3/1/2025

My Dear Friend & POTUS, DJT,

            Sorry to miss our letters for the past couple of days. On Th, I left the house at 6 AM to head to the mountains for a rendezvous with college buddies. We snowshoed on Mount Tamarack but didn’t summit, because I bonked. There many plausible explanations for this & who knows which is “true.” Facts include: inefficient equipment, high elevation, glucose depletion, suboptimal physical fitness & being 64. The story I tell myself is, “your limits have changed, best beware.”

            “Stories we tell ourselves.” Have you encountered that phrase? I first learned it as Principle #4 in a Crucial Conversations class. Your meeting with VOZ yesterday could have been a “crucial conversation” but I’m afraid you failed at Principle #3: Make it Safe.

When I heard you & JDV berating VOZ for not being grateful, my heart sank. What story are you telling yourself about that meeting? Did it go as planned? When you went into the meeting, were you intending to create some “great television”?

I was reminded that “the wilder the spectacle, the more intense the coverage. (You) provide the content, but it is the media that packages it into a product consumed globally, with little regard for its nutritional value.” This came from “Policy Circle” based in New Dehli where Srinath Sridharan opined that you & the media feed each other on a “junk food presidency” that, “serve(s) up an irresistible, high-calorie diet of controversy, drama, & theatrics—addictive & flavourful, yet persistently questioned for its nourishment…” That explains why I feel like I just ate a bag of Cheetos.  

            Your desire for peace resonates with me, so I will provide you with the advice that Thich Nhat Han popularized, “there is no way to peace, peace is the way.” In other words, when we act peacefully, that vibe spreads. So, as you grow into your role of being a “peacemaker,” I suggest you consult with the Mormons at Crucial Conversations & adopt their 7 principles for speaking your truth in a loving manner.

            Perhaps you could invite XJ to join you in the training, because he’s having the same difficulties you are. He claims to be abiding by the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, but he’s operating with an attitude of  “Chinese exceptionalism emphasiz(ing) a superior civilizational.” It’s not working in his dealings with the people of Burma, so he needs a new approach.

            I like to imagine a world where you both become peacemakers, in the way of the I Ching. Please get busy with that.

            BYBS,