Yes, fellow CMOTHR – you are good enough. And so is the rest of the human race.

Heroism is having the courage to be Ordinary

Perfection is beyond us. And honestly? It’s boring. “Ordinary” isn’t a word for failure. It is heroism in its purest form. Good enough parents. Good enough friends. Good enough humans. It takes courage to look at your life with a generous eye and realize: this is it.

Life is Here (and I’m going to be my own best friend)

Life isn’t being lived “somewhere else.” It’s being lived right here. In the mess, in the traffic, in the laundry pile. We know it’s hard to make peace with the truth that you are good enough. But the alternative – constantly chasing a better version of yourself – isn’t good for anyone.

The Paradox of Growth

Here is the secret: Trying to get better is part of being good enough. But it is infinitely easier to grow if you first accept where you are. We can’t live without mistakes. What makes us human is that we change because of them. But we only grow if we take care of ourselves in the inevitable failures we make.

You are good enough just by showing up every day. By trying. By being human aka CMOTHR.

We don’t know why there is something instead of nothing. We don’t know what consciousness is, or where a thought goes when it fades. We don’t know what happens after death, or why love hurts and heals at the same time.

And that gap terrifies us. So we fill it. With stories. With certainty. With “the universe wanted it that way.” With crystals, with scriptures, or the faith that science will solve everything eventually.

We fill it because standing in the unknown feels like falling.

What We Do Know

Gravity pulls. The Earth is round. Stars explode and recycle themselves into new worlds. Life evolves. Atoms dance in patterns we can predict.

That’s not belief — that’s observation. That’s the beauty of being a species that measures.

The Filters We See Through

And yet. For everything we know, a thousand things remain unseen. Because we all see the world through filters — our brains, our cultures, our need to make sense of things. Even science looks through human eyes. That’s not weakness. It’s being finite.

We can’t rule anything out completely — but that doesn’t make every idea equally meaningful. Wishful thinking isn’t wisdom. Without reasonable grounding, imagination collapses into noise.

So we have to be careful. Not just about what we believe, but about why we believe it.

Manufactured Fog

Because sometimes the fog isn’t just in our minds — it’s manufactured.

When the first studies linked smoking to lung cancer, the tobacco companies already knew. Their own scientists confirmed it. But doubt was cheaper and more profitable than honesty. So they built confusion instead of accountability. They paid experts to say “we need more research.” They turned uncertainty into a product — and sold it to the world.

Millions died while the truth sat in a drawer. And the playbook survived.

Oil companies studied the greenhouse effect long before most people had heard the word “climate.” Their internal reports predicted rising CO₂ levels, melting ice, shifting weather. The science was clear — decades ago. But acknowledging it threatened the business model.

So they borrowed the same trick: fund “debate,” question consensus, confuse the public until profit felt like reason.

That’s not mystery. That’s manipulation. And it happens whenever truth threatens power. And it’s why “nobody really knows” can never be an excuse for denial.

What We Already Know

Some things are known — because generations of scientists measured, tested, repeated, agreed. Climate change isn’t a belief. It’s physics, chemistry, and evidence stacked a mile high.

So yes, nobody knows everything. But pretending not to know what we already do — that’s not humility. That’s denial. And often, a cynical use of people’s wishful thinking.

The Harder Truth

Still, the deeper truth remains: Even the most sincere see through human eyes. We can measure, but we still interpret. We can prove, but we still filter.

That’s why the real work is not just finding truth — but holding it gently.

When someone challenges what you believe — about faith, ghosts, or global warming — ask yourself: What am I defending? The truth? Or my place in it?

Defending the Fortress

Because if we’re all just defending our fortresses, nobody learns anything. We just shout across the void, each convinced the other side is stupid.

But what if they’re not? What if they’re just standing in a different part of the mystery, filling the same gap with different stories?

That doesn’t make all stories equally true. Wishing something were real doesn’t make it real. Rejecting something because it scares you doesn’t make it false.

The Honest Position

The honest position is harder: Listen. Not to win. Not to fix. Just to understand why they see what they see.

Ask yourself: What am I afraid to be wrong about? What would I lose if I changed my mind?

Then stay curious. Use science when it works. Admit when it doesn’t answer what you actually care about. Wonder without pretending you know. Stay open — but not so open that your brain falls out.

The Invitation

Because nobody really knows. Not the believers. Not the skeptics. Not the scientists. Not the mystics.

We’re all just trying to make sense of a universe that doesn’t owe us clarity.

And maybe that’s not a flaw. Maybe that’s the invitation — to meet each other in the unknown, to listen instead of defend, to seek truth together, even when it hurts.

Because if we can’t do that — if we keep mistaking identity for truth — then we’re not searching for answers. We’re just building walls.

People usually don’t agree with you.

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They’re not stupid. They don’t need clearer explanations, harder facts, or you screaming at them. They are not bigger idiots than you. They just don’t agree. Simple as that.

Except it’s not simple at all, is it?

The Illusion of Conflict

Here’s the thing: disagreement terrifies us. So we do one of two things. Either we create theatrical friction – shouting, mocking, calling each other idiots. A whole performance to protect our identity. Or we do the opposite – we compromise, nod along, smooth it all out. Keep the peace.

Both are ways to avoid real friction. The shouting match gives us the illusion we’re fighting for something important when really we’re just defending our fortress. The false harmony gives us the illusion of connection when really we’re just hiding. Either way, we’re exhausted.

Real Friction Creates Energy

But here’s what we forgot from basic physics: real friction creates energy. When two surfaces actually touch – really touch – something happens. Heat. Transformation. Energy that wasn’t there before.

When you stay in real friction, something shifts. You see the other person as real – not right, but real. Their disagreement comes from an actual experience of the world, not from stupidity. You understand why you both stand where you stand. And somehow, in staying with the discomfort, you become less alone. Not because you agree, but because you’ve met each other as complex humans instead of as allies or enemies.

The whole idea might be wrong — but until we find a better alternative, this is where we plant our hope.

Values vs. Facts

That’s for values. For how we think life should be lived. But then there’s what we do know. The earth is round. The climate crisis is real. Vaccines work. These aren’t opinions – they’re facts.

And here’s where it gets tricky: when someone denies climate science or rejects proven knowledge, real friction isn’t about arguing whether the earth is round. That’s just theater again.

Real friction asks the actual question: I’m curious, how come you don’t trust the facts? What broke your faith in science, in experts, in institutions? What makes you need to believe something else?

The Real Disagreement

That’s the real disagreement. Not to “win” about facts, but to understand why facts stopped being enough.

Because if we can’t talk about that – about what’s broken in our relationship to knowledge, to each other, to reality itself – then we’re fucked. We can’t address the climate crisis or anything else that requires us to act on what we know.

Real friction about facts means staying in the hardest conversation: not what is true, but why we can no longer agree on what’s true. It won’t always work. It won’t always change minds. But it’s the only conversation worth having.

The Limit

But real friction has limits. When someone denies another person’s right to exist — their safety, their dignity, their place in the human story — that’s not disagreement anymore. That’s dehumanization.

And the thing about dehumanization is: it ends the conversation before it begins. You can’t meet someone as human if their whole stance is that some humans don’t count.

So we don’t mirror the hate. We hold the line: every human life has equal worth. No exceptions. Our job is to remember what being human actually means — and to defend it when someone tries to strip it away from others.

The Point

People usually don’t agree. Thank fuck for that. But when we can’t even agree on reality anymore? That’s where the real work is. That’s where we actually need each other.

It’s only in real friction where energy lives. Everything else is just avoiding being human together.

Every time you wear this reminder, you carry the cosmos with you – literally.

CMOTHR.COM

You are a walking miracle made from actual star explosions. Not metaphorically. Literally. The calcium in your bones, the iron in your blood, the carbon in your DNA – all forged in the nuclear furnaces of ancient stars. You contain about 7 octillion atoms that are billions of years old.

This isn’t beautiful poetry. This is verified astrophysics and biology and still it’s almost impossible for our brain to fully make some meaningful concept of it. And yes that is natures poetry. 

We are literally stellar material that became conscious enough to contemplate its own origins. From everything we know, we’re the only species in the universe capable of this. We are the universe looking at itself.

So here’s the thing that should catch your attention: if we’re all made from the same cosmic explosions, why do we live as though some humans matter less than others and literally act like there is no tomorrow regarding our only habitat, earth aka pale blue dot?

Your left hand contains atoms from different stars than your right hand. You share stellar ancestry with every person on this planet. We are literally cosmic siblings, all of us – every human who has ever lived or will live.

We live on earth that circulates around a star among 400 billion stars in this galaxy alone, each probably with planets. Yet as far as we know, we’re alone. This tiny rock floating in infinite darkness might be the only place where stardust became conscious.

It’s a funny thing, at its core, it’s not humans arguing with each other. It’s stardust arguing with stardust about who deserves to matter. None of us are perfect, and yet each of us is a miracle simply for being born.

Let’s be crystal clear – We are capable of choosing to destroying ourselves and our planet. From all we know right now, that could destroy all meaning in this vast cosmos. We might be the universe’s only chance to understand itself.

What more do you need? 

So here’s what can you do:

Go talk to someone, stranger, friend, whoever. Look at them. Actually look. Then ask yourself and them: if this really is the only place where stardust became conscious, what kind of humans should we be?

We are literally the cosmos becoming conscious.
Act like it matters.

CMOTHR – we’re all just trying to figure it out as we go