Genius: It's Not For Everyone
Many people associate the Nobel Prizes--identified by one science magazine as "the big kahuna of genius awards--with public recognition and financial reward for achievement reached as a result of genius. It doesn't necessarily work that way.
For example, William Shockley, winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1958 for inventing the transistor, was refused admission to a study of genius as a child because his IQ (Intelligence Quotient) was not deemed to be high enough.
In 1968 Luis Alvarez won the Nobel for his work on elementary particles. He had been excluded from the same study as Shockley. As kids, they must have lacked something. Maybe it wasn't genius they lacked, but the ability to write tests and score high marks.
The genius study began in 1928 when Stanford University prof Louis Terman--a strong supporter of IQ tests--wanted to find out how many geniuses were around. Terman defined genius as anyone who could score 140 or higher on standard IQ tests of the day.
None of the children in the study--known as "Termites"--has ever won a Nobel Prize.
Not that they were all failures in life. Termite Jess Oppenheimer invented the TelePrompTer and Termite Norris Bradbury once led the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
October is the month when the year's Nobel winners are announced. If you haven't been contacted, you likely didn't win this time around. Can you find out if you were at least nominated? Yes, but you'll have to wait for 50 years. That's how long the Nobel Committee keeps its lists of nominees secret.
Many outstanding geniuses of the 19th and 20th centuries--at least the male ones--gained reputations as guys who liked to bed the ladies. They include Richard Feynman, Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell. (Sorry if that burst your bubble about Albert. Apart from a scampish attitude, he had a smile and grin that melted many a heart. Look how popular his image is even today.)
How could geniuses, notoriously considered as geeks, become ladies men? One theory suggests that geniuses--at least the ones who become well known--have an inherent tendency toward risk taking. Einstein once said that if a new idea isn't considered absurd at first, it will go nowhere. It takes chutzpah to make it successful and widely accepted. Risk taking is considered to be linked to higher than normal levels of testosterone.
William Shockley and eugenicist Robert Klark Graham set up the Repository for Germinal Choice, in Southern California, in 1981. That was essentially a sperm bank for Nobel winners and well known geniuses. Women could buy a fair chance at having a child with a high IQ through artificial insemination.
Unfortunately, Graham died in 1997 and the sperm bank for geniuses closed in 1999 after a huge amount of negative publicity.
Having a high IQ is no guarantee of financial security in life. Geniuses are notoriously poor managers of money, likely because their focus in life is elsewhere. A study at the Ohio State University Center for Human Resource Research showed that those with average and lower than average IQs were as good at saving their money as bright people.
Einstein is reputed to have lost most of his Nobel money on bad investments.
You don't usually find geniuses as CEOs either. Many are socially inept, not great people managers.
Is real genius in fact a form of mental imbalance, even a disorder? Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger identified a form of autism--known today as Asperger's syndrome--where a person engages in intense absorption with a very narrow range of special interests. Google "savant syndrome" to find some of them. Think A Beautiful Mind.
Asperger believed that for outstanding "success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential." He believed there is a clear link between mathematical and scientific genius and the form of autism named after him.
Talk about absent-minded geniuses, the term was almost invented for Norbert Weiner. The inventor of the field of cybernetics was the poster child for absent-mindedness.
He once forgot that he had driven his car to a conference and took the bus home. Finding his car missing from his driveway, he reported it stolen to the police. Let that scenario play itself out in your head.
Sometimes genius doesn't even help toward success in the working world. In the 1990s, Bell Labs found that its most productive and valued electrical engineers were not the geniuses it employed. The best were those who had good rapport with their coworkers, were able to empathize, were cooperative, persuasive and had the ability to build consensus.
How intelligent are our nearest DNA relatives? In 2007, Kyoto University conducted three memory-based intelligence tests using chimpanzees and college students. Take a moment now to picture that.
Ready? The top scoring chimp beat out all the students in the first test, tied with a few in the second and came out on top again in the third. You just knew it had to end that way, didn't you?
But are chimps the smartest animals? Sadly we can't pit them against Alex, a gray parrot that died last year at age 31. Alex was widely believed to be the smartest bird ever. He could identify 50 objects, seven colours and shapes and quantities of up to six.
If that sounds lame, remember that it was people who designed the tests. How would you stand up in an intelligence test designed by a parrot or a chimp? Think it couldn't happen? That's because you don't have the ability or skills to think on their level. Most animals are much smarter than we give them credit for. We just think they're not as bright as us because we design the tests.
Most of us don't have a clue about how to communicate with animals. Our pets can usually read our moods and attitudes based on our behaviour easier than we can read theirs.
Getting back to genius and intelligence, you may be able to boost your own intelligence. Australian scientists at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University claim that intelligence can be raised, at least in the short term, by taking daily doses of 5 mg of creatine. Creatine is a compound found in muscle tissue.
In any event, your intelligence can drop if you don't use it. Like any other kind of body function such as muscles and nerves, it's use it or lose it with intelligence. It's not like money in the bank. Keep your brain well exercised or you will lose what you have now.
Senility is a preventable disease. Getting old is inevitable, getting stupid is not.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who are well balanced socially, emotionally and intellectually as well as physically.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
[Primary source: Discover, October 2008]
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Buy Your Way To Happiness? Not Likely
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.
- Denis Waitley, American inspirational speaker and author (b. 1924)
What the hell does that mean?
If that was your reaction to the quote, you might be a bit light on the happiness scale, and may not know it.
Think about things that can be owned, earned, worn or consumed. They all require spending money. Thanks to the rich and powerful West and its persistent propaganda telling us that we can't be happy unless we spend money, an unbelievably large number of people in the world equate happiness and spending.
That requires people to have money to be happy, going along that way of thinking. Everyone who is poor must be unhappy, as a corollary. Or at least lack the ability to be truly happy.
People with lots of money spend, spend, spend. And they are happy. Or they believe they are. They must be, they conclude, because they are living the lifestyle that says they must be happy. They believe they are happy because they have been taught to believe that.
Yet look at the divorce rate among these people. Look at the percentage of their kids who take drugs and alcohol and simply can't manage in school. Look at the number who grow up with a video game as a surrogate mother instead of a real one. By the time they are in their teens, they don't want their natural mother anyway, many of them, because their mothers don't know what to do with them. And they have no idea what to do with their mothers.
So they all spend as much as they can to be happier.
But they don't get happier. What they do get is embroiled in addictions and obsessions, causes to which they devote much of their lives--such as their religion of choice or a political party--in a vain effort to teach the rest of the world how to be happy.
Some cults in other parts of the world understand. They have no source of the money needed to spend the way the addicts do in the West. So, jealous of the West and their own inability to get money to spend on the luxuries they believe they need to be happy, they become suicide bombers or terrorists of other stripes. Some kill their own people out of spite.
Most people in poorer countries don't behave that way, of course. But they have gotten the message. They believe that only fate has prevented them from being happy by not giving them the ability to earn money they can spend to make them happy. "Poor me, fate has dealt me such a cruel blow."
However, others in poorer countries do not succumb to the consumerism propaganda. They believe that happiness is what you make for yourself. And what you make for others around you in the process. They become musicians and dancers, for example, and find happiness in their music. They cherish the "spiritual experience of living every minute" with their music. Others get involved with other forms of artistic endeavour.
They lose themselves in whatever they do. Musicians become one with their music. Painters one with their paintings. Actors one with their particular craft, and so on.
Are the arts, then, the secret to happiness? No, it's the giving of themselves to something beneficial or to someone else that is enjoyed and appreciated by others that brings the happiness.
I can't say whether they live each moment with "love, grace and gratitude." Those are Denis Waitley's words. What words would I use? I stumble over them myself now that I have found happiness I could never have understood until recently.
While I was growing up, I was taught repeatedly, at home, at school, at church, playing sports and doing just about every activity involving others my own age that I must come first in my life. I must be in charge. I must be in control. I must succeed at everything. "Pay yourself first" and buy what you can with it. Borrow to buy what you can't afford so that you can show it off to others so they can see your success. Only when I outgrew that infantile, selfish and consumerish way of thinking and began to share my life freely with others did I find happiness.
With happiness, the more you give to others, the more you get back in return. Business doesn't work that way, which is why business wants us to be selfish. And consumers. Business lives for money. A life built around a business model is pretty shallow.
Business, however, cannot be happy. It's emotionless, even sociopathic if you believe some studies. Shaping our lives on a business model not only doesn't bring much happiness in return, it tends to lose for us many of the opportunities for happiness that we could have enjoyed.
Make someone happy today. You'll be glad you did. Really.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach their children how to be more than consumers, who want them to live lives full of happiness.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Denis Waitley, American inspirational speaker and author (b. 1924)
What the hell does that mean?
If that was your reaction to the quote, you might be a bit light on the happiness scale, and may not know it.
Think about things that can be owned, earned, worn or consumed. They all require spending money. Thanks to the rich and powerful West and its persistent propaganda telling us that we can't be happy unless we spend money, an unbelievably large number of people in the world equate happiness and spending.
That requires people to have money to be happy, going along that way of thinking. Everyone who is poor must be unhappy, as a corollary. Or at least lack the ability to be truly happy.
People with lots of money spend, spend, spend. And they are happy. Or they believe they are. They must be, they conclude, because they are living the lifestyle that says they must be happy. They believe they are happy because they have been taught to believe that.
Yet look at the divorce rate among these people. Look at the percentage of their kids who take drugs and alcohol and simply can't manage in school. Look at the number who grow up with a video game as a surrogate mother instead of a real one. By the time they are in their teens, they don't want their natural mother anyway, many of them, because their mothers don't know what to do with them. And they have no idea what to do with their mothers.
So they all spend as much as they can to be happier.
But they don't get happier. What they do get is embroiled in addictions and obsessions, causes to which they devote much of their lives--such as their religion of choice or a political party--in a vain effort to teach the rest of the world how to be happy.
Some cults in other parts of the world understand. They have no source of the money needed to spend the way the addicts do in the West. So, jealous of the West and their own inability to get money to spend on the luxuries they believe they need to be happy, they become suicide bombers or terrorists of other stripes. Some kill their own people out of spite.
Most people in poorer countries don't behave that way, of course. But they have gotten the message. They believe that only fate has prevented them from being happy by not giving them the ability to earn money they can spend to make them happy. "Poor me, fate has dealt me such a cruel blow."
However, others in poorer countries do not succumb to the consumerism propaganda. They believe that happiness is what you make for yourself. And what you make for others around you in the process. They become musicians and dancers, for example, and find happiness in their music. They cherish the "spiritual experience of living every minute" with their music. Others get involved with other forms of artistic endeavour.
They lose themselves in whatever they do. Musicians become one with their music. Painters one with their paintings. Actors one with their particular craft, and so on.
Are the arts, then, the secret to happiness? No, it's the giving of themselves to something beneficial or to someone else that is enjoyed and appreciated by others that brings the happiness.
I can't say whether they live each moment with "love, grace and gratitude." Those are Denis Waitley's words. What words would I use? I stumble over them myself now that I have found happiness I could never have understood until recently.
While I was growing up, I was taught repeatedly, at home, at school, at church, playing sports and doing just about every activity involving others my own age that I must come first in my life. I must be in charge. I must be in control. I must succeed at everything. "Pay yourself first" and buy what you can with it. Borrow to buy what you can't afford so that you can show it off to others so they can see your success. Only when I outgrew that infantile, selfish and consumerish way of thinking and began to share my life freely with others did I find happiness.
With happiness, the more you give to others, the more you get back in return. Business doesn't work that way, which is why business wants us to be selfish. And consumers. Business lives for money. A life built around a business model is pretty shallow.
Business, however, cannot be happy. It's emotionless, even sociopathic if you believe some studies. Shaping our lives on a business model not only doesn't bring much happiness in return, it tends to lose for us many of the opportunities for happiness that we could have enjoyed.
Make someone happy today. You'll be glad you did. Really.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach their children how to be more than consumers, who want them to live lives full of happiness.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
You May Be Stupid And Not Know It
Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it.
- Stephen Vizinczey, Hungarian-born Canadian writer (b. 1933)
One dictionary defines stupidity as "a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience."
Why would anyone with a higher education be stupid, possibly stupider than someone with less education?
Education--at least the education systems I am familiar with in many parts of the world--functions on a model that strongly promotes and supports conformity. Conformity, by definition, means following someone else's point of view of the world. Usually this takes the form of following the point of view of the power establishment, those who control power in a country, a state/province or a community.
Agree with the establishment and you "fit in." That means not only enjoying the benefits of agreeing with and supporting the ruling establishment and authority, but accepting its faults and warts without grumbling. And sometimes its illegal behaviour.
Poor people, for example, have trouble accepting the point of view of the establishment. Some slipped into poverty especially because they would not or could not conform to the belief system of the establishment. The establishment believes (sometimes even states publicly) that the poor are lazy, thus allowing themselves to be exempt from addressing the core of their problems.
People with severe health problems also have trouble supporting the establishment because they believe the people in power should do more to help them, especially to treat them according to the Golden Rule, the way the ruling people themselves would like to be treated in similar circumstances.
The people in power are never either poor or suffering from severe health problems. You never see someone with oxygen support or on a ventilator in a seat of a legislative assembly. These days you may see someone in a wheelchair, but those people, like the women who hold elected office, have fought their way through a morass and tangle of red tape to get there.
In some countries and elected legislative bodies, by law there must be a set minimum number or minimum percentage of seats for female representatives. I am not aware of any legislative body that has a minimum of requirement of representatives from among the poor or those with permanent health problems.
Ironically, social assistance for the poor--in whatever form that help may take--requires a huge portion of the budget for most governments. Health care, whether it comes from government coffers, as in Canada, or private health care or private health care companies with government assistance, demands a huge percentage of funds available for public use. In Canada, which has public health care, the budget for "free" health coverage requires over half the provincial budget totals.
Those who use the greatest portion of public funds have the least representation in legislative bodies. The people in power think this is a grand way of doing business. They, of course, are neither poor nor of ill health on a permanent basis. Consequently, the poor remain poor and those with permanent health problems seldom recover. That is, they remain permanently unhealthy even if good health care would cure their problems.
Does this mean that legislators suffer from "a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience?"
Anyone who hasn't been asleep for most of their life knows that corporations have great influence over governments. The bigger the corporations, the greater their contributions to political parties and elections and the greater their influence over decision making.So within government bureaucracies, conformity is not just the norm, it's the rule. Sometimes it's even the law.
Corporations themselves have bureaucracies run by a few people in power at the top. They like conformity because they have policies (both written and "informal") they want followed to the letter. In a sense, corporations are like the military, only without the uniforms (unless you call "suits" a uniform, which they may not be but they prove conformity), the foot stomping and the salutes.
The military, the ultimate in enforced conformity, requires underlings to obey even orders that don't make sense or that may contravene the laws of the land. That's enforced stupidity because those in lower ranks seldom get opportunities to think for themselves.
Religion enforces conformity, at least in the sense that what is said publicly must agree with the policies of those in higher authority. Those who don't want to conform either leave the faith, are banished or excommunicated. In a few cases, killed.
Most people who have passed through high school have learned that the wisest strategy for a paper or project is to give the teacher back what he or she wants. Be innovative, but only with certain parameters. In university and postgraduate school, the strictures tighten so that those who do not give the professors what they want in the form they want it may not pass or may not receive sufficient marks to move on to a higher level.
I disagree with Vizinczey's statement to the extent that I maintain all organizations in societies create stupidity, not just fortify it. They make thinking for yourself an anti-social act.
It has been said that having everyone thinking for themselves would result in chaos, in anarchy. This is not true. Even anarchists think alike. As to human chaos, that is highly unlikely because our nature as social beings would forced us to consider all possibilities for policies and procedures before making decisions. Our social nature would compel us to choose leaders.
Chaos? No. It would shift the present power mongers from their perches and place those who have the ability to organize and lead without fear and intimidation into positions where they could act in the best interests of the public that elected them.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can think for themselves without sinking into the abyss of banality, conformity and stupidity.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Stephen Vizinczey, Hungarian-born Canadian writer (b. 1933)
One dictionary defines stupidity as "a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience."
Why would anyone with a higher education be stupid, possibly stupider than someone with less education?
Education--at least the education systems I am familiar with in many parts of the world--functions on a model that strongly promotes and supports conformity. Conformity, by definition, means following someone else's point of view of the world. Usually this takes the form of following the point of view of the power establishment, those who control power in a country, a state/province or a community.
Agree with the establishment and you "fit in." That means not only enjoying the benefits of agreeing with and supporting the ruling establishment and authority, but accepting its faults and warts without grumbling. And sometimes its illegal behaviour.
Poor people, for example, have trouble accepting the point of view of the establishment. Some slipped into poverty especially because they would not or could not conform to the belief system of the establishment. The establishment believes (sometimes even states publicly) that the poor are lazy, thus allowing themselves to be exempt from addressing the core of their problems.
People with severe health problems also have trouble supporting the establishment because they believe the people in power should do more to help them, especially to treat them according to the Golden Rule, the way the ruling people themselves would like to be treated in similar circumstances.
The people in power are never either poor or suffering from severe health problems. You never see someone with oxygen support or on a ventilator in a seat of a legislative assembly. These days you may see someone in a wheelchair, but those people, like the women who hold elected office, have fought their way through a morass and tangle of red tape to get there.
In some countries and elected legislative bodies, by law there must be a set minimum number or minimum percentage of seats for female representatives. I am not aware of any legislative body that has a minimum of requirement of representatives from among the poor or those with permanent health problems.
Ironically, social assistance for the poor--in whatever form that help may take--requires a huge portion of the budget for most governments. Health care, whether it comes from government coffers, as in Canada, or private health care or private health care companies with government assistance, demands a huge percentage of funds available for public use. In Canada, which has public health care, the budget for "free" health coverage requires over half the provincial budget totals.
Those who use the greatest portion of public funds have the least representation in legislative bodies. The people in power think this is a grand way of doing business. They, of course, are neither poor nor of ill health on a permanent basis. Consequently, the poor remain poor and those with permanent health problems seldom recover. That is, they remain permanently unhealthy even if good health care would cure their problems.
Does this mean that legislators suffer from "a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience?"
Anyone who hasn't been asleep for most of their life knows that corporations have great influence over governments. The bigger the corporations, the greater their contributions to political parties and elections and the greater their influence over decision making.So within government bureaucracies, conformity is not just the norm, it's the rule. Sometimes it's even the law.
Corporations themselves have bureaucracies run by a few people in power at the top. They like conformity because they have policies (both written and "informal") they want followed to the letter. In a sense, corporations are like the military, only without the uniforms (unless you call "suits" a uniform, which they may not be but they prove conformity), the foot stomping and the salutes.
The military, the ultimate in enforced conformity, requires underlings to obey even orders that don't make sense or that may contravene the laws of the land. That's enforced stupidity because those in lower ranks seldom get opportunities to think for themselves.
Religion enforces conformity, at least in the sense that what is said publicly must agree with the policies of those in higher authority. Those who don't want to conform either leave the faith, are banished or excommunicated. In a few cases, killed.
Most people who have passed through high school have learned that the wisest strategy for a paper or project is to give the teacher back what he or she wants. Be innovative, but only with certain parameters. In university and postgraduate school, the strictures tighten so that those who do not give the professors what they want in the form they want it may not pass or may not receive sufficient marks to move on to a higher level.
I disagree with Vizinczey's statement to the extent that I maintain all organizations in societies create stupidity, not just fortify it. They make thinking for yourself an anti-social act.
It has been said that having everyone thinking for themselves would result in chaos, in anarchy. This is not true. Even anarchists think alike. As to human chaos, that is highly unlikely because our nature as social beings would forced us to consider all possibilities for policies and procedures before making decisions. Our social nature would compel us to choose leaders.
Chaos? No. It would shift the present power mongers from their perches and place those who have the ability to organize and lead without fear and intimidation into positions where they could act in the best interests of the public that elected them.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can think for themselves without sinking into the abyss of banality, conformity and stupidity.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Ode To An Empty Heart
In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.
- Antonio Porchia, Italian poet (1885-1968)
A full heart makes room for everything, then expands to accommodate additions, as needed. An empty heart allows nothing to breach its lack of trust, thus nothing earns it an emotional investment.
The empty heart--known elsewhere as a cold heart--wants for nothing because it doesn't allow for the possibility that it is not already complete.
The empty heart carries no baggage. Neither does it earn true friendship or love along the way because it thinks of nothing more than its own best interests.
The empty heart dies believing that it lived life the way it should, which to the full heart would be meaninglessness.
The empty heart can be changed. But the investment by another to accomplish change in the empty heart requires so much time and intensive effort, punctuated by repeated failures and fall-backs, that almost no one is prepared to make that investment.
The empty heart stands as the worst failure of humanity. Yet it rejects even the slightest effort to help it to fill.
The empty heart makes you glad that human bodies are recycled after death, for it has added nothing to the sum total of progress of humankind.
The empty heart cares nothing for the damage it does through psychological abuse, believing that everyone else should suffer as it has in the past. And as it does with each passing day.
The empty heart believes that it is superior to everyone else.
The full heart believes it will never have enough, so keep adding love and goodwill as it gives to and receives back from others.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow full hearts from small children.Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Antonio Porchia, Italian poet (1885-1968)
A full heart makes room for everything, then expands to accommodate additions, as needed. An empty heart allows nothing to breach its lack of trust, thus nothing earns it an emotional investment.
The empty heart--known elsewhere as a cold heart--wants for nothing because it doesn't allow for the possibility that it is not already complete.
The empty heart carries no baggage. Neither does it earn true friendship or love along the way because it thinks of nothing more than its own best interests.
The empty heart dies believing that it lived life the way it should, which to the full heart would be meaninglessness.
The empty heart can be changed. But the investment by another to accomplish change in the empty heart requires so much time and intensive effort, punctuated by repeated failures and fall-backs, that almost no one is prepared to make that investment.
The empty heart stands as the worst failure of humanity. Yet it rejects even the slightest effort to help it to fill.
The empty heart makes you glad that human bodies are recycled after death, for it has added nothing to the sum total of progress of humankind.
The empty heart cares nothing for the damage it does through psychological abuse, believing that everyone else should suffer as it has in the past. And as it does with each passing day.
The empty heart believes that it is superior to everyone else.
The full heart believes it will never have enough, so keep adding love and goodwill as it gives to and receives back from others.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow full hearts from small children.Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Are You Afraid To Die?
Today I am sufficiently exhausted that I can understand and empathize with people who want to die.
What I have trouble understanding is why people fear dying. I don't.
Following a traumatic event in my life in 1997, I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). For people with the most severe cases of CFS, just getting out of bed to go to the bathroom or to eat at a table can be either exhausting or painful or both. Mine was not that severe.
By the time I had finished breakfast on most days, I was so exhausted that I had to have a nap for an hour. Two or three naps followed through the day. Only when I took myself too far, beyond the point of being simply tired, would I have pain in every muscle in my body. I tried to avoid that. That's dumb. But it didn't always work.
Sometimes, going beyond the critical point becomes necessary. As a result of a series of coincidences, in the first half of 2007 I had more jobs to do than my body could manage. I got excessively tired every day. Recovery was not an option (is not even today) because the jobs that couldn't be avoided had to be done or my ability to sustain myself as a person would have collapsed.
When people get too tired, especially when excessive fatigue continues for a prolonged period of time, they begin to think strange thoughts. No matter how much sleep or rest (relaxing horizontally or sitting) a person gets, if the exhaustion continues the person can develop symptoms like that of sleep deprivation. Irritability, moodiness, impatience, intolerance of others or themselves, making mistakes that wouldn't have happened under normal circumstances, distancing themselves from loved ones and more problems ease themselves seamlessly into their life.
Sometimes, thoughts can turn to death. That could mean suicide, murder or murder-suicide. If severe enough, such as in some cases of post partum depression, it could even involve a mother killing her own baby, "to protect" the child.
Thoughts, discussion or proposals having anything to do with death are taboo in western cultures. Consequently we don't address their causes. "Go to the doctor." "Take a drug to make you happy." Pharmaceutical responses to problems or stress and other problems related to mental health of the 1960s and 1970s, primarily taking tranquilizers, evolved into taking a variety of drugs today. Some want to make smoking marijuana legal simply because so many people use it illegally, possibly as high as 25 percent of adults.
While people discuss the taking of drugs with emotional vigor, taking one side or the other, debate never turns to the subject of death and rarely to ways to avoid the effects of stress in the first place. In a materialistic society with an industrial mindset, normal conversation involves apparently healthy people talking about any subject other than death or social change to avoid the causes of stress that destroy so many lives.
The most important fact that we avoid talking about with those who may be suffering the effects of stress or some cause that makes another person consider suicide or murder is that the critical time in their life will pass, that they will feel better about life later. Discussion of how to reduce stress is not a popular topic among those with the industrial mindset. People who talk about stuff like that tend to be "out there somewhere," extreme liberals, aged hippies, not those in the mainstream of business culture.
One topic that everyone agrees on is that death is bad. Death must be avoided at all costs, even if it requires a person to remain in pain for years or to suffer in an institutional environment with most elements we consider as freedom removed. We don't know why. We don't discuss it so we never find out.
We have been told that death is painful, for one thing. In fact, it seldom is. For most people, even those who die unexpectedly or as a result of violence, death comes peacefully and as a release from the burden of life. Compared to many of the painful experiences of life, death is blissful. What comes before death, including treatment in a hospital, may be painful, but death is not.
You have likely heard of those who have returned from the brink of death, from near-death experiences or who have "come back from being clinically dead" speak of feeling at peace, of seeing a bright white light, of being welcomed to the next life. Even those who claim to have had out of body experiences, of seeing their bodies from above an operating table where their fleshly existence lay in clinical death, say that death was not to be feared, was not painful.
I don't propose that we encourage people to end their lives when they feel that life is no longer worth the pain and trouble. I do propose that we change our attitudes toward death and the stressors of life so that we can all live more peaceful, safe and loving lives.
Love is part of the equation. Those under constant stress have trouble feeling love, expressing love and accepting love.
The same may be said of people in depression. The odd thing about depression is that we know how to avoid it most of the time. Health experts know how it develops, why it develops and how to avoid it. But, except for a relatively small number of experts who put themselves out to help others through rough times, most health experts stay away from the subjects of depression, thoughts of suicide and stress.
Nothing improves when we refuse to talk about a subject that impacts the lives of everyone, either directly, indirectly through loved ones or friends, or both.
We may not be certain about what's "on the other side" of death. That doesn't mean that we should avoid talking about what's on this side. It could save many lives.
It could save your life one day.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about what, when and how to teach children what they need to know to live healthy adult lives, free of excess stress and fear.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
What I have trouble understanding is why people fear dying. I don't.
Following a traumatic event in my life in 1997, I developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). For people with the most severe cases of CFS, just getting out of bed to go to the bathroom or to eat at a table can be either exhausting or painful or both. Mine was not that severe.
By the time I had finished breakfast on most days, I was so exhausted that I had to have a nap for an hour. Two or three naps followed through the day. Only when I took myself too far, beyond the point of being simply tired, would I have pain in every muscle in my body. I tried to avoid that. That's dumb. But it didn't always work.
Sometimes, going beyond the critical point becomes necessary. As a result of a series of coincidences, in the first half of 2007 I had more jobs to do than my body could manage. I got excessively tired every day. Recovery was not an option (is not even today) because the jobs that couldn't be avoided had to be done or my ability to sustain myself as a person would have collapsed.
When people get too tired, especially when excessive fatigue continues for a prolonged period of time, they begin to think strange thoughts. No matter how much sleep or rest (relaxing horizontally or sitting) a person gets, if the exhaustion continues the person can develop symptoms like that of sleep deprivation. Irritability, moodiness, impatience, intolerance of others or themselves, making mistakes that wouldn't have happened under normal circumstances, distancing themselves from loved ones and more problems ease themselves seamlessly into their life.
Sometimes, thoughts can turn to death. That could mean suicide, murder or murder-suicide. If severe enough, such as in some cases of post partum depression, it could even involve a mother killing her own baby, "to protect" the child.
Thoughts, discussion or proposals having anything to do with death are taboo in western cultures. Consequently we don't address their causes. "Go to the doctor." "Take a drug to make you happy." Pharmaceutical responses to problems or stress and other problems related to mental health of the 1960s and 1970s, primarily taking tranquilizers, evolved into taking a variety of drugs today. Some want to make smoking marijuana legal simply because so many people use it illegally, possibly as high as 25 percent of adults.
While people discuss the taking of drugs with emotional vigor, taking one side or the other, debate never turns to the subject of death and rarely to ways to avoid the effects of stress in the first place. In a materialistic society with an industrial mindset, normal conversation involves apparently healthy people talking about any subject other than death or social change to avoid the causes of stress that destroy so many lives.
The most important fact that we avoid talking about with those who may be suffering the effects of stress or some cause that makes another person consider suicide or murder is that the critical time in their life will pass, that they will feel better about life later. Discussion of how to reduce stress is not a popular topic among those with the industrial mindset. People who talk about stuff like that tend to be "out there somewhere," extreme liberals, aged hippies, not those in the mainstream of business culture.
One topic that everyone agrees on is that death is bad. Death must be avoided at all costs, even if it requires a person to remain in pain for years or to suffer in an institutional environment with most elements we consider as freedom removed. We don't know why. We don't discuss it so we never find out.
We have been told that death is painful, for one thing. In fact, it seldom is. For most people, even those who die unexpectedly or as a result of violence, death comes peacefully and as a release from the burden of life. Compared to many of the painful experiences of life, death is blissful. What comes before death, including treatment in a hospital, may be painful, but death is not.
You have likely heard of those who have returned from the brink of death, from near-death experiences or who have "come back from being clinically dead" speak of feeling at peace, of seeing a bright white light, of being welcomed to the next life. Even those who claim to have had out of body experiences, of seeing their bodies from above an operating table where their fleshly existence lay in clinical death, say that death was not to be feared, was not painful.
I don't propose that we encourage people to end their lives when they feel that life is no longer worth the pain and trouble. I do propose that we change our attitudes toward death and the stressors of life so that we can all live more peaceful, safe and loving lives.
Love is part of the equation. Those under constant stress have trouble feeling love, expressing love and accepting love.
The same may be said of people in depression. The odd thing about depression is that we know how to avoid it most of the time. Health experts know how it develops, why it develops and how to avoid it. But, except for a relatively small number of experts who put themselves out to help others through rough times, most health experts stay away from the subjects of depression, thoughts of suicide and stress.
Nothing improves when we refuse to talk about a subject that impacts the lives of everyone, either directly, indirectly through loved ones or friends, or both.
We may not be certain about what's "on the other side" of death. That doesn't mean that we should avoid talking about what's on this side. It could save many lives.
It could save your life one day.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about what, when and how to teach children what they need to know to live healthy adult lives, free of excess stress and fear.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, April 01, 2007
At The End Of The Rat Race
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know."
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons)
Funny. But odd once you think about it.
The western world has developed a culture where it's rare to hear anyone admit "I don't know."
"Never let them see you sweat" better fits the tactic advised when faced with a situation we can't handle. Never admit you don't know the answer. Never admit you don't know what to do. Never admit you don't have the situation under control, that you can't manage alone.
That's the rat race. In many situations people don't know the answers, don't know what to do, don't have any idea how to control the factors in play.
They go to war before they know whether their information is accurate. They manipulate financial reports to make their company look good on the stock market. They hire away the best employees the competition has, steal their knowledge and expertise, then express surprise when some steals their own best people away along with their insider knowledge and expertise.
They make mistakes rather than ask others for advice or find consensus. They go for the kill rather than the compromise because dead (or destroyed) enemies seldom cause much problem. When cornered, they lie by diverting attention to someone else to give them time to alter circumstances to make themselves look good (or at least not so bad as someone else).
With the amount of new information develping each day in the world being more than any genius with a photographic memory could take in, every one of us doesn't know enough about most subjects. We can only be the best at one or two things and we are bound to be wrong about them once in a while.
Entering a restroom at a major conference centre in Toronto a few years ago, I found a young man dressed in a dapper tan suit, holding his right leg up in the air under an air hand dryer. He was drying the outside of his pants, beside his fly. No doubt he was a good salesman, but there are some things you just can't hide. His pending heart attack faded away when I looked then turned away from him to do the job I went in for.
Sometimes there is no substitute for honesty.
Ignorance is much harder to disguise than most people think. Lies are much easier to uncover than the liars believe.
What has the winner of the rat race proven? Most lack the respect they desire, the recognition they feel they deserve once their glory days are past. Who wants an old rat?
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to keep it real and above the table so that we can all lead healthier lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons)
Funny. But odd once you think about it.
The western world has developed a culture where it's rare to hear anyone admit "I don't know."
"Never let them see you sweat" better fits the tactic advised when faced with a situation we can't handle. Never admit you don't know the answer. Never admit you don't know what to do. Never admit you don't have the situation under control, that you can't manage alone.
That's the rat race. In many situations people don't know the answers, don't know what to do, don't have any idea how to control the factors in play.
They go to war before they know whether their information is accurate. They manipulate financial reports to make their company look good on the stock market. They hire away the best employees the competition has, steal their knowledge and expertise, then express surprise when some steals their own best people away along with their insider knowledge and expertise.
They make mistakes rather than ask others for advice or find consensus. They go for the kill rather than the compromise because dead (or destroyed) enemies seldom cause much problem. When cornered, they lie by diverting attention to someone else to give them time to alter circumstances to make themselves look good (or at least not so bad as someone else).
With the amount of new information develping each day in the world being more than any genius with a photographic memory could take in, every one of us doesn't know enough about most subjects. We can only be the best at one or two things and we are bound to be wrong about them once in a while.
Entering a restroom at a major conference centre in Toronto a few years ago, I found a young man dressed in a dapper tan suit, holding his right leg up in the air under an air hand dryer. He was drying the outside of his pants, beside his fly. No doubt he was a good salesman, but there are some things you just can't hide. His pending heart attack faded away when I looked then turned away from him to do the job I went in for.
Sometimes there is no substitute for honesty.
Ignorance is much harder to disguise than most people think. Lies are much easier to uncover than the liars believe.
What has the winner of the rat race proven? Most lack the respect they desire, the recognition they feel they deserve once their glory days are past. Who wants an old rat?
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to keep it real and above the table so that we can all lead healthier lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Powerful People Do Not Live Balanced Lives
The power to command frequently causes failure to think.
- Barbara Tuchman, author and historian (1912-1989)
While most of us could think of many examples of people in power who fail to think, the majority of examples would be about powerful people who do not consider the full range of consequences of their actions. Especially they do not consider who might be physically hurt or killed or whose lives might be destroyed by their command choices.
Those who gain power must focus their attention in two different directions: how to maintain the power they have and how to increase their power. As these two often each take up more time than the people have available, they may try to increase their power by harming others who would compete for their power base or prevent them from climbing higher on the ladder.
Power demands a huge commitment to maintenance and growth. That usually requires the power mongers to sacrifice other parts of what are common to ordinary folks. They pay lip service to family, but family can never take precedence over their work. They may belong to a religion, but they use their fellow members as contacts for their network. Almost everyone they know have the potential to be used to their advantage at some point.
Powerful people do think. They simply think in so narrow a range that they necessarily ignore other aspects of life around them. Like happiness. Like addicts of other varieties, the power monger believes he is happy because he is "successful," as he has learned that power, success and happiness roll together into one great ball. They don't, but that is what they believe.
Power seekers can never be satisfied because they always need more. A person who can never be truly satisfied with themselves can never be truly happy. They have a very narrow focus of life, but convince themselves that theirs is what life is about.
Consider this when you admire or give considerable attention to those in positions of power.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to put a human face on those with fame and fortune. They are all people, just like you and me.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Barbara Tuchman, author and historian (1912-1989)
While most of us could think of many examples of people in power who fail to think, the majority of examples would be about powerful people who do not consider the full range of consequences of their actions. Especially they do not consider who might be physically hurt or killed or whose lives might be destroyed by their command choices.
Those who gain power must focus their attention in two different directions: how to maintain the power they have and how to increase their power. As these two often each take up more time than the people have available, they may try to increase their power by harming others who would compete for their power base or prevent them from climbing higher on the ladder.
Power demands a huge commitment to maintenance and growth. That usually requires the power mongers to sacrifice other parts of what are common to ordinary folks. They pay lip service to family, but family can never take precedence over their work. They may belong to a religion, but they use their fellow members as contacts for their network. Almost everyone they know have the potential to be used to their advantage at some point.
Powerful people do think. They simply think in so narrow a range that they necessarily ignore other aspects of life around them. Like happiness. Like addicts of other varieties, the power monger believes he is happy because he is "successful," as he has learned that power, success and happiness roll together into one great ball. They don't, but that is what they believe.
Power seekers can never be satisfied because they always need more. A person who can never be truly satisfied with themselves can never be truly happy. They have a very narrow focus of life, but convince themselves that theirs is what life is about.
Consider this when you admire or give considerable attention to those in positions of power.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to put a human face on those with fame and fortune. They are all people, just like you and me.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, February 16, 2007
The Struggle To Be Remembered By History
You can't leave footprints in the sands of time if you’re sitting on your butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
- Bob Moawad, Chairman and CEO of Edge Learning Institute
Addressing the charming imagery, it seems that many people would be satisfied to leave their buttprints in the sands of time. Only to have them disappear with the first breeze or wave.
At some point in their lives, almost everyone in every society becomes a follower, one who accepts what the leaders dish out because they believe they have no power or influence to change "what is and must be." For some this happens in the early years of childhood when parents teach them to be quiet and obedient, to follow the rules and to avoid being rude to others. Leaving footprints means insulting someone, usually someone who gets lots of attention. The insult may not be intended or justified, but it happens.
Others learn to stay in line and obey in school, where differences from the norm are discouraged in many cases, unless they are of the intellectual variety. Most of the rest learn to be followers when they reach the workforce, where individuality, independent thinking and acting without approval are strongly discouraged in most places of employment.
A few struggle to have their own small business, to be their own boss. At least 85 percent of these fail within the first five years because the business owners have not learned to think independently, do not have the spirit of an entrepreneur (who was inevitably a rebel in school and a troublemaker before reaching school age).
That leaves a very small percentage of people who have the internal strength to leave their footprints in the sands of time. Most of those suffer social and psychological abuse at the hands of the socially and politically powerful of their time, people who manage to wield their power because they have the ability to keep the noses of most they encounter to the grindstone. To keep them following.
Those few unique individuals who survive the social pressure deserve our recognition because they survived when most others caved. Merely surviving without finding themselves in prison or a psych unit warrants our acknowledgement, at least. Almost all of the anti-establishment leaders of the 1960s, for example, became powerful leaders within the business or academic establishment ten to 20 years later. For which should we remember them?
Within that group of survivors a few find a way to specialize by becoming expert at a skill, such as painting, acting or an athletic endeavour. They work every available hour to rise above the masses of their respective fields, often at the sacrifice of family or social life. When they reach the level where they really can leave their footprints in the sands of time, they have followers and admirers. They still always have enemies and naysayers, but everyone who succeeds at anything and gets public recognition gains a following if they want it.
In a world of nearly seven billion people, how many of us have the ability to leave our footprints in the sands of time?
There is always room for those with the desire and determination. The more of us that make it, the more of us can offer mutual support.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the tiny path out of the forest of conformity.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Bob Moawad, Chairman and CEO of Edge Learning Institute
Addressing the charming imagery, it seems that many people would be satisfied to leave their buttprints in the sands of time. Only to have them disappear with the first breeze or wave.
At some point in their lives, almost everyone in every society becomes a follower, one who accepts what the leaders dish out because they believe they have no power or influence to change "what is and must be." For some this happens in the early years of childhood when parents teach them to be quiet and obedient, to follow the rules and to avoid being rude to others. Leaving footprints means insulting someone, usually someone who gets lots of attention. The insult may not be intended or justified, but it happens.
Others learn to stay in line and obey in school, where differences from the norm are discouraged in many cases, unless they are of the intellectual variety. Most of the rest learn to be followers when they reach the workforce, where individuality, independent thinking and acting without approval are strongly discouraged in most places of employment.
A few struggle to have their own small business, to be their own boss. At least 85 percent of these fail within the first five years because the business owners have not learned to think independently, do not have the spirit of an entrepreneur (who was inevitably a rebel in school and a troublemaker before reaching school age).
That leaves a very small percentage of people who have the internal strength to leave their footprints in the sands of time. Most of those suffer social and psychological abuse at the hands of the socially and politically powerful of their time, people who manage to wield their power because they have the ability to keep the noses of most they encounter to the grindstone. To keep them following.
Those few unique individuals who survive the social pressure deserve our recognition because they survived when most others caved. Merely surviving without finding themselves in prison or a psych unit warrants our acknowledgement, at least. Almost all of the anti-establishment leaders of the 1960s, for example, became powerful leaders within the business or academic establishment ten to 20 years later. For which should we remember them?
Within that group of survivors a few find a way to specialize by becoming expert at a skill, such as painting, acting or an athletic endeavour. They work every available hour to rise above the masses of their respective fields, often at the sacrifice of family or social life. When they reach the level where they really can leave their footprints in the sands of time, they have followers and admirers. They still always have enemies and naysayers, but everyone who succeeds at anything and gets public recognition gains a following if they want it.
In a world of nearly seven billion people, how many of us have the ability to leave our footprints in the sands of time?
There is always room for those with the desire and determination. The more of us that make it, the more of us can offer mutual support.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the tiny path out of the forest of conformity.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, January 27, 2007
War And Politics: Social Twins
"War is nothing but the continuation of politics by other means."
- Carl von Clausewitz, 19th century Prussian military thinker
Some may argue that "by other means" disqualifies or devalues the whole message of the quote.
Others may say that war is but a continuation of business by other means. Those countries that begin wars or that support insurgents or revolutionaries in another country always have their own financial interests at heart somewhere along the way.
War is life. It's the way life is in all forms of biological existence that we know, be they plant or animal. What is different about the human form of war is not just that we kill for reasons other than for food (a few other animals do that), but that we do so in highly organized and socially powerful groups with detailed planning. Socially powerful meaning in ways that influence human enemies most effectively.
However, war is our way of showing that we have not progressed far beyond what our prehuman ancestors, the way our genetically close primate relatives are today. It is the most primitive way of conducting the affairs of large societies.
War is our way of demonstrating that we have failed to advance as civilizations. We have the potential to make advancements beyond the primitive, but we keep falling back to the ways of our forebears. Our prehuman, small-brained ancestors.
Why do we allow this to happen to us? Because we pay most attention to those who claim that "others" are a great threat to us and least attention to those who want to adopt friendships with the others to trade and socialize for our mutual benefit. In most cases, the claim that the others are threatening us is false.
We are still, most of us, simple creatures whose natural tendency is to look to others for instruction and for protection. Like the apes. We follow the apparently most powerful and the loudest among us.
We will know when we have risen above our natural instincts when we see war and violence as activites of simpler, more primitive animals. We have the brain to do it. We need to use that brain to demonstrate that we are more advanced than apes.
You can do your part. Pass the word.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help us advance the process of civilization one small step at a time.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Carl von Clausewitz, 19th century Prussian military thinker
Some may argue that "by other means" disqualifies or devalues the whole message of the quote.
Others may say that war is but a continuation of business by other means. Those countries that begin wars or that support insurgents or revolutionaries in another country always have their own financial interests at heart somewhere along the way.
War is life. It's the way life is in all forms of biological existence that we know, be they plant or animal. What is different about the human form of war is not just that we kill for reasons other than for food (a few other animals do that), but that we do so in highly organized and socially powerful groups with detailed planning. Socially powerful meaning in ways that influence human enemies most effectively.
However, war is our way of showing that we have not progressed far beyond what our prehuman ancestors, the way our genetically close primate relatives are today. It is the most primitive way of conducting the affairs of large societies.
War is our way of demonstrating that we have failed to advance as civilizations. We have the potential to make advancements beyond the primitive, but we keep falling back to the ways of our forebears. Our prehuman, small-brained ancestors.
Why do we allow this to happen to us? Because we pay most attention to those who claim that "others" are a great threat to us and least attention to those who want to adopt friendships with the others to trade and socialize for our mutual benefit. In most cases, the claim that the others are threatening us is false.
We are still, most of us, simple creatures whose natural tendency is to look to others for instruction and for protection. Like the apes. We follow the apparently most powerful and the loudest among us.
We will know when we have risen above our natural instincts when we see war and violence as activites of simpler, more primitive animals. We have the brain to do it. We need to use that brain to demonstrate that we are more advanced than apes.
You can do your part. Pass the word.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help us advance the process of civilization one small step at a time.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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