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Equanimity
“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” – Albert Einstein
I love this quote because for a long, long time (half of my life to be more specific – and I’m not, uh, very young), I fit the “incapable of forming such opinions” part. However, for reasons that I don’t understand but am grateful for, I’ve done a total 180 degree turnaround. By design, I consciously choose to form and express opinions which differ from the prejudices of my social environment, both the local social environment and, more ominously, the global social environment. What I’ve yet to learn, and I may never learn it because I’m not intelligent(?) enough to suppress emotion over Spock-like logic, is the “equanimity” part (equanimity = evenness of temper even under stress). What keeps me going is this juicy gem from the father of psychology:
It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. – William James
Getting back to Mr. Einstein’s quote, it’s essence really comes alive in CCH organizations. It’s especially true between levels of membership in a caste-based hierarchy. Because of “the way things are“, an unwritten rule exists that is followed unconsciously by (almost) all. That rule is: “it’s a blasphemous act of disloyalty for those in the lower echelons of the corposphere to question any actions, decisions, and/or strategies effected by those in the upper echelons“. The rule implies that judgment is a one way street, with the judgers on top and the judgees on the bottom. The penalty of violation, of course, is excommunication or expulsion from the org so that the internal environment can snap back to the mind-numbing status quo. It doesn’t matter if the rule violator(s) contribute more to the well being of the whole org than they consume from it. It only matters if the infallible dudes in charge have their feelings hurt. But then, business isn’t personal, right?
Just because things are the way they are doesn’t mean they have to be that way.
So, how about U? Are U capable of expressing, with or without equanimity, opinions that differ from your social environment? If not, why not? If U do, how do U feel when U take the plunge? Uncomfortable, insecure, isolated? Come on, gimme some feedback here.
Throw It Away
I’m currently in the process of helping a friend write his fourth book by providing feedback on the sections that he writes. As part of the creation process, he’s been discarding big chunks of work after revisiting them and finding that they don’t support the message he’s trying to communicate.
I don’t know about you, but I find it tough to throw away any work that I do (source code, models, algorithm designs, blog posts) – even when I know that it’s not good. I interpret this behavior as an ego-centric flaw and that’s why I admire people who can detect and chuck their crap. As the Buddhists say “Attachment brings suffering“.
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak” – Hans Hofmann
Fault Finder
Byron Katie once said something like “the mind’s job is to find problems“. I don’t have many skills, but fault-finding is one of my most finely honed talents. Because of my engineering training and genetic design, I can find fault with any person, place, thing, or situation. I put myself right up there on Everest with Don Rickles.
The trouble with constant fault finding is that one spends a huge portion of one’s precious time criticizing instead of creating. It’s a real tragedy because we were all put on this earth to create. The ability to create is naturally built in to each of us right out of the box.
Creation is an intimate act of communication between the creator and the created.
Obsessive fault finders are afraid of creating and exposing their own creations for fear of being criticized themselves. No one likes to be told that their baby is ugly but, au contraire, many people love to point out flaws in other people’s fugly children.
One way to break the fault finder mind set is to take the plunge. Stop oppressing yourself, do what’s natural, start creating stuff (a blog, a song, a painting, a computer program, a book, a company, a community, a tribe), and hoist it out there for all to see. The more you create and expose of yourself, the more you dismantle the fault finder mindset and the more liberated you become. Try it, especially if you’re an incorrigible fault finder like me.
Mardi Gras
On 2/12/10, which should be the date of this post if I queued it correctly, I will be embarking on a trip to the Big Easy to experience my third Mardi Gras. I’ll be making the sojourn with my best friend Reno and we’ll be staying directly on ground zero (that’s Bourbon Street for the uninformed) till the fat lady sings “syonara” at midnight on Fat Tuesday. One of the reasons I’m doing this is because:
The purpose of life is to fight maturity. – Dick Werthimer
The so-called “fight” is easy for me because unlike most people (you perhaps?) my age, I’m perpetually told that I’m immature by those “in the know”. OMG, keep that dude locked up behind closed doors!.
Experiencing the sights, sounds, smells (well, most of the smells), and the people at Mardi Gras is like a breath of fresh air and a respite for the weary. Excluding the religious zealots who are constantly screaming “repent or burn” in their megaphones, every person, including each state trooper on horseback, is in a festive and jovial mood. The creative costumes and innocently weird behaviors that emerge from the spontaneous state of being are sights to behold. Wish you were here!
Full Redundancy
2 lungs, 2 kidneys, 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 ears, 2 eyes, 2 nose holes. 1 brain, 1 heart, 1 liver, 1 pancreas, 1 output-only port (mostly). Why didn’t nature provide us with full redundancy for all vital body parts? Why create a semi fault-tolerant system with multiple single points of failure?
Ponerology’s Six Percent
From wikipedia:
Ponerology is the name given by Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Łobaczewski to an interdisciplinary study of the causes of periods of social injustice. This discipline makes use of data from psychology, psychopathology, sociology, philosophy, and history to account for such phenomena as aggressive war, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and police states.
A like-minded friend recently pointed out Lobaczewski’ book to me. I read the preface, the foreword, and the first chapter for free on Google books. In the first chapter, Andrzej claims that since the dawn of mankind, 6% of humanity has been comprised of suave, clever, law-abiding psychopaths who have zero conscience – none, nada, zilch. The “no conscience” advantage that these people have had over the other 94% of the populace has allowed the wretches to commit the greatest number of man-made atrocities over the entire course of history. Andrzej also states that this advantage allows them to perpetually rise, undiscovered, to the highest levels of government and industry. Scary stuff, no?
Here are a couple of my favorite passages from the book:
Psychology is the only science in which the observer and the observed belong to the same species, even the same person in an act of introspection. That is why his natural world view of humans can be neither sufficiently universal nor completely true.
Whenever a society has become enslaved to others or to the rule of an overly-privileged class, psychology is the first discipline to suffer from censorship and incursions on the part of an administrative body which starts claiming the last word as to what represents scientific truth.
Two Hundred And Fifty To Zero
Whoo Hoo! Since March of 2009, I’ve posted just over 250 BS blog entries. However, my labor of love has led to zero supplemental income. As they say (whoever the ubiquitous they are), “don’t quit your day job“. That’s OK, because I love my day job. Since the vast majority of the people that I work with, and for, are good and decent people that give their best every day, I’m a happy camper.
Eeee-ewe, A Martini?
I love dirty martinis, but thank god (little “g” on purpose because I’m not fond of strict rules of behavior and BS dogma regarding a point source deity with a beard who looks like us) I only drink them on weekends – fer now (hee hee!). I used to hate the taste of DMs along with other hoytee- -toytee bourgeoisie (I’m not a communist – I swear!) drinks (e.g. manhattans, cosmos, rusty nails, etc), but a dear friend of mine for over twenty five years introduced them to me a coupla years ago.
Did this post have too many parentheses in it? If it did, it’s cuz I’m on my second dirty martini. If U check the date on this post, it’s a Sunday :^).
Charles (on the) Rocks
Charles Bukowski is on my long list of “to read” authors. What drew him to me is this awesome quote:
There was nothing really as glorious as a good beer shit—I mean after drinking twenty or twenty-five beers the night before. The odor of a beer shit like that spread all around and stayed for a good hour-and-a-half. It made you realize that you were really alive.
If you don’t bust a gut at that quote and this is your first foray into this ridiculous time wasting blog, please don’t ever come back here. No offense, but your time is too precious and there’s so much to explore/discover in this wonderful world that you shouldn’t be wasting it snorting my verbal diarrhea. Dude, wipe your nose cuz there’s a dingleberry hanging from it.
Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live. – Charles Bukowski
Obfuscators And Complexifiers
Since I’m pretty unsuccessful at it, one of my pet peeves is having to deal with obfuscators and complexifiers (OAC). People who chronically exhibit these behaviors serve as formidable obstacles to progress by preventing the right info from getting to the right people at the right time. “They” do so either because they’re innocently ignorant or because they’re purposefully trying to camouflage their lack of understanding on the topic of discussion for fear of “looking bad”. I have compassion for the former, but great disdain for the latter – blech!
The condundrum is, in CCH corpocracies, there’s an unwritten law that says DICs aren’t “allowed” to publicly expose purposeful OACs if the perpetrators are above a certain untouchable rank in the infallible corpo command chain. In extremely dysfunctional mediocracies, no one is allowed to call any purposeful OAC out onto the mat, regardless of where the dolt is located in the tribal caste system. In either case, retribution for the blasphemous transgression is always swift, effective, and everlasting. Bummer.
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
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