Friends & Neighbors | Feb. 27, 2026
Do you remember your earliest form of friendship in life? Did it come in the way of your brother or sister, or a neighborhood friend that you played with growing up? Friendships are broad and imperative for the people we become. Relationships in general are foundational in the way we interact with the world and within society.
With the landscape and scope of the internet, relationships have broadened to an evolutionary scale. When I was a child, the only way I made friends was by meeting other children in my neighborhood, eventually going to Pre-School, Elementary School, Middle School, High School, and College. Also by youth sports programs in baseball, soccer, and basketball.
When I think of how I make friends today, it generally comes in the way of work, and different social events and functions. In my life, I have generally had a smaller circle of friends that were involved in my life in any sort of depth. Those are true friends, and people who have been instrumental to my life.
I find that I have many acquaintances, and a very limited circle of friends. There are friends, acquaintances, and then there are our Earthly neighbors. We'll call anyone outside of your inner circle of friends and family, "Neighbors." Neighbors make up the vast majority of our waking life.
I look in the mirror and sometimes see a stranger, and recently found that although I am fundamentally myself, I often don't really know myself, or even who I am to others. Whether I am a brother, friend, acquaintance, or neighbor, I truly don't know or fully comprehend the impact that I have or we can have in other's lives.
This has been something that I was contemplating recently as I have been navigating my days and nights over the last several months. Typically, I have a general routine on how I start my day. I wake up, get dressed, and head out of the house for the day. Whether it is to work, or an off-day, I typically find myself stopping for a coffee at different local spots here in Dallas.
Lately I have not had a designated working location, and with that flexibility I find myself working remotely, and sometimes out of a coffee shop to get focused tasks completed. Throughout the year I have developed different connections through frequenting a particular place while spending time working alone.
When I am not working, I might be researching different topics that I find interesting, and a way to learn more about the landscape of the world we live in. Exploring all the different facets of the world that have intrigued me. I am always looking to learn something. Typically, when I am going throughout my day, if I'm not performing an essential task where I need undivided attention and clarity, I am listening to something.
When I was growing up, this was not really a possibility. When I was a child in the 90's, we could read to learn new things or explore our imagination. I could watch television, or movies to feel something profound or enlightening. In life, throughout the decades and as even as young as 3 or 4 years old, I was always looking to learn new things.
I had an incredible opportunity to learn new things through my parents and siblings. My Dad was always doing something that seemed innovative to me. When he wasn't working his day to day career in the technology industry, he was always doing something at home, to stay busy and productive.
When I was young, I used to play basketball outside on our hoop that hung above our garage door. I would spend hours shooting baskets while listening to the music that was pulsating out of my Dad's garage while he was inside working away on "mini-oceans." My Dad build salt water fish tanks on the side for a man in our city and would work on those projects frequently throughout the year.
My Dad built those salt water fish tanks in our garage most weekends for years. I remember shooting baskets and listening to all kinds of music, and a variety of genres. Queen, Aerosmith, U2, Phil Collins, Tears for Fears, The Eagles, ACDC, and a slew of 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's music.
My dad also inspired me because he was an expert at masonry. At our home in Thousand Oaks, he built incredible brick walls on our property on both ends of our home. He did brick work on the drive way, and the entry way onto the property from our mailbox in the front yard. As elaborate as the brick work was, he did it mostly alone. The only assistance he got was from my hands, or my brothers as we mixed the concrete for him.
I remember standing by my Dad's side and watching him as he crafted and laid the bricks with concrete and built the walls over weekends and months. We left Southern California and moved to Malaysia in November of 2001, and eventually had sold that house. Those walls, and brick work are there until this day at that house in Southern California.
This is an example of craftwork that I witnessed and was around as a child, and always had an inner desire to create and be imaginative with my own abilities. I remember being so young, and frustrated that I couldn't do all the things that I imagined.
I kept reading, watching movies, television shows, and creating things as a hobby as a child. My brother was a great drawer and artist, and I also tried my best to draw and create what I imagined in my head. My parents provided us wooden desks in our bedroom that we could do our homework on, and that we could draw and write on. This is where I spent a lot of my childhood drawing, reading, writing, and imagining.
When I was young I couldn't just listen to something all the time like we can now. I often found myself borrowing CD's from my older sisters and listening to CD's front to back on a Walkman with corded headphones. I remember laying in my bed, and closing my eyes and envisioning the music in my head.
Music has always been visual for me. When I listen to music, I see things in my imagination from inner movie like scenes, to shapes, and colors. Music has a texture and it is always morphing and evolving from note to note when I am listening and seeing it in my mind.
I find myself in this state a lot. Navigating my inner world, and learning to make my way through our three dimensional paradigm. What I have noticed and written about before is a concept that I find fascinating. The aspect of life that is truly mesmerizing to me. The Neighbors that I encounter on a daily basis.
There are a small group of regularly occurring people who have stuck out in my life, and then there are those who may only find their way to you once in your life. Over the years I have frequented certain places and made connections with various people, and some of the ones that I find most intriguing are the ones that I have never spoken with.
While it is hard to conceptualize some of the emotions I feel throughout the day, some of the biggest enigmas have been people who for one reason or another made an impact on me, and to this day I have no idea or concept as to why.
Months back I was working remotely and found myself trying to find spaces that would inspire me to feel energized. I would drive to the city center and to downtown Dallas. I would park my car, grab my work bag, and start down the urban sidewalk and put in my earbuds to listen to something.
I always found myself listening to a favorite song and breathing in the city air while pacing my way through the streets. I would pass by one individual after another. I would pass by the policeman who was directing traffic near the downtown hotel. Pass by another who was walking out of the bagel shop across the street. I would eventually find my way to a spot to work for a while.
I'd grab my coffee, and get to work. One week, I spent time working at a downtown hotel coffee shop, and met the person who worked there. I simply ordered, and had a brief conversation with them. I remember thinking to myself that these individual moments are frequent, but not every day does someone "stand out" in the crowd.
Sometimes people enter your awareness and they make an impact. Sometimes, we don't even exchange words, but you can tell that there is something about them that either inspires you, or makes you just feel good for a moment. I think this has to do with our individual aura's. I do believe that people have energy that they radiate.
As humans, we are composed of mostly water. We are an intricate machine that we don't always acknowledge. It's like seeing yourself in the mirror everyday. At some point you become slightly numb to it. Being composed of mostly water, and knowing that somehow we are electrically and magnetically charged as humans, our consciousness must radiate something that we don't see.
As we grow older, our awareness and ability to understand our individual senses and measure our senses increases. It is incredible what we can suddenly bloom into understanding once we escape our cocoon from mental, physical, and spiritual growth.
The experiences we have in our lifetime are critical to this process, and for me it involved many beautiful moments, but also a lot of missteps. We are not perfect, and can never be. Learning from our mistakes and acknowledging the disruption is essential in a period of growth for your life. Otherwise you may repeat cycles and spin in place repeating the same mistakes over and over.
Over the last few years life has brought me an abundance of learning opportunities, from career navigation, relationship navigation, healing from inner doubt, traumas, multiple near death experiences, acclimating to civilian life from military life, learning how to be a citizen in a corporate world, navigating depression, anxiety, loneliness, but also trying to find who I was from a biological standpoint from being adopted as a baby. I always had a deep curiosity of where I came from.
On top of that, try navigating and establishing a functional and deeply meaningful relationship with a significant other. I always wanted to be a "relationship" person. I wanted my first girlfriend to be my last. Navigating the intricacies and difficulties of life, you learn that there is so much to learn and things that you cannot control.
It wasn't until I learned to let go of the final outcome, before healing started to really take root. I had to let go of any expectation of what would or could be, and attribute the rest of my life to God. Whatever your definition of God may be. My relationship with God, is God the Creator of the Universe.
Something sparked this intricate and grand anomaly of existence, and something came beforehand, and something will always come after. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed according to our understanding of quantum physics. What a beautiful mystery this is.
Knowing that there is an ultimate mystery to this existence humbles my being, and shows me the mastery God must have in how they managed to piece this beautiful expansive puzzle and universe together. What a glowing and truly mesmerizing gift it is to be on this planet with our friends, families, and neighbors.
I wonder what the ultimate purpose of God's creation was to be and is to be. What are we capable of becoming and what are we capable of overcoming as a species. Are we capable of harmony? Are we capable of unity, forgiveness, and peace? Are we capable of dismantling the treacherous, dark, and slippery downslopes of human corruption?
It comes down to a belief that we can, and that we want to, collectively. We have the tools and capacity to do so. To gift our neighbors with a peaceful community. Giving back to one another, while aiming for more as a species. We must continue to aim for more.
Currently we see our leaders navigating foreign relations in a constant attempt at leveraging power. There is also a religious prophecy and narrative that is talked about. Prophecy is something to consider. While it gives us a depiction and premonition of a potential future outcome, we could use this to our advantage to assess the current world state and do our very best to negotiate peaceful and unifying attempts at discourse.
Prophecy should not be looked at as a be all / end all or a one way ticket to the future. We ultimately have the gift of discernment, capable means of effective communication, negotiation, and reasoning. We also have the means of ultimate free will.
As a people, we must assess the trajectory we are heading as a people and as a species and demand for what we know and feel is right. Not a blind shot at world power. Unifying does not mean World Peace under a One World Government, or One World Religion. In fact unifying means learning more about each other and what it means to be Humans and Neighbors.
To love one another through our differences is ultimately what it means to be compassionate humans. We can aim for a version of Peace on Earth without digital identification, without a police state run by Artificial Intelligence and Government. We can have a world of peace that unifies us throughout our differences by coming together and using Artificial Intelligence with instilled parameters that don't allow Tech Oligarchs and Governments the ultimate say of how we must be as a people.
We must choose a society where the people choose through a system that allows us to vote for the path that we want. The people should have an ultimate say through a voting system that accumulates a collective pulse on what people agree on. The future is bright, and the Neighborhood can come together.
We could begin by establishing a global dialogue framework. This could be by strengthening and reforming institutions like the United Nations so they become more effective mediators rather than symbolic forums. Instilling permanent global mediation teams, faster crisis negotiation channels, and neutral arbitration panels for disputes. The goal is rapid diplomacy before conflicts eventually escalate out of our control.
Aligning economic incentives toward global cooperation. Peace becomes easier when countries benefit economically from stability. We should strengthen global trade institutions like the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Our leaders and people should encourage shared infrastructure projects, energy partnerships, and trade networks that make war economically irrational.
Overall security can be addressed by reducing our national and global security dilemma. Many conflicts arise because nations fear each other’s military buildup. Nations should expand arms transparency agreements and arms reduction treaties similar to a strategic arms reduction treaty, and a treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Transparency reduces paranoia and accidental escalation.
Nations should also address the aspects of resource scarcity. Potential future wars are likely to be fought over water, food, energy, and other precious minerals. Creating a global cooperative framework around water rights, food security, energy transition, and rare earth minerals. Organizations like the International Renewable Energy Agency could coordinate energy sharing to reduce conflict over fossil fuels.
World leaders could promote cultural and educational exchange. People are far less likely to support war against cultures they understand. Expanding international exchange networks like the Fulbright Program, and encourage foreign student exchanges, artist exchanges, and scientific collaboration. Humanizing “the other side” is one of the strongest peace mechanisms.
For natural disasters we could have systems created for global crisis response teams. Many wars begin with regional crises that spiral out of control. Ultimately building multinational crisis teams through the United Nations that can respond rapidly to political instability, humanitarian crises, and refugee emergencies. Early intervention prevents escalation.
People and leaders could vote on investing in global prosperity. Extreme poverty and inequality often fuel conflict around the world. Coordinating large-scale development programs through United Nations development programs, focusing on infrastructure, education, healthcare, and expansive digital access to those resources for underdeveloped areas. Stable societies are far less prone to war.
The United Nations could aim to strengthen international laws. Peace requires rules that are respected. Supporting global courts such as the International Court of Justice, and International Criminal Court. These institutions create consequences for global war crimes, illegal armed forces invasions, and human rights violations.
Organizations could focus on creating and building shared global missions. Humans unite most easily when working toward a common goal bigger than just politics. Those include things like climate mitigation, global defense forces, and exploration. Programs similar to the International Space Station program demonstrate how rivals can cooperate successfully.
Collectively we could develop a culture of more long-term thinking. Many wars come from short-term political thinking. Strongly encouraging leadership to focus their efforts on multi-generational stability and not just election cycles. This involves sustainability policies, demographic planning, strong AI governance, and climate resilience.
Our families, friends, and neighbors have a bright future that is waiting for us to accept and prioritize. That attainability rests in our collective agreement on unification and understanding of nations and establishing structure for lawful preparation of the future we ultimately would want for our children and generations to come.
Source: Friends & Neighbors | Feb. 27, 2026
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