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One of the things I've found in four decades of engineering is the notion of "pushing through" is often portrayed by incompetents as being "a good thing" - so, a worker will get loaded up with work to the point of overload (and thus failure - which is particularly the case if managers are jealous, insecure, or ideologically neoliberal), say they need a break, and the manager (and I stress this is largely in the past - my office currently has two of the three most outstanding managers I ever worked for - including my immediate manager [who solicitations led me to think about what has changed, and thus this article]) will then say "well, finish this and you can have a break" - because to do otherwise would require admitting managerial incompetence.
The downside, of course, is reduced efficiency, lower quality of work, and increased risk of errors - and that's just in the short term. In the longer term it builds up distrust, damaging cynicism, and even hate.
This plague of stupidity often starts early, with engineering lecturers (who, in my time at Uni, they came from a previous generation and were dinosaurs in many ways - modern lecturers seem to be younger, and I consider that better in many ways) who, out of intellectual arrogance, act stupidly and make pronouncements on matters outside engineering that they they are neither qualified nor competent to do - basically, the "push through" rubbish.
Pushing through is not suppressing emotions: it is actively overriding or even suppressing warning signals from one's body - physical, emotional and mental - in the quest for a future EMOTIONAL reward of "feeling good" - which is often largely a case of feeling superior to other,. more rational human beings.
If you talk to people who are qualified and competent to express a view, they state that adequate rest and recreation is essential - so it is not just a case of making sure you have enough time in bed (on the presumption that means sleep - for why that is wrong, talk to qualified and competent sleep experts), it also means having enough time to do other things - reading, watching films, meditating, time with family and/or family of choice (i.e., friends).
Any of those activities which is done for the purpose of making one "fit and ready" for work DOES NOT COUNT - for reasons, speak to the aforementioned experts who actually do understand humans, not the arrogant incompetents.
There are also moral / spiritual aspects to this.
Firstly, we do not exist in order to be slaves to an economic unit.
Secondly, pandering to unthinking or incompetent tendencies (such as using fast-tracking to cover managerial/planning incompetence or lack of forethought, or pander to impatience) is irresponsible as it is likely to encourage/reward such behaviour - which is bad for those indulging in that behaviour, as well as society.
We started going down this path, it seems to me, when politicians a few decades ago tried to gain power by saying they could get things done faster, and voters unthinkingly fell for that - which led to MPs flogging a dead horse rather than coming to terms with the reality of things like planning, workload, time for thinking, etc (which ultimately contributed, in part, to the need for QAQC), and then admitting they were wrong.
We have the capability to think: we should do all we can to make sure the thinking is deep, reflective, and thorough.
Otherwise we are simply wasting our potential.
Mind you, being human is about a lot more than thinking - for a start, other (non-human)animals have shown intelligence in a wide range of ways, much to the shock/horror of those humans who pride themselves on their intellectual arrogance.
Some humans pride themselves on the ability to make tools - but some animals also make and use tools. At this point, those physically prideful humans may mention the opposable thumb - at which point they need to look up how an elephant's trunk works (especially its ability to grasp).
And at this stage, some humans will arrogantly talk about humans having the ability to be compassionate, and why am I giving the prideful (i.e., arrogant) humans a hard time - and I will point those arrogant and/or uninformed humans to the books of Carl Safina.
Humans have the ability to think, to communicate, to make tools, and to feel - but so do many other animals (anyone who doubts that should get a pet - under supervision, given their evident incompetence - and pay attention). We're not unique because of individual characteristics, or even the combination as those characteristics and the combination of them are held by other animals (and there are, incidentally, same sex attracted/bisexual animals): we're unique because of the potential to effect change by combining those characteristics.
We can destroy trees and forests (and thus ecosystems), but we can also elucidate the complexities and benefits of forests (see, for instance, Peter Wohlleben, or the whole of the environmental movement), and implement reforestation.
We can start to destroy the ozone layer, identify the problem, and largely recover the situation.
The problems in many of the actions we do or don't do, is that emotions are denied - or not even recognised.
No matter that it may be intellectually/emotionally convenient or within our level of understanding to assume so, the slash and burn farmer doesn't hate the forest: they love their family, and want their family to survive. The jerk wanting trees cut down in an urban area may genuinely be concerned about safety - particularly if they've lost someone or been harmed by tree problems (or they may be on a power trip, or reacting emotionally to climate crisis/environmental advocacy or some other challenge to their world view). The egotistical capitalist may or may not have a taught hate or contempt for others and the environment, but they're probably predominantly acting because of the pleasure they get from realising their flawed world view - which may have been imbibed because they wanted to please a parent or teacher or peer.
If we want to change them so that humans can survive, yes, we have to engage with them intellectually, but we also have to address the underlying emotional basis for their views - and emotions are there, no matter rational people claim to be.
To do that, we need to stop suppressing our emotions, and start working with them and how they impact on the world - and that is where people like Karla McLaren can help.
