My Ethos
As Goco Goes grows and expands, I wish to consistently readdress the ethics and principles behind the organization. As a child, I was fully immersed in the Church and learned about Jesus through his teachings. Liberation Theology, instructed through Jesus’s practices in life, to help all people who desire it, focuses on the least among us: the poor, the sick, the foreigner, the outcasts; while instructing those who have to do their most to give.
When I was younger, those ideals truly stuck with me, and I wanted to give my all to the world. Part of why I began volunteering as a youth and why I began to travel was to learn about the world and to help.
I entered into public service and international diplomacy as a means to activate my passions for love and peace so that future generations can enjoy life as they are.
I learned a lot from Christianity growing up. I was kicked out of the church when I was 16 because my love for learning also made me wish to give others a chance to think deeply about Jesus’s teachings, and unfortunately the leadership in the church didn’t appreciate that.
I also learned a lot from various informal teachers throughout the world, people I crossed paths with who, in their unique ways, helped to broaden my specific and limited perspective.
While in Egypt, revolutionary energy radiated throughout Cairo and Alexandria. Millions were in the streets, calling for a life of dignity, peace, and freedom. As a stranger in an ancient land, people didn’t see a foreigner to distrust or hate; they saw a guest to welcome and protect. I learned about the kindness and humanity in us all. People are people; we all really want the same things, even if we speak in different tongues or ways.
And as the United States revives its ancestral hatred and fear towards native peoples by implementing another wave of mass deportations of Continental Americans from other American nations. Hatred and fear have once again become commonplace. As someone who has studied people, I have a deep knowledge of these cyclical moments in U.S. history. Still, I will never truly comprehend what it means to hate someone simply because of their skin color, culture, language, or religion. It is such a foreign concept, and it seems very exhausting. I digress
My ethics come from deeply rooted beliefs that desire peace and love and the freedom to live.
And with that in mind, here are three principles I developed that encompass these ideals. These principles are meant to be instructive, allowing anyone to deconstruct their existence past, present, and future into a beautiful pathway that will lead to peace, love, and the freedom to live.
They are:
Humility in Existence
Generational Purpose
Communal Actualization
As the imperialistic United States crumbles in political, economic, and moral corruption, I dare you to dream of a brighter future. I challenge you to escape the endless barrage of fascist propaganda spreading fear, distrust, confusion, race mythology, culture war distractions, and Christian nationalism (anti-Christian ideology); escape the manipulation tactics used to divide you from your neighbors so that we never seek real progress for our country.
They use all of that noise to distract you while they rob our country’s potential to keep control, power, and wealth.
But what do I know, right?
Here is my ethos
Humility in Existence
At the end of the day, people are people. We just want to be free, to be happy, to be safe. And that's what I call humility: to be humble. To not desire control over others’ lives. It is simple.
We are people, and we are a part of a beautiful world, created in a way that is perfect and awe-inspiring. The magic of a colorful sunset, the healing nature of the sound of flowing water, the way our bodies can consume a delicious meal and somehow our bodies just know how to break down, digest, and transform that meal into you.
Humility in Existence is about living and leading through a humble lens. To be a servant for others, for the community. For your family. And to seek out those fundamental goals we all have. To be free, to be happy, and to be safe.
Those who seek power over others seek control. Control is the antithesis of humility. When one is humble, they can serve. When they serve, their goals and work shift for the greater good.
Those who seek control are unstable, because it is the nature of the world to be unruly and uncontrolled. Those who seek control will find endless conflict.
Those who seek humility will find peace.
Now, some people may seek humility but anticipate others seeking control, this is where generational purpose and communal actualization matter. Because humility isn’t about pacifism. It is about understanding that your place is not above others, but with others as a connected network. And so those who seek humility will also punish and correct those who seek control like a petulant child so that balance can be met.
And the central goal of pursuing punishment and correction is for the sole purpose of rehabilitation and recovery in a way that does not infringe on people.
Humility in Existence is about the golden rule Jesus preached about. To love thy neighbor as thyself.
Generational Purpose
Generational purpose to me is about living not just for today, but also for the tomorrows to come. To lead and live for the generations not born yet. It is a relationship with time.
How can we as a country invest in the land, the water, the air, the life, us, so that future generations can also thrive?
Unfortunately, our society has been led by greed. And Greed doesn’t care about its relationship with time and generational purpose.
Greed wants now. Greed wants the most it can get, now. Even if it is at the expense of a brighter future. Even if it is at the expense of deteriorating water quality, polluted air, land devoid of life, and our quality of life.
And when you blend endless greed with an equally strong appetite for control, this is how you get the Epstein class and tech fascists trying their best to bend every single moral and ethical code our society has.
These things are not disconnected. Greed and control are sisters that seek power and wealth over others.
Wanting financial success or the power to live a beautiful life is good, and I want that for all of us, but what I am talking about is an addiction that exists within the top of the top in our society. An addiction to so much wealth and power that has led to the subculture that birthed the Epstein class.
It is a lack of accountability.
Generational Purpose is about returning to a vision and purpose that does not bend to greed, but that pushes to a brighter future for everyone in a good faith manner.
There is no one right answer to how that happens, but there are key identifiers for measuring that pathway. Identifiers can be in water and air quality, biodiversity health, public infrastructure advancements, general health and wellbeing of the people, general public safety of the people, equity in the economy, and more.
Right now, countries across the world are developing past the United States. We stopped investing in our country after Nixon, cutting social programs, halting public investments, and switching to privatization and subcontracting public programs.
Ever since Nixon, every single president on both the Democratic and Republican sides has opted for the undevelopment of our nation. Obama made some very modest shifts to reverse course during his second term, but ultimately one term and one president is not enough.
Our country’s development has been neglected and sabotaged for four decades. In the wake of Buckley v Valeo and Citizens United, both parties have been inundated with corrupt money from special interest groups
This is why the Republican Party drives home an endless barrage of culture war BS while the Democratic Party plays along, attacking any would-be challengers in their party who push for real public policy issues.
TV stations owned by the same corrupt special-interest groups fill your broadcasts with distractions and attacks on good-faith candidates who run unbought by bribes. While simultaneously bragging about how much one corrupt politician has fundraised in bribes they call campaign contributions.
Generational purpose is about seeing past the noise, fear, and confusion and envisioning a brighter future.
Communal Actualization
Communal Actualization is to see others as a part of your internal ambition, to see the success of your community and society as an integral part of your success. Therefore, if you live rich surrounded by poverty, then you are poor. If you are educated in a city closing schools, then you lack proper educational resources to be abundant. If you are healthy, but others do not have access to healthcare, then your society is sick.
People have read and heard about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a theory that speaks to a person's pathway to self-enlightenment that he calls self-actualization. Starting from the survival basics, i.e, food, water, shelter, advancing to general safety, and so forth.
His envision a pyramid-style advancement of personal needs required for any person to grow as a person. It comes from a worldview that is focused on hyper-individualism. However, his idea was born after visiting the Indigenous Siksika nation (currently occupied by Canada), who also had an additional advancement beyond self-enlightenment to develop a community of self-actualized people.
You see, the Siksika people come from a communal worldview. They see every individual as a part of a more complex puzzle. We are all one. And often, in Siksika culture, themes of sharing, gifting, and temporal generosity (sharing time) are publicly rewarded and venerated.
Communal Actualization comes from this Siksika concept.
I wish to work towards a society that is so healthy that, rather than simply managing trauma in a society that is wrecked by systemic problems, we have communities of healed people and healers who demonstrate positive and constructive qualities, according to their own image of what that looks like, creating beautiful communities of communal-enlightened people.
Someone might read this and think, what is a communal-enlightened person? To me, this refers to someone who has all their needs met and who is healthy financially, physically, and emotionally, and who wishes to then give back and support others around them.
Someone might read this and think that sounds rather utopian. And I would say, of course, if we are truthfully trying to reach for a greater advancement in our country, wouldn’t you want to seek utopian qualities?
Often, people tend to see the idea of utopia as an unobtainable goal, and thus, we should not even try. And to me, I say, why not. It is rather self-defeating to just give up.
I would rather we try and get close, and to potentially succeed or fail, than never try and to only guarantee failure. These are my ethics that are the binding principles that guide me and my goals in public service.
