Hierarchies

No matter where you are going, you must start from here. This is s.t. with which everyone will agree in theory and even principle but violate without thinking when they begin talking. Everything we say and do is couched in how we process and store life experiences. The corollary to this, when you’ve been everywhere on Earth you will be right back where you started; while this is true, we don’t have to go full sphere in our travels; IOW we can stop and stay at any place along the way.

One of the beautiful things about our mind is that it isn’t spherical but universal, i.e. it is boundless like the universe. The farther we go the more there is to discover out to infinity. The evolution of our thinking in terms of physics, for example, continues to go through advancing theories; each supplanting the last and we still haven’t arrived at the truth.

Richard P. Feynman, a winner of the Nobel prize in physics, adhered to the belief in science that in order for s.t. to be true, it has to be observed and proven through repeatable experiments. While this is a noble statement it doesn’t address what I am sure he realized, that imagination is the starting point and everything else is a by-product of it.

It is also not as much fun as believing in ghosts; saints, re- incarnation, ascension, assumption, heaven and hell. There aren’t many things, if any, in religion that will stand the test of the scientific method. Priests and others who rely on the donations of the faithful for their daily bread will tell you that it requires faith; that certain beliefs are from inspired sources; that at least one man is infallible. When one looks at it through the cold eyes of everyday experiences, it goes quickly into the pigeon hole labeled preposterous.

Religions, and here I am being all inclusive, give people a roadmap for making behavioral decisions. It became clear to me, upon doing my own research, that one can reach conclusions that support legal, ethical, and moral behavior without the benefit of a Bible, Koran, or other “inspired” text. Yet religion gives those who are mentally lazy, careless, or otherwise occupied, a convenient source of “good” behavior and doesn’t require much personal involvement. And to this extent religions are important because many/most people have more to do than concern themselves with learning the what’s and whys of these areas of their life; sort of like using a calculator instead of learning to take a square root. You get the right answer either way, as long as your calculator is functioning properly. One could retort that a person can make a mistake doing a square root calculation as well but this is the learning experience, not abdication.

The problem is when religion (the calculator) takes over and starts telling you what to think and do. The priests, et al, often go out of bounds in their preaching and interpretations and we get ridiculous dogmas, or an inappropriate jihad mentality. This is not a unique or uncommon phenomenon; it has been happening since we gathered together in groups larger than family. A self-perpetuating autocratic hierarchy develops and it has to be supported by the rank and file, sort of like governemnt and taxes, only the constitution that governs this hierarchy is not subject to question, amendment, or interpretation without it being that of the hierarchy; and woe to him/her that may disagree, to wit Galileo or the victims of the Inquisition. There are plenty of examples in Islam and other religions who have a governing hierarchy.

This autocratic hierarchy phenomenon is strictly a human, i.e. not inspired by spiritual forces, and can be seen in any large organization. Companies, churches, service clubs, brotherhoods, sororities, and philanthropic organizations, all have hierarchies. Those who aspire to leadership in these hierarchies are those who satisfying their vanity as job one. These govern by fiat and pronounce what’s good and not so for the membership. Members OTOH are following some set basic principles and meeting their need to belong to social groups and couldn’t care less about the pronouncements of the hierarchy. They are only affected when the collection basket comes around.

The hierarchy invent all sorts of important sounding issues to keep their jobs; to keep the donations flowing so they can feed their egos while the basic tenets upon which the organization is founded are rendered unimportant because they are easily understood and there is, in fact, no need for the hierarchy. Witness the end of the aristrocratic hierachy with the French Revolution. This bloody purge occurred when it became the pre-eminent reason for its own existence instead of remembering that it was secondary to the subjects of the king.

The existence of hierarchically organized religion can be tolerated when it doesn’t affect the affairs of those who don’t subscribe. The French realized this in 1905 and completely severed any religious references in government affairs. They recognized that the influence of religion on the regulation of the population in general is something inherently bad.

Hierarchies do some good; they allow the small contributions of many to aggregate into amounts of money that have critical mass for accomplishing goals. This is good where the leaders are volunteers, i.e. don’t get any of the donated money. They should be allowed to exist only when (1) the organization is audited annually by independent third parties and the results of same are public record, and (2) that they recognize and fully obey the letter and spirit of the laws of the jurisdiction and country wherein they are.

These two things alone would end much of the abuse. It has worked well for publicly held businesses; it wasn’t practiced when the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church protected sexual predators. As it is now, show me a hierarchical organization without these controls built into its operation and I’ll show you a scandal about to happen.

So, I’ve gone high and wide of my opening but this self-perpetuating, autocratic, hierarchical phenomenon is on my mind. It is vanity gone wild; a distraction of the imagination. Go back to square one, recommence; learn from this lifetime to develop farther in the next.

Fitting In

“Here we are, on this plantation.” There seems to be two ways to open a thought; one is to get right into the action and the other is to lay out a conclusion and then defend/support it. I prefer the first because it seems to get the reader/audience into the scene and creates a bit of suspense. Then, perhaps, they are paying closer attention to what is being put forth as an idea.

Last night at the billiards club mixed eight ball league, an opportunity arose concerning Tim who had just been at our table cracking wise, showing off his wit. His beard/goatee reminded me of Bob Amos, of Hull Technical Department days, so I told the story. Bob came in one day with his beard, which looked just like Tim’s, shaved off; when I asked him why on earth he shaved it he said, “I woke up this morning with my finger in my mouth.” It brought the house down and Tim seemed to take it well. Tim is a teaser; he loves to display his wit but, as is always the case, there are those like me, who lie in wait for the right opportunity to display our own wit at the expense of the show-off.

At class the other night, one of the participants who makes his living interacting with people, was behaving badly. His posture was a signal that he would rather be elsewhere and his continuous mouthing of sunflower seeds and spitting the hulls into an empty soda bottle, not to mention his slightly more than occasional fingering of his Iphone was quite distracting/ disturbing to me, the instructor. This is an opportunity for me to use some of the same principles that are contained in the class I am teaching. Here we have an opportunity for (a) coaching or (b) handling a mistake. But before I go there I would like to expound my philosophy of organizational behavior.

(1) If you are going/sent to participate in s.t., then participate. If you don’t have a choice in the matter, i.e. your boss or company requires it, be circumspect enough to realize that your behavior is a reaction. If it is an emotional reaction, such as rebellion and therefore irrational, you would be well served to do the necessary to become objective in your choice of behaviors.

(2) Realize what how you look, i.e. how you are groomed and what you are wearing, is what everybody else sees and uses to make a value judgment of you. It connotes how you feel about yourself and how much respect you have for those with whom you will be. If you are uncertain, there is always an acceptable middle-ground, and if you’re clever enough you can prepare for almost any circumstance.

(3) Realize that your manner of speaking, like clothing, is also used by others to make judgments. It usually tips them off to your level of sophistication, education, and acceptability. All groups have a jargon; the more specialized the group the more sophisticated the jargon. This holds true for street gangs as well as nuclear physicists. People not of the group can’t understand what’s being said. At the extreme we have the matter of national languages, which could be the result of physical as well as social separation, where the separation allowed/ caused the development of a distinctive method of expressing thoughts.

For the matter of this discussion, when in a heterogeneous group the wise will use words and expressions that are generally acceptable and understood by the vast majority of those present. This doesn’t mean to speak down, or up, but rather across. If one maintains the polite social intercourse level, all can participate without discomfort and most will comply with that same standard.

In all of these cases, behavior, dress, and speech, we tend to lower our guard, ease our discipline as we get more and more comfortable with those with whom we are. As our relationship with the group strengthens our propensity to become lax increases , and this is usually our personal feeling and not necessarily shared by those whom we are. In other words, you think it’s ok to wear cutoffs and flip-flops because no one says anything about it but rest assured their image of you is affected by what they see and hear.

On the other hand there is the possibility that acceptance and belonging aren’t an issue, or even that they are areas of disdain, then one can choose behavior, clothing, and speech to further those aims. The result will be there, if that’s what you want it to be.

Publishing this will go a long ways toward easing my own reaction to the errant class member. The infractions are minor but distracting all the same. It hasn’t been an issue until now, except once when one chewed tobacco and spit into a bottle. The first time I saw it I took him aside and told him to lose the tobacco and the spittoon.

I will incorporate the following disclaimer in my classes at session one: We are all here to have an enjoyable and instructive experience. The success of the class depends entirely on my presentation, your reception, participation, willingness to share experiences, your arguments or questions when you disagree or don’t understand, and the comfort level of all of us in the class. If I see something that concerns me, that I feel is out of line in some way, how would you like me to approach you about it? I want you to have a meaningful experience so your answer to this is important to all of us.

Aside: this is one of the values of my notebooks and now this blog. It is similar to a counselor because articulating ideas seems to allow me to reach conclusions that are more objective and constructive than just “thinking” about it; and to express thoughts that may not be interesting to s.o. else.

On Being a Player

I’m listening to an audio book about Ulysses by James Joyce. Ulysses is full of great and convoluted hidden meanings and poses a question for me. How did it get ever get recognized? Here is a daunting book of almost 800 pages that describes the activities of some truly idiotic people during the course of one single day, June 16, 1904. Who could be convinced to read on past the beginning of it? I am asking this because I want to understand how this is can happen. How can s.o. convince a publisher to print and distribute such a work? How do people find out about it? How in the world can s.o. sit down and read it? Some PhD’s spend years researching surrounding events, both historical and then current, study the text for its convoluted references to Homer’s Ulysses (Odysseus) and then relate all of that to s.o. like me who has, and will take, the time necessary to listen to all 24, 45 minute lectures. And, I have the book but I don’t know if I’m going to read it. I mean 800 pages!

I ask all of these questions because I want to know. I am incredulous about it because there are tons of books out there, written by a multitude of writers both living and dead, but getting published seems to be the hardest thing in the world to do; unless you are in some circle that keeps you in the proximity of those who know. Much of what is written is drivel, who decides what’s worthwhile?

When I met with my former writing professor, after he had time to look at my book, I was curious about his reaction to it. He didn’t have one. His lack of enthusiasm for my work told me everything I needed to know so we talked about him and life in general. On the one hand I think I am too old to succeed at writing; on the other, I look back and say it takes s.o. about five years to get going on s.t. like this, to get ensconced in the writing community, to find like-minded would-be authors, to pay the price of apprenticeship and get your journeyman’s reputation. But it takes a decision to dedicate yourself to same and DOIT.

I have two of the best excuses in the world, neither of which holds any water so I won’t even make them to you. Two other things holding me back are finding the entrance to and then entering the labyrinth, which is the world of writers. There is so much symbolism in the ancient writing that I never tire of it. Most of them have the hero finding himself in a situation and cleverly working his way through. My dilemma is finding the situation in which to get.

I joined a group of writers, what a waste. I wrote for my grandkids, fun but shooting fish in a barrel. I wrote for Open Floodgate, voila! Le lieu. Then it shut down so I published my book, the one that didn’t fire Ed’s enthusiasm. These and my classes made me aware of my need for an audience, people who will read and comment, for better or worse, on what they read. So now here I am blogging away.

There is another aspect of my life that is totally analogous to this. It is pocket billiards/pool. I’ve had a table for more than 10 years. People come over for parties and often we get involved in a game. Some of these people are very good, better than me. Then last year I joined a league of players at the Billiards Club of Louisville. My game has improved because my team mates are supportive and are more than a little willing to share their expertise with me as I struggle. I still suck at pool but I am light years ahead of where I was and win most of the time at home and about half the time in league play. The skill levels go to Super-7 and I am a three. There aren’t many men who are threes and I chafe under the shame of it but play I do. I study the game, practice it, play it, and compete in it and you watch, in three or four years I will be right up there at the top.

As I review similar forays into endeavors that require more than being able to talk a good game, I see the similarities. There is a long learning curve but one has to get on that curve if he is ever going to advance his skill. Okay so where is the 0-0 point of the curve for writing? For pool it was walking into the billiards club and saying, I want to get on a team. They were open to the idea and made sure I got on one. Where is the writing club, the entrance into the labyrinth?

As the result of a discovery about myself , a few months ago, I changed from talking a good game to working hard to be able to play a good game; and I’m referring to life in general, not just pool. There are many, whom I’ll call spectators, who are vicariously involved in life and I made up my mind to be a participant, a player. The danger in being a spectator is that one gets lulled into getting fulfillment from watching others play and becomes an expert in talking about the game. For me, the fulfillment is in playing the game. I am a player, a performer, give me a game and an audience and I’m there!

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Braggadocio

Braggadocio--you tell me.

It is Thursday afternoon, raining and cool. There isn’t anything pending for me to do, nothing pressing, nothing important. I’ve taken care of the few tasks on which people were waiting but now there’s nothing. This has been the case for years and years only I didn’t realize it until recently. There is nothing that I have to do—today, and I like it this way.

I worked in a large organization for a long time and got to the point where I was calling the shots on what needed to be done and when. The requirements would be generally explained to me and it was up to me, and my organization, to meet them. As with everyone, I started out in the first degree of freedom, which is wait here until I tell you what to do, do it and then come back to me. Then through successfully operating within that one for a short while I advanced to the second, which is see something that needs doing, ask if you can do it. Once this happened with regularity, I pushed on to the third degree which is, seeing something that needs doing, do it then report. Finally the fourth degree, know what has to be done and do it, reporting periodically.

This is the level to which all independent thinkers aspire. Advancement in an organization depends on operating successfully at this degree of freedom. The bigger the task the more freedom you have. Beware of the politics all along the way.

And yet when I look at today's situation objectively, except for being fawned over by nubile young things, I am at a point in my life where I am able to do whatever and that includes nothing. About all that I really must do is pay my taxes and stay street legal.

Being resourceful I have constructed a way to come up with stuff to do. I call them my Endeavors and there are now about 15 or so of them, down from eighteen. For these I've identified two categories of activity, what I want to accomplish in each Endeavor this year and in what kinds of activities I will engage during the year within these Endeavors. To set it up, I take the time between the winter solstice and the New Year for planning the year ahead; then weekly review where I am and set up tasks for the week ahead.

Lacking this sort of structure, one may get involved in s.t. that is harmful, detrimental, or wind up in a place where he doesn’t want to be. Sort of like leaving the gate to the pasture open, the horse leaves the enclosure but doesn’t have a clue as to where he is going or why, he just meanders around the neighborhood looking for good things to eat. But put tack on that horse and get a good rider in the saddle, wow!

Then there are days like today when I just don’t feel like doing anything so I won’t. But honestly, when I had my business, and I was working, there were many days when I simply didn’t know what to do. My imagination would fail me and I would do something even if it meant getting into a jam and then have to get out of it again. Sometimes days like this require patience and a good positive attitude, one that says, “Yes, a little down time is good now and then.”

But there is something in here that is not at all satisfied with days like this. On the one hand I want to do, on the other I don’t. Writing is a good compromise, it is allows me to be doing without really doing anything beyond getting some thoughts up on the screen. If I was writing a story, play, poem, or presentation, I would get all involved in it and lose all sense of time, whereas now the minutes seem to be slowly passing. And this is a good yardstick, for me anyway, how quickly does time apparently elapse.

I know, for example if I get involved in a Sudoku puzzle, time can slip away and all of a sudden I’m up against a commitment, be it a meeting or a meal to prepare. Same is true of being involved in learning a software package, creating a power point presentation, writing a story, drawing a picture, preparing financial statements, rehearsing a script/presentation. Armed with this knowledge on days like this, I eschew these activities and simply graze in my pasture, doing things that aren’t necessary, don’t have a deadline, don’t require immersion.

The above mentioned actys, as well as participating in sports/ games/ conversations, or watching movies/plays/concerts all have one thing in common, they call for one, or a very few, personae to get completely involved to the exclusion of all the others. Often, I get involved in these activities without regard for how constructive they are. IOW (an often used abbreviation for In Other Words) they become what seems in retrospect to be a big waste of time, whereas writing for an audience, even of one, or playing competitively, or reaching some sort of useful result does not. I am against wasting time but I am also against snacking, which means intellectually and emotionally I prefer not to but…

This blog is good for me because I can write and delude myself into thinking that there is an audience out there who may read my entries from time to time, even enjoy them. This was what Open Floodgate did for me with the added dimension that it wasn’t a delusion. There were more than 5,500 views of my creations on that site. It made me aware of the need I have for an audience.

Apologies

There is some time between now and when I must leave the house; quiet time during which I usually nap. Today there is sufficient time to write an entry and take a snooze. My goal today is to see what 1000 words looks like on a screen in lieu of a notebook.

I am struggling a little with how to voice the entries I make in this blog. There are some options available: one would be to write it to someone, an unidentified person who is the reader and I suppose by default this is to whom most things are written, including books; or write it to s.o. who is id’d as if it were a letter; then it could be written in the objective case as an article of fact or report on s.t.; then it could be written in a conversational style where the participant was inferred as if sitting here listening. And there are probably other possibilities that will come to mind as I mush on.

There is a difficulty with conversational because in life it would depend on the personality of the person to whom I was speaking; and, for me, there would be a difficulty with expression because I would say s.t. one way but write it another. There is also a difficulty with the more formal, report-like, style because that could get stilted. Perhaps the best solution would be to approach it as I would if I was on a radio program talking about whatever the subject du jour may be. Yes, that seems to be the best of all possibilities, both the stated and implied, because it assumes a certain generic audience of peers who would be comfortable with my style of expression.

During the course of my years of notebook writing, I tackled some highly personal issues such as hard feelings caused by the action/ inaction of associates, opinions of why people are the way they are to me, opinions of why I am the way I am to others at times. Then there were/are entries that are devoted to issues of the day such as political commentary or the like. I am somewhat reluctant to put some of this into a blog because one never knows who will be reading it and, due to the transferability of data in digital form, what they will be doing with it. If I launched into a diatribe about s.o. or some issue, it could be publicized to my detriment.

The French dictionary acquainted me with a convention, which I have adopted in my writing, that saves a lot of time and strokes. It abbreviates someone with s.o., something with s.t., and somebody with s.b. I have adopted this convention in my writing and it has proven helpful; I thought it might be helpful to state this up front so that the reader will not be at sea about these abbreviations. There is another convention that I have come to use, it is the slash. I will be going along with a thought and say something like: then it became clear to me that she was/would be amenable to a relationship. Instead of editing the remark as it is being made, I have used the slash as a way of changing the sense of the statement without going back and re writing it. When one is scribbling along with a pen or pencil, this convention eliminates a lot of scratch outs and/or erasures. So bear with me, you’ll get used to it.

Then there is the possibility that French will appear from time to time in my writing. This is s.t. to which the reader will have to become inured. I get a little ego boost when I can use a French word to say s.t. It is a tribute I pay to my many years of studying the language without learning it very well. Someday I may relocate to France, to Chantilly, and live in a totally French environment again just to “sink or swim” with regard to this language issue.

Already I can see that the little squiggly red line is going to be a boon to my writing in this blog. I have corrected misspelling several times as I’m going along here, s.t. I wouldn’t have done in a notebook, which is why I was appalled at the misspelling when I reviewed 2004 notes. I will yield to my propensity to try to get it right by reviewing the entry for the squiggly red line and changing the word if it is appropriate to do so. I know from experience that nothing is quite as jarring as reading a passage and finding misspelled words or bad grammar. I can’t guarantee the grammar or the word choice but at least I can give you a correctly spelled word to read.

Word 2007 has a nice feature; it displays the word count as you go along. Right now this document has 827 and it will be a morceau du gateau to know when I’ve reached the desired length. The one or two times I keyed a notes entry resulted in an entry to be one and a half keyed pages for the four sides of handwritten. If that were the case I would be there and I believe that to be a better guage than the 1000 words, although today I am going for the 1000 just to see how long an entry that will be.

The fourth paragraph above is an indication of my character. I am older and wiser and have been burned enough by gossip and backstabbing to be wary of putting it out there for people to use, especially against me. I have discovered that the emotional reaction to a situation is irrational and all too often requires me to back pedal, apologize, and do damage control in a relationship. I have a daily that says, “Realizing emotional reactions are irrational, I am more objective.” And this seems to be good advice, for me anyway. It takes a lot of the color out of my life but hey, life without red is not so bad. But at the same time, I know that all of us have a need to vent our hurt feelings from time to time. I am not going to promise that you won’t see a diatribe or two in this blog and I will have to be willing to stand for the repercussions that such will bring.

Well, that’s the thousand (1086 to here.) Later--

Rules of the Game

Rules of the Game: Not that rules are necessary but I do like to have some self-imposed guidelines in order to maintain a certain consistency in my life and writings. The blog is intended to replace two major efforts of mine: creative writing of poems, stories, plays, and presentations of ideas; and writing my thoughts on life, living, and attempts at finding the truth.

The first of these has no limit or guidelines other than the form of the piece, the second will be limited to about 1000 words, this would be the length of the aforementioned 2 pages, 4 sides of notebook paper. I know from experience that the limit is necessary, otherwise the entry can get too long or too short to be useful.

Useful to whom? Well, me course. For example, I reviewed several days' entries made five years ago in 2004 and found that there was a certain consistency to then and now. This led to re-evaluating the utility of writing almost daily entries. If my thinking wasn't changing, maybe I should put it out there to be assessed by others and worked in the forge of opinion.

On the creative writing side of the blog, I will continue to work to develop my ability to express myself. In 2007/8, I participated in "Open Floodgate," a creative site which has since closed due to lack of sponsorship, and postied more than 80 creations in the above mentioned categories. The creations were bundled into a book, published by a vanity press, and given to my family. The works include a whole range of ideas that express my thinking, albeit in esoteric terms. I thought it would be nice if my grandchildren, sometime in the future, could read and understand how I saw the world.

These preliminary thoughts are the what and why of the blog.