Luke Gromen: The West Is in Trouble - Here’s How We Reinvent It

But I'll just kick us right off, okay? So I was writing or trying to write an article yesterday, and I started the article with saying that, you know, like when you're accelerating, you're trying to get onto a highway or a plane's taking off, you feel yourself get pushed back into the seat.

But then once you reach cruising speed, you almost can't feel the speed at all.

So it's almost like we can't feel speed, but we can feel that change of speed, right? And I was just thinking back on, you know, since COVID, things just kept happening, right? Like these world-changing events, pandemic was happening.

We all needed to get a certain dosage of something that was maybe experimental, right? Suddenly, people were looking at where the Donbass was on the map.

And then recently, I felt like because things are happening so fast, the average person hasn't been able to keep up.

And then everybody just tunes out a little bit.

Even though it's getting crazier and crazier, it's almost like we're cruising at crazy.

And so then we can't feel it.

Um, so I just was hoping we could start the conversation off with, um, where do you think we, we, we are now, right? With all the things that are happening, where, what's the actual temperature at the moment from your point of view?

That's a great, I might have to steal that cruising it crazy.

Um, that's a great line.

I think that what the phenomenon you describe actually, um, makes perfect sense.

It puts words around something I've been feeling.

I've been joking that I feel like I'm aging in dog ears this year because it just feels like there is something every day, every night.

I remember keeping a pace like this for a couple of months in 2008, and it was exhausting, right? You'd be up early.

You'd check the news before.

You'd work all day.

You'd check the news at night.

You'd spend some time with your kids.

You'd check the news for a while before you go to bed.

You'd go to get some sleep.

You'd get back up early.

You'd do it all again.

And I feel like I've been doing that for the last 18 months nonstop.

And, and I think really it, there is almost like an adrenaline burnout of just the, the marginal news that it takes to really go, Oh my gosh, has become so great, right? Like the, to, to accelerate from, you know, 30,000 miles an hour to, to, to 35 or 40,000 miles an hour.