#139 – I’M SENSITIVE – 16 November 2017
Topic #14: help from others. A work-related example that did not deliver. I was a middle manager. The helpful HR people in my company contracted with a personality assessment business located in another country. We all filled out computer readable surveys. I got back my computer-generated report. Standard paragraphs cued by my responses. Who did they think they were fooling? (clearly HR) Then the debrief: a man, a stranger, phoned from the other country and proceeded to tell me who I was and the areas in which I was lacking and deficient. I had to hang up on him.
#140 – FLUFF – 17 November 2017
Continuing Topic #14: help from others. A work-related example that so delivered. I went to a stakeholder meeting (government speak for clients or customers). The stakeholders behaved very badly, blamed me for all kinds of perceived evils, not evidence based. Left completely beaten. Went back to the office and received the most beautiful hearing, care and affirmation from the wonderful team I work with. Thank you.
#141 – ALWAYS GOING IN CIRCLES – 18 November 2017
Topic #15: wealth units. Money is splendid, it opens up a lot of possibilities. How did Ruth and I get to Scotland last fall? We had money available to do so. I have no problem with it as a measure of wealth. But money alone is too narrow a measure. Better to build oneself a broad system of wealth units where all manner of different things that one values – relationships, hobbies, work, love, time watching water flow under a bridge, whatever, and yes money too – are conceptually converted into common units. A balanced approach. A rounded tally. A construct to make trade-off decisions. Your system of wealth units will not be identical to mine, it’s about what you value.
#142 – SKY CAGE – 19 November 2017
Topic #16: first world problems. They are arguably the toughest of all. They should not be dismissed. After your basic needs are met, and you are fed, sheltered and secure, then what? Then does life make any sense? Can we get up in the morning? Are we at all happy? Can we nurture ourselves and others? This is the challenge of first world problems: they stubbornly prevail even when our bellies are full. First world problems are end game problems.
#143 – WOOL HAT – 20 November 2017
Topic #17: love and hate. Stevie Wonder quote: “Use your heart to love somebody. And If your heart is big enough, use your heart to love everybody.” My heart is not big enough to love everybody. I’m a conceptual admirer of loving everybody, but I’m under no illusion of ever getting there; so many bad acting humans for whom I cannot muster love.
But this is the slippery slope: everybody except not this list of individuals. Everyone at work except senior management. Everyone but not [insert name of a minority in my country]. Everyone except [insert name of a religious tradition I know nothing about but am wary of]. And so the wedges between us emerge.
#144 – INTERIOR LANDSCAPE – 21 November 2017
Continuing Topic #17: love and hate. I cannot muster love for everyone, but I can strive toward a state of reciprocity where I respect others to be and live as they wish, and in return am respected to be and live as I wish. A reciprocal limitation applies: our respective wishes cannot be defined and exercised so as to denigrate or harm one another.
Implementing “do no harm” on a small planet requires more than just ignoring one another. There is no freedom to be for those who lack the basics of life, are unsafe, or have their way of being condemned and curtailed. We do not need to love everyone, but we share a responsibility to ensure that everyone is supported to function and thrive on their terms. The quote is: “Do onto others as you would have them do onto you.” I would add: think of others as you would have them think of you. If your thoughts are disrespectful, how will you prevent your actions from doing harm?
#145 – COMPARTMENTALIZATION – 22 November 2017
Topic 17b: tribalism. Belonging to a tribe feels so good, but delivers a long and persistent history of harm. Tribalism by definition creates us and them.
A guide took us hiking on a recent vacation. We had a pretty good time until late in the day, when he clearly decided we were buddies now (we had become a temporary tribe). And so he suddenly blurted out: immigrant ethnic group X is the source of all problems in France. We were nowhere near France and none of us were French, where did this come from? When I said I disagreed he shrugged and said this is because I am Canadian and therefore naïve.
Tribalism’s core condition of “belonging”, comforting as it may be, creates us and them. Them’s always wrong.
There should be only one tribe, all in.
#146 – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL MAY – 23 November 2017
Topic 18: it takes a village to raise a child. In my one tribe world, that is of course the global village. It takes 8 billion people to raise a child. It takes 8 billion people to liberate an adult. One tribe.
#147 – MAYBE – 24 November 2017
Topic 19: weeks of a lifetime. I enjoy putting the garbage out, it feels like I am lightening the load and organizing my life. It also reminds me that another week has gone by. A powerful visual is simply to print on a piece of paper a row of 52 boxes (representing one year of weeks) and repeat it down the page 90 times (possible years in a lifetime if lucky). A lifetime in weeks. On one page. See it here. You can colour in the part you have already traveled, and muse about what you will do with your remaining … weeks. Turns out we all have but weeks to live.
#148 – QUADRAPUS – 25 November 2017
Topic #20: ideals and reality. Cannot live long on this planet before confronting the seemingly irresolvable gap between what humanity could be and what we are. Saddest thing ever. When young, we confidently assume that our generation will, finally, fix things. When older, we understand that we failed, just like our foreparents. We watch yet another generation start the same journey. There is no solution. There is only the matter of how you live with this. You can choose to fight for what could be, join the dark side, defend yourself, coddle your loved ones, retreat to the forest. No choice is wholly satisfactory. This is difficult.
#149 – LATE FALL FLURISH – 26 November 2017
Topic #21: Consolation of Philosophy. Boethius is in prison and faces an unjust death. Philosophy appears, to teach and console. She helps him find value within himself, not in the folly of fortune beyond his control. She shows him ideals worth pursuing. It’s the most practical of advice as he learns to count on what he ultimately owns and controls: his own mind and spirit. A great read.
#150 – GROUNDED – 27 November 2017
Topic #22: prequal to the meaning of life: “Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.” From The Sayings of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan, from Dune by Frank Herbert. The word “beyond” is ambiguous — the universe could be fundamentally logical, or not really at all, and if not at all then either lacking of logic or surpassing it.
#151 – LIGHT UP – 28 November 2017
Topic #23: meaning of life. You knew it would get to this sooner or later, right? My personal observation and conclusion is that life has no inherent, overarching meaning. This works for Ollie the dog, and he has never stressed about it, never felt lost or defeated. Through history many have offered up the answer to the purpose of your life on your behalf. These are inputs, suggestions. Our brains are sophisticated enough to yearn for meaning, creative enough to invent answers, logical enough to critique these.
#152 – SEE STRAIGHT – 29 November 2017
Continuing Topic 23: meaning of life. Observe Ralph the amoeba. Ralph is a one celled organism that eats stuff, occasionally splits in two (thereby creating Ralphi and Ralphii) and eventually dies. If I were to give Ralph a brain equivalent in capacity to the human brain (Ralph2.0) and allow him to observe his life and reflect, he‘d say “I stay alive as long as possible in order to make more of me, that’s it. There seems no meaning to my life.” And that’s alright. Of course, the punchline is that humans are Ralph2.0.
#153 – SODASTREAM – 30 November 2017
Concluding Topic 23: meaning of life. If you entertain my notion that we are all Ralph2.0 (see above) and life has no inherent meaning, then are we all in existential trouble?
Or is Ralph’s observation that life has no inherent meaning freeing? Free to create. Free to love or harm. Free to learn. Free to sit on a bench. Free to make choices. Free to make meaning. Free not to.
Too much freedom?
