Speaking as someone who spent years living in Europe while I defended them with millions of other Americans because they were unable to do so on their own, you need to understand something about Europeans. The existence of America humiliates them, as it should. It absolutely crushes them to know that America has exceeded them by every metric, yet America doesn’t even bother to hate them. America just doesn’t think about them at all. If we hated them, they could at least imagine that they were worthy of our attention. That we don’t give it to them, that we take them for granted as quaint has-beens with silly customs, but good wine and beautiful churches (that no one alive built), shatters their ego. And ego is all they have left. Their continent and culture are dying. They can’t be bothered to breed, and they’ve imported their conquerors where their greater fathers would have beaten the invaders back. Every time they look up and see the moon, they know we’ve been there, and they never will.

Rituals, Small Talk, and Thanksgiving Tradition is a solution to an old problem that still quietly works even after we forget why it was needed. It is a tool that still performs its function, even if the reason for its creation has slipped out of our memory. One of these traditions is small talk. In American culture, small talk is almost universal. It might seem simple or outdated to some, but it is a shared dance. A bit of cultural shorthand that says, “We are entering this conversation with some level of mutual respect.” People who feel above it often still participate because, deep down, they understand that this opening ritual smooths the way for genuine interaction. It is not a mark of superficiality, small talk acts as a buffer. A password. A transition. A placeholder. Traditions of communication take many forms. I see many being formed within a group of friends I gather with. We greet each other on purpose. We begin our discussions in a circle with an oath. We meet at a set time rather than whenever it is convenient. We do this because intention solves a problem that convenience cannot. Without ritual, gatherings drift and fall by the wayside when contending with busy schedules. A community built only on good intentions and availability slowly thins out as schedules shift and priorities change. Ritual prevents that slow erosion. It creates a rhythm the mind remembers. And while a shared goal or a common mission may be necessary for a community’s long-term life, ritual is what gives it structure at the start. It is the scaffolding that keeps people showing up until deeper bonds form. A useful example of how these small gestures work came from a friend of mine who recently got a demanding new job. He took a month off to go through a rigorous application process. He is humble, disciplined, and not interested in attention. When I went up to him, shook his hand, and congratulated him, he probably would have preferred not to be noticed. There was no audience. No personal benefit for either of us. So what was the point? The point was to reinforce a culture of acknowledgment. We do not always need these gestures to fill an emotional void, but how we interact with each other will carry into how we interact with the rest of the world. These small moments shape the collective conscious far beyond the individual exchange. Of course, these norms are not absolute. We can update them. They can evolve. But before discarding them, it is worth understanding what they offer. Many traditions endure because they quietly solve problems we no longer see. Thanksgiving is one of the few traditions many Americans still practice. When we engage with the people around the table, we discover that every person knows something we do not. You may not initially agree with this, but I promise that this is only limited by your ability to be curious. If we lend people our attention, they can teach us things they never realized they had to offer. It might be how our emotions respond to their prompts, or how theirs respond to ours. It might be a bit of perspective we hadn’t considered. It does not need to be educational in a strict sense. It can even (maybe ideally) be entertaining. In a divisive and divided culture, we need to do what we can to preserve the bonds we still have. Rituals, greetings, acknowledgments, and traditions are not trivial. They are part of the hidden architecture that sustains community. They keep us engaged long enough to find value in one another. On this Thanksgiving, when we choose to show up, let’s stop for a moment to reflect on why these tools still matter: They help keep us connected at a time when connection is anything but guaranteed.

Just got dominated by a plumber replacing a water heater at my multi-unit building. Good for him. Respect it.

Happy thanksgiving! Risk is never to be treated as a friend, but you often need to know it well to be successful. Let me know what you think #adventuresofsilvamore

The rancher PTSD from the 2015-2016 free fall is real. It’s a bigger factor than drought, interest rates, and Trump tweets combined. This rebuild will be completed under an abundance of caution.

ON IT! 🫡