Ego is the Agent of Chaos

I'm on a non JitterBook project where for whatever reason, each person feels the need to restate the other person's insight in their own words, thus making it "their own insight".

In restating the objective, the baton of thought is passed to each person in the meeting, allowing everyone to clarify each other's comments, explaining the same freaking thing, but again from their perspective as if to say, "my take on the idea is better than yours". What a waste of everyone's time. It creates all this disorder, simply because folks can't put their ego aside and just be real. We get very little done. It sucks.

The only reason I state this - I mean after all, it is all but common place in the business world, everyone's egos stepping on the others, is that every now and then you see a beacon of "fuck you all, I'm riding down my own path and I really don't care what any of you think". A person who is an anomaly, who doesn't necessarily stand out, because that's not their intention, but they are differentiated from the rest of humanity simply by being there own person.

I applaud these people, mainly because i meet so few of them and also because for a brief moment I am meeting someone who has the integrity to be real and not some facade of what they think they should be.

I don't think any of us can be that person at all times, we all have needs after all. I'm not even saying the person in my mind's eye even displayed this high personality trait on our brief encounter, but I did see more than a hint that it was possible. Having been living the repeated hell of meetings and daily life where ego's try to trump each other, even the brief moment of time with someone real is a refreshing.

How this fits into global warming, I'm sure I could be clever and think of a connection, maybe in my rewrite. Right now I'm too drunk on wine to care...

Okay, maybe not too drunk.

I think we all know what the right thing to do is even if it is relative to our own personalities. We tend not to do that right thing because we second guess. We shouldn't be afraid of making fun of ourselves, of being wrong, of letting others be who they are, of wanting, caring, not caring, even if it goes against the grain of so called society.

The mass society is what got us to the problems we face, is what brought us idiot leaders and bad choices, so yes, fuck the masses. They are sheep acting in accordance to their own fears. If more of us were true to ourselves, we would find less bad decision making, which in turn would aid in all causes and issues that need attention, including, um, yes, you guessed it, global warming.

Then again, ha! maybe I'm just second guessing myself!! .....

Thanks www.svH3.com and the person who turned me on (to the site) for the inspiration for this blog :+)

Some Thoughts on Extremism

It's a mural of a whale now, but at one time there was this graffiti tag I would walk by on my way to class that said "Death to Extremists!". I loved the irony of this phrase. I mean, isn't death a bit of an extreme punishment for someone who is being, well, extreme? Each day started with a little chuckle as I pondered the incongruity of what was being proposed in that statement.

The campus town I lived in had two sides, the loggers and the environmentalists. They both hated each other and each went to their own extremes to argue their causes. From running over tree huggers to ceramic spikes in the trees, each went out of their way and accomplished little as a result. This was something I never quite understood as it always seemed to me that there must be some middle ground, a place where both groups could get what they wanted.

In playing spectator to this war of the takers and the savers, I came to realize that all fanaticism was myopic, one sided and thus ultimately a poor choice as a route to take. The takers couldn't just take or else there would be nothing left to harvest down the road. The savers couldn't save everything and btw - not one of them wanted to live in a plastic home or a cave, they all seemed to have a general liking towards wood and paper. Somehow, a middle ground, an objective, less fanatical ground would produce better results.

Fanaticism's work against us in all that they are applied to, be it in global warming, religion, harvesting of our natural resources, even in relationships. They ultimately bear little fruit.

For years since, I followed my own advice, but lately I had a moment where I too saw things from a narrow perspective and got carried away.

Missteps were made and I realized, maybe I shouldn't be so hard on these extremists. Maybe at one time or another, every one of us rallies behind something that we really believe in and we forge ahead like moths to a flame, not realizing we will only get burned in the end. Maybe getting carried away is a journey we need to go through from time to time before we can land on our feet again, hopefully a little wiser. Perhaps it is in knowing what the end points are that we find the middle ground we are ultimately looking for.

So in my own journey into the underworld of extremes, I came out the other side thinking that while all of those "-isms" are ultimately not the best way to go, I guess I should give them a break seeing as I succumbed to my own "-ism". In other words, sometimes, despite our wisdom, we still do dumb things. Maybe I should apply a bit more empathy at this point.

With that I say to all the tree huggers, all the loggers, the door to door zealots, the Mac fanatics and Linux users, to all the career folks who put in more hours and work harder than I, to all the A students, the gang members and the Evangelists, and especially to all who want death to extremists, I forgive you. I still don't agree with you but at I guess from time to time, we all get carried away despite our best intentions.