====

“How many people long for that “past, simpler, and better world,” I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?”

R.A. Salvatore

====

This was going to be another rant, or criticism, of 50somethings. but, I watched a fabulous documentary on cartoonists and cartoon strips called “Stripped” which details the past, present & future of cartoons and it made me scrap my rant and begin over again.

The documentary made me think of 50somethings and how today’s “flux” found in the massive business transition taking place is affecting this generation gap unlike any other generation gap in memorable history <we can look back in time and see others but not any we have lived thru>.

I imagine while this may be about ‘letting go, holding on’ I think it is more just about recognizing the sense of ‘lostness’ that can be found in any flux.

Look.

Facing progress is one thing; facing massive cultural change is another. One permits someone to ease their way into the progress and, in some cases depending on what you do, you may even be able to ignore the progress and still maintain the life and work life you currently enjoy until you decide to stop working. On the other hand, massive cultural shift cannot be ignored. In addition the people within the shift are bombarded with an uncomfortable sense of ‘what is happening ?’ … because there is no well-defined horizon <the shift will define it in the end>.

Anyway. In the documentary some of the older more established <very popular> cartoonists just looked … well … lost. And, frankly, I think a lot of 50somethings are lost in the cultural flux created by the technology-driven/hand held technology driven Life.

This doesn’t mean that 50somethings don’t embrace the features <the smartphones, the tablets, the wi-fi> … it is just that they struggle to see or accept all the benefits.

Oh. It reminds me there is no “guide to being lost” manual you can pull off some shelf.

Regardless.

In this flux time many 50somethings want their cake and eat it too.

Want the new, but don’t want to lose the old.

Now. This ‘holding on’ aspect is truly a reflection of not only ‘it was always better when I was younger’ <and it is worse now than it was before>, but also an underlying desire to have something solid underfoot … like ‘the benefits of the way it was done before’.

Admittedly … this holding on aspect can take on some aggravating & ‘difficult to deal with’ aspects … like … they sometimes think they are living in the present <their perception> by implementing what is comfortable <the past> therefore their behavior is incredibly difficult to impact because their mind is telling them what they are doing is actually different than what they are actually doing.

Sound complicated?

You bet.

So complicated this attitude is next to impossible to change or impact.

And it gets complicated even further by the fact this 50something generation has made a lot of money doing it ‘their way’ <kind of proof for the method>. Regardless. For once I am actually defending the 50somethings. Not sympathy … just some understanding. This just isn’t a normal every day future, this is an uncharted future. One I which more of ‘the past’ is being shelved than we have seen for many generations.

===

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

L.P. Hartley

===

It is like going to a foreign country where they may use the same words but many of them have new meanings.

They may live in a culture which values different things.

And, well, say you have been drinking coffee all your life … and … they only drink tea.

That said.

So, when facing the difference, you may know you are in a different country … and you may want to respect the way they do things … and you may want some sympathy, or help, as you get lost … uhm … but … after a period of time you start reflecting on ‘how much better this foreign country would be if they would do it our/my way.’

That’s natural.

And inevitably, as time goes on, and you get farther away from what you were comfortable with and what you know, the more you feel … well … lost.

Now.

Where I don’t have sympathy or understanding is I do believe many 50somethings are lazy. Not in terms of working hard but rather they accept what they know at the moment as ‘what is’ and remain cynical of all that “is not.” And, worse, they believe their laziness is earned, earned from years of accumulating information and knowledge and money as well as earned because it was successful.

And then?

The 50somethings place a value on this ‘thing’ they feel they have earned over time as if it was some product that had been manufactured and was ready to be sold.

The problem?

It is almost like 50somethings have forgotten that if someone is paying you a $100 they should feel like they are getting something more than $100 worth. Maybe worse they think the past learning <even though a lot it is no longer relevant> has a higher value than it does. The product has become semi-obsolete.

And.

Uh oh.

Maybe the worst? It seems like they have forgotten that knowledge actually naturally diminishes without some constant nurturing <therefore the value is actually depreciating over time>.

When will 50somethings recognize that they really have earned little <okay … less than what they think> of real value to the emerging world unless they unlearn some aspects of what we know and reapply what we do know to encourage a better future.

Well. Let me go back to defending the 50somethings and their lostness.

Unlearning is tough <and unsettling and often scary>.

Massive flux is tough <and unsettling and often scary>. Many 50somethings are just lost. They know they have value but the current value looks an awful like ‘none to limited’ value as everything swirls around us. I would also point out that I do believe many 50somethings would gladly reapply what they know to make things better if someone could just show them the path or tell them where to go and what to do.

Uh.

‘Show them the path’ and ‘tell them what to do’ , attach that to my point on ‘believe they have earned’, and you have the formula for holding on tightly.

If unlearning is tough imagine how tough it is to give up control when you believe you have earned the privilege of controlling.

I was reminded the other day that I don’t often give 50somethings credit or the benefit of the doubt.

They may be right.

The documentary reminded me that ‘lost’ is an incredibly bad feeling and when felling it … well … it often doesn’t bring out the best in people.

Which makes me ask.

If we invested the energy to help the 50something generation feel less lost, would we all benefit from how they responded when they knew where to go next?

Nostalgia, or viewing the past as something better, is one issue, but ‘lostness’ is something completely different.

Maybe I have been looking at this wrong all along.

All I do know for sure is that I may give my 50something friends a little more benefit of the doubt.

Look.

If you even partially agree with me on his ‘lost’ thought … think of the numbers … think maybe 75% of 50somethings working in the cartoon business, television business, stock trading business, travel agent business, book business <libraries, publishing>, newspaper business, well, this could become a fairly long list … a shitload of 50somethings in a shitload of industries with a shitload of quality experience … is in a shitload of hurt.

They are, well, lost.

They know their craft well. And, yet, they don’t know the world their craft lives in anymore.

This is no excuse for the curmudgeons holding on tight to the past and the way things used to be done … it is simply an explanation for why so many of them are gripping the past with white knuckles.

—–

“True freedom is where an individual’s thoughts and actions are in alignment with that which is true, correct, and of honor – no matter the personal price.”

=

Bryant H. McGill

——-

This is about managing people, chaos <that is inherent with groups of people> and leadership.

I have written several times about my college job, quasi-security guy with a company called Contemporary Security Company <CSC>, and it made me think about another good business lesson I learned. I call it corralling chaos.

Maybe it is simply managing people.

Whoa.

Comparing chaos to managing people?

Yup.

Look. Unless you want to hire a bunch of clones or do some mind meld trick upon hiring someone, you are going to inevitably have a wide variety of specific skilled people, a mosaic of personalities and characters and, well, humans being human within your purview.

Anyway. I learned this very quickly as a youngster at CSC. And, by the way, I didn’t learn this because I was some brilliant leader or insightful organizational behavior person at the age of 18 … I learned it out of simple survival. Once I became a supervisor I definitely had a ‘Bruce team.’ A small group of guys who I always selected <or they selected me> to be surrounded by to manage and utilize.

In hindsight I was a little different than some of the other supervisors. I liked using the same guys even though the assignment was different. I liked tweaking each guy’s ‘comfort zone’ to show them how to adapt. I think I subconsciously recognized that it probably helped me out under a variety of assignments in that these guys … and these guys were wired differently … wouldn’t take a cookie cutter approach to how they handled things.

Not only did they see that things could be done differently <than maybe what their first instinct was> but also they became comfortable with some things out of their comfort zone.

The best example I have is two guys who were with me whenever possible.

They were book end personalities.

Lamont.

African American. Sharp & smart. Took life seriously. Scowled a lot. Maybe 6’ 1” and 280 pounds of hair triggered whirlwind of aggression. You only walked up to Lamont from behind very carefully. I vividly remember walking up behind him and tapping him on the shoulder … and he spun around with a semi graceful martial arts form <… c’mon, how graceful can a 280 pound guy be> … crouched and coiled to part my head from my shoulders.

I also vividly remember his eyes were laser-like and seemingly completely clear of anything but ‘destroy.’ Without relaxing … he said ‘little buddy … you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that’ and then he uncoiled.

Dave.

White suburban kid. Maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer. 6’ 2” and chiseled 220 pounds or so. Played defensive end at Orange Coast junior college. Easy going … smiled a lot. The first time I met him on the job I saw him wade into a drunken brawl of maybe 6 guys and singlehandedly blow it up with maybe only one punch thrown by him <which admittedly put that guy out of commission>.

These two guys became the bookends that held most of my teams together.

Lamont was like an assassin.

Dave was like a bull.

Lamont I restrained.

Dave I released.

Both could intimidate in their own way, but their instinct was always to act with power of action and not words.

My bosses struggled to understand why I always wanted them — no matter the assignment.

Lamont was often seen as uncontrollable <therefore they hesitated to want to put him in more ‘delicate diplomatic’ situations>.

Dave was often seen as ‘not too smart’ <therefore they hesitated to want to put him in situations where he may have to think on his feet>.

Beyond the fact I saw how these guys could be used effectively I probably more recognized that situations my bosses ‘foresaw’ within an assignment more often became unforeseen actions & consequences.

Security at some event with zillions of people wandering around <many drinking> all with an attitude that ‘hey … I paid to be here … so I can do pretty much whatever I want’ is inevitably one of much randomness.

Interestingly … that describes the business world fairly well <without the drinking>. Managing people isn’t really about plans & planning, or even having a plan, it is more often about how to deal with what happens when the plan breaks apart.

Look. Plans and planning and all the things under those headings <business plans, contingency plans, succession plans> are all good things … uhm … until they aren’t.

All the plans that once bring order, continuity, and control often become rigid obstacles to progress and adaptation.

Lamont, Dave … shit, whatever personality I was supervising, I found that most people are trying to do what they believe is in the best interest of the organization.

I also found the trouble was often they may not have the same point of view on what that is. And, yes, that leads to some version of chaos.

You can have two people conducting themselves with the best of intentions and trying to do the right thing.

Both options are valid.

Uh oh.

But the conclusions they reach end up in direct conflict with each other.  This creates confusion <with each other as well as those around them seeking cues on what to do>.

A lot of the supervisors around me did two things.

One.

Bitched & moaned about ‘the guys they managed’ and said ‘they just don’t get it.’

Two.

Picked people for their team that they could ‘control.’

Me?

I guess I decided to take responsibility for getting out of the chaos. I assumed from day one that it was me responsible for allowing chaos.

I also assumed I couldn’t control anyone — certainly not someone like Lamont or a number of other highly wired individuals I liked to have on my team — but I did assume I could point them in the right direction <with regard to attitudes & actions>. I picked guys for my teams who could get shit done. And get shit done within some principled behavior guidelines.

I kind of assumed my role was to ‘be still amidst the chaos and active in repose’ <Indira Ghandi>.

Be a compass as it were.

Look.

I certainly didn’t understand all the real thinking behind good management and leadership at that age.

What I do know now for sure – good leaders provide a compass.

A good leader helps others think through implications that can impact the broader team’s goals and objectives.

Once people have orienting values and principles, their ability to think and operate independently accelerates.

Good leaders hold people, themselves included, accountable to a set of values and principles. And leading is often measured by how you deal with the times which inevitably occur when the leader needs to confront a difficult decision that puts principles to the test.

Corralling chaos is all about getting comfortable with being slightly uncomfortable.

My guys recognized that always sticking to the plan without fail provided a false sense of security. They knew from experience that there needed to be some flexibility with “how” the “what” is implemented.

They embraced the purposeful discomfort and I rewarded the purposeful discomfort.

I left room for serendipity.

I left room for what is called “interaction with an unintended outcome” <Scott Doorley, Stanford>.

Some smart guy, Atul Gawande, states there will always be people who excel and thrive in complex and chaotic environments. People who “have a better capacity to prepare for the possibility, to limit the damage, and to sometimes even retrieve success from failure.”

Well. I agree with that and I don’t agree with that.

I agree that some people are better than others at the ability to quickly assess situations and take decisive action based on their experience and instinct.

I don’t agree that anyone and everyone can become better and hone this ability. In fact … part being a good leader is trying to figure out how to maximize this ability within employees <because it enhances autonomy which increases organizational efficiency>.

I have no clue if I am particularly strong with the ‘capacity to prepare for unintended consequences.’

What I do have a clue on is that no matter how strong I may be … I can’t prepare for everything and can’t solve everything and I can’t be everywhere at all times.

I liked having a variety of skilled people available … no matter how difficult they were to manage.

Why?

It increased the likelihood the team could handle any ‘unintended consequences’ as they arose.

CSC taught me a shitload.

It taught me very quickly that when supervisors complained that people are working against each other, that they are not aligned, that they don’t seem to ‘get it’ … that they are full of shit.

It taught me first & foremost that a supervisor needs to look in the mirror.

Anyway.

Is chaos a bad word to use when discussing people management?

Aw.

Probably.

But here is what I do know.

I would rather corral chaos than ‘light a fire under someone’s ass.’

Is that a management style?

Sure. I imagine so.

I imagine it is actually a management or leadership choice. And when I look in the mirror with regard to management style I am okay with what I see. And I thank my CSC job for helping me be okay with it.

—-

If interested, after you read this post, you can visit his past CSC ‘learnings’ posts:

—

<learning to say no>

https://brucemctague.com/big-fred

=

<practicing actually means more relaxed>

https://brucemctague.com/the-wall

=

<action has its time>

https://brucemctague.com/there-is-a-time-to-talk-and-a-time-to-act-part-1

=

<gaining perspective>

https://brucemctague.com/what-you-do-not-see-at-a-concert

—

Decisions are inherently windows of opportunity. Now. Decisions may actually feel like less of an opportunity to many people because the tricky part is windows of opportunity demand an emphasis on time, therefore, having the right information, being able to assess that information in a timely fashion, and knowing what to do with that assessment (make a decision), becomes really important. Yeah. Opportunity comes with some strings attached.

So, let’s get to that information thing because in today’s business world that is most likely ‘data.’

Data is most typically contextual to a certain situation. Don’t believe me? Change the context of the data you trust the most to make a decision and I would bet it changes the probabilities of conclusions. I suggest everyone do this just for chuckles mostly because it reminds everyone that knowledge (input) never stops and knowledge, in and of itself, changes environment which changes data which changes, well, decisions.

All of which leads me to my uncomfortable relationship with measurement, or, my personal Achilles heel.

Sure.

• Set meaningful objectives and metrics
• Create plans that deliver goals
• Show impact

But my discomfort resides in if everything is contextual, what value does measurement have? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get the “how do you know what works?” and “how do you know what to do next?” and I (flippantly) think “why do I care?”

I find the majority of people who seek “what worked” tend to like management by metrics. They tend to chase measured goals and seek to replicate them. They think if they remove a part with a bad metric that the whole will improve. I may have said this the best when I was writing about emergent strategies in agile strategic perspective with vision:

The past rarely teaches us how to manage the future <let alone predict it>. Strategists, and business, needs to resist the temptation to focus on indicators telling us how we have done. Wherever possible, identify operating metrics that are effective leading indicators of the kind of performance you are seeking to achieve. And focus on operating metrics that are specific to the desired position in the future even if these operating metrics are marginal to your current business performance.

Here’s the next thought that will make businesses sweat: forget about performance snapshots that focus on your performance at any specific point in time. Strategies of trajectory focus on acceleration – they’re about performance over time. Is your performance stable, increasing linearly or accelerating? If it’s not accelerating in an exponential world, something is wrong.  So, strategies of trajectory are relentlessly focused on patterns of movement over time. What exists in the present is important, but only to the extent that it provides resources to support you to be agile enough to get you where you want to go by enabling small moves, smartly made, to get big things in motion.

All that said, data, if you squint enough, offers you a variety of lessons on how to work with it. There is always a gap between the way you think something works and how it actually functions. Data will tell you the difference IF you pay attention to what it tells you. The gap becomes clearer when you actually embed yourself within the structure of the data, the patterns, and only then. You actually have to tinker with data to sensemake before you can choicemake which may seem counterintuitive to those who see data as ‘truth to be used to make A choice.’

“The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down plannings … focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves.”

Nassim Taleb, Black Swan

I am not a data guy but I am certainly a data decipherer. I am not sure you need to immerse yourself in the micro data (all the time), but I do believe you have to at least understand the underlying tables (data gathered) if only because this is the path to effective tinkering. We talk about trial & error and experimentation in business all the time – but rarely with data. But if you want someone to become data literate, I would argue don’t send them to some data school, but rather embed them in tinkering with data (and, yes, this will demand some education). Tinkering, in and of itself, is the enemy of accepting superficial dashboards. If I tinker and get three different dashboards instead of creating confusion, it should create curiosity. And curiosity is the most effective companion to data.

Now.

Before anyone panics that I am suggesting everyone become a data scientist, I am not. The reality is all this tinkering and observing I am talking about can happen with a fairly finite amount of data. Just as Brooks pointed out in The Mythical Man Month that “a certain small set of documents embodies and expresses much of the managerial work” this is also true of data. Not all data is created equal in a number of ways, but in decision making there will always be a set of data which serves as the basic ‘surveillance and warning mechanism.’ Effective decision making is actually a tinkering task using accumulated information and observing. I am not sure any business school will teach that but maybe they should.

===

“You’ll have to help yourself.”

Lemony Snicket

===

“It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine.”

Mark Z. Danielewski

======

“More than anything, to me, he was dad. And what a dad. He loved us with the passion and the devotion that encompassed his life. He taught us to believe in ourselves, to stand up for ourselves, to know ourselves and to accept responsibility for ourselves.

Justin Trudeau at his father’s funeral

=============

Personal responsibility is hard. Much much harder than conceptually it sounds like it should be.

I do not have any research today to show how people who have a strong sense of personal responsibility attained that character trait <although if you google it there are gobs of people with an opinion on it>.

For everyone who had great parents who taught them, I can give you a dozen examples of people with crappy parents who have a strong sense of personal responsibility.

For every victim mentality person, I can show different contextual situations that got them into that state of mind and, just as well, the path to a strong sense of personal responsibility is numerous and rarely a straight path.

But, even without research I will suggest a couple of things:

1. Personal acceptance.

To have personal responsibility you almost have to have a strong foundation of personal acceptance.

I imagine I could suggest that if it doesn’t than you are simply ‘posing’ in an attempt to look like you are responsible <and that rarely can stand the test of time>.

Regardless. Somehow, someway people with a strong sense of personal responsibility have developed a strong sense of self. Not necessarily confidence, just self. They recognize ‘they is what they is’ and accept the flaws <and try to improve in some way> and accept their strengths <but never take them for granted>.

In their personal acceptance we, around them, see ‘solid.’ We love these people on our business teams and friend teams, as peers or as leaders, because regardless of their IQ or leadership skills or professional skills they are lighthouse people in their own right.

These people can also be baffling to the perfectionists in the world because part of ‘personal acceptance’ is understanding, if not embracing, imperfections. Ponder.

2. Lucky to be here but many others are just as deserving.

Let me suggest that people with an incredibly strong sense of personal responsibility will also most likely be the people who suggest they had a little luck along the way – lucky in life situations, lucky with mentors, lucky in opportunities – and, even though they had worked hard with integrity, they had done nothing to actually deserve the luck.

As a corollary to this thinking, they would also believe, as part of the luck aspect, that there are many others just as deserving. This attitude creates a sense of responsibility for actions, behavior and attitudes. Mistakes are owned and successes are shared.

Some people may suggest that personal responsibility and accountability is a reflection of integrity or humility.

Well.

It may be.

But I rather believe it is more a sense of understanding that successes are more often than not a reflection of just hard work, but also circumstances. And, to that point, inherently someone with a strong sense of accountability balances success with the understanding that a portion of success is luck – luck of circumstance & luck of being the one where many were just as deserving if provided the opportunity. Ponder.

Like I said in the beginning. This is not based on research and you can toss this into your ‘Bruce bullshit bin’ if you want. But I do not need research to state that personal responsibility and personal acceptance takes work. Lots of work and lots of fortitude.

It is the kind of thing you spend your entire life working hard to not only ‘be’, but to live up to the character standard you have set for yourself. A standard which you will never measure others against because, well, it is personal. You are accountable to your own standard and responsible to meet it. And everyone not only has the ability to set their own, but they also have an unequivocal right to do so without anyone else telling them “how to be accountable.”

————

“It was instead something that we would have to spend the rest of our lives to work very hard to live up to.”

Spike Lee

————-

Personal responsibility is actually one of Life’s lightest burdens if you choose to accept it. That is why I am so often surprised by how many people actually do not accept this burden.

But, in the end, personal responsibility is a personal choice. No one can convince you to do it or be that way. You have to help yourself on this one because no one else can.

====

“Sometimes the solution is to rebuild your house. Sometimes, it’s to set your house on fire.”

====

“The future is not just about inventing disruptive technology; it is about reimagining human experiences.”

Mike Walsh

====

Business is infamous for doing the bare minimum to change and saying they have done something big. There are more Frankenstein businesses, business that have plugged in, bolted on and rewired things, than any other business shape in the universe. I get incredibly annoyed with business mostly because I do not know one business NOT interested in progress, innovation and improvement and yet they increasingly adopt things in the name of those things that, for all practical purposes, don’t really do shit to improve the model. I could argue that while intentions are good the attempts are almost all buried under ROI, measurement and some impractical ways of judging the isolated choice (but that’s a different piece for a different day). Sometimes we forget technology, or whatever ‘thing’ we are injecting into the business, is a means to an end & the end is more important than the means. And while I understand what I am discussing is “investment” and wasting investment is a big problem in the world we live in, it doesn’t mean we necessarily have to know what the goal is for every step we take. Sometimes we do things that are not directly connected and, yet, are still significant. Business, if we are honest, is a gambler’s game.

Which leads me to disruption.

Disruption, one of the most bastardized words & concepts today, occurs by rearranging the conventional status quo, in the box, in unconventional ways so people benefit. The truth is that constraints drive imagination to work toward the meaningful, not the meaningless. In my mind … things like the elements are innovations which I like to call ‘portals to discovery.” They are the incredibly small discoveries which enable huge discoveries.

I admit. I struggle to find big disruptive fires, more typically we find, well, a campfire has become a ‘fire’ and it is burning some shit down. All revolutions, disruptions, seem to accelerate out of a blob of mistrials, missteps, overlooked innovations poorly articulated up to that point or conventional which has been plodding along. Culture often eventually just embraces an idea. You always have an opportunity to disrupt the systems – the systems of society and culture. But you cannot disrupt a system while you contribute to it. you have to choose contributing or disrupting.”

Which leads me to rebuilding or setting fire.

Business is inevitably about people, not things. Which leads me to suggest business is about campfires. What I mean by that is if you look around your business you will see people gathering around campfires. Metaphorically this means some people gather around things for some reason – to listen to a story, to be with likeminded people, to do something that keeps them ‘warm.’ The reasons are many, not one.

The dynamics of an organization revolve around groups and individuals and campfires (or fires in general). The functions of these little campfires span, shared values, common assumptions, shared goals, permitting smaller group agendas to contribute to both individual interests and collective good. But fires are fires and while they can be fostered separately, if there is a spread in one place, we can expect to see it manifested elsewhere (sometimes in unexpected ways). We are all part of a group WITHIN the group in a system and any significant improvement cannot be solved in isolation. I would argue sincerely improving any business is playing with fire and you either set the fire or learn to rebuild from a fire made of its own making (which is usually a campfire within your system that has just grown out of control for a variety of reasons).

===

Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future.”

Peter Drucker in 1999

Which leads me to why burning shit down is a good thing.

My favorite example of burning shit down is Moscow and Napoleon. But the truth is most businesses see fire as dangerous, a failure in some way, and it is rarely fostered and more often squelched. Fires, in many cases, is simply a reflection of a failure in the system, but this type of failure is the system unable to handle an emergent opportunity, or innovation, or whatever is frying the system as it tries to rebuild and gain some momentum for this ‘new thing’ that doesn’t fit within the status quo. This type of failure should actually be viewed with joy by business people, not a failure. It is proof that uncertainty is our constant companion and friend and we can discard the illusion that some best practice, some process, some tried & true system, is what will sustain us in the future. embracing having shit burn down means, in some way, we are freed from the false expectations that if we were only smart enough, had some specific experience, knew some management ‘myth’, we would have been able to build something fireproof. That’s silly. You either embrace shit being burned down or you will get burned. To be clear. This does not mean a lack of direction just that we should learn to respect uncertainty and randomness and some of the gambler’s game that always exists in business and that fire can actually clear the way. This isn’t disruption. This isn’t any nonsensical word. It is simply, well, reimagining human experiences as Mike Walsh noted upfront. Like gathering around campfires and such. Ponder.

============

“It was the in-between time, before day leaves and night comes, a time I’ve never been partial to because of the sadness that lingers in the space between going and coming.”

Sue Monk Kidd

—— 

“Ambiguity of language is philosophy’s main source of problems.

That is why it is of the utmost importance to examine attentively the very words we use.”  

Giuseppe Peano

=============

Fear of being misunderstood. If you type that into google you get about 159,000,000 results in 0.42 seconds and only one, yes, one result is about the version I am talking about. The version today is not being misunderstood as a person, but, literally, not being understood when speaking or communicating something. That said. I did find the term ambiguphobia which is applied to the pathological fear of being misunderstood. It has the same word root as “ambiguous.”

Ambiguity.

If you elect to believe the world is often ambiguous, complex not simple, that cause & effect (98% of the time) is nonexistent, and truth is more often conditional not absolute, you are doomed to have a fear of being misunderstood. This fear may be constant or intermittent or maybe even like a flux capacitor, but it exists in some form or fashion.

I thought about this after listening to a Jason Fox podcast where he kind of flippantly mentioned he had a fear of being misunderstood and read a piece he linked to at Ribbon Farm “The Tragicomic Exasperations of Expertise.”

Here is what I believe.

If you elect to believe the world is complex and simplicity is elusive, you spend a lot of time in the wretched hollow between:

Certainty versus uncertainty

Absolute truths versus contingent truths

Pragmatism versus dreams

Short term versus long term

Safety versus risk

Old beliefs versus new understandings

Fixed versus unfixed

Fluid versus solid

If you reside in the complex universe, you will find your cozy cottage resides in this windswept, stormy grassy hollow. And I would suggest you also spend a lot of time in the kitchen of the cottage mixing ingredients seeking the perfect potion to make the complex understood. I would also suggest this is the wretched hollow – continual experimentation of ingredients.

“<things> get better when exposed to external stressors and change.”

Dr. Jason Fox

That said. If you elect to believe the world is complex, let me suggest two thoughts for you to ponder about this wretched hollow in terms of ‘fear of being misunderstood’:

Wretched hollow version 1: where ideas go to die

If you have decided to reside in the complex universe, suffice it to say you have decided to be in the thinking & ideas business. While your skillset may have some aspects of ‘doing’ and results, you have put a stake in the ground that progress is dependent upon people thinking about shit and in that thinking will better navigate a way toward success.

In other words you have inextricably linked thinking to progress. This is important because in this version of the wretched hollow this is where ideas go to die if you are misunderstood.

In other words. You are in the thinking and ideas business (a version of the ‘Progress Business’) and if you are not understood your thinking and ideas die. Uhm. No more business and certainly no progress (or at least your version of it).

This is a pragmatic fear of being misunderstood. The product you want to sell, not being understood, is not bought.

I will note here this is where I believe business people, experience, has an advantage over academics & thought leaders. In business if you cannot make uncertainty certain enough or the invisible esoteric thinking visible enough, you die. You become a superfluous thinker who doesn’t know how to get things done or, in general, no one knows what to do with what you say & think. You are simply mental masturbation.

Wretched hollow version 2: where ‘self’ goes to die

Doubt, Imposter Syndrome, confidence, even arrogance wander in this wretched hollow. Fear of being misunderstood haunts not just your ideas and thinking, but you. This is the world you have elected to be in. Others have chosen detail, you have chosen definitions.

By choosing the path of definitions, versus details, you have, psychologically, purposefully placed yourself in a constant tug of war between all of the things I just stated. Your only real contribution to the tug of war is to continuously eat up more and more knowledge in the attempt to put more weight on the positive side of the tug of war. Unfortunately, knowledge weighs less, proportionately, than doubt/uncertainty, or even ignorance, so even as you become more smart, wiser, & better at articulating the Sumo wrestler sized doubts (the actual fear of being misunderstood) never lose any weight and keep tugging.

My point here is that electing to reside in the complex universe and making your business the business of thinking & ideas is a non-stop, never-ending tug of war. So. You are in the game or you are not. And if you are worth half a shit you will find that you never lose the tug of war, the other side just tugs a little harder on occasion. But. And this is a big but. The moment you stop pulling the fear of being misunderstood changes to death of the universe you have elected to live in and even the business you have elected to be in. I know that sounds harsh, but ‘self’ has some pretty dark places and if you give up the rope it is really really hard to not only climb back out of the darkness, but also get a new strong grip on the rope in the tug of war. Just ponder because even if you do not agree with me in totality on this point even at a lesser degree it has repercussions to fear of being misunderstood.

Let me end this version of wretched hollow by pointing out that if you have elected to make thinking & ideas your business, and you struggle to make people understand your thinking & ideas, you will inevitably start questioning the value & meaning you provide. Period. Full stop.

“Aiming at brevity, I become obscure.”

Horace

Lastly.

Mixing the formula.

That’s the deal, isn’t it? Finding the right amount of certainty, tangible understanding, to freedom (uncertainty) ratio? It’s the proportionate amount of traction points (I call them lily pads of certainty) to provide structure to hold up the uncertain, freedom and adaptability of thinking, in people’s minds (leading to them actually doing something). I say that because that’s where the fear of being misunderstood centers itself – will I mix the right formula this time?

This is where Life gets tricky.

All people inherently need some successes or, well, you go into some pretty dark places. So your natural instincts arc toward ‘being understood.’ That means offering up simplicity, maybe some tasty soundbites and, often, some fairly vapid generalizations attempting to tap into some common perceptions. That means you incrementally shave away at complexity which, inherently, shaves away truths and impact/effectiveness <you have slipped down the slippery slope of the bastardization of occam>. That means, while you have elected to reside in the universe of complexity, you are selling out the value of that universe (I would argue that diminishes self but that’s not my point today).

I will say (part 1) the people in this space with the most success not only constantly gain knowledge, but use it in a ‘play, pause, rewind, fast forward’ way. What I mean by that is the formula cannot be rushed and neither can complexity understanding be completed in a formulaic way. In other words it not only takes an ability to assemble the right fragments, but do so with pacing to engage cognitively.

“Be still amidst the chaos and active in repose.”

Indira Ghandi

I will say (part 2) that the tricksters, and ignorant, who casually ease round simplistic pegs into uneven hexagon complex holes exponentially outnumber the experts. And you know what? People, in general, like round pegs.  Smooth, simple and easy to grasp. This does not mean people are stupid just that tricksters are masters of the illusion, and delusion, of progress and the doyens of detail. In general, they thrive on detail cloaked in fortune cookie wisdom. It’s simplistic, not simple, and its horrible for us, society and business.

And maybe that is where I should end. The fear of being misunderstood is really about knowing, in your heart of hearts, you have chosen the rockier path as two roads diverge and, well:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Fear of being misunderstood is all about fear of choices – have I made the right one, or ones, and in doing so have I made myself clear of why the roads are what the roads are and why as they diverge we should walk on this one today.

Fear of being misunderstood is all about making the choice to making the complex understood.

Fear of being misunderstood is all about the choice that progress is actually made through the complex rather than simplicity.

Fear of being misunderstood is all about fear people do not understand the choice you made.

Regardless. There is a positive side.

Progress is not a linear process. Mastering complexity or at least wrangling complexity insures not only progress, but antifragile progress and progress with value. I will never suggest fear is a good thing, but I will say that when you get it right, when you share the thinking and ideas and it is understood, and your fear of being misunderstood is absolved for at least that moment – it is a great feeling. And it’s a great feeling not because you have been understood, but rather because by being understood energy has been created, or traction provided, for progress to occur. Ponder.

With all the noise and headlines about “the new normal” or “there is no going back to the normal I would remind everyone that Normalcy is functional. That doesn’t sound flashy nor does it sound defendable or even worthy of defending. In fact. It almost sounds like we should be hungrily scanning about for some ‘new normal.’

That said. “Normal” may not be greatly functional nor does it means there isn’t any dysfunctionality but, in general, it is a mix of good and bad and average in which the majority of people accept it as just part of what Life is supposed to be like. In other words. Everything just seems like it is in its place. So. For the most part most people do not see any reason to raise their voices complaining nor do they sing out loud praises. It is what it is and, well, silence about it seems the order of the day.

That’s why when someone starts yelling about shit most of us just find it annoying, and ignore it. And that’s why when the everyday normal gets shaken like an etch-a-sketch we not only find it annoying but uncomfortable.

Note: To be clear. Normal can mask a shitload of issues – good & bad. Inequality, the net positives of globalization & the negatives. The net positives of regulations & the negative of overregulation. The maddening underbelly of individual responsibility (the narrative that if everyone works hard they will be successful).

Regardless. This is where normal enters into a danger zone and its good aspects get threatened. The shouting veers into the conspiracies, the fringe and the wacky almost suggesting the normal is the abnormal and the abnormal should be considered normal. All of a sudden, in its silence, normal becomes complicit to the abnormal and, worse, normal becomes the “them” in an us-versus-them narrative.

Look.

I know a shitload of people will suggest that ‘normal’ is defined by the individual and how they view life but, in general, at one end of the  ‘how to live your life’ spectrum is wacko eccentric person and the other end is bland milquetoast-boring-to-tears person.

Most of us reside somewhere in the middle of all that.

I tend to believe the problem is in how we most often have this discussion. When we talk about living a ‘normal’ life it almost seems destined for some boredom or stagnancy or even “rut-like features” and certainly when you decide to sit back with some self-reflection, uhm …, it will most likely be generously dipped in some disappointment. On the other hand, it seems like choosing to live an ‘anything but normal’ life it almost seems destined for some sanity challenges and certainly some self-reflection generously dipped in some discouragement.

Yikes. So your choice is either disappointment, or discouragement, all wrapped up in a feeling of some injustice occurring.

Yeah. All of a sudden normal is painted in a broad brush of injustice. And it is within that ‘injustice’ in which normal’s silence is damned because the angry, the ones who see conspiracies somewhere (in the cracks of normal) which create their sense of injustice – are loud. They shout. They can be rough around the edges supported by some slick few who egg them on. And they are not silent.

The unsilent slip into the cracks of good normal and pry open some of the bad normal and take advantage. They use slivers of truth (injustice), tack on a fact or two and all of a sudden they hold up a new new normal for people to consider. And, if you are not paying attention (or if normal remains silent), all of a sudden the lone loud voice is deemed worthy of consideration.

This is not only crazy, it dangerous.

Yeah. Sometimes the shit you do may be out of the mainstream, but 99% of the time it is not unacceptable to everyone. It is just is not the normal everyday 100% of the time shit people see or hear.

Whether you like it or not … suggesting ‘normal’ is completely self-defined is … well … stupid.

Yes. You should have your own way of seeing the world and the life you’re living.

Yes. You should feel it is normal <as long as it is not a ‘statement’ but rather a natural extension of your ‘self’>.

Yes. You should accept the idea that other people may feel differently about your version of normal.

All that said here is where I think normal and abnormal go into conflict.

Yes. You should understand that normal is actually defined by some standard operating procedures of the people, society & culture as a whole.

And, no, I am not suggesting some of the wacky crap society thrusts upon an individual <society tells me how I should be stuff>, but rather the fact cultures, civilizations in a broader perspective, define some accepted rules of behavior – some “what I should do” stuff.

Let’s call them ‘core life action basics.’ These are some normal principles which everyone should do and think in a normal day and a normal life.

Here is what I believe.

The good news for people who balk at ‘normal.’ The great thing about culture is it tends to give an individual a lot of room to expand upon these things. You can go about your life wearing whatever clothes you want and saying a bunch of different words as personal expression beyond the core. I call that ‘window dressing stuff.’ In other words, I can dress up my core ‘normality crap’ in pretty much anything I want and express it with almost any words I want.

The trouble occurs mostly around the fact that some individuals infringe upon the core, change the core and sometimes do things which do not meet what most people would accept as accepted normal behavior.

Here is not just a Life truth, but a civilization truth: a culture cannot permit that ‘abnormal normal’ to become normalized simply because they are shouting about some claimed injustice. While we often suggest it takes courage to express yourself in some ‘not-so-normal’ ways it actually takes even more courage to defend core normality. In other words. Sometimes normal demands NOT being silent.

When it comes to this topic the bravest people in the world are not the ones who stand out through self-expression of self-identity, even if that identity is ‘not the normal’, but rather the people who unflinchingly defend normal core beliefs, principles & behaviors and unflinchingly express these ‘normal’ ideas.

I imagine the problem is that those people are not interesting enough to make splashy headlines nor are they boring enough to be masticated for being milquetoast. And, yet, they were the bravest of us all. They chose to be normal & defend the good found within normal and fought relentlessly for both.

In the end.

Normalcy is silent at the moment. Why should it speak? It is what it is. Yet. In a world in which many of the advocates for abnormal, the fringe, the conspiracies, the “new normal”, are shouting at the top of their lungs, can normal remain silent? Can normal AFFORD to be silent? I do not believe it can.

Yes. Some things do need to be fixed. Yes. Some things need to be designed better (how we work, how society interacts, how globalization works, etc). But to suggest that ‘normal’ is bad in & of itself is wrong. Normal offers, well, sanity, some consistency, threads of functionality. Maybe we just need to be optimizing normal and not seeking some ‘new normal.’

Anyway.

We need not always shout, but, normal needs to defend itself. It is time for normal to start fighting back. It is time for normal to not be silent.

====================

Author’s note:

My pinned tweet, almost from day one I returned to twitter in 2016, is “In this time, at this place, I will be defined”.

At that moment I felt like we were at a ‘tide in the affairs of men’ and being silent was not an option. My view has not changed at all; however, my attention has been drawn toward, well, normalcy. While I believe Trump is malignant to democracy, freedom and being enlightened (he espouses ignorance) his greater malignancy is toward normal. He seems to thrive on suggesting normal, everything that exists within it presently, is bad and ‘normal’ should be defined through isolationism and a 1950’s lens. Tack on a pandemic in which “how one normally lives & works a normal day” has been unbundled and Normal’s narrative has been jumbled. I say all that because maybe “I will be defined” by how I best define what is a good normal and what we should be doing to fix the bad normal.

Ponder that.

=====

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.

Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

I was so preposterously serious in those days.

Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling… “

Aldous Huxley

=====

Life truths.

Hard and lightly.

Haste with patience.

Forward diagonally.

Happy and sad.

Success and failure.

Right and wrong.

Thinking and doing.

Dreams and hard work.

Whew. This means that the truly great things in Life may be a coin you can put in your pocket — a coin made up of two sides and two faces.

Yeah. Life is usually a combination of opposites fighting a tug of war moment to moment. I bet no one told you that when you were growing up.

Far too often we are told the secret to life is one thing.

Far too often someone is not telling is the truth <or maybe they don’t really know the secret to life?>.

Th truth is Life <and business also> is a wonderful, maddening blob of inconsistency.

The only way to survive , and not be totally boring, inept or a hermit, is to steal a little of something from both sides and do your best to proportion it all out in the end.

Proportional?

I need some sadness to recognize true joy <only I certainly don’t want to dwell on sadness nor walk around as Happy the Clown every minute of the day>.

I want a leader who is energetic and demanding and cajoling, pushing, shoving, pulling, inspiring people toward a horizon < but I want the moments of idle strength and compassion intertwined>.

I want to work hard … so hard the muscles, brain and/or physical, are strained and hurt … and get to maybe get a glimpse of one of my dreams on occasion <so I can dream a little when not working hard>.

I want people to play hard and play to win <in any endeavor> … but do so with grace in victory & loss, with sportsmanship & fairness and respect for the game.

I want, well, it doesn’t matter what I want. Pick your ‘hard-lightly’ Life combination. I guarantee you will find the most interesting people, most interesting experiences, most interesting moments, most interesting anythings are a reflection of this ying-yang combination. Life is meant to be lived, and experienced, hard & lightly.

Now. By the way.

Just because Life is meant to be lived this way doesn’t mean it is easy to actually live it that way. Living hard, or living lightly, is not only addictive, but also often generates a sense of ‘lostness’ when shelved for a bit.

Why lostness?

Well. It is mostly fear that we will not refind or regain it therefore we hesitate to ever let it go from the way we currently live our Life.

So what do we do? We ‘take a break.’

We ‘get away from it all.’ In other words instead of seeking some ‘how we actually live’ balance in our lives we just step away from the way we live our Life by simply not going lightly <if we typically go hard> or not going go hard <if we typically go lightly> and we don’t do anything other than how we live our Life so, ultimately, we just choose to do nothing to ‘recharge.’

I would suggest that you don’t need to ‘take a break’ to recharge, but rather if you seek the proportional ‘yang’ to your ‘ying’, well, you will find additional purpose as well as your ‘ying’ takes on an entirely new image n your eyes & mind.

• *** note: proportional versus balance: I purposefully use proportional rather than balance because on an individual, person to person, basis it is rarely a 50/50 split – even over time. everyone customizes their life between hard & lightly as is appropriate to their personality, ambition and life desires. once again, this is rarely 50/50 and everyone should just seek what their optimal proportional mix is.

Regardless, just approaching Life one way means you miss out on what is most interesting in life – going hard & lightly.

Aw shit. Look. All I really know if that if you can figure out how to go hard and tread lightly at the same time, you will most likely be successful in business & in Life. You will most likely be appreciated, respected, sometimes liked and certainly not hated. I know … I know … the ‘tread lightly’ part is really really hard if you like to live Life going hard.

But.

As I just told someone go hard for the things you want and dreams you seek to reach toward and if you continue to do these things for you, knowing that your moral compass is set correctly and that your instincts with regard to ‘what is right’ versus ‘what is wrong’ are good, you will be happier and the people around you will rarely be disappointed.

Ponder.

—-

==

“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go.

Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”

Terry Pratchett

————–

Well. I have written about how difficult it is for people, in business & Life, to let go of things so much I am not sure I can find any new words to share on that topic.

In fact if you google “reasons to not let go” you get nothing. Nada. You get jack shit on the topic.

All you get is page after page of ‘reasons to let go.’

And, yet, there are certainly times to know when to not let go.

To be clear, a purposeful ‘not let go’ is a different difficulty for us. While not letting go is something that is mostly based on some version of fear or doubt, knowing when to not let go of something seems to be more about our difficulty in discerning what is important, or good, and what is unimportant, or bad.

In fact. I think part of the ‘not letting go’ difficulty resides in how we learned to hold on in childhood <the balloon thing>.

We learn very early on that when you let go of something good it floats away never to be seen again. So we have learned to hold on a tightly as possible to anything that could be construed as good <note: even if it is really a crappy balloon>.

We have become so good at it we are almost proud of not letting go. Therefore the problem isn’t our ability to actually hold on … it is choosing what to really not let go of.

Not letting go is a complex decision compounded by the fact we are complex people.

Why does the complexity matter? Because there is no formula. No ‘rules of not letting go.’

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Some things are obvious. The self stuff, the character stuff, the ‘who you are as a person’ stuff you don’t let go of. They are good balloons. But if you are not careful, after a while, you have so many balloons you can’t discern the good ones from the bad ones. Which leads me to suggest I sometimes believe the ‘what not to let go’ choice is an acquired intuition thing.

Yup. I just typed acquired and intuition side by side.

I like to remind people that you are not borne with good intuition. You may be borne with a good intuition muscle, but experience strengthens the muscle and it takes some time & experience to ‘acquire’ the intuition necessary to ‘not let go’ of the right things.

Regardless. I suggest intuition because unless one of the balloons has lost all its air and has sunk to the ground you are choosing amongst a shitload of balloons that maybe all look pretty good to you.

This may sound crazy because balloons float above you and should seem obvious at all times, but the connections to many of the balloons in your life are actually like links of a chain underwater.

==

“The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition.

Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flushes, or short-circuits of reasoning. In fact they may be likened to an immersed chain, of which only the beginning and the end are visible above the surface of consciousness.

The diver vanishes at one end of the chain and comes up at the other end, guided by invisible links.”

Arthur Koestler

==

You see the balloons. Okay. You see some of them.

But the strings get all tangled up and you cannot tell which string to let go of <because you are not sure which balloon will go away> and which one to hold on to. Some of the choices you make as you look at the strings are intuitive. And given some time and experience I imagine the string feels a little different in your hand as you pluck it out from all the others. That is this version of intuition.

So. One of the things I admire most in people is consistent great intuition and how they manage what to not let go of.

It is an interesting characteristic to assess when you meet people and is fairly easy because you can just look up and see the balloons they carry with them.

So, in the end, maybe the balloon metaphor is bad, or maybe I simply overused it, but suffice it to say that while there is a lot of free advice on ‘letting go’, there isn’t a whole shitload of advice on ‘what to not let go of.’

I think it is obvious that there are certainly some ‘be yourself’ characteristics that you should never let go of <although figuring out what to not let go of as you try and improve yourself is not easy either>.
What is less obvious is the other stuff in your life. Experiences, knowledge, even people.

I don’t have any answers today. Just questions. And maybe some prompting that this is something we should think about a little more.

Most letting go advice online is vapid and a waste of time <albeit with good intent>.

I don’t have any advice for ‘not let go’ other than think about it. We all learn to hold on to balloons because they represent freedom and hope and good things waiting above us. Paradoxically, despite the fact it may appear like they should be let free so we can benefit from them, it is actually those that should be the things we hold on to and not let go of. Ponder.

=================

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.”

Vincent van Gogh

===============

mener une vie normale <French>

to lead a normal life

================

Benjamin Franklin:

“Human happiness comes not from infrequent pieces of good fortune, but from the small improvements to daily life.”

===============

“When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.”

Sigmund Freud

===========

Well.

Let’s just say “normal” gets a really bad rap. It constantly has to fight off “boring” and “same as” and “routine” and … well … let’s just say a shitload of ‘not-so-positive’ sounding words.

I mean, c’mon, is normal really that frickin’ bad?

And what hell is ‘normal’, as in a normal life, anyway?

Anyway. I imagine, as with most things in Life, normal is about balance or ‘proportional’.

Yeah, yeah, yeah … I know a shitload of people will suggest that ‘normal’ is defined by the individual and how they view life but, in general, at one end of the  ‘how to live your life’ spectrum is wacko eccentric person and the other end is bland-milquetoast-boring-to-tears person.

Most of us reside somewhere in the middle of all that. As a corollary to that thought, and tying it to proportional. I would say most of us have individual aspects which reside very very close to both ends of the spectrum WITHIN every day and all we do. In other words, we do thousands of things on a daily basis and some are purposefully bland and some are delightfully spontaneously absurd. Its that mixture which makes us who we are.

Anyway. I tend to believe the problem is in how we most often have this discussion.

When we talk about living a ‘normal’ life it almost seems destined for some boredom and certainly when you decide to sit back with some self-reflection, uhm …, it will most likely be generously dipped in some disappointment. Then, on the other hand, it seems like a choice to live an ‘anything but normal’ life it almost seems destined for some sanity challenges and certainly some self-reflection generously dipped in some discouragement.

Yikes. So your choice is either disappointment or discouragement.

Look. None of us really want to be normal all the time. We want to spice it up a little and maybe do something not so normal for us <albeit, it could be fairly tame, or absurdly reckless, in other people’s eyes>. It is that little choice to ‘step away from what we normally do and think’ that kind of gets us in trouble.

Why? Because most times we ‘step away’ by ‘being spontaneous.’

<note: spontaneous has a dubious relationship with ‘something different than the normal’>

Whew. Truth be told spontaneity sounds awesome <in concept>, but more often than not disappointing. Not many people point this out but spontaneity actually sucks because anything “abnormal” or “not normal” is a great concept, but has a nasty habit of creating more problems than it is worth.

Truth be told routines <which is a characteristic of ‘normal life’> do a shitload to help establish our day-to-day ‘normal’ with a nice side benefit that it encourages us to believe we do have some self-discipline  <because the alternative is that we start thinking we live a completely chaotic undisciplined life>.

Yeah. a lot of these routines look really minor and really mundane if you sit down and think them through.

My advice? Don’t. Don’t think them through. Just let them occur as naturally as breathing because these stupid little things tend to create a larger sense of rhythm or normalcy in your life. And, yeah, even eccentric nutjobs incorporate some ‘normal’ routines in their daily Life.

But here is where proportionality enters the discussion because we want both <although in today’s world it seems like there is no in between>.

It may seem weird, but I tend to believe no one’s sole ambition in Life is to be viewed solely as ‘normal.’ And, yet, we can live a pretty frickin’ good Life ‘normally.’ In fact. Our normal most likely incorporates some fairly ‘abnormal’, or let’s call them ‘unique features’, aspects. Most of us actually incorporate some unique shit into our lives which are simply reflections of our personality uniqueness. But because they are extensions of who we are we overlook them as being ‘normal.’

Let’s face it.

Normal has a shitty reputation.

And it should not.

============

“I don’t really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more.

I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits.”

Anaïs Nin

===========

This isn’t about ‘fitting in’ or some rigid code of conduct or even seeking approval in what you do. This is about doing shit that makes you happy assuming ‘happy’ means you haven’t been:

<a> laughed at as a fool – just laughed at for having fun,

<b> stared at as if you belong in some loony bin – just stared at because they know you are enjoying yourself , or

<c> doing something insanely stupid just to gain some attention.

Yeah. Sometimes the shit you do may be out of the mainstream, but 99% of the time it is not unacceptable to everyone. It is just is not the normal everyday 100% of the time shit people see or hear.

Whether you like it or not, suggesting ‘normal’ is completely self defined is … well … stupid.

Yes. You should have your own way of seeing the world and the life you’re living.

Yes. You should feel it is normal <as long as it is not a ‘statement’ but rather an natural extension of your ‘self’>.

Yes. You should accept the idea that other people may feel differently about your version of normal.

All that said here is where I think normal and abnormal go into conflict.

Yes. You should understand that normal is actually defined by some standard operating procedures of the people, society & culture as a whole.

And, no, I am not suggesting some of the wacky crap society thrusts upon an individual <society tells me how I should be stuff> but rather the fact cultures, civilizations in a broader perspective, define some accepted rules of behavior – some “what I should do” stuff.

Let’s call them ‘core life action basics.’ These are some normal things which everyone should do and think in a normal day and a normal life.

Here is the good news for people who balk at ‘normal.’

The great thing about culture is it tends to give an individual a lot of room to expand upon these things. You can go about your life wearing whatever clothes you want and saying a bunch of different words as personal expression beyond the core. I call that ‘window dressing stuff.’ In other words I can dress up my core ‘normality crap’ in pretty much anything I want and express it with almost any words I want. The trouble mostly revolves around the fact that some individuals infringe upon the core, change the core and sometimes do things which do not meet what most people would accepts as accepted normal behavior.

Here is not just a Life truth but a civilization truth: a culture cannot permit that ‘abnormal normal’ to become normalized. While we often suggest it takes courage to express yourself in some ‘not-so-normal’ ways it actually takes even more courage to defend core normality.

=========

“My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.”

Practical Magic

============

Anyway. When it comes to this topic the bravest people in the world are not the ones who stand out through self-expression of self-identity, even if that identity is ‘not the normal’, but rather the people who unflinchingly defend normal core beliefs & behaviors and unflinchingly express it in whatever personal identity way they want.

Far too often we slot people on one side or the other where, in truth, we should be also slotting people into that third more significant very broad <or it should be broad> slot.

I imagine the problem with that is that those people are not interesting enough to make splashy headlines nor are they boring enough to be masticated for being milquetoast. And, yet, they were the bravest of us all. They chose to be normal & not-so-normal and fought relentlessly for both. Normal may be a paved road, but it still can be a really interesting road.

Ponder. Ponder being normal and celebrating it.

==================

just-shower-thoughts:

On my headstone, I think I want, “No one deserved death more.” That way, people will research my life and find nothing interesting, then actually think that for wasting their time.

—