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Don’t Keep It A Secret
When I was younger and working at my first real job as a sonar “system engineer”, I was tasked with designing a set of digital filters to process a multiplexed stream of audio signals from a sonar microphone array. During a weekly status meeting, the best manager I ever worked for asked me if I’d written up the design and had it peer reviewed. I told him that I hadn’t and then he hit me with the first of many wise zingers over several years. He told me “Don’t keep it a secret. Write it up, communicate it, share it.” Being the dumbass and naive engineer that I was (and still am?) back then, I hadn’t thought of doing that. I was just gonna slip the resulting design into the system specification, let the software and hardware and test dudes deal with any mistakes/errors downstream, and move onto my next joyful assignment.
When my mentor said “don’t keep it a secret” to me, a terrible fear gripped me: “What if I screwed up and someone points out a major flaw in the work? What would people think? People might laugh at me.” Instead of thinking about adding value to the company and helping others do their jobs better, I was dwelling on self-important thoughts about ME – poor ME. Alas, such is the conditioning that is innocently but surely foist upon us from the moment we start disassociating ourselves from our true being and we start welding ourselves to the “I” thought. This freedom-squelching conditioning process starts with our parents and continues relentlessly throughout school and throughout our working lives.
From what I remember, the writeup and review process went much better than I anticipated. However, even after that first jolt, it still took me a long, long time to overcome the fear of exposing my work to others. Even today, many years later, I sometimes relapse and must fight the fear instinct associated with exposing work to others for scrutiny – especially managers.
How about you? Have you ever experienced a similar feeling? Do you still experience it? Is your goal to jump into management as quickly as possible so that you can escape the fear and transition from scrutinizee to scrutinizer? Have you already successfully done this? Dudes and dudettes, don’t be shy and please gimme some blowback. 🙂
Why So Much Overlap?
If, as some spiritualists say, we all create our own unique personal reality, then why is there so much overlapping commonality in what we see, smell, taste, hear and physically feel? Oh sure, there are different levels of pain, different shades of red, etc, but when 1 million people have their thumbs chopped off with a machete, I’ll assert that every single one of them will feel some level of pain and not ecstasy.
If there was no overlap in perception, we’d have nothing in common, right? We’d all be isolated and life wouldn’t be worth living, or would it? Am I taking this topic too literally? If you know the answer to my conundrum, please help me out here. Thanks.
Sacrifice Or Enjoyment?
On the recommendation of Fred Brooks, I read Dorothy Sayers’s “The Mind Of The Maker” after finishing his delightful “The Design Of Design“. TMOTM explores the possible connections and similarities between human and divine creativity. This passage triggered a twinge of gratitude within me.
When a job is undertaken from necessity, or from a grim sense of disagreeable duty, the worker is self-consciously aware of the toils and pains he undergoes, and will say: “I have made such and such sacrifice for this.” But when the job is a labor of love, the sacrifices will present themselves to the worker – strange as it may seem – in the guise of enjoyment. – Dorothy Sayers
Why gratitude? Because I’ve been lucky, incredibly lucky, to have worked on enjoyable projects doing work I love for the vast majority of my career. Oh sure, there were temporary spikes of perceived “poor me” thinking on each and every one of those projects, but at end game, I felt like I contributed something of value while enjoying the work at the same time. I think, but am not sure, that most people can’t quite say that. Some people hate to go to their jobs every single day.
Sayers is an eloquent writer and there’s quite a bit of good stuff in TMOTM, but I felt my mind wandering often. I was too turned off by the religious-specific passages and references. Nevertheless, here are a few other gems that kept me reading till the end of the book:
Every thought is an inseparable trinity of memory, understanding, and will.
The stronger the creative pulse, the more powerful is the urge away from any identification of the ego with creation.
The artist does not see life as a problem to be solved, but as a medium for creation.
From Searcher To Explorer
Most spiritual teachers advise students to “stop the search!”. Like many other frustrated spiritual aspirants, I don’t know of any other strategy for attaining enlightenment, an awakening, inner peace, relief from suffering, separation from ego, or whatever you want to call it.
To me, “searching” means looking for something specific, like lost keys or oil. Since I don’t have a freakin’ clue as to what “enlightenment” is and I do want to follow the advice of those who purportedly have dissolved the ego (or at least have rid themselves of ego-dominance), I’ve stopped being a searcher. As of today, I’m now (drum roll please) an explorer! Since exploring means probing and sensing for the new and unknown, that’s what I will do from now on.
OK, OK, back to reality. This post is just another self-delusional attempt to fill a new bottle with the same old wine, err, vinegar. Ergo, on with the search!
Truth And Fear
The association of truth and fear, which would be highly artificial at most, is particularly inappropriate in the minds of those who do not know what truth is. All this could mean is that you are arbitrarily associating something beyond your awareness with something you do not want. It is evident, then, that you are judging something of which you are totally unaware. You have set up this strange situation so that it is impossible to escape from it without a guide who does know what your reality is. The purpose of this guide is to merely remind you. – A Course In Miracles
Alrighty then. Let’s break this passage down, analyze it to death, and see how much of it applies to me and you.
- The association of truth and fear, which would be highly artificial at most, is particularly inappropriate in the minds of those who do not know what truth is : this statement applies directly to me. I have no clue of what (the) truth is. (you too?)
- You are arbitrarily associating something beyond your awareness with something you do not want: I do associate things beyond my awareness with fear – which is something I don’t want. (you too?)
- You are judging something of which you are totally unaware: Since I like to make stuff up, I’m constantly judging stuff I’m not aware of. (you too?)
- You have set up this strange situation so that it is impossible to escape from it without a guide who does know what your reality is: Ok, I’ll buy into that. But who’s the freakin’ guide? (you wanna know too?)
The purported guide is supposedly: Jesus Christ as channeled through the “A Course In Miracles” author duo. There’s a lot to like in this work but, because I’m not a big fan of organized religion, I’m having a tough time reading more than one or two pages at a time.
Knowledge, Understanding, And Wisdom
Like growth and development, I’d say that most people tend to equate knowledge with understanding. Until relatively recently, I did too.
Via memorization, akin to “copying and pasting“, a person can be loaded with knowledge but devoid of understanding. Application of knowledge without understanding in an intellectually challenging endeavor like programming can, and does, lead to future messes for others to clean up.
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live. – Damian Conway
Wisdom, a close cousin of understanding, can also be orthogonal to knowledge. However, the gap between wisdom and understanding can be much greater than the gap ‘tween understanding and knowledge. Wisdom can be acquired over time, but profound wisdom only arrives on the wings of grace, unscheduled. How do I know this? I don’t. I just like to make stuff up.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. – Peter Kay
The rocket science financial dudes who literally engineered the global financial disaster have lots of knowledge and understanding in their area of “expertise”, but zero wisdom. Ditto, the eminently credentialed economic Nobel Laureates who championed the downfall of the LTCM hedge fund twelve, yes twelve, freakin’ years ago. It seems that their elegant equation set was devoid of any simple control variables that accounted for the risk of the Russian financial crisis that caused the fund to implode.
As long as people continue to unquestioningly and passively accept the word of narrowly focused knowledge experts with zero wisdom, the saying “history tends to repeats itself” won’t fade away, ever.
All I can say is, beware of geeks … bearing formulas. – Warren Buffet
High And Low Tides
I’m lucky to have a job with variety. Most of the time, I’m either specifying, designing, writing, documenting, or fixing software that enhances or keeps our product portfolio viable. However, not all project work is equi-important to the company’s prosperity.
Some of the projects that I work on are bland, menial, and they don’t contribute much to the development of my company. When I work on these types of projects, I tend to feel guilty, overpaid, and like an under-performer. Accordingly, my behavior changes to align with those feelings. I turn inward, I’ m less interactive with others, and I’m less likely to observe, sense, and provide “controversial” input on socio-technical issues that I perceive to be holding the company back.
On the other side of the coin, when I work on challenging and intense work that I perceive is propelling the company forward, I gravitate towards ego-centric feelings of arrogance and superiority. I feel underpaid, under-appreciated, and overworked (boo hoo!). I become a “legend in my own mind“.
In either mode of behavior, it’s real easy to lose perspective and alienate co-workers and leaders. The key to balanced behavior during these high and low tides, which I haven’t yet figured out how to turn, is to recognize when I’m deep into one mode or the other.
How about you? Do you oscillate between extremes? Do you continuously dwell in one of the extreme states? Are you always Buddha-centered? If so, how do you know you are?
Thurman On Buddhism
Via the magical low cost and high quality combo of Roku’s hardware and Netflix‘s “instant watch” feature, I just watched lovable Robert Thurman give a passionate and endearing talk on Buddhism. If you’re not into spiritual “stuff”, then don’t bother watching it cuz you’ll be bored out of your gourd after two minutes. However, if you are interested, please watch it because I think it may put you in a peaceful and wondrous place for its duration.
I first discovered Mr. Thurman a couple of years ago when he gave this moving TED talk. He’s a talented story teller and a tireless promoter of compassion in the true spirit of Buddhism. If you do watch him, be sure to note the gentle passion he exudes. I think it’s quite contagious.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh (don’t fret cuz I don’t know how to feakin’ pronounce his name either) is a man with a remarkable story. This gentle Buddhist monk:
- was banished from his homeland, Vietnam, for opposing the war,
- was educated at Princeton and taught at Columbia and Cornell (thus, he’s got “authorized” credentials),
- was the main influencer of Martin Luther King’s stance against the Vietnam war,
- was nominated by Martin Luther King for the Nobel peace prize,
- has written over 100 books (I’ve read “No Death, No Fear“).
In this interview with Oprah, (yes, I’m a girlie-mahn) Oprah Talks to Thich Nhat Hanh, Thich said some Eckhart Tolle-ishly inspiring words:
If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive—that you can touch the miracle of being alive—then that is a kind of enlightenment. Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive.
With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment. It is possible to live happily in the here and the now. So many conditions of happiness are available—more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don’t have to run into the future in order to get more.
If you are fully present, you need only make a step or take a breath in order to enter the kingdom of God. And once you have the kingdom, you don’t need to run after objects of your craving, like power, fame, sensual pleasure, and so on.
People sacrifice the present for the future. But life is available only in the present.
Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help him or her to empty his heart.
In the present moment, you are producing thought, speech, and action. And they continue in the world. Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.
Wonderful stuff, no? When I read words like those, I temporarily experience a bit of internal calm and realize that all “objects” are divine creations of the universe expressing its love for itself. Before “getting it“, I used to blow off spirituality as new age poo-poo and a collosal waste of time. I’m so grateful for my shift in understanding because before I started my quest for spiritual advancement I rarely experienced personal moments of peace.
Some words that Thich spoke in the Oprah interview hit a bit closer to home:
…we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality.
People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don’t suffer anymore.
I can confidently say that over the years I’ve gotten better and better at releasing old knowledge, views, and opinions to make room for new and refreshing ones. For the most part, I’m less “binary” and I’m not married to my thoughts. Thus, I don’t suffer as much in terms of anger, anxiety, and fear.
How about you? As you age, are you suffering less and less or more and more? Why?
Bone Rattlers
Peter Senge is a colleague of dear, departed Russell Ackoff. Peter recently wrote a passionate tribute to his friend on the Ackoff Center Weblog and he rang my bell with these bone-rattling quotes:
So long as people think in fragmented ways they will act similarly – Peter Senge
The inherited traditions over generations toward patriarchy, authoritarian views of leadership, and rigid systems of institutional power will not change in a generation – Peter Senge
How long will we preserve the belief that power comes from institutional position versus connection to the creative flow of the universe? – Peter Senge
The forces for change come from “life’s longing for itself,” not from ego-based human striving – Peter Senge
That last quote is really a zinger because I’ve been wrestling with my ego ever since I finally came to the realization that it dominates my (and the vast majority of other people’s) thinking and external behavior. Sadly, I (the real self) don’t have the upper hand on the “I” (the imposter) thought, but some day I hope to do so. Hence, my spiritual quest continues in a seemingly self-referential infinite looping attempt to use the ego to beat the ego into submission.
How about you? Do you realize that you’re not living up to your full potential because your ego is in charge? Do you care, or is everything just peachy keen for you the way you are?
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
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