Are people really doing the best they can do?

Are people really doing the best they can do?

Here’s an article which answers, Yes, and the author’s favorite word and notion is “tool kit”:

https://sarahdaurizio.medium.com/are-people-really-always-doing-the-best-they-can-4e7ccf3b6720

My inclination is to discard the question – which is, to me, the equivalent of the response that Steve Alley, Brené Brown’s husband, gives to the question, which the article quotes:

“I don’t know. I really don’t. All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is, and not what should or could be.”

Alley is content to leave the answer a mystery. Ok, I’ll say he discards any answer, not the question itself. And he discards utility in notions of should or could, which are inextricably inevitable in parsing the question and wordsmithing any explanations. 

My inclination too comes from parsing the words to pieces. Which is what I believe such authors to be doing also. Try it yourself; talk it out. You can’t avoid discussing what meaning to ascribe to “best.” And you’ll inevitably insist on the phrase, “in the moment.” 

However, as you might guess, what I find most objectionable are the terms “tools” and “toolkit.” To me, this is what imprisons the author into irreconcilable, circular nonsense. And it explains to me why Alley discards the matter. Put most simply, you can’t divorce any notion of tools from the notion of fixing. 

I use a tool to fix something broken – to restore it to what it should or could be, not what is. When broken, it’s not its best.

As far as the “doing” in “doing one’s best,” the implication of “in the moment” is inevitable. It strips away “did” and “will do.” It attempts to situate “best” in a context utterly lacking the logic required to understand what best means. The word and idea have no meaning apart from poor, good, better, best. And that framework is incompatible with “in the moment” and “what is.”

Alley and I have no logical choice but to reject it all, while the author pretends she has a choice unavailable to the rest of us. Alley’s response involves pretending, so the author is comfortable getting nowhere real.

I can appreciate the value of lifehacks and tools and toolkits and therapy that help a psyche navigate a quandary. Alley says he uses the hack of pretending so that he’s not fruitlessly distracted from the present by the should or could. Bravo.

Psychology and cognitive sciences are rather indisputable about our unconscious inclinations to fabricate explanations for our actions. In experiment after experiment, research subjects make up explanations for responses that the experimenters control. Do we fabricate our own positive attitude that people are doing their best, in order to serve our own egos? We might pretend others are doing their best so that we can pretend that we are too.

In her efforts to fix her life, this author made herself and her loved ones miserable. Then she suggests yet another fix – cultivating the illogical notion that people are doing their best. I would suggest her problem is rooted in not only answering, but also simplifying the questions she obsesses about. The ego insists on fundamentalizing so that it can declare itself right (and/or others wrong).

I see this author as wanting to fix the blood-and-dust moment on the arena floor – in direct contradiction to Brené Brown’s metaphor that she quotes . It’s seen as a broken state. Achievement, success, striving, earning… All these western values that devalue “what is.” In this value system we can’t attain contentment with anything short of best, so if we are not to be miserable, we must pretend that less-than-best equals best. That’s a tragic formula certain to fail.

To underscore the inescapable framework of this obsession, I just look at the article’s subtitle: “A meditation on what the ‘best we can do’ really means, and why sometimes it means taking the pressure to succeed off.” Pressure. Success. Sometimes (in a moment). What it “really” means… That’s obsessive. The ego must know the “real” meaning, intolerant of mystery. It cannot tolerate discarding its obsession with real and best. But Allen suggests that it must:To underscore the inescapable framework of this obsession, I just look at the article’s subtitle: “A meditation on what the ‘best we can do’ really means, and why sometimes it means taking the pressure to succeed off.” Pressure. Success. Sometimes (in a moment). What it “really” means… That’s obsessive. The ego must know the “real” meaning, intolerant of mystery. It cannot tolerate discarding its obsession with real and best. But Alley suggests that it must:

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

If I’m ok with that, perhaps I’m just pretending. 

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Neil D.  2025-06-18

We are forgiven because we are first loved (1)

Here’s a reflection on Jesus and Peter by my favorite triad of current spiritual writers, Richard Rohr, Brennan Manning, and Robert Barron.

Today, Rohr’s Daily Meditation mentions the connection between the charcoal fire at which Peter warmed himself in the courtyard as he denied Jesus thrice before the crowing at dawn (John 18:18), and Peter’s post-resurrection encounter with Jesus cooking breakfast on the lake shore over a charcoal fire (John 21:9), when Jesus asks Peter three times whether he loves him, to link and complete the symmetry of the triple denial. Rohr condenses this well-known, triply repetitive interrogation, paraphrasing Jesus’ forgiveness:

“He says, in effect, ‘Peter, it’s okay. Forget it.'”

Though I appreciate Rohr’s point, I’m unsatisfied with that simplification. We all know from human experience that, despite best efforts, “forgive and forget” is impossible. Below I share Bishop Barron’s solution to the problem of forgetting, but it too leaves me unsatisfied. Both miss the opportunity to put love first. I’ll explain, but first, Barron’s solution:

“… How in the world did Peter ever forget his terrible sin and move forward … Here’s the truth: Peter never forgot the fact that he denied Jesus… What happened to Peter was that although he knew he was a great sinner, he also knew that Jesus loved him completely, as he was — a sinner… [W]henever Peter thought back…, he didn’t think about it as *sin committed*, but *sin confessed and forgiven*…

Close, but still I’m unsatisfied. Peter doesn’t confess, nor does Yeshua mention forgiveness. Instead, we get the sense Peter was actually annoyed at being questioned 3 times about his love for his Lord. Thrice. No confession, no forgiveness. Love. Three times.  

Note that Peter is the one being asked if he loves the Lord. Clearly, Yeshua is messing with Peter’s mind here. I don’t think that’s questionable. The gospels seem bent on presenting Peter as a little dense. He has to be asked three times not because it’s important that he love his rabbi and messiah. No. Yeshua is sarcastically reminding Peter why Peter should be unconcerned with Peter’s failing! Of COURSE I forgive you Peter, and now you remember what’s primary here. This is no interrogation about proclaiming your love for me. This is a reminder that I first love you.

We are forgiven because we are first loved. 

How could Peter ever move on, forgetting this stinging reminder not to be obsessed by his shame. Not to make anything about himself primary – except one truth. Above all, he is beloved. 

Peter’s belovedness does not depend on his confession, nor his forgiveness. It has no dependencies. No conditions! When love is first, all flows FROM it. There’s no sense to grasping to achieve to receive. From the highest mountain to the deepest sea, love of us is inescapable because it is unconditional.

Neither the psyche of God nor of the one sent from the father is like ours. We are created out of love in his image; he is not made in ours. And that leaves my favorite third author with the final word in this short mash-up, where the question to Peter is NOT how well his love for his lord is proved, but instead:

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Neil D.  2025-06-06

The Pennsylvania Canal in Pittsburg

I offer here slight clarification to “The Pennsylvania Canal” paragraph of Kathryn Bashaar’s awesome “Lost Pittsburgh Neighborhoods: Bayardstown” [http://www.kathrynbashaar.com/2019/05/lost-pittsburgh-neighborhoods-bayardstown/]

Great, great stuff, Kathryn! The research is very hard work; thank you for that. Re the canal, I think it’s best to consider it having 3 termini around Pgh – one into The Allegheny, a 2nd pseudo terminus at the basin, and yet a 3rd on The Mon.

Boats traveled down “the Allegheny line” after crossing to the river’s W/N bank from the mouth of the Kiski near today’s lock & dam #5 north of Freeport – 30 river miles upstream of Pgh. The canal lay, in general, on the very path of the W/N bank RR down the entire valley, from this point about 1 mile upstream from Freeport, all the way through the shadows of Troy Hill, and into East Allegheny (Allegheny City at the time) – roughly the North Shore – where a fork in the route occurred, at the sharp bend of today’s I-279 (also the bend in the short “N. Canal St.” BTW, the ground level street beneath this elevated stretch of I-279 bordering the stadium lots is “E Lacock St.” named after the first Harrisburg-appointed commissioner of the PA Canal project). 

From this fork in the canal at today’s bend of I-279, was a boat’s destination (1) the waters of the Allegheny River, (2) the basin downtown, or (3) the waters of the Monongahela River (beyond the downtown basin)?

Boats to enter the Allegheny River’s waters (to navigate farther on the river, or to offload onto riverboats) would continue roughly straight, parallel to the river but on the far (N) side of today’s I-279 for another 1,000 yards (the route of today’s raised RR), passing under bridges at today’s Anderson St., then again under a Federal St. bridge. Once even with the 1st-base foul line of PNC Park, the route turned 90 degrees off today’s RR path, toward that edge of PNC Park, clipping the E edge of today’s Residence Inn, and into the river beneath those stadium seats. 

So, as a gentle clarification:) PNC Park’s right-field corner is not where the aqueduct(s) were (there was an original aqueduct, then a replacement by John Roebling of Saxonburg).

Instead, back at the fork under I-279’s bend at the N. Shore, boats destined for downtown – or the Monongahela bank beyond (at the mouth of Suke’s Run as you noted in your Pipetown report) – would make a sharp left, then float a short 250 yards directly toward the river and onto the aqueduct that originated about 85 yards upstream of today’s RR bridge toward the convention center’s upstream end.

The canal into downtown then carried them a short stretch – as you noted, along today’s 11th St. – to the basin. This basin that intersected the canal route stretched NE under the bus/train station complex to the far side of today’s tracks, and – on the opposite side of the canal – under Liberty Center’s Federated tower and the Westin hotel to 10th St.

Boats destined for the waters of the Monongahela continued through this basin intersection, bending right to parallel Grant St. for a block through today’s courthouse, then bent left through today’s UPMC Steel tower into a 270-yard long underground tunnel that emerged where I-579 crosses 5th Ave. After gentle zig-zagging down through 3 locks to the Suke’s Run mouth (< 25 yards on the upstream side of today’s Panhandle rail bridge), boats entered the waters of the Mon.

If you’d enjoy some video about the canal, search YouTube for my “PA Canal Hunter” series. And thank you again, Kathryn for sharing your hard research work!

Teachers, at the end of your year…

It’s easy to forget that you are superhero healers. But the only Teacher who could heal with a single touch was the son of God himself. Your healing powers take many touches. Young hearts are in your tender care for hours a day.

Like most of you, most of them are looking forward to a break from responsibility, accountability, and learning. However, in many of the stories about that Teacher from Nazareth, he reminds us as the physician healer, that not all of us are as sick as others, and he directs our attention to the sickest among us.

There are some young, tender hearts who are not looking forward to a break away from their superpower teachers. To those poor and sickest hearts, you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

As your eyes roll up and back at the unruly instigators of chaos, remember that they want the same break as you do. But remember those poorest of hearts, and make sure that your eyes pierce theirs. Be sure those eyes see your light and taste the healing salt. I suspect they will remember it for months. And possibly much longer. 

Neil D.  2025-05-19

something I learned in high school

Describe something you learned in high school.

I learned that sometimes teachers get test answers wrong, and to catch those rare events was an ego trip. It’s also where they educated me, initiating me into the adult world, where I would often have wrong answers, or no answer at all. The lesson was not that being correct on question #7 was important, but that showing up for work, despite the occasional mistake, is what makes a person valuable at work. And adult life. Teachers don’t choose their profession. Their vocation calls to them. Not always. But almost every morning of the school year, they get up and go. If I can do that too, I can be seen as grown up.