Good Morning Mr. Trump,
Invisible forces exist all around us, invisible to us all. But they exist, nonetheless. Gravity is one such force. Its immutable force affects nearly everything we do. Yet, we can not see, smell, taste, touch, or hear it.
There are other invisible forces. Before the invention of the radio, only religionists might have uttered such a statement. But since the radio, who can reasonably dispute the presence of unseen forces.
The radio, with its ability to make noise in one location and broadcast it to many locations wirelessly, changed everything.
Most of us don’t understand how radio works, but we acknowledge that it works. We first began discovering radio waves in the 1860s. In 1985, the first radio signal was sent, in Italy. Radio as a device of communication did not occur in large scale until WWI.
Washington, Hamilton, Adams, or anyone else from our founding period would have thought us crazy to say that sound could be produced in one location and widely broadcast to another area miles away. Clearly, they would have thought it impossible.
If 50 years ago, someone said any one of the following to us, we would have thought they were crazy:
–That people could write a letter or take a picture, and deliver it to a specific person, anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds.
–That anyone in the world could write or say or paint or sing anything, and distribute it to the entire world not only instantaneously, but simultaneously.
–That nearly everyone in the free world would have the ability to have in their pocket the collective knowledge of almost every library in the world; And that they could search through that knowledge while they waited in line at the grocery store.
No one would have believed us.
Yet, each is possible today because of forces undetectable to our five senses.
Importantly, we must note that no one created or invented any of the technologies that allow our incredible capacity to communicate and learn. We merely discovered principles and forces that always existed, and then we combined these discoveries. Thus, we became instruments of discovery for what has always existed, not the creator of something entirely new.
Our founders knew nothing of this invisible power. Yet, they understood a Power that we do not.
Often, we claim to have discovered what is old news to other cultures, past or present. In these settings, our claiming discovery, reveals our myopic perspective of history or aggrandizes our role in it. For example, we claim that Columbus discovered America. However, we know that Native Americans had possessed America for thousands of years before Columbus.
Columbus simply discovered, for new people, what different people had known and utilized for ages.
But what does any of this have to do with you becoming president? A lot.
We have settled for lesser forms of power; the power which feeds but fails to nourish; which governs, but does not lead. This lesser power is cheap—hence our willingness to settle. In contrast, higher power trades with different currency; a currency which developed through an investment of time, sacrifice, and restraint. But with the higher power comes the ability to lead, not govern; to nourish, not subsist; to build, not destroy.
Together, we can discover this higher power for ourselves. As president, you must set the course.
Stay tuned,
David O. Leavitt
