In an age when our country seems dominated by petulant bumbling billionaires and their sycophants, it can be challenging to sort through the noise of animus and deceit to find a working compass with a steady needle. In America, staying on a course denominated in reason and virtue may never be harder than it is today. There seem to be two worlds colliding. An objective one based in truth and reality and a performative one based in illusion and delusion. Most of the rest of the world beyond America remains tethered to an objective model notwithstanding the occasional flourish of performative imitators like Bolsonaro in Brazil or Bukele in El Salvador who have attempted, or are attempting, to adopt the Trumpian formula of greed artfully wrapped in the illusion of public service. In the last twenty years or so, America’s exceptionalism has flipped from being an exemplar of liberalism and capitalism to a hollowed-out shell of illusion and delusion allowing the most vacuous and virtue-free among us to rise to power.

While the West has always measured its success by results, and the East by its intentions, both models are based in substance. Both have philosophically sound foundations. In the modern era, the shining star of the West—the United States of America—was the beacon of the objective world. And while performative actors like Charles Lindbergh in the 1930s, or George Wallace in the 1960s came and went, none gained durable traction in a society that clutched its founding values as articles of faith and devotion—well beyond just articles that comprise its Constitution.

In the last twenty years, that all changed. In an age of an extraordinary abundance of wealth and thoughtless un-edited messaging spewed through countless channels of communication, we became overwhelmed by shit that caused the needle on our compass to spin off of its axis. Unlike past performative clowns, Donald Trump controls the power of the presidency; the damage of deceit is likely to be much more extensive making recovery longer and less certain. However, in the meantime, there are practices that can support our well-being.

Let me acknowledge that life is hard, and knowing how to live it is harder. As the cynical person might claim, “life is hard and then you die.” But life is also beautiful. The half-glass full person embraces their gift of life as a destiny to be realized cradled by the hope of each day’s sunrise. In the cacophony of performative deceit that gets all the attention of our complicit and co-dependent media, we must learn how to tune out to (ironically) tune in; to ignore so we may focus. We must transcend the rabble of the sweaty suited bloviators and makeup-caked pundits to keep our bearing on true north.

How to be in this world—how to achieve a mastery of being—is captured in the practice of what I call vitapoise, which supports a balanced and centered life pursued with a fierce sense of grace that enables acceptance of life’s realities while meeting them with both […]