5/9/2026
My Dear Friend & POTUS, DJT,
What are you up to today? I have no idea of your comings & goings because your “Public Schedule” skips over today. It sketches out a plan for tomorrow which includes an hour of “Executive Time” at 8:00 AM What work do you plan to accomplish first thing on a Sunday morning? Please consider a trip to church instead. An hour of contemplation might be just what you need to soothe your soul.
SoW, I asked Anthropic’s app (Aa) to give me the “best balance between contemplation & action” which it told me was “a genuinely rich question that philosophers, spiritual traditions, & psychologists have wrestled with for centuries.” That was nice to hear. Aa then highlighted Marcus Aurelius as a “compelling example” of someone who practiced the “dynamic balance” between the thinking & acting. It said he was “deeply committed to inner reflection & making consequential decisions daily.”
Some would say that you err on the side of action without enough deliberation. The same could be said about everyone in my family. We are doers who prefer to be on the go.
Why am I telling you all this? Because folks are being critical of how you are spending your time. In an article about your trip to inspect the new blue paint at the reflecting pool, the AP quoted Julian Zelizer of Princeton University as saying, “obviously all presidents have limited amounts of capital they can use & limited amounts of attention that they have to give. And he’s deciding, in a moment of war, a moment of economic instability, that this is a priority.” You might want to cut back on sprucing up DC & erecting various monuments to yourself & focus more on the immediate needs of the American public.
Acting on behalf of your citizenry will set a model for folks like MAH who is investing most of his time in burnishing his image. Today’s Irrawaddy accused him of being “Desperate for Legitimacy” in an article about the giant ruby that was recently found in Mogoke. MAH is claiming it’s a cosmic endorsement of his rule. Many in Burma consider this kind of propaganda to be an insult to their intelligence.
I like to imagine that after reading this suggestion, you’ll devote your energies to ending our conflict with Iran so you can devote your attention to addressing climate change.
I’ve had enough contemplation for the moment & so will sign off.
BYBS,
