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

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end.  Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”

Paulo Coelho

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

“When you start to suck, stop.”

Kristen Hersh

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

So. This is mostly about business <although, I imagine, some aspects bleed into Life>.

In business we create false endings all the time. And I mean ALL the time. Milestones, quarterly objectives, standards, etc. We do this not just because people have a tendency to work better aiming at something but also because we suck at knowing when something has naturally reached its end.

Now. I have written about stopping, or closing down, when you start sucking and how difficult that is.

Back in 2012 I said “sucking is like quicksand.  The harder you work to stop sucking the further you get sucked down into suckedness.”   A fun idea to write about, but that is different than recognizing an ‘end.’ That is simply not recognizing you have given all you can and it is all downhill from there <diminishing returns>. I have written about ‘periods’, the stop punctuation, and the art of knowing when to stop. A fun idea to write about but that is different than recognizing an ‘end’ … that is simply about not recognizing when you should shut up.

This post is about knowing, and I mean really knowing. when something has reached its end. Knowing that it is time to close, close up … and move on.

Uhm. This is hard. Really hard.

And, speaking for myself and how I think philosophically, I know I make it even harder. I once wrote about running through the end of project, I called it “riding to the buzzer.” Riding through things you are working on makes it a little more difficult to recognize whether you ran through a milestone or through its natural end. I say that because here is where a natural end truly becomes sneaky. 99% of the time it doesn’t appear as some brick wall or solid stop.

Sure. ‘The end’ most likely does have a stop sign around if you pay attention. More often than not any sign there is, is most likely covered up by some overgrown bushes which have never been trimmed. It seems a little strange because one would think we business people would be better at seeing ends and when to close up on something and move on. I mean, what the hell, business is strewn with milestones, objectives, deadlines and a slew of ‘people created’ ending points. Yet, most business people suck at the really important ability to know when something has reached its end.

We are not particularly good at it with regard to a company <uhm … companies actually do have life spans>.

We are not particularly good at it with regard to employee initiatives <once in place we have a nasty habit of thinking it should be an ongoing ‘organizational culture tool’ which enables consistent behavior>.

We are not particularly good at it with regard to existing products & services <what happens when there is actually something better to be offered?>.

We are not particularly good at it with regard to sales objectives <what happens when our stated audience is … uh oh … sated?>.

In fact. What we are particularly good at is getting whatever it is that we want done into a “doing” mode and then developing a whole slew of ways to nudge it down the road. I imagine if I stick with that metaphor I could suggest we suck at not seeing any stop signs because we are too focused on nudging and tweaking the engine and replacing shoes so people can keep walking down that road. But ‘being over’?

Whew. We hold on way beyond the sell date. Everyone does <me included>. It is natural.

=========== 

Letting go. Everyone talks about it like it’s the easiest thing. Unfurl your fingers one by one until your hand is open. But my hand has been clenched into a fist for three years now; it’s frozen shut.

All of me is frozen shut. And about to shut down completely.

Gayle Forman 

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

It is natural because of the dreaded “what’s next?”

Yeah. In order to acknowledge an end, to close up shop and move on, you have to know what’s next. And not only that … you kind of have to already have a plan in place or at least a road to bus everyone over to where they can get off and start walking. Maybe that is where we business folk suck the most. It’s not that we don’t know when to stop we just don’t know how to start again. Start anew.

About the only time we are actually good at it is within a ‘forced end.’ As in … we have no choice.

As I typed that I thought about, well, a different kind of business — the business of having a band and the arrival of the Foo Fighters after the death of Kurt Cobain:

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

“There were people that really resented me for starting this band. ‘How dare you start another band?’   They asked me ‘Why did you decide to carry on and make music that sounds like Nirvana?’ and I said well, wait a minute – like, loud rock guitars, and melodies, and cymbals crashing and big-ass drums?

‘Cause that’s what I do. What do you want me to do? Make a reggae record?”

Dave Grohl

<Foo Fighters>

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

When viewing the music industry and bands and individual artist you can find a lot of examples of forced ‘doing what needs to be done and moving on’ as well as ‘well, it is time to move on’ type endings <we business people should think about that a little>. When forced, talented business people do what needs to be done.

Unfortunately most of business doesn’t really create this kind of ‘forced decision.’ Most times we simply try and squeeze whatever we can out of whatever we have. And we squeeze until there is nothing left <way beyond the ‘end’>.

Ok. What to do. This is solvable and relatively easy in the scheme of things.

It is a version of ‘planned obsoletion’ <which I have always been a HUGE fan of in business>, but your senior management team needs to sit down on occasion and not do ‘blue sky thinking’, but hunker down like a military plan of action and say “we won this ground and what ground do we attack next.” This includes an attitude which says we will aggressively pursue that plan <so it is not just a plan but a plan of action>.

Far too often we look at the ground we have won and seek to consolidate it and, well, consolidate it. Squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. And, on occasion, we fool ourselves into thinking we are truly exploring ‘what’s next’ by saying ‘let’s take that hill just outside of the area we currently occupy.’ We make it sound like some massive effort that will refresh us. Instead we are investing significant resources on a less than significant objective. I am certainly not suggesting that incrementalism does not have a role in business strategy but rather we far too often use incrementalism to ignore the stop sign we just walked past. I am not a big SWOT analysis guy nor am I a big ‘white space’ business guy. I am more a pragmatic “this is who I am and this is what I am good at and I don’t care who I may compete against or what they may be currently doing I believe ‘these x’ people will like what I have to offer and I am going to go get it” business guy.

In a growth situation <which, by the way, I tend to believe any healthy organization should always be in> you should be seeking to grow. To expand. To think of ‘saturation’ as a swear word. To always be thinking about how to shake-the-etch-a-sketch so that stagnancy <in sales, attitude, behavior, thinking> never sets in.

To be clear. Sure. I believe you should always talk with your innovations/new product pipeline people because they may have some new widget up their sleeve you can go and expand your business with but, more often, you will be successful by looking at what you have now and finding new ground to attack with that. I have found your new widgets just have a tendency to cement the ground you have already won more often than not. Keeping with the military analogy I often tell businesses to think of their business modeling with an ‘occupation force’ team with a separate “attacking army” team mindset. Especially if you are in a growing category you almost have to have a “win this ground and move on” attitude or you can get stuck in a grind-it-out business war.

Regardless. It is important to know when something has reached an end. If only because it permits us business folk to close it off, leave it behind, not invest more energy squeezing something that has really ended <even though we do not want to admit it> and move on to the next chapter of our business life.

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

“Do not fear to lose what needs to be lost.”

Sue Monk Kidd

===

“You can get attention and really make people resent you if you do it with an unrelated gimmick. They won’t like you for that.”

Bill Bernbach

===

No one is easier to manipulate than a man who exaggerates his own influence.

===

“By dividing the people, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.”

The Civil Servants’ Year Book, “The Organizer” January 1934

===

Resentment is a very personal feeling. Resentment is a sense of grievance, a personal feeling, and suggests a persistent or recurrent brooding over injuries (perceived or real) rather than a sudden outburst if passionate anger (source: Hayakawa). Resentment has a strong sense of implicit grievance. It is deep and persistent. Let’s maybe call this an incredibly corrosive version of an us versus them narrative.

I purposefully use corrosive to lead into politics of resentment. I do so because while resentment is personal, politics of resentment is a tactic. I would argue it is politics at its worst because not only does it divide, but it creates actual barriers to unifying. In other words, it is both an offensive tactic as well as a defensive one (defends against someone who seeks to unite). Resentment is like a magnet. What I mean by that is it is one of those things that people do not need to be led toward or even commanded to exhibit, instead it is a dormant ‘sense’ that simply needs to be activated and once activated will stick to whatever metal places itself in front of that resentment.

And while politicians are certainly accountable, what I just shared, means that a specific criminal rarely exists. Throughout history authorities haven’t ordered violent resentment – pogroms, lynchings, riots – people just committed them.  The only role politicians play is in manipulating resentments to bring them about. This is the politics of fear or victimhood and is exploitation of what is latent in every individual. Now. Resentment involves the need for a “them,” a scapegoat, because most people don’t like to isolate a specific personal scapegoat (it feels too personal). So political rhetoric offers everyone a way to identify someone to scapegoat at arm’s length. The politics of resentment crafts a narrative offering people a scapegoat, usually a collection of people, i.e., them, which every individual person can transfer “evil/danger” to so each individual feels justified and validated in their resentment. This is political manipulation because it purposefully absolves each person of being accountable for the choice of who to demonize, ‘the enemy’ to eliminate, but rather we have enemies crafted by propaganda and some comfortable narrative for them to fall into. By exploiting the scapegoat narrative, people feel comfortable making the scapegoat the generalized incarnation of evil. This is where the politics of resentment truly rears its ugliest head. In the exploitation of resentment, the scapegoat becomes the cause of perceived misfortune. To be clear. There is little to no actual rational basis for this resentment no matter how much the political narrative may circulate and distribute so-called rational reasons. Resentment results solely from the subconscious beliefs/bias/attitudes. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out it was Hitler in Mein Kampf who said “it is necessary to suggest to the people that the most varied enemies all belong to the same category and to lump all adversaries together so that it will appear to the mass of our own partisans that the struggle is being waged against a single enemy. This fortifies their faith in their rights and increases their exasperation against those who would assail them.”

These narratives are corrosive in a variety of ways, but one of the most dangerous aspects is once this type of narrative gains a foothold, reality is under attack. The narrative is not a reflection of reality, using crafted scapegoats, but the resentment reflects real dormant latent subconscious feelings. This means people and society get trapped in the wretched hollow in between reality and perception, hope and resentment. This sense gains momentum because as soon as ‘a scapegoat’ has been clearly identified a variety of resentments can be directed toward them and ‘resentment’ becomes ‘everything evil’ transferred into some nebulous adversary, which only becomes bigger and more evil and more dangerous as more and more resentments are blamed on them. Reality becomes confusion in a conflation of accusations, all enhanced by everyone’s subconscious resentments, with the only clarity being “the scapegoat/enemy.”

Which leads me to ideologies.

Politics is ideologically driven. In the most basic sense, it would be conservatives (those who seek to conserve) and progressives (those who seek to progress). Regardless. While ideology creates the intellectual underpinnings of society, it is also true that ideological expressions typically represent distorted consciousness of realities; consequently, ideologues produced real distorting efforts. For example, an ideology can attempt to take credit for the concrete economic successes of an industrial system of and, yet, that is a distortion of the effect of the ideology let alone the truth. What I mean by that is social reality and social identity get molded into reality in the ideological image and once ideology, the abstract, becomes concrete it is legitimized – even if it is simply an illusion of narrative (and politicians are masters of illusion). In other words, this ideology becomes a miraculous beacon of ‘reasonable common sense’ only an ignorant idiot wouldn’t agree with. Even worse, within the politics of resentment, at that point ideology takes on sort of a precision in that it no longer represents choices but rather becomes assertions of undeniable facts.

The politician’s role in this is to assist in defining normalization because in doing so it becomes an indispensable tool to sanction that ‘normalization.’ I imagine what I am trying to suggest is that within the politics of resentment society, rooted in emotion, identity and ways of life cultivated among a self-identified ‘us,’ operates in an entirely different frame than the rational, universal, truth of a functional healthy society and economy. I will say that history has demonstrated over and over again when real or perceived threats abound, politicians will depart from rational discourse and shift to friends vs. enemies/us vs. them narratives. Politicians are adept at organizing the survival and sustenance of a community – defined by those who are not part of it.

Which leads me to the heinous aspect of politics of resentment.

Self is emergent as a property of the whole. In other words, we are who we are through the interactions/connections with others and the world. An individual rises to new levels when it is part of the whole (not a part of the whole). What I mean by that is separate things have reason to come together that offers advantages that being separate does not have. While there is no “law of attraction”, if there were, this would be it. I believe my thought here is a derivative of what is called “the allurement principle” which is the social collective desire for impact. This is what the politics of resentment destroys, if not suffocates. I believe it was John Ralston Saul who used the phrase ‘pillager of words.’ Some politicians seem to hijack scraps of moral precepts to justify actions, ignoring true reason and morality. They seek to offer simple, and simplistic, answers to things that are neither simple nor have any real answers. They also seek to use pseudo-logic, a derivative of the faux concrete proof, because logic, or what is deemed ‘reason,’ can multiply certainty, as well as doubt, at terrifying speed. They seek to divide in order to have power over parts of the whole – because they cannot gain power by any other means because the ‘whole’ would reject them.

Self is actually about a collective ability to understand and act. Problems are rarely individual; they are more likely larger tragedy of the commons issues and therefore demand some type of collective action. Politics of resentment is anti- ‘everything in that last sentence’. Resentment, at its worst, makes everyone an individual and everyone a potential enemy or someone to blame for any number of my individual woes – real or perceived. Consequently, politics of resentment makes everyone a victim. That last sentence was hard to type because it is a hard thought to swallow. But maybe the first step out of resentment is to accept someone is attempting to make us a victim. Ponder.

“It may be that the universal history is the history of a handful of metaphors.”

Jorge Luis Borges

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

“I am free and lost in this freedom

Do you know what I mean by that?”

Ingeborg Bachmann

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

Freedom, in and of itself, is quite possibly the most valuable privilege one can have in the world.

Freedom, in and of itself, may be one of the most misunderstood and least understood ideas in the world.

Freedom, in and of itself, may be one of the most appealing concepts in the world.

Freedom, in and of itself, once attained may be one of the most difficult concepts, as an individual, to manage in the world.

Freedom, once truly given, can be a scary prospect to wield responsibly and well.

Freedom is one of those things that should make you think long and hard about what, exactly, do you want? But, yet, many of us do not. And we should. We should because, at its core, freedom is about liberty of self and what you want. I believe it was John Stuart Mill who stated that the individual “is the person most interested in his own well-being,” and that the “ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else.”

What this suggests is that, while freedom may have some societal demands and constraints, the real ‘rule of freedom’ comes from within each individual and, well, responsibility.

Within?

No fences. No boundaries. Not even a public compass … just one that resides in yourself. Well. This would suggest it could become easy to get lost.

Look. I am not suggesting society would ever permit all of us to actually decide how we wanted to define freedom for our own lives and live our Life in that self-defined way without any repercussions <and there would have to be as each of us pursued ‘our own wellbeing’ to the possible detriment of the ‘greater we’>.

However. Because you can view from such a personal standpoint and a self interest standpoint, it can become incredibly easy to start seeing your own path as <a> the path everyone else should be walking on and <b> the path which reflects the best definition of how freedom should be viewed. In that, well, it can become incredibly easy to get lost within your own views of what is freedom and how you may choose to use your freedom.

I tend to believe freedom is freeing AND constricting at exactly the same time. In addition. The only way to enjoy freedom is to actually do something with it and not just talk about it or enjoy it.

Yeah.

The secret to not being suffocated by freedom is the ability to use that freedom to create something <not simply being free>. Please note I say ‘create’ not destroy. Anyway. I imagine another way of saying that is you can suffocate by not doing anything <or not choosing to choose to use your freedom>.

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

“The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success.”

Henry Ward Beecher

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

Ah. Therein lies the rub. Create from freedom.

Sometimes that can seem like creating something from nothing. Freedom encourages ideas and thinking but then … uh oh … Life kind of demands you convert your access to freedom into ‘something.’ It is within that ‘demand from Life’ where most people abuse freedom — people choose not to choose.

Now. We do this all the time – choose not to choose. Oddly enough, a shitload of people think this is actually exercising your freedom. Go figure. Not doing something is an expression of freedom.

<scratching my head here>

Some people argue this is an excellent way that we exercise our freedom and flex our choice-making muscles. Either we actually do not make a choice at all or we delegate the choice-making to someone else <sometimes an expert – doctor, banker, service provider> or we just delegate the choice making into the “to be done later” file. In general, we have good intentions. We do this because we do not want to invest the energy and  time to make a ‘right decision’ <this actually becomes ‘not choosing’, or using your freedom, because of fear of not making the right choice … or using your freedom properly>. And, yes, it is ‘good intentions’ to intentionally avoid making a bad decision.

Sure. Using the overall excuse of “I am too busy” choosing not to choose can often seem to be the best choice because it can sometimes appear to then free us up to do something else. Personally I call bullshit on this type of thinking.

Freedom kind of has two levers or maybe an “on/off” switch … opt in or opt out. Either use your freedom or don’t use it. You either value your choice or you don’t. There really isn’t a lot of room in-between. And, yeah, people will argue with me on this, but I am stating it this way because while freedom can far too often look abstract, in reality, in practice, it is anything but abstract.

Doing, action, is at the core of freedom itself.

I have traveled the world and seen freedom and no freedom.

I have traveled the world and seen the arguments and debates and fights over freedom itself <my freedom versus your freedom>.

But here is the deal.

The opportunity to choose is not all that matters. I say that because far too many people who actually have the opportunity <a> do not exercise their freedoms or <b> get bogged down on the debate & conflict of my freedom versus your freedom. Choosing is what matters where freedom is concerned.

That said. As I have said before, surprisingly, freedom is tough. And it is even tougher because you may never really know if you have used your freedom well or wisely.

But here is what I do know.

It will be how you use your freedom which will be immortalized. And, yes, everyone is immortalized. Either through your forgetfulness or lack of memorability or lack of choice or doing something or how you cannot be forgotten or memorability through how you used your freedom and the choices you made. I say that because immortality will be the stories that are told about what you did with your freedom. That will be the final judge. Ponder that <because I think it is important>.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm … maybe that is why we get both lost and free within freedom. Given freedom we tend to hug tightly to any boundaries we find for fear of getting lost. But, assuming we actually ‘do shit’ and make choices using our freedom more and more we start to get a feel for those boundaries and begin pushing them out. Simplistically we push them further and further away from ourselves. At some point if we push them far enough it will feel like there are no boundaries and yet we do not feel lost.

I imagine that is what some people would call “freedom.” Seeing boundaries yet pushing against them to stretch what can “be”. And, yes, I also imagine that it feels good. So. Ponder this: If you have freedom, use it wisely.

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

“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody notices, do not be sad.

For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.”

John Lennon

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

Sonya Kitchell

===========

July 4^th.

I wasn’t sure what to write and then I remembered this fantastic song at the end of the series finale episode of The Unit (the episode was called “unknown soldier). The song is ‘soldier’s lament’ by Sonya Kitchell.

First (for the 4th). About Sonya. I am really pleased to share her talent with you if you have never heard of her. She was only 18 when she wrote this song and, yet, it has a sense of maturity beyond her years. Oh. And seems more listenable for the coffee-drinking adult crowd <hence her first song at 16 was on a Starbucks mix>. Regardless. Her voice reminds me a lot of Rachel Yamagata … husky soulful & languid.

Second (for the 4th). I am pleased to highlight the show The Unit if you have never seen it.  I know a Ranger, but I do not know any special forces members. What I do know is that they are all special … and frickin’ smart & tough. I would envision any country’s special forces are really special <smart & tough> and I also envision parts of The Unit reflect truth. It is a good show and reminds us of how special they are.

Third (on the 4th). July 4^th is a good reminder with regard to ‘freedom of,’ fighting and standing up for a cause and the people who actually do the kind of fighting that can cost them their lives <versus just a cost to ego>.

Look. I am neither a ‘hawk’ nor a ‘dove.’

And I do not believe there is such a thing as a good war, but I also believe that some wars are worth fighting.

And I do believe that America’s attitude toward war and risk aversion is looped. Successful military events with low casualties breed interest in further military adventures. Costly engagements breed caution. In general America will tolerate high casualties to ward off only what they see as direct threats, but tolerate almost none to police distant and seemingly unfixable troubled countries.

Is that the right attitude? Geez. It doesn’t exactly feel right, but it is what it is.

And I end up believing that what that means for the future is difficult to judge.

Regardless. People who join the military, special forces or not, are special.

I do believe the young people who sign up for the military, the significant majority, know exactly what they are possibly signing up for. And I also believe that regardless of the knowledge … a young person doesn’t know what they don’t know <thinking about having someone shoot at you is significantly different than knowing someone is shooting at you>. I say that so we do not confuse what issues are most important when we discuss military and discuss what is going on in their heads when they return.

That said. I do believe they should be treated with respect and not used as a political hot potato for causes. For example … using a number estimated by the Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs <because the actual numbers are really unknown> research shows that between 2002 and 2007 the rate of American military suicides was actually lower than the rate for civilians <yeah … that made me shake my head in surprise too>.

My readers know that I do not take suicide lightly, but my point here is that we often use the military to make points <the one here is that most media simply says something like “on average 18 american veteran service people commit suicide daily”>.

Is 18 too many? Shit. 1 is too many.

But the general population suicide number is higher.

Fourth (on the 4th). Soldiers. Treat them fairly. Treat them with respect. But don’t treat them as if they didn’t know what they were signing up for. That is disrespectful.

Anyway.

Given my respect for the military … and what their families also contribute I thought the song was perfect to share on the 4^th.

I wish I could have found the song and the actual closing scenes from The Unit.

It was an excellent show with one of the best managed endings ever done for a show.

Have a great 4^th of July.

=====

Everyone was born with a limited amount of fucks to give.

During your teenage years you give a ton and slowly give less and less from there.

just shower thoughts

=====

When I saw this quote had to sit back and think.

Why?

Because I could read it two ways.

First.

As you get older you just get worn down and just stop giving a fuck about a lot of things.

Second.

As you get older you learn that not everything deserves ‘giving a fuck’ and you give less, but, you should give more of a fuck when you do.

I pondered this a little.

And then I got curious and found that if you type “give a fuck” in google search you will get about 4,610,000 results (0.38 seconds), but … here is the interesting thing  … you get page after page on ‘philosophy <or ‘the art’> of not giving a fuck.’

Basically the internet is strewn with articles and advice on how to not give a fuck. How crazy is that? It is almost like the google world is attempting to offer some extraordinary justification for being indifferent, to actually practice being indifferent, which, in my mind, is maybe a different slant on how to be a complete moron.

I mean, c’mon, if we really only have a limited amount of fucks to give, well, wouldn’t you expect some really good advice on how to prioritize and parse them out? I say that because it seems like we could all use some good advice with regard to knowing when to give a fuck and when not to give a fuck.

I will say one thing about giving a fuck. Caring about shit is the essence of Life.

Ok. Maybe two things.

Caring and actively engaging in shit is the essence of Life <I actually called it RSVP and Life once>.

But. The moment you become indifferent, the moment you just don’t give a fuck, well, there is no Life. There is no heartbeat. Life is dead.

I am certainly not going to suggest you care about everything. I will not because I agree that we do not have an unlimited amount of fucks to give. But it just doesn’t make sense to not care.

Now. Life does a fairly good job of suggesting not giving a fuck is a much easier way of living Life.

Life is full of a lot of shit we don’t understand.

Life is full of a lot of things that just do not seem to make sense.

Life is full of a lot of things that just doesn’t seem logical.

Life is full of a lot of things that seem different than what you want or think about.

Life is full of a lot of questions and a lot fewer answers than we want.

Life is full of a lot of answers that don’t really solve anything.

Life is full of a lot of things that make you scratch your head and say “I never understood why.”

All of those things seem like “slow” as in “a lot of shit that will slow me down from getting to where I want to go and getting what I want to get.”

I imagine after reading that list and my last sentence many people may think “then why give a fuck.”

Well. Because none of those things make Life any ‘less’ or any less meaningful. They just make it a little less certain. They just make things a little more risky. They just make it all a little less straightforward.

In fact I could suggest that almost all Life throws at you could fall into the “WTF category”. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give a fuck.

Anyway. I agree with the opening quote. I don’t believe we have an unlimited amount of fucks to give. That doesn’t mean we only have one or two just that they are not unlimited.

But that doesn’t mean you should embrace the thought “well, I have no more fucks to give … so … I just don’t give a fuck about anything anymore.” Nor should it mean you should start seeking opportunities to not give a fuck under the belief it will help you get what you want and where you want to be faster.

Look. Here is what I know about giving a fuck.

If you give enough of a fuck about your life, and trust it to give a fuck about you on occasion, well, a fuck of a lot of good things can happen if you just fucking go out and work hard. Ponder.

====

“The detective thinks he is investigating a murder or a missing girl. But truly he is investigating something else altogether, something he cannot grasp hold of directly.

Satisfaction will be rare. Uncertainty will be your natural state.  Much of your life will be spent in the dark woods, no path visible, with fear and loneliness your only companions.

But answers exist.

Solutions wait for you, trembling, pulling you to them, calling your name, even if you cannot hear.

I believe that someday, perhaps many lifetimes from now, all will be explained, and all mysteries will be solved. All knowledge will be free for the taking, including the biggest mystery of all – who we really are. But for now, each detective, alone in the woods, must take the clues and solve mysteries alone.”

Jacque Silette

====

We are all detectives investigating Life and our Life within it.

That said. We all think we are investigating purpose or career happiness or happiness in general.

But despite doing all that investigating most of us eventually realize that grasping the things we seek is fleeting and more often our grasp is tentative and indirect.

Sure. We all find some satisfaction, but they tend to reside in glimpses, not in endless continuity, and certainly not in perpetuity.

Suffice it to say we tend to find this inconstancy & uncertainty far too common … and uncomfortable.

The truth is we are most often in the dark with regard to overall personal purpose with no clear path visible and even when on a clear path it is often paved with doubt & uncertainty. That means the physical companions which stand alongside are the companions of fear, doubt and loneliness.

Despite all of that I tend to believe we all know answers exist, and we all know they await us somewhere, even if we cannot hear them.

Because of that belief we are constantly investigating who we really are often desperately grabbing at clues or proof to provide some comfort that we have either solved the mystery or at least are on the path to solving it.

That said.

I find “who you really are/who am I?” as a silly, if not stupid, self question.

Why?

Who I am today is not who I will necessarily be tomorrow.

Which leads me to an uncomfortable thought.

If you take the time to really think about this topic, I believe we all kind of know, in an uncomfortable sense, that the mystery of who we are will only be explained … well … maybe lifetimes from now, but suffice it to say most likely not in our own lifetime.

How frustrating that sounds as I type it. Think about it.

The only people who will know who we truly are today are not us, but someone somewhere in a future yet to be defined.

What a frustrating thought <at least to me>.

And yet.

I have no doubt most of us, each of us a detective, will continuously search for clues and solve what mysteries we can today.

That’s what we do.

We scan about for clues to be better, think better and understand better. Why? Because we are all detectives, whether we want to be one or not, all attempting to solve the mystery that is us & Life around us.

Ponder.

===

“Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.”

Learned Hand

—————

“Words …

They’re innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they’re no good any more … I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are.

They deserve respect.

If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little or make a poem which children will speak for you when you’re dead.”

Tom Stoppard

——————-

Words.

On almost a daily basis I am reminded that how you say something is possibly more important than what you say <at minimum I would suggest it is a symbiotic relationship in which the life of ‘what you say’ is in the hands of how you say it>.

That thought alone should make us respect words. They hold life, and death, of thoughts in their hands.

What makes words tricky is that word meanings are not always a true reflection of the speaker’s thoughts because as they enter into the ether they become chameleons.

Yeah. Your word gets transferred into someone else’s brain and becomes their word and in doing so they often take on the hues of that brain’s environment.

Whew.

This makes choosing words even more difficult.

More difficult in that a word can mean several things at exactly the same time … what it means in your head, what it means as it leaves your lips, what it means as it floats thru the environment <slowly, or quickly, changing as it is bombarded with contextual environment> and what it means as it is heard.

That, my friends, defines the challenge of stimulus – response. If any of those moments in which the word floats thru is not aligned then incomprehension, or chaos, reigns.

Worse?

This happens with every word and every combination of words.

This is a multi-dimensional constantly in flux contextual challenge. Let’s call it a quantum verbal world.

Within that quantum world words are chameleons.

Oh. Last thought on these chameleons.

And while we would like to envision those bright colorful chameleons you see on National Geographic channel it is more often, in this mish mash moshpit quantum world, that words begin to blend in together and become almost unseeable & unrecognizable.

Worse?

When this happens they fall like snow blanketing thoughts covering the landscape of fresh thinking muffling inspiration and allowing unique features and anything interesting to become unrecognizable.

Yeah. That was just as horrible to write as it was to be read.

Here is what I know about words.

Empty words are evil.

==

“And empty words are evil.”

Homer
<The Odyssey>

==

To be clear, if your chameleon words blend in to the environment so much so they become invisible, they have become empty.

To be clear, you may have uttered them full of something, even a lot of something <passion, thought, insight, whatever>, but as they wove their way through the environment they slowly got emptied of everything they were once full of and, as good chameleons do, they blend in and become invisible.

It would be easy to suggest they have then become harmless.

But if you think about it, they have not become harmless because, well, they are still words, its just that they have become empty … an evil. Evil in that they have not prompted any thought, any idea or any new thinking energy. They are evil in that they have not inspired anything new and everything old, or that which exists now, remains unchanged. Evil that in their emptiness they permit evil people to fill that emptiness with fear, lack of hope, conspiracies, lies and all the things that stifle progress.

That’s what evil does … it fights change and thrives on inertia.

Regardless.

I imagine my real point is that words without their corners knocked off, or ground down, and used well can be good words … and used for good. They need to be shaped, protected and guided through the environment instead of being flippantly flung out assuming a basic stimulus – response world.

Ponder.

===

    Clara: You’re going to help me?

The Doctor: Well, why wouldn’t I help you?

    Clara: Because of what I just did, I just…

    The Doctor: You betrayed me. You betrayed my trust. You betrayed our friendship. You betrayed everything…you let me down!

    Clara: Then why are you helping me?

    The Doctor: Why?

Do you think that I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?

Doctor Who

===

Well. We live in a world in which trust, in general, is under the gun and cynicism seem to be the foundation for more people than optimism. But possibly more concerning than the diminishing trust in institutions and people, it also seems that there is a thread of lack of forgiveness between parties who disagree. This is concerning because it creates a disproportionately wider gap between people making it less than likely someone leans over and offers a helping hand.

That is why the Dr. Who conversation resonated with me.

I tend to believe we have lost sight of why we disagree with people. And by doing so we create an unbridgeable gap between people.

What I mean by this is <using business terms> we confuse vision, strategy and tactics.

I can hate someone’s strategy and I can be sickened by someone’s tactics, but, in general, those same people most likely have the same vision that I do.

what I mean by that is almost any person who leads or is invested in community in any form or fashion creates intentions, or defines purpose, based on a vision for ‘something better.’

As a corollary, to make the point, this doesn’t translate into ‘destroying who & what we are’ it simply means the intention is to make everyone be the best they can be, create a sense of greatness <whatever great can be>, enable better opportunities and create better lives. Now. We may vehemently disagree on some things on HOW to attain that, but we should vehemently agree on better.

That said, an example.

I bet in any given election year I could gather all American presidential candidates around a table and I believe I would have had a 100% consensus on that thought. Let me add in the current president, his cabinet, the heads of the congress and I bet you I would still have a 100% consensus.

The contentiousness begins when discussion arrives at definitions, strategy & tactics.

But today I am not talking about politics, I am simply making a point that 99% of us have the same vision. The same desires. The same dream <in a larger sense>.

The same hopes.

To me this translates into “same intent.”

Therefore, I may not agree with how someone decides to get to all this sameness, but I embrace their intent. Yeah. I agree with what we want to do.

This is an important thought <at least to me>.

Because the moment you do not think about this, or maybe even believe it, you begin judging people based on their tactics and not their intent.

Why is this important?

Well.

Forgiveness is a big complex ‘mucho importante’ decision.

Do I really want to base my forgiveness on something as small as a tactic?

Don’t I really want the burden of forgiveness to reside on the ultimate important aspect of ‘intent’?

Yea, yeah, yeah. Someone is going to say that good intentions are not enough. My point is that actions you disagree with are not necessarily bad <or wrong>, they are just things you … well … disagree with.

But they are tactics and actions and behaviors taken with the same purpose you desire – something better – just not the tactics and actions and behaviors you may have been thinking would be the right things to focus on.

Look.

I vehemently disagree with people on a variety of things. Even some good friends. But I realize I am mostly seething internally over the fact it is tactics, and maybe sometimes strategy, but rarely their ultimate intent & purpose.

So. Even though I am seething, maybe incredibly frustrated, possibly even horrified with something I may have heard … why wouldn’t I lend them a hand if they were in trouble?

I desire to save the well-intended. I desire to save the people who see the bigger purpose.

I do so because they want the same thing I do.

I do so because they want what is ultimately the most important thing — something better than what is.

Which leads me to suggest this.

In all the bombastic rhetoric drowning out any sane rational thoughts whispering as persistently as they can in our heads, it would behoove us to look around with an open mind on occasion. Take a look at the people we most vehemently disagree with and explore their intent. Maybe sit back and not just question the ultimate purpose but seek out the points of agreement (even if they only take on some vague-ish forms).

I think we would see more in common than we seem to see today. And, yeah, some really important BIG common agreements. And, I would like to point out, if you recognize something in common it is much easier to work together and help each other than when you hate each other so much you would not do either.

Just take some time and listen a little bit closer. There are some really nutso things being said in today’s world but even some of the nuts desire the same thing you do, its just how they want to go about it that may seem nuts. They may even seem like they are betraying some basic principles, but, maybe if we cared a bit more their betrayal would matter a bit less and, well, we will help. 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.

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

“No enterprise can exist for itself alone.

It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others…or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.”

Calvin Coolidge

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

“Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings.”

Bob Parsons

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

Originally posted in 2017

Let me take a minute and discuss “fraternite” in business.

Just a reminder but “fraternite” is one of the  French values of Liberté, Fraternité and Egalité (“liberty, equality, fraternity/brotherhood” the national motto of France).

Anyway. Business. Inevitably a great organization exhibits both efficient AND effective progress. What typically creates that combination is part discipline, part structure (systems), part leadership, all glued together by “fraternité”. That ‘glue’ is most often discussed in the American business world as ‘a vision’ or maybe ‘a purpose’ or even ‘culture.’ We do so because we Americans hate any kind of lack of specificity. But the truth is that the most common bond of a great organization is a more nebulous concept, i.e., one of “fraternité”.

Or.

“Any man aspires to liberty, to equality, but he cannot achieve it without the assistance of other men, without fraternity.”

Napoleon

Oddly enough, while this sounds like relatively common sense, I kind of feel like business itself needs a revolution to overturn the current thinking to accommodate what should be common sense.

What do I mean? Current business is kind of in a wacky spot. It talks a lot about vision and purpose and culture as if they are “things” — like maybe a lighthouse anyone can see as they bob around the chaotic sea of business life to find a way home. By the way, I would argue that is a very individualistic thought — “I can find my way home” type thought – and not really a team thought <but that could quite easily be debated>.

Regardless. Fraternity is more like “everyone not only knowing what they need to do to keep the ship afloat but actually pitching in whether needed or not because they love the ship itself.” That may sound like some wacky nuance, but I have to warn people that revolutions can kind of gain some momentum off of some fairly wacky things on occasion. By the way, this thought is a more nebulous “I feel this way” aspect of organizational culture and, as noted many times, if it cannot be measured or indexed or scored.

** note: most older leaders into today’s business just don’t like that kind of shit – things they cannot measure or score.

Anyway. Not to beat this metaphor to death, but I do believe we need a semi-revolution in the way business organizations are created and run and managed. I think we may need that revolution because “fraternité” as a core principle just ain’t the way business is run today. And, yes, it should be viewed as a “core” principle because … uhm … when discipline falls apart, when structure falls apart, when leadership falls apart what keeps you on the battlefield and fighting is … yeah … “fraternité.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people talk about a “community” or “company team” or some other nice sounding platitude which sounds a lot like “fraternité”, but its mostly lip service. Its lip service because fraternité is a ‘collective’ thought and most businesses reward and incentivize individuals.

Anyway. On a bigger organizational level I worry about how an idea like this is getting suffocated by generational issues <younger people desire something and older people think they know the best> and maybe an outcome-is-the-only-thing-that-matters worldview versus a belief business should incorporate altruistic aspects. Both of those conflicts are HUGE issues. I have written about in 1200+ word thought pieces on both of these but, on the former, the best piece I can share is from Corporate Rebels “Cut The Crap: The Made-Up Nonsense About Generations At Work” which states all people want meaning at work (regardless of age or generational label).

I actually believe we need some revolutionary thinking on the latter. To me we have a bunch of people who look at business and turn away to non-profit because … well … I fear that they only believe they can change the world through more altruistic pursuits and not traditional business. And, yes, they are important and good pursuits but, from a larger perspective, business drives the world. Business makes shit that makes lives easier and healthier and impacts the home and life in ways that it is difficult to imagine let alone outline in a few words <and the business office/working groups creates behavioral cues which ripple out into culture>.

Somehow … someway … we need to insert the ‘believers of principles and principled behavior’ into the business world with all of their ambition and hope and remind them, empower them and enable them that they can change the world.

That they can make the world a better place. They can make society and people and lives better. And they can do it in and through business, not just altruistic career opportunities. If we do that, and do that well, I tend to believe we will build more organizations driven at its core by a sense of “fraternité” rather than a bunch of documents setting out some guiding or shared values, vision and purpose which everyone says “okay … let’s do that.”

What I do know is that … well … read the following quote:

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

“I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.”

Alan Greenspan

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

I do believe we need to be drawing some lines in business. And I don’t mean company handbook type lines or even some well-crafted ‘lines’ in “how we conduct our business” or “who we are” but maybe they are more lines with regard to some unwritten principles.

I say that because when you can gather a group of people together who share a strong set of principles they will walk straight into a hail of bullets to not only survive, but to get good shit done.

==========

“Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

Oscar Wilde

===========

Now. Business absolutely makes dealing with your principles a constant struggle. It can kind of suffocate your principles in between the pragmatic aspects of getting shit done <discipline & structure> and how that shit is designed to meet specific objectives/results and the faux burden of some vision or grander purpose which “you know is important to us therefore it should be important to you”, i.e., extrinsic importance not intrinsic importance. Frankly, when suffocated by these bookends you don’t have a lot of elbow room for any type of true, intangible, unsolicited camaraderie.

The fraternité is more forced than natural. Obviously, when it is not natural it is not as strong.

In the end.

Fraternité in business. I believe we have forgotten this. And while I do believe many of us have forgotten how to draw lines with regard to our principles I tend to believe business, in general, has simply decided to just draw lines <in a box in fact> and say “there you go”, i.e., there are your principles and rules for camaraderie.

That is kind of whack.

Look. I can honestly tell you that being a senior leader in a business and organization you like <you do not have to love> may be one of the greatest experiences anyone can ever have. What makes that experience truly great is when you are fortunate enough to foster something intangible, something that really cannot be measured, and something which doesn’t earn you some performance bonus at the end of the year … it is when you stumble upon the sense of fraternité.

I am sure some organizational guru will send me a link to “steps to build a fraternité organization” and … well … good for them. I tend to believe this is one of those intangible things that is created less by some “how to” guide or some formula and more by simple good intentions combined with some good discipline, construct and leadership. To steal another word from the motto, by creating a fraternité organization you inevitably create liberté for the organization to be the best version of what it can be.

This is what I thought about today and “liberty, equality, fraternity <brotherhood>”. With that I imagine I should end with where I began … no enterprise can exist for itself alone. That is the foundation for a fraternité organization. Ponder.