Although I occasionally enjoy hearing readers' reactions to my journal, this is not a forum with a large audience. My writing has not gone viral and is unlikely to do so. I’m sure that recognition is part of my motivation for writing, but it isn’t the main reason I write. I began writing the blog that has become this journal because I wanted to learn more about the writing process. The discipline of writing every day was helpful for my professional writing before I retired and is helping me with ongoing writing projects in retirement. For now, I continue with the expense of maintaining a website and publishing my journal, but when the time comes for me to stop Internet publishing, I don’t think I will quit writing. If you are a regular reader, don’t worry. I don’t have any plans to change the format soon. I want to keep the website going in anticipation of some additional things I hope to offer on the website this year.

I have been fortunate in life to have received plenty of attention. My parents and siblings were loving and attentive to me growing up. My academic achievements gained me attention in my young adulthood. I have been blessed with a long and joyful marriage with an attentive partner. Our children are very attentive to their parents. As a preacher, I used to stand at the door to the sanctuary and greet church members every week, and nearly all of them gave me compliments and positive feedback on my worship leadership. I have received awards and recognition from the communities where I have lived and from the church in many settings. I am blessed to live near four of our grandchildren who come to my home, climb into my chair, ask me to read stories, play games around the dining table, and tell me about their adventures. I do not lack for attention.

Like others who have worked with children, I have had experiences with children who are seeking attention. When they feel they don’t have enough attention, they will behave in ways that get attention. If they cannot get attention for good behavior, some of those children will get it for bad behavior. Even the threat of punishment does not deter their behavior because it is all about getting attention. Good or bad attention is attention for them. The challenge for teachers is to make good behavior more rewarding than bad behavior. This might include ignoring bad behavior at times. Refusing to give attention can change a child’s behavior.

Much of the current US president's behavior is because he is seeking attention. It seems strange because he gets lots of attention, but because of psychological damage in his childhood, he can never be satisfied with the attention he receives. He always wants more. This is not a psychological diagnosis. I am not qualified to make such a diagnosis, and I have never met the president face to face. It is merely an observation. Just like no amount of money will ever satisfy Elon Musk’s desire for more, it seems that no amount of attention will fulfill the president’s desire for more.

Combining two forms of scarcity thinking continues to devastate many people worldwide. From that point of view, destroying the United States economy through a devastatingly illogical trade war is a “good” thing because it keeps media attention on the attention-starved president. It allows the advisor who seeks only money to indulge in a fantasy that the US could return to the 19th century and fund the federal government through tariffs instead of income tax. The enterprise is doomed to failure no matter how you view it because the billionaire isn’t paying income tax. And no amount of attention will satisfy the president, as illustrated by his four-day golf weekend in the middle of a market crisis. The golf weekends have the added benefit of allowing large cash infusions from government coffers into private businesses owned by the president. Some observers say it looks bad, but the attention-starved president doesn’t care if it is bad or good. Anything that gets him attention is a gain from his point of view.

The readership of my journal is small enough that I doubt anyone in the administration notices the attention I’m giving to the subject today. I hope not because I am not writing to give more attention to the president. I am writing partly because I grew up around farmers and ranchers and worry about my friends whose lives are dedicated to agriculture. In North and South Dakota, where I lived for many years and still have many friends, almost all of the potash used for fertilizer is imported from Canada. A 10% raise on a commodity necessary for production combined with losing a significant customer for the raised food is not a good combination. 25% steel tariffs threaten to raise the price of the equipment needed to produce crops. For example, a large farming operation in North Dakota employing the latest no-till drills to reduce soil erosion will likely be using drills manufactured in Canada. Add 25% to a million-dollar piece of equipment, and the price increase makes it impossible to profit from raising wheat.

And more family farms going broke aren’t going to garner attention. That is old news. Farms have been failing since the farm crisis of the 1980s. The attention-starved child in the white house doesn’t want others to make the news. Whether it is children dying of measles in Texas or innocents sent to a notorious Central American prison because of “clerical error,” those stories will not make it to the media the president watches most because he is willing to do everything in his power to keep himself the only story in the news. And he has a lot of power.

Meanwhile, I’m more interested in the farmers and ranchers who are in crisis and the parents trying to keep their children healthy than the insatiable appetites of billionaires.