Be a Minder: Navigating the Tsunami of a Sinking Society

You Make The Culture

Let’s not kid ourselves: the cultural tides are crashing harder and faster than we’ve ever seen. We’re riding rogue waves of AI hallucinations, biotech miracles, collapsing economic scaffolds, and governments tilting into cartoonish cruelty. At the same time, there’s a kind of spiritual atrophy setting in—where being human, with all our flaws and complexities, feels less like a miracle and more like a liability.

So what do we do?

Do we rise up? Send our dollars and our energy to causes we believe in? Do we take to the streets or take shelter underground? Become monks or preppers, activists or escape artists?

I’ve wrestled with this question in recent times. But one story from my time at Lockheed Shipbuilding has anchored me for decades.

The Pilot Test

A young engineer I worked with was desperate to become a commercial pilot. He told me about a simulation test designed to be unwinnable. The final sequence threw everything at him—weather, malfunctions, a nosedive into chaos. He crashed. Thought he failed. But in the debrief, he learned he’d passed with flying colors.

Why?

Because while most candidates flinched or froze, he kept his hands on the controls and his eyes on the gauges—until the very end. In extreme turbulence, it turns out, survival isn’t about avoiding failure. It’s about staying engaged.

That story stuck with me.

Minding: A Practice of Steady Navigation

I’ve since come to think of myself as a pilot—not of planes, but of a powered sailboat. A minder, in every sense of the word. Someone who monitors, adjusts, navigates. Someone who regulates energy and information, as therapist, researcher, and teacher Daniel J. Siegel defines the process of “minding.”

Siegel’s work draws from neuroscience, psychotherapy, and contemplative traditions. He’s studied advanced meditators—people who train themselves not to control, but to observe their minds and surroundings with equanimity.

That cultivated calm gives them the capacity to respond instead of react. Minding isn’t passivity. It’s embodied awareness. It’s tracking the internal weather while scanning the horizon. It’s learning to respond with discernment rather than drama.

The Body as Gauge

For me, that means turning inward. Paying attention to my body—my onboard control panel.

I use the Metta Sutta not just as a closing prayer for meditation, but as a diagnostic tool. Translated into questions, it becomes a powerful self-check:

• Do I feel safe?

• Do I feel healthy?

• Do I feel joyful?

• Do I feel free?

Simple questions. But potent.

I check in with them when I wake up, when I feel overwhelmed, or when the news starts to pull me under. I rate each on a scale from 1–10. No judgment. Just data. I’ve come to see this practice as a kind of mind muscle training.

A Dance of Energy and Information

I first experienced this kind of self-awareness physically through Rolfing, a deep bodywork method that loosens the connective tissue (fascia). The therapist told me to rate the pain during the session from 1 to 10—anything up to a 6 was productive, anything above was unnecessary.

It became a beautiful dance of energy and information, just like Siegel describes. I had to stay aware. I had to communicate. I had to mind.

That’s what I’ve carried forward into daily life.

Clearing the Deck

Recently, I went through a 10-day detox. Cleansed my body, cleared my mind, and released some relationships that were weighing me down. If it’s stuck, it’s out of luck.

Life is too beautiful not to relish every breath.

I’ve learned to protect my energy, not from fear, but from purpose. I’m not wasting time on battles I can’t fight or people who won’t meet me halfway. Minding helps me stay clear, calm, and strategic.

The Ship of State Is Sinking—But I’m Still Sailing

I’ve lived most of my life under the protection of a relatively stable government. But it feels like that ship is starting to sink. And I’m not sure we’ll all make it to shore.

Still, I intend to be a Minder.

To keep my hands on the wheel.

To stay aware, and awake.

To live with as much integrity and grace as I can,

right up to the edge of the wave.

As Walt Whitman wrote, I “cease not till death.”

And if enough of us learn to mind—not control, not collapse, but truly mind—maybe we won’t go down with the ship.

Maybe we’ll learn how to sail something new.