A lawyer friend many years back was talking about his practice. It was a partnership. He said partnerships are great until one side or the other feels like they are being screwed. Then it should be disbanded immediately for no good will come of it. Seemed to make sense at the  time  but I wonder?

As I ponder it is amazing that we get involved in so many partnerships. It could be our marriage, affiliations, religion, business, or pickleball. We are together like it or not for a short or long period of time. We join a club or live in a community or even country. The depth and duration of that relationship relies on many factors. 

Let’s start off easy and talk about marriage Ha! It is the topic de jour in many ways today. If one goes back in time the reasons for tying the know were more mercenary and strategic.

People had a lot of kids because that meant more avenues of income or at least hands to work in the family business. Families joined because it was advantageous to expand wealth or land ownership. Love had very little to do with it despite what the poets said. 

Then the rebels appeared. Dowries and alliances not withstanding, people wanted to look at things in a different way. Genealogy and background checks gave way to a scary thought. I just might want spend my whole life with someone because they were fun to be around. We had mutual interests, beliefs and goals. We might want to have kids not to pad the bankroll but because they added a wonderful dimension to our life. What were we thinking?

The different roles in marriage became less traditional. Men felt threatened that there might be more than one breadwinner. Women wanted their freedom from household chores and childbearing. Some sought out mates of the same sex. Single parents chose to do so. Therein lay the subtle but vital change. People thought about themselves for better or for worse. 

Partnerships in business are sometimes relegated to law firms, accounting outfits and of course the financial canyons of Wall Street. To be chosen is to be anointed. You were vetted for rep and spunk. If you knew how to attract clients and make money, welcome to the family. If not, you were sent off to ply your trade elsewhere. I have often wondered if an obnoxious so and so who could bring in mega millions would be admitted to that inner sanctum? It’s only business, you know. 

Sometimes partnerships on the world stage are purely a matter of accommodation. Deep down our cultures have nothing in common, but I need your weaponry. I will trade with you but not with them…until the other side has more to offer. Or perhaps you just want to avoid them getting in bed with your adversary. Note the recent state dinner for the president of Kenya. Back slapping and toasts while the cue cards are held up so you don’t forget names. I love you man!

Partnerships require work and a crazy thing called trust. If I am really good at it, I am worrying about the other side. How can I help them? How can I look out for their needs? In a totally ridiculous moment I might put their interests above mine. But in our screwy society we are going the other way. It is dog eat dog. We crave the serenity of solitude. We want our space. We want our freedom. 

Some might call this evolution and maybe it is. Or maybe it makes no sense at all. For the most part we are urban societies. We have left the farms and burbs to seek out fortune. The city offers a melange of restaurants, museums and watering holes. The anonymity belies hit and run. Hookups and relationships have to fit the moment and the need. You can be random and without roots. And we wonder why a great young man or woman can’t find the right person? Deep down I think they really want to. 

When I worked on Wall Street the trading room was large. You exchanged ideas and emotions. Now all you have to have is a Bloomberg machine and a chunk of capital. You are a millionaire at 30 and cock sure you don’t need anyone else. I don’t need anyone but me. I have it all. Really? Ditto so many other walks of life. 

The biggest partnership of all is our little old planet earth, or at least it should be. By all outward appearances this ain’t going to happen anytime soon. We clean up oceans and let others pollute theirs. We are oh so righteous but will buy anything made by slave labor because the price is right or the margin so much better. We are nationalists in every corner. We don’t want to spoil the blood line. That is true in every little burgh, big state or nation. We want freedom from the tiniest care. We want everything provided. We are entitled! 

I have had a great partnership with the lovely Kathy for 53 years. We have a wonderful family of kids and grandkids. Has it been hard at times? Of course but we have had a lot of fun. Are we perfect? No way. But we have worked at it and in the end you can look back and say we have done good. Above all we have just shared experiences and life. Not a bad way to fly. It would really be no fun to do it alone. 

As Always 

Ted The Great 

Countries have formed alliances since 500 BC. The Pelopennisian cities of Greece and the early Latin Leagues were for commerce and defense. Today there are 60 such groupings throughout the world with a vast majority involving mutual defense. 

A good partnership from marriage to business to nations requires constant change and innovation. The world changes. We have to adapt. 

NATO was formed in 1949 with 12 countries. Now there are 32. It invoked Article 5 Military Commitment for the first time after 9/11

Divorces are trending downward. So are marriages

It has been a crazy few weeks. I have written three other treatises that I decided not to publish. They weren’t that bad but I confused even myself. There are so many different crosscurrents in today’s world. It is so easy to blame others or yearn for the good old days.

I have decided that I am tired of analyzing and parsing, seeking that certain something that will unlock the secrets of life. I no longer want to listen to everything bad in the world. I could care less about Trump, Biden, Netanyahu, Musk and Bezos to name a few. Met Galas, Tom Brady, and LIV/PGA controversy are not worth my time. I am just going to look into the mirror and figure out how to move forward.

It finally dawned on me that we truly do live in a different world than when I grew up. That time was bland and predictable. If you worked hard and did your 25 years you would get a gold watch. In Bye Bye Birdie, Paul Lynde reveled they were going to be on Ed Sullivan. Ozzie and Harriet as well as Mr. Ed were Nirvana. It was in a phrase, a fairy tale. Not bad but uneventful.

As more and more people went to college new ideas were introduced. Travel went from trains to jets around the world. Computers became ubiquitous and the genie came out of the bottle. And that was 30-40 years ago. We have morphed by leaps and bounds. Some good, some bad, but that is life.

Awhile back there were going to be too many people on the planet to be able to feed the world. In coming years there may not be enough people working to feed the world. We were going to run out of oil and of course the future was in plastics, Mrs. Robinson. Just recently we were teetering between, recessions, soft landings, and catastrophic bank failures. And we pay a lot of money to a lot of people to figure all this out.

The rate of change has ramped up, and with AI it is going to seem like warp speed. The way we communicate, the way we work, even the way we leisure will take on all new symbols and nuances. We are creating a Brave New World whether we like it or not.

The most essential part to ponder is demographics. We are becoming older on one end and not younger on the other. Birthrate seems like a callous number of 2.2 or 1.8. How do you have a .2 child? Plain and simple we need to start having babies to man our workforces that produce our food, build our homes and take care of us when we start to drool. They also need to provide wages to be taxed to support an ever increasing populace of old age.

All this comes at a time when a new generation is avoiding long term relationships, commitment and family creation. Couples are worrying about themselves and find rug rats to be a tedious exercise. They want careers, wealth and off time that exist in an urban environment. They are not even sure if they want each other. They can chat with bots or while the hours away with every type of amusement on line.

Hyperbole? I think not. This old fart is trying to understand a world that bears little resemblance to 70’s and even 80’s. It is easy to dismiss this as a fad or passing fancy but if we dig deeper we will find it is a different way of approaching life. We can call it the Me or I generation which is a cute moniker, but ain’t going to go away. You are grounded or go to your room disappeared a long time ago. This is real.

I say all this with a tad bit of alarm but also a new acceptance. We have failed these kids in so many ways. We abandoned them from lack of oversight. We were too busy with our careers. Discipline was replaced with being buddies to get the most out of any time spent. We became so entranced with the right thing whether it was dress, friends, or schools, we threw money at concerts, specialized summer camps or spring breaks in all parts of the world.

Our institutions from religion, government and even business have had less than ethical and upright people at the helm. I am not sure if it is a new reality or old flaws that have finally been exposed. The point I am trying to make is this is a world that is being recreated and we really have little control over it. How is any young person going to get a feel good about the two idiots we are proposing to lead this great country? This is all a continuation or remnants of a system we have let happen by OUR negligence and abdication of responsibility.

Does this mean we are going to die as a country or civilization? No, in the most emphatic way. From Pax Romana to the Age of Enlightenment to the Industrial Age and to the AI revolution, we have figured out a way to make it work. Sometimes it is well thought out and other times we have just muddled along.

The thing I fear most is our method and depth of interacting. We don’t have a sense of community or if we do it is so narrow and selfish that the good will created is for the few. We seem to feel we can exist in a bubble and the rest of the world be damned. That holds true for rich or poor.

I have looked in the mirror. I think I will have to work small. See if I can affect my own little world first. See if I can understand where different people are coming from. Then maybe we can find something in common and build on that.

As always
Ted The Great

Factoids:
People drive economies. They produce things and then buy things and of course they need medical assistance, shelter and food. AI will not create that dynamic.

One major deterrent to having children is economic. It takes a lot to raise a child from care, clothing, education and time. The best outcome is raising a healthy and contributing member of society. There are no shortcuts.

New data from a consumer study released in June, 2023, found 34% of Americans expect to spend more time by themselves with 37% saying they don’t interact with anyone at least once a week.
The Sense of Community has four components: membership, influence, fulfillment of needs, and emotional connection.Think about your family, town, club or country and tell me how that is working for you.

The key to solving the aging population dilemma is immigration…but we won’t go there. Ha!