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“I am free and lost in this freedom

Do you know what I mean by that?”

Ingeborg Bachmann

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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>.

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

Henry Ward Beecher

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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.

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“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

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“What people don’t understand doesn’t exist.”

Jan Carlzon

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“Chance favors the connected mind.”

Steven Johnson

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Ok. We chase a lot of things in business in search of ‘advantage’. We sometimes chase them so blindly and relentlessly we don’t even recognize the rabbit hole we have started running down. Differentiation is one of those rabbit holes.

Now. I have a warped perspective <it includes rabbit holes> with regard to differentiation and differentiating in the business world. I think it’s a shit objective. Ok. It CAN be a shithole objective. But suffice it to say I believe chasing differentiation is … well … yes … often a rabbit hole.

To be clear. I don’t dislike differentiation and I believe a well differentiated sustainable idea can dominate a market. But. Chasing differentiation seems to take on some fairly absurd efforts to attain the objective. In addition. I worry about differentiation as an objective because it points people in the wrong direction. If I were to kill this whole differentiation thing, I would begin by saying “define, define, define.” Define yourself with such a clear distinctive thought that permits you stand up and say ‘here is who I am.’

Here is the deal. Sometimes you may look similar to someone else. But more often you will look like ,well, you. And in a sometimes complex fragmented world where everyone is shouting how different they are <and people are becoming more & more cynical> distinctness can win. And more often than not you will also be, well, different. In addition. In today’s world about the only sustainable differentiation isn’t a thing, it is knowledge, thinking & what you have done with what you learn.

Regardless. The meaningless rabbit hole. In our blind pursuit of differentiation we can make some fairly absurd decisions with regard to thoughtless specialization, nuanced differentiation and niche definition. In our blind pursuit of differentiation we can gleefully land on some ‘spot’ and declare differentiation victory only to have it all negated because of lack of alignment throughout all aspects of operations. Attempted, or false/meaningless, differentiation is useless and distracting and a rabbit hole.

Bottom line on differentiation is the reckless pursuit of it encourages us to lie to ourselves, i.e., convince ourselves of ‘true difference’ when it is simply meaningless differentiation. And therein lies the worst of the rabbit hole. Pretending to not see the truth, or maybe <to be kinder>, to pretend it is what it isn’t.

—————

“… the person who pretends to not see the truth is committing something much worse than a mortal sin, which can only ruin one’s soul – but instead committing us all to lifetimes of pain.

The truth is not just something we bring to light to amuse ourselves; the truth is the axis munid, the dead center of the earth. When it’s out of place nothing is right; everyone is in the wrong place; no light can penetrate. Happiness evades us and we spread pain and misery wherever we go. Each person, above all others, has an obligation to recognize the truth and stand by it.”

Jacque Silette

—————-

That last point is semi-important because many business people simply ignore truth as they pursue this elusive <and debatably poor objective> thing called differentiation. Far <far> too many business people embrace acceptable doubt and the possibility that a stupid belief might have something going for it in the pursuit of ‘differentiation’ all the while completely ignoring something that makes you distinct <but possibly not different>, or, let’s call it ‘an obvious and rational truth.’ People ignore it because they believe it will get you nowhere.

Trust me. These are the meetings and discussions in which I often sit dumbfounded and silent and thinking ‘wow … the rabbit hole just gained a whole new crowd of loons.’

—-

“…I was calm on the outside but thinking all the time.”

A Clockwork Orange

———-

Our relentless pursuit of differentiating most often than not leads to an unimportant product feature <not what customers consider valuable>

–——-

“Differentiation is a unique quality, perceived or real, of a good or service that distinguish it from a competing good or service…”

Your Dictionary.com

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Look. I fully realize that the need to be distinctive and competitive are the reasons why the company needs to think about differentiation.  However, differentiation can take on so many faces there is no reason you should end up chasing down some rabbit hole for some elusive ‘this is what you MUST seek’ objective as defined by one expert <only to have another expert state unequivocally you need to chase another completely different shiny object>.

Suffice it to say, I can almost guarantee whenever someone brings up differentiation it is more often than not simply code for “please enter this rabbit hole.”

Next. The perfection rabbit hole. On a parallel course is a similar group chasing perfection often ending up in the same rabbit hole as the differentiators <can get awful crowded in that business rabbit hole>. The pursuit of perfection is an insidious rabbit hole. Its stench seeps into the darkest corners of an organization. And while the stench is enough to make anyone’s stomach heave most organizations have people with no real ability and yet strive to maintain an aura of ability under the guise of ‘seeking perfection for the good of the organization.’

More good employees are actually LED into the perfection rabbit hole than employees who actually CHOOSE to dive into the perfection rabbit hole. That said. Organizations are built over this particular rabbit hole. Every organization. It is the unfortunate burden of every organization to deal with the pursuit of perfection.

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“Just because you took longer than others doesn’t mean you failed.”

Hassann

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Maybe that is my biggest point about rabbit holes and business. Some of the things we seek most in business, whether it be differentiation or perfection or whatever silly thing you have decided will better your business, always seem to take longer than what you want. We get impatient. And if we get really thoughtful about this whole impatience we would realize that our aggravation is with Life and not any inability within ourselves <or even in assessment the foolish pursuit of this un-real reality objective>.

Note:

we SHOULD be more thoughtful about this more often … mostly because if we do not far too many of the wrong people get fired <the right ones> and too many of the wrong people <the wrong ones> get praised and encouraged to maintain the ‘pursuit’ for the good f the organization.

Regardless. Life does not suffer fools lightly. Life is oblivious to your impatience <and relatively indifferent to you in general>. And Life bleeds into any and every organization.

How does Life deal with the fools and silly impatient people? Rabbit holes. It gives us rabbit holes to chase after silly things and dive into in our relentless pursuit of attaining “it” and waste our lives wandering aimlessly within.

But here is where Business and personal Life diverge.

In personal Life you are responsible for the stupid choices you make. Choose to enter a rabbit hole and the issue is all yours to own. In business you can actually get shoved into a rabbit hole whether you want to or not.

All I can tell you is that when I hear someone leading a discussion about ‘how are we different’ and ‘what’s our differentiation?” I start swiveling my head around scanning for rabbit holes.

All I can tell you is that when I hear someone in the hallway espousing the need to pursue perfection I start swiveling my head around scanning for rabbit holes.

 All I can tell you is that when I am in a meeting and someone is discussing both differentiation and perfection I don’t swivel my head, I just sigh, because I know I am already in a rabbit hole.

That is business … and rabbit holes. Ponder.

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“Stop looking for happiness in the same place you lost it.”

via creatingaquietmind

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“Well I guess it’s only life,

It’s only natural we all spend a little while going down the rabbit hole. “

The Shins

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“We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay.”

Lynda Barry

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Ok. We chase a lot of things in Life. We sometimes chase them so blindly and relentlessly we don’t even recognize the rabbit hole we have started running down. Happiness is one of those rabbit holes.

Whoa !

WTF.

Happiness is a rabbit hole?

Well. Suffice it to say happiness is a tricky thing.

Having it is awesome.

Seeking it is … well … a rabbit hole.

The search injects us with most of our everyday stress which means most of our stress has nothing to do with what we have, but rather what we don’t have <seeking what we want in other words>.

And while wanting a new car or some shirt or the cool new phone is a tangible ‘want’ <and not even close to sending you down a rabbit hole>; happiness is much more elusive. In fact. Much more elusive than you would imagine <or want>.

First. Our brains struggle to remember happiness in a realistic way. Semi-happy moments in the past take on a Life of their own and become exponentially happier in the memory. Yeah. Happiness has a wary relationship with reality.

Second. Our brains relentlessly tug at and tease out the minutiae found in unhappy moments. This, ultimately, translates into the fact we cannot seem to forget unhappiness and inevitably, because of that, do anything – include some absolutely absurd things – we can to avoid it.

Therein lies the rabbit hole. Life is not meant to be avoided.

Shit.

Life cannot be avoided <whether you try to or not>.

What do I mean? While we seek to control our own destiny and write our own fates … others grab our Life while we aren’t looking and write whole chapters for us that we can only look at and say “WTF” just before the inevitable ‘not written by us’ happens.

———

“Life is like a library owned by the author.  In it are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick

————

And all that ‘not written by us’ stuff keeps on getting in the way of what we want to write about happiness for our Life as well as it gets in the way of erasing the unhappy shit. This particular rabbit hole, this relentless pursuit of happiness, makes Life particularly difficult.

———-

“It hasn’t been easy, and it never will be. After all, every day is also a chance to slide back into the darkness. To live in ourselves and our regrets, instead of this moment. To run away from those that would help us and let self-hatred drive us back into isolation, despair, and destruction.

Nick Spencer

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Every day is not easy and actively pursuing happiness shoves our happy ass in a slippery sloped rabbit hole faster than you can blink an eye.

Ok. As a corollary to chasing happiness, lets maybe call this the other rail on the tracks down into the frickin’ rabbit hole, is chasing simplicity <often believing this ‘elusive simplicity’ will lead to happiness>.

Is this a paradox in Life? Shit. I don’t know, but I do know the more we seek simplicity the more complex things tend to get and … uhm … the less happy we become.

Whew. Boy oh boy, talk about the slippery slope leading down to the rabbit hole of self-hell. Seeking simplicity is it.

Simplicity entices you day by day and even hour by hour. And each day you do not attain simplicity the more and more you look at it as some type of failure and you try harder and harder for something I am fairly sure you just cannot attain. Or if you can attain it … well … it doesn’t come from a book or some formula or even some sage advice from a friend, it is something more earned by living and attempting and finding.

Simplicity seems so simple and yet it inevitably takes much much longer to master than you feel it is supposed to.

Simplicity seems so damn easy that we, well, get impatient when it doesn’t happen.

Let me state that differently. We get impatient with Life. Uh oh. It’s not like we can dictate the pace & flow of Life <I will come back to this>.

The next problem?

Even if you actually DO attain some simplicity you are aggravated it took so frickin’ long. This is compounded by the fact that simplicity is one of those weird things that as soon as you attain it you start hearing other people say “geez … why did it take you so long to figure THAT out?”

————–

“Just because you took longer than others doesn’t mean you failed.”

Hassann

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<I use this quote to close the rabbit holes business post too>

And maybe that is my biggest point about rabbit holes and Life and reality.

Some of the things we seek most in Life, whether it be happiness or simplicity or whatever silly thing you have decided will better your Life, always seem to take longer than what you want. And we get impatient.

And if we get really thoughtful about this whole impatience … we would realize that our aggravation is with Life and not any inability within ourselves <or even in assessment the foolish pursuit of this non-real reality objective>.

Life does not suffer fools lightly. Life is oblivious to your impatience <and relatively indifferent to you in general>.

How does Life deal with the fools and silly impatient people?

Rabbit holes.

Life gives us rabbit holes to chase after silly things and dive into in our relentless pursuit of attaining “it” and waste our lives wandering aimlessly within this hole with slippery walls and minimal handholds to help us climb out of it.

Well. That summarizes reality … and rabbit holes. Ponder.

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“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

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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.

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… my grandfather taught me … “… the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

—

Stephen Covey’s grandson

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Well. This is about focus and decisions (because if you focus on the wrong decision you are in trouble).

Anyway. When I saw “… the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing” this morning I was reminded how much most of us, young & old, in business suck at this. Yet, it sounds so frickin’ simple … how could we all suck so much at this?

A couple thoughts on that:

– We get distracted.

– The main thing we select is not really the main thing.

Let’s be clear. The ‘main thing’ is the relationship between “what I elect to, or should, focus on” and actual ‘focus’, i.e., the decision and the commitment to the decision. If you get either side of this relationship wrong you may as well accept ‘non success.’

Let me explain the two things.

Distraction.

While what I am now going to say sounds contrary to popular belief — I am not sure life and business is any more distracting now than it was years ago. The props may have changed but, in my view, distractions are distractions and all distractions of any size, quantity or quality are persistent sonuvabitches. In addition. It is this view, the traditionally historical strength of distractions to distract us, that drives my belief that anyone of any age sucks at the main thing remaining the main thing. Distractions test our commitment – at any age. And, frankly, I could argue that if you are so easily distracted than it CAN’T be your ‘main thing’ <but I won’t>.

For young people everything is typically incredibly overwhelming as it is, therefore, distractions can be a coping mechanism, i.e., relief from the overwhelming or a bad way of coping with overwhelming.

For older people, regardless of experience, it isn’t that things are overwhelming it’s just that you always know that no matter how much you do there is always more to do and that ‘more to do’ will always be there waiting. Therefore we older folk justify the distractions <in our heads> as ‘the main thing may have a deadline but it will not disappear simply because I may elect to ignore it for a minute or two.’

But. Here is the most persistent distraction in business – success in the present.

In a world which is constantly screaming “adapt, adapt, adapt’ it becomes incredibly easy to start following success. And I mean INCREDIBLY EASY. Success is a seductive bastard. And far too often success in the present can look an awful lot like long term success <their costumes look very similar>.

All I can really say is that it is incredibly easy for anyone, at any experience level in business, to get distracted from the ‘main thing.’

Not really the main thing.

Whew. Two aspects of this …

– a main thing based solely on ‘tangible’ <or … let’s say ‘there is a lack of emotional investment regardless of the desire to meet the objective’>

– the main thing is a reflection of a created priority.

First.

Lack of emotional investment.

In business we are infamous for creating tangible milestones and objectives and in doing so we expect people to be emotionally invested in achieving that ‘main thing’ we need to do.

Uhm. In my mind that is like manufacturing passion or happiness <cannot really be done>. Here I suggest a dose of reality to business people: don’t try and manufacture emotional energy and accept some things just as they are. I can have milestones, objectives and success criteria, but they don’t have to be ‘the main thing we need to do.’ These are simply shit that needs to be done.

If something doesn’t have a purpose beyond some number objective it is extremely difficult to have genuine emotional investment. I would actually suggest without emotional investment it really cannot be a ‘main thing.’

Second.

Created priorities.

When you don’t know what you want to do or where you really want to go, inevitably, a priority is created to take the place of those things. That is a created priority.

I am not suggesting they aren’t useful and as transition ‘progress behavior motivators’ they can be excellent tools – but let’s not confuse them with ‘a main thing.’ Yet, we do confuse them again and again <and again>. Created main things, if you are not careful, are rabbit holes. You can follow a ‘created main thing’ as persistently & stubbornly as if it is a real main thing and end up in a really really bad place.

Managers in business are infamous for creating ‘main things’ <and rabbit holes>. What these managers don’t realize is that their employees see right thru the created aspect.

This creates issues because while the ‘workers’ become cynical over having to invest energy on some created priority cloaked by some manager in “main thing prioritizing”, when things do not go as planned far too many times managers step back saying things like “I don’t have the right people to implement the important objectives” or the ones with good intentions focus on the wrong things like ‘I need to learn how to motivate my people’ <only to implement some of the wackiest motivational shit you will ever see>. Not often enough do managers look in the mirror at the actual stimulus, or, this ‘main thing’ they’ve identified, and truly challenge whether it really is a ‘main thing’ rather than simply a business objective we need to attain for the good of the business.

Now. All that said. The ‘main thing’ this young man is referencing in the opening quote is his decision, as a Mormon; to go on mission for two years despite the fact he is having a fabulous year as a wide receiver for the Utah football team.

There is emotional investment.

It is not a created priority.

And while an incredibly powerful persistent distraction poked at him <success in the present>, he, well, remembered the main thing is the main thing.

In the end.

I admit. I came to admire Stephen Covey’s thinking late in Life. Maybe I just needed to mature intellectually to get the nuance of what he tried to tell us or maybe I just didn’t understand the ‘main things’ in business well enough. Regardless, in a different, but still good, way than Peter Drucker, Covey thinking makes for better business minds <and behavior>.

I know I certainly don’t have all the answers and that is why I read and think about words from Toffler, Drucker & Covey — more so than Godin and Gladwell. Business thinking, as well as any type of thinking, is hard work. Covey & the best business thinkers make you think … sometimes almost in such a complex nuanced way that it always seems like it is slightly out of your grasp <versus the more modern business thinkers who tend to offer formulas and soundbites>. I could argue that we need to stop seeking answers and continue to persistently ask questions.

Anyway.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. A twisted but simply important thing to keep in mind.

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“When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,

The endeavor of this present breath may buy

That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge

And make us heirs of all eternity.”

—

King Ferdinand of Navarre <Love’s Labour’s Lost>

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“Why do we always say life is short when it’s the longest thing we’ll ever experience?”

–

<unknown>

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“I love that word.

Forever.

I love that forever doesn’t exist, but we have a word for it anyway, and use it all the time.

It’s beautiful and doomed. “

—

Viv Albertine

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Time.

Poetically speaking … Time is always hungry for many of the things we dearly want to endure.

Time is beautiful and doomed.

Oh.

And time typically equals anxiety. Anxiety over time wasted and even on time not wasted <too short>.

Why?

We feel a natural anxiety over uncertainty. Anxiety that things beyond our control, <metaphorically> cormorants flying by, will takes things away from us we either haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy, or maybe worse, the things we want to hold on to <the things we did enjoy>.

I always find it fascinating that we invest so much of Time on time itself. I also find it fascinating how Time is usually depicted.

For such a dastardly character, this Time guy, time itself is typically fairly unremarkable when depicted in literature. Bald and often with beard … he could be taken for almost any senior citizen. And he, yes … always a he, is seen most likely with these things :

– The scythe: represents the destructive effects of transience

– The hourglass: is the visual metaphor of time’s passage

– The wings: suggest our psychological sense of time’s rapidity

It makes you wonder: when did we decide to make Time so unremarkable or even ‘despicable?’

Well. It was different in the good ole days. Time wasn’t quite so despicable in the past.

In fact. Time was associated not with finiteness, but rather infiniteness.

In the way way back machine you would be most likely to see Time as “the Divine principle of eternal and inexhaustible creativeness.”

<most likely symbolized by the ouroboros, a snake swallowing its tail>

Ah.

Time as divine. What a nice thought. I know we all value our time <despite the fact we more often waste it than maximize it>, but thinking of it as eternal & inexhaustible is something we do not read about often today.
And while today you read article after article about the finiteness of our available time .we are more likely to view this ‘inexhaustible creativeness’ as oddly, well, elastic — especially elastic when viewed thru a good – bad lens.

—

“Bad things come in a hurry, good things come in time.”

William Chapman

—

But, to me, even discussing time is elastic, or inelastic, seem kind of wacky.

Time, in and of itself, is actually nothing.

It is simply a void to be filled.

Therefore, philosophically or conceptually, time isn’t really time.

 It is an experience or feeling or whatever falls into that void.

It is space defined by degrees of energy, effort, attention and experience.

Somebody smarter than I has described Time falling into two separate categories in our heads:

‘measured time’

what appears on a clock or watch

‘experienced time’

time speeds up or slows down depending on the experience

Time always seems to inevitably be attached to something intangible when building value … well … actually … the equation is:

measured time x intangibles <experiences, feelings, outcomes, etc.> = value

And it becomes even more difficult to measure because we put such a high value on individual freedom and autonomy and self-determination with regard to doing whatever we want whenever we want in whatever way we choose … and yet time is most efficiently spent when controlled.

——-

“So much universe, and so little time.”

Terry Pratchett

———–

“Each moment is a place you’ve never been.”

=

Mark Strand

—-

Technology has certainly affected how we view time and its elasticity <or inelasticity>. Changes in technology have blurred many of what we used to think of as some reassuring Time boundaries.

The biggest blurred boundary? … where does work stop and life begin? In and of itself this wouldn’t really matter to us. we would adapt and it wouldn’t be an oft discussed social issue.

However. Other factors are impacting us at exactly the same time. Many of the issues facing us today in the world, and in our lives, appear to have no clear right or wrong answers. That anxiety or additional stress upon our lives, which creates some ‘lack of comfort in boundaries’ translates into us seeking boundaries elsewhere. Time is one of those mostly because, rationally, we believe it is within our purview to actually control it <albeit we keep getting tugged by external influences which make us feel less control>.

Time seems despicable because it is so often caught in the wretched hollow of the in between of individuals and societies each trying to organize seeming chaos with some boundaries.

It is a fool’s errand, obsessing over time,  but one which we all run.

And unfortunately the errand itself eats away at Time.

Regardless.

Forever is both beautiful and doomed.

Time is beautiful and doomed.

What time does have is a hunger. It has a hunger for ‘things.’ It is an emptiness waiting to be filled.

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“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; in feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart throbs….”

Aristotle

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Time is neither despicable nor divine.

Time is neither elastic or inelastic.

In fact, time is in and of itself simply a void.

Nothing.

And, yet, a nothing to be filled with something.

I imagine my point is that Time is neither a currency nor does it have any value in and of itself. It is what you put within that void … that nothingness … that creates the currency & value.

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originally written June 2015

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“Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”

—

Jeffrey Eugenides

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Ok.

So I thought I had left the whole right brain left brain discussion behind.

And it reared its ugly head again one more time just the other day. And <distressingly> it was in a business environment, with senior people, discussing people’s strengths & weaknesses.

Look.

This whole right brain, left brain thing about creativity versus ‘logical’ thinking has to stop.

Stop … now <please>.

The truth?

We use our whole brain for thinking. Not halves. And right brain left brain mumbo jumbo is just that … a bunch of mumbo jumbo crap.

Yup.

The whole thing is bullshit.

Trust me <you don’t really have to because I will share reasons why you should>. And if you don’t believe me … well … if you ever want to drive a psychologist/psychiatrist/neurologist/any ‘ist’ crazy … bring it up.

With that … a reminder on what his whole thing is. In the right-left mythology … the left brain is logical, ordered, and analytic, and it supports reading, speech, math, and reasoning. In the same myth … the right brain is more oriented towards feelings and emotions, spatial perception, and the arts, and is said to be more creative.

Well.

Interesting myth. And it is just a myth. It is wrong (wrong & wrong … and maybe even wrong again).

And we have actually known for at least 30 years that this characterization is incorrect.

In fact the guy who probably put us all in this mess originally <Mike Gazzaniga who created the study in the 60’s that some pop psychologist used to write some fantasy-like left/right brain business books that became best sellers> who was a pioneer of modern study of brain hemispheric differences immediately tried to put a stop to the craziness as soon as it began with a book chapter titled “Left brain, right brain: A debunking.”

And he did that 25 years ago.

<note: he wrote it because the original crap was begun after he did a brain hemisphere study in the 60’s>

And, yet, there is still plenty of bunk to go around.

Its crazy.

I myself have gnashed my teeth <and sometimes growled> against the “left brain / right brain” myth for years <probably not 25 but a bunch>. It usually is personal <and I believe this is so for most people>. People are always trying to tell me how “right-brained” I am <or left … I get confused>.

Which I always find amusing since whatever I am doing invariably needs whatever the other side of the brain was supposed to be doing.

Plus. I would like to think I am using my whole frickin’ brain.

But.

It mostly aggravates me ,and kind of disturbs me> because it is deliberately misleading.

It has been used to support endless management dialogue telling us that we should liberate ourselves from too much left-brain ‘logical’ thinking and enjoy the fruits of our liberated, right-brained creativity <or vice versa depending on your management belief system>.

Look.

People may be inherently more visual, aural, spatial, sequential, intuitive, rational <or irrational> talented or non-talented … but it ain’t because of anything to do with left versus right brain.

Ok.

If you don’t trust me I pulled this from a medical journal.

A more technical explanation of how the whole thing went haywire:

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You’ve probably heard this left/ right brain dichotomy before. It goes something like this: the left hemisphere of the brain is logical, deductive, mathematical, etc., while the right hemisphere is artistic, visual and imaginative. The idea stems at least partly from the classic studies of split brain patients performed by Sperry and Gazzaniga in the 1960s.

There are some functional asymmetries in the brain, and it is true that certain regions of both hemispheres are specialized for particular functions. Speech illustrates this, but also shows that nothing is ever so simple when it comes to the brain: in most right-handed people, speech is processed in both hemispheres, but predominantly in the left. In some left-handers, speech is processed either predominantly in the right hemisphere or on both sides.

So the notion that someone is “left-brained” or “right-brained” is absolute nonsense. All complex behaviours and cognitive functions require the integrated actions of multiple brain regions in both hemispheres of the brain. All types of information are probably processed in both the left and right hemispheres (perhaps in different ways, so that the processing carried out on one side of the brain complements, rather than substitutes, that being carried out on the other).

An article was published this week in the venerable (and reliable) psychology journal Psychological Bulletin, which synthesized 67 brain imaging studies of creativity. Among other things, it showed that creativity is not especially a right-brain function. In fact, two of three broad classes of creative thought that have been studied seem not to depend on a single set of brain structures.

What we call “creativity” is so diverse that it can’t be localized in the brain very well.

One might think that this study would put to rest at least part of the left brain/right brain mythology, namely, that the right hemisphere of the brain is more responsible for creative thought than the left.

One would think so, but I wouldn’t count on it.

==

My conclusion?

I put the whole right/left brain thing in the same category as reading a horoscope or reading my own tarot cards. If you give someone a vague positive description in which they can see themselves they will tend to agree with you. And that is dangerous on a number of levels <if people actually believe it>.

Ok.

Here is the main reason I bring this up <beyond the fact it drives me crazy and it is still being seriously discussed in the business world>. It has a detrimental effect on education and how we manage our youth. It is as bad as social profiling when it comes to kids.

Left brain kid.

Right brain kid.

You carry that label and not only does the child begin to see themselves in that label <it is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy> the adults tag the child with the label. And start treating them that way. And expecting things based on the labeling.

All of a sudden the child is placed on the left, or right, brain treadmill <oops … I meant to say moving sidewalk>.

And then they are left there.

Uh oh.

One day the child wants to jump off the treadmill to hop on the other one for a while … <adults> “whoa … get back on your treadmill … you know that other one is only for the right brainers … and you will be much more successful on the left brain treadmill <sidewalk>.”

That, my friends, reads scary even if it seems just a theory.

And we all know that at some place, at some time, with some children … this is actually happening.

We need to squash this left/right brain myth forever. Now <please … again>.

We use all of our brain.

Brains are ambidextrous.

And even if you, personally, do not want to believe this, well, please … at least teach kids that is is so.

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“Rabbit’s clever,” said Pooh thoughtfully.
“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit’s clever.”
“And he has Brain.”
“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit has Brain.”
There was a long silence.
“I suppose,” said Pooh, “that that’s why he never understands anything.”

—

Winnie the Pooh

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“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.

To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

—-

Buckminster Fuller

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“This is the genius and the Achilles’ heel of American culture.

We … have a strong belief in self-determination and agency, even when our expectations fly in the face of reality.”

—-

Katherine Newman, who studies social mobility

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So.

Facing reality, as an individual, it can appear like a speed boat … crashing through waves with any significant milestones flashing by so fast they become a blur.

Facing reality, collectively. It can appear like a fully loaded tanker … ploughing its way through the waves where significance is measured, if discernable at all, in broad sweeping miles of slow turns.

I sometimes believe it is because of that continuous friction between those two things that on the same issue you will find people saying “whew, but look how far we have come” and another group of people saying “whew, but look how far we have to go.”

That Reality can be a real bastard.

Especially when it occurs to us that reality maintains … well … some consistency <even with all that coming and going stuff>.

I think we overlook that consistency because people, as humans do, view reality thru the eyes of … well … the person. Therefore we see reality as the ship <speedboat or tanker> when the … uhm … reality … is that Reality is the ocean itself.

Waves, tides, undercurrents, intermittently calm and stormy.

I thought of this as I came across two things within minutes of each other … an interview Sammy David Jr. did with the BBC in 1966 and a panel discussion on London Daily where they were discussing ex-president Obama.

Both had to do with the undercurrent of racism.

And it made me realize that we had come far and still had far to go.

And it made me realize that far too often we … well … fight reality. And reality fights back.

I believe it was Umberto Eco who suggested life has “lines of resistance.” This was his version of reality.

Now.

While possibly a ‘line of resistance’ is a surety in the grander scheme of Life … you can be sure that Reality can be a real bastard in that it is restless <think of my ocean metaphor>.

Separately … because of these ‘lines of resistance’ we cannot say or do whatever we like with impunity.

Oh.

Yeah.

But the lines of resistance can shift.

Just like with racism.

Just like what we say and do … and how we think and act.

Here is all I really know about reality and lines of resistance. We can resist & fight reality. And, in fact, our way of improving reality is most likely best found in how we not only resist against the lines of resistance but also how we push back, and out, against these lines. We can do this … one by one … as individuals. It was the Sammy Davis Jr. interview that reminded me of that truth.

You fight and use the opportunity given you by your fighting so that the next person has it a little better than you did.

That is how we fight reality. And that is, frankly, why fighting reality matters.

Do I wish we didn’t have to fight it? Sure.

Just think about what we could do if we could concentrate all of that energy on something significantly more useful.

====

Sammy Davis Jr. interview for the BBC, 1966

I had so much contempt thrown at me, so much hatred thrown at me, I’ve really awakened to the point where I really got no time to hate that vehemently back.

And if you waste your time and your energy — I’ve come to realize that, the people who hate, see if they could concentrate half of that time on discovering a cure for cancer, we would have had discovered, you know, twenty years ago — that’s one group I do not want to belong to.

The hurt is still there, every time someone calls you nigger, it hurts, and you can’t deny it hurts, but you cannot lay on it.

====

On the other hand.

Fighting to make the existing model, the existing reality, obsolete surely sounds like something worth fighting for.

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ما قيمة هذه الدنيا التي تتعلقون بها ؟ ..

 

“What is the value of this world that you cling to?

 

(via idle-handss)

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