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

Trying To Stay Sane In An Insane World

Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.
- RD Laing, psychiatrist and author (1927-1989)

One dictionary defines insanity as a "relatively permanent disorder of the mind." Who decides that the dysfunctional condition of one mind is "relatively permanent?"

In times past people whose behaviour strayed too far from the norms of society were either imprisoned or incarcerated in insane asylums. Today the deciding factor of insanity seems to be whether or not a person might be a danger to themselves or to others. Even that danger must be a physical one, as people who are emotional dangers to others or to themselves are allowed to move freely among us.

Is the world around us insane? In some senses it is. We allow politicians who are known to have devious or suspicious pasts and beliefs to persuade us that they have the best plans for the next government. We vote for candidates who themselves make promises or their parties make promises that we know very well they will turn their backs on if elected.

We believe people who lie to us, even if we know they are lying. That may be someone who tells us we are stupid or incompetent or a leader who tells us to be afraid of an enemy who knows nothing about us and wants nothing to do with us.

We allow ourselves to be propagandized by television commercials, and the minds of our children to be programmed by them, without taking any trouble to either learn the truth about the products they advertise or teaching our children the skills they need so that they can tell when someone is trying to twist their minds.

We lock our doors at night against evils that may not exist when anyone with an IQ greater than a doorknob would not invade a home when the owners are home. And we leave large areas of easily broken glass windows available on our homes while we put multiple locks and deadbolts on our doors, as if no thief would be discourteous enough to not come through the proper door.

We work excessive hours to earn a mighty income so that we have enough money to buy recreational toys (and drugs) we barely have spare time enough to use. We value leisure time, in theory, but don't know how to relax when we have it. So we go shopping, even to the extent of choosing vacation destinations where the shopping is known to be good.

We take excessive and shocking amounts of drugs, both prescription and "recreational" because we don't live healthy lives and need something to protect us from the unhealthy lifestyles we have decided are necessary for us.

We pity those who have emotional breakdowns or who retreat into various medically accepted forms of mental illness because they couldn't cope with their lives using the coping skills at their disposal.

Rather than trying to figure out what is insane and what is "normal," a condition which keeps changing itself over time, we should plot a course for our own lives that is within our ability to cope and that will deliver to us the kinds of rewards we most want from life.

And not listen to all those crazy people out there who tell us different.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help each person carve a path of sanity for themselves through a seemingly insane world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com

Nietzsche Said Groups Are Insane

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

Insanity in individuals doesn't seem so rare now when television programs showing videos of stupid stunts and events gone awry are common. But it's still not as common as insanity for groups of people.

How often have you wondered "What were they thinking?" when one of the governments to which you pay taxes passed a law that didn't make any sense, was unenforceable, would punish those it was trying to save more than those who were trying to hurt them, would cost fortunes to implement with little value foreseen for the money?

Or when corruption charges were laid against politicians who were, in effect, collaborating with criminals who would have destroyed the kind of lives the politicians were elected to defend and advance.

Or when a nation believes it can prevent war by starting one.

Or when a national leader creates fear within his own people by falsely accusing "others" of trying to make them afraid by threatening them. Hitler and the Nazis were an excellent example of that.

Or when a club, social group or service organization elects someone they know is the wrong person to lead the group, simply because no one else has volunteered to run for the office.

In the security business, be it national security, municipal security or security of digital records on computer, leaders sometimes hire criminals to advise them about how to guard against other criminals. As nutty as this seems, it works. Only a crook thinks like a crook. It also gives many criminals an opportunity to use the skills and knowledge they have learned to make life better for others, rather than worse. That's not crazy, but it seems that way to an unknowing layperson.

Groups of various kinds do apparently insane things and make crazy decisions not because they are all loonies, but because they think like individuals. Individuals seldom think in group terms.

Group decision making and action requires people who know not just the procedures for helping the group to survive and thrive, but the consequences of decisions that are to be considered.

Individual group members may be inclined to see only the consequences of how a group decision might affect them personally.

No doubt many stirling initiatives died in committee. But at least many totally foolish ones did as well. Committees have a way of sorting through the trash, even if they throw out some good stuff in the process.

Every group is conprised of individuals. Fortunately, some groups have individuals who think of the welfare and the future of the group while they are fulfilling their roles as group members.

The alternative for many groups is dictatorship. Benevolent dictatorship is the best possible form of government or of leadership. But benevolent dictators are rarer than sane governments. I would like to offer a good example of a benevolent dictator here, but most of the good ones went sour eventually--absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to see through the smog of reality.
Learn more at http://billallin.com