathless Path).

There was an election coming up at this point, it was mid-2024, and I wanted their perspectives on “identity.” Like me, they’re both optimists at their core, and like few others, they both no how to break narratives down into their component narratives. Not to mention, they’re kindred spirits with their own language for describing the same proverbial elephant.

Paul prompted Ben to go on a beautiful reflection on something he sees as much when he travels, as when he talks to the friends of his (young adult) children:

The industrialized systems don’t tell you how your tiny efforts matter.

They don’t think your chicken’s eggs are that great when you can just buy eggs at the grocery story for pennies on the dollar.

They don’t think your charitable work makes a difference when you can work harder and give more to a better structured organization.

They don’t think your friend group hanging around and trying to figure out life without the corporate system your parents came up in to uncover something more fulfilling for your lives is a serious endeavor.

And, as was the impetuous for getting them together, not only does the system try to persuade you back into the well-defined identity lines of popularly accepted paths and purposes, but they’ll actively shame you, rob you, and penalize you into defeat.

If you let them.

The only antidote, to this “system of raccoonery” is to make, protect, and teach.

Do small acts of service and goodwill. Make something with your friends and family. Protect your values, as they show up in the ways you do the things you do. Teach others how to participate too.

Not in service to some bigger, industrially validated mission.

In service to humanity. In service to goodwill unto men. In service to… find ways and making excuses to capture conversations like this.

Not everything good needs to be scaled. If anything, a lot of things are way better when they don’t scale. Ben Hunt and Paul Millerd offered a masterclass on finding our individual callings, which is why it is #7 on my top clips of the year.

Watch the year-end clip show and check out the full original episode below (or wherever you get your podcasts):

and hey, check out Paul’s newest book AND my review of it here too: