hand-ocean-birds

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“And the ports have names for the sea.”

William Auden

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Well. I could quite easily argue that the most fundamental thing necessary to be successful in Life and in business is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s walk in my shoes see my view morality shoes. In other words, having perspective matters. If you have the ability to see what others see, think what they think and understand why they do what they do … or maybe it’s a skill … it fosters understanding, ability to compromise, enables at least the possibility to shift thinking and it actually encourages you to rethink some things and maybe unlearn some learnings.

I do sometimes look at what is happening in the world and how we seem to have stopped listening and I think of Auden’s line from a poem he wrote about Iceland. I think about it and sometimes believe we are all out at sea floating amongst tides, waves and storms <rarely calm> looking at the ports with names. And, yet, we can never envision that the ports may look out at us and not only view us differently, but also the seas upon which we float. This is dangerous professionally, personally & society wise.

By maintaining our own view of things we do not listen, therefore we do not debate <we only lecture> and we certainly never compromise or find some common ground. Instead we all bob around the vast ocean just trying to keep our own head above water and yell at each other for stupidly bobbing around in the water the wrong way <or not the way we are>. No wonder the ports have a different name for the seas then we do. We call them Black, Caspian, Mediterranean, Baltic, Caribbean , etc.. Ports most likely look out and say ”a place upon which fools who do not listen to each other float”.

I word it that way because it seems like sometimes we forget that we are all trying to figure out a way of keeping our heads above water.

Now. I imagine the reasons why we forget all the commonalities and why we ignore what each other truly has to say is not simple, nor just one thing, but rather a thousand reasons scattered around like quarters on the floor just waiting for someone to pick up. I would bet I have sloppily discussed many of these reasons on enlightened conflict. But I can truly only think of one thing that trumps all the thousand reason to not do what we should be doing – moral imperative.

That may sound high too falutin’ for somethings as simple as ‘listening to each other and discussing’ but truly it is a moral imperative that we try and solve this. Yeah. I just said moral imperative. I do so speaking of both business and society.

We are better if we listen, really listen, in business and discuss and say do not conversationsdebate realize that most often our differences reside in tactics, possibly in some strategies, but rarely in objectives.

We are better in society when common everyday schmucks, like you and I, sit down and listen and discuss and debate <kind of like Heineken suggested in a fabulous video message they produced>.

I believe this can happen if we embrace the moral imperative as people. Ah. Back to that ‘moral’ word I keep tossing into this mix. What a divisive word for a word which should be a unitor. Beyond the entire civil discourse and listening and finding common ground discussion it seems to me that a shitload of us are actually embracing what I believe is called ‘moral condescension.’ It’s not that we are just condescending with each other about views, opinions and beliefs, but all of that crap is grounded on an underlying sense of moral condescension <not only do you have the wrong belief & attitude but you do that because you are not a morally strong as I am’>. Not only is condescension of any type irritating but moral condescension ratchets up irritating to … well … an incredibly irritating level. For the most part most people don’t really have to deal with it because most of us either keep our moral ‘high horse’ in our pocket or share it with friends and acquaintances of like mind. And most other people know our views and just avoid us if they disagree.

What that means is <a> there is a significant lack of any discourse and <b> when there is we fairly quickly move into our ‘moral condescension mode’ which irritates the other person/people.

I do ponder why we hate moral condescension so much. I mean condescension in general is irritating, but with morals and morality it just has a tendency to more condescending moralitybring forth a little anger.

I would offer to everyone that maybe it suggests we should feel some guilt for some indulgence in the vagaries of life. It suggests that maybe we feel too much, well, about ‘muchness’ without truly examining the barebones of shit without all the muchness attached. The truth is that, for the most part, if you strip away the condescension it only suggests some examination of what we focus on and what we do not focus on. In fact. Imn moral condescension we actually possibly deprive something in that person as WE subconsciously indulge upon ourselves as something ‘we earned’  <this idea, to me, is at the nucleus of the condescension>.

Uhm. You do not earn indulgence. You earn money & respect <as well as some other nice and not so nice characteristics I imagine>.

I say that because regardless of whether you are the moral condescension giver or the moral condescension receiver you should be stepping back and stripping away the indulgence aspects <simplistically … I earned that huge SUV and deserve it … even though some people cannot even afford taking a bus> and try viewing all moral decisions and people’s views in the most stripped down version.

I say that because naked we kind of all have the same problems and issues in a harsh world — it is just a matter of degree in most cases.

I say that because we kind of have a moral obligation to the fellowship of all humankind and ‘fairness’ <whoever you would like to define that> for all.

Look. I fully understand as we bob around in the sea of survival <and self beliefs> we cannot have moral obligations to everyone around the world. It kind of seems to make more sense to understand we actually only truly have moral obligations against the people we come up against. The ones who metaphorically enter into our moral space. This suggests a concept of proximity or that proximity matter in morality. Well, yes and no.

First. The closest proximity is yourself – you can control your own actions and what you think, do and say.

Second proximity then would be the ones closest to us – physically or mentally.

horton hears a who speak out moralityThird proximity would actually be ‘the world.’ And what I mean by that is you have a choice to be vocal with regard to what you see as right or wrong. It’s kind of like the moral version of the butterfly affect. If enough voices are raised even Horton will hear the Whos in Whoville.

I say that because distance diminishes the affect your own moral obligation can have a real impact. But maybe what that proximity idea I just shared with you means is that we have some moral obligation to intersect, with ideas, and listen and discuss with those who our space interconnects with.

Here is what I know for sure.

We do not listen to each other enough these days. And we certainly do not discuss things with an eye toward commonalities anymore. Our differences seem incontrovertible and our civility has diminished to such a point we don’t even attempt to engage in discussion because of such certainty of lack of civility we do not even believe it is worth the attempt. That is a shame. And in Bruce terms … “it is bad.’ The lack of any attempt is, at Find your voice listen speak moralityits worst, ignoring a moral imperative for the greater good.

We would all do better if we recognized that ‘the ports have names for the seas’ … and they may be different names than the ones we have given the seas.

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Historical note about the Auden line I opened this piece up with … and a thought that sometimes mistakes can lead to a different way of looking at things and thinking about things … and … well … in the end — doing something different than you planned.

W.H. Auden describes somewhere how he had written a line, in a poem about Iceland.

and the poets have names for the sea

and the printer set it up in galley as …

and the ports have names for the sea.

Auden left it, liking the line better. A happy accident.

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Written by Bruce