Post No 526 - Manadagr’s Meanderings

Today’s post is going to be one of those posts where I dump a few ideas that I haven’t been able to develop into full posts (often, because of lack of time or energy). What I’m going to cover is: 

• flaws of the ancient Stoics;
• “smarty-pants”;
• choosing a lifestyle to enable one to be oneself;
• reality shows;
• what is success or failure, and who decides?; and
• let down by the hippies.

First, up, the ancient Stoics …

Flaws of the ancient Stoics

Now, I am using the term ‘Stoic’ in the sense that it was used prior to the last few centuries: now, it is viewed as someone who is unemotional, but the term used to refer to a particular school of philosophical thought (as did ‘Epicurean’, and other words we apply particular meanings to nowadays). The ancient Stoics were probably more akin to modern Buddhists - aiming to be happy in life, which includes living life by the Serenity Prayer:

Goddess, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

In particular, the ancient Stoics considered it important to accept that there are things we cannot change in the world, and thus develop what I would term equanimity.

That is quite true, but it is also important, I consider, to note that:

(a) there are things you can change in the world; and

(b) where the cut-off point is for people may not be clear - and it will shift depending on circumstances, including the state that the person is in (e.g., if you learn new skills, your capacity to change things may increase … and then it may decrease if you become ill, or have to focus on caring for ill or elderly relatives, for instance).

Having the courage to try and genuinely find where that cut-off is, is something that I consider too few people do.

“Smarty-pants”

To begin with, I would actually normally call this something else (smart-something … ), but I’m still determined not to have to set up an adult content filter :)

The inspiration for this comes from an article I found on LinkedIn: "DropBox’s hiring practices explain its disappointing​ lack of female employees", by Vivek Wadhwa on 17th February, 2014. For those of you able to access Linked In, the article can be found here, and on the author's website, there is this link. 

What I found particularly significant is the following comment, about so-called ‘quirky’ questions that some interviewers like to use (e.g. “What is a superpower you would give to your best friend?”):

“The problem is that such questions are fun only for people who understand the jokes — and who can think like the young men doing the interviews.

They don’t lead to better hiring outcomes as Google learned. Its senior vice president for people operations, Laszlo Bock, said last June in an interview with New York Times, “…we found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time. How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane? How many gas stations in Manhattan? A complete waste of time. They don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart.”

Such hiring practices also disadvantage women. They hurt the employer by limiting the talent pool. They fortify the male dominated frat-boy culture that Silicon Valley is increasingly being criticized for.”

If I was asked that sort of question in a job interview, I would possibly walk out, because of what it reveals about the workplace culture – i.e., an attitude of being ‘smarty-pants’. If you want to ask a question about my creativity, then ask it about something related to work – I may, after all, not be creative in other areas of my life, but I may be very creative in my field of work. (Provided, of course, the company concerned does not try to take advantage of others and get some free advice – as some unethical, unscrupulous places have apparently done ... ) 

To not do so is to abuse one’s power, and to fail to be proportionate in how one chooses to impact on others.

Choosing a lifestyle to enable one to be oneself

I was recently reading the brilliant T. Thorne Coyle's blog, and in this post found the following comment:

"I had one abortion in my early 20s. A condom broke. It happens. The abortion wasn’t easy. It was necessary. I vowed to never have to go through one again.

That abortion saved my life.

Not my physical life, but it saved my life nonetheless, enabling me to work toward the life I have now, one which (I hope) contributes and gives back. That abortion also saved the life of whatever child that fetus would have turned into. It saved that child from a life of poverty and difficulty. It saved that child from a parent who didn’t want it and who still needed years to work through the abuse from her own childhood."

I consider that, sometimes, people’s responses to others’ choices around lifestyle are basically resentment that the others have had the temerity to not go along with what society expected of them. I first came across this that I can remember – albeit in reverse - when I overheard a couple of older women discussing modern underwear, and saying “well, that must be all they need to wear, then”. The tone of her voice was sad, full of regret for what could have been if she had seen an option other than going along with the very constrained, supported and altered shape prescribed by society’s overwhelming presumption of girdles and the like when she was younger. Both of those older women summed up their attitude with a “good on ‘em”, but many people I know don’t – especially when it comes to choosing not to have children. There is an element of viciousness – and also elements of condescension and patronising – in the voices of those who condemn those who do not have children, an element of “how dare they choose other opportunities? I didn’t! I know – I’ll call them selfish”. This attitude also, of course, has the side outcome of making the situation of those who want to have children and are unable to do so infinitely worse – such views are particularly a case of ‘rubbing the other’s nose in it’ to the childless women and men who are unable to have children.

(I also object strenuously to the expectation of those who choose to have children that others who have child-free lifestyles will submit those VALID child-free lifestyles to the petty whims and desires of the CHOSEN child-included lifestyle. As an example, any such person who expected me to rearrange my home and life so that it is child-safe will get very short shrift – and be lucky if I am polite about it. And then there is the issue of over-population and the environmental damage done by that … especially when the excessive numbers of children are in Western societies … )

The main area of my life where this has been an issue is that of where to live – which, in my case, is best done on the water. This is the reason I never bought a house or unit when I was younger. Having then lived on the water (in a boat that was too small, but which I managed to fit water recycling on to – my day job has its benefits!) for the best part of a decade (commuting to work), I made the mistake of underappreciating the importance of that when I moved ashore. Now, having had to give my boat to others, I am looking at many years before I can start spending some time back on the water. As my quote from F. W. Boreham puts it:

“We make our decisions. And then our decisions turn around and make us.”

This is so important, being true to oneself, as, if you get it wrong, you can literally wind up ill, or driving yourself insane through the incompatible energies and other effects of trying to live something that you are not – as too many LGBTIQ people discover, prior to coming to terms with themselves.

"Reality" TV shows

I normally avoid such rubbish like the plague (in fact, I don’t have much time to watch ANY television), but I unfortunately caught part of one such show where a childish woman was saying that a food dish which was to be based on lamb shanks had to have to bone in it “because everyone loves marrow”.

Bull.

Not only is that sort of attitude WRONG and GROSSLY IMMATURE, it is PRECISELY the sort of thinking I was alluding to earlier, when I was discussing the importance of choosing a lifestyle that is compatible with oneself. That woman’s attitude contributes to the small-mindedness and expectation of society, the pressure on people that drives LGBTIQ kids to commit suicide or self harm, and LGBTIQ people of all ages to have problems caused by discrimination. It shows a failure to cope with difference, and, as I’ve written elsewhere, that is the ultimate source of what is termed ‘evil’.

I wonder how the producers etc of such shows and the network executives responsible for them will find the karma for their evil when they meet it in future lifetimes … (or this!) 
 

What is success or failure, and who decides?

I recently read a review of the next book of the so-called “Tiger Mother” (see http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/feb/07/truth-about-tiger-mothers-family-amy-chua). Now, I haven’t read either of these books, and don’t have any desire to, but the thought that struck me about the review is that the whole approach – both that of the so-called “Tiger Mother” and the reviewer’s – were predicated on the idea that physical things matter more than spiritual. They do also address emotional issues, and there are some conflicting world views on that level (for the record, I consider that of the so-called “Tiger Mother” to be dangerously flawed because it is so limited in understanding of people), but neither seems to be aware that there is more to life. 

Let down by the hippies

Something I have often thought about the ‘hippies’ of the sixties is that, when they packed everything away to become mainstream, they made all that they had claimed and said – every single last bit of it – a facile childish prank. I’d always been square in that decade, but my beliefs were actually quite genuine  and thus, when I did start to change, slowly, and in response to life’s lessons, I consider that I maintained my credibility more than those hippies who went mainstream (some didn’t, by the way). 

Conclusion

So … what to be drawn from all this? Be true to yourself – don’t let society or your peers dictate to you how to live or what to do.

And this is all definitely a case of: do as I say, not as I do :)

[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"). 

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr 
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux? Morinehtar? Would-be drýicgan ... )

My "blogiography" (list of all posts - currently not up to date) is here.  

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ...  See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "pagans for peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour - and see also here, and be flexible.

I am a Walker upon the Path of Balanced Positivity, seeking Spiritual Maturity. 

• One size does NOT fit all. 
• Don't be mediocre - seek to excel.  
• Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if  the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
• May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
• Ban the dream interpretation industry! 
• A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
• Housework is for ensuring a home is comfortable to live in, not competing to outdo or belittle others.
• Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal. 
• Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master. 
• Expertise at intimacy and emotional happiness is generally not the same thing as spiritual growth.
• "Following the crowd" is not "going with the flow".
• Armageddon is alive and well and happening right now: it is a battle between the indolence of "I only ..." and/or "I just ..." and/or "Everyone knows ... " and/or "they can ..." and what Bruce Schneier [2] calls "security theatre" on one side, and perspicacity and the understanding that the means shape the end on the other. Indolence vs. perspicacity, and expediency vs. honour.
• The means shape the end.  
• As words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
• My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films. 
• All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ... 

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger [people]. JOHN F. KENNEDY (who was quoting 19th century Episcopal Bishop Phillips Brooks)

Jesus loves you.  Odin wants you to grow up. (Facebook meme, according to John Beckett)

We make our decisions. And then our decisions turn around and make us. F.W. BOREHAM

Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious. JANE ELLIOTT 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. (based on writing by) EDMUND BURKE

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." EINSTEIN

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Those whom we cannot stand are usually those who we cannot understand P.K.SHAW

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, and the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change." SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY (US Attorney General 1966 Speech) 

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that -- counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. ... Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile." ROBERT F. KENNEDY 1968

Tags: arrogance, children, family, life lessons, lifestyles, peer pressure, self knowledge, social engineering, socialisation, Stoicism, superiority, values,

First published: Manadagr, 24th February, 2014

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Monday, 24th February, 2014

Post No. 318 - Competitiveness vs cooperation

I've posted on this topic previously, but it has come up in my life again (basically because I have been through a major personal crisis [1]) so I thought I'd post a few further thought about this.

As a starting point, if we look at the aircraft construction industry, there are a number of major suppliers, and a few smaller suppliers, who design, build and supply aircraft. Two of those that I can think of are Boeing and Airbus. These two companies probably both have good engineers, but if they don't win work to pay for salaries and costs, they will lose those people - whether through not being able to pay as good salaries and provide as good benefits as their competition, or simply through having to sack people because they don't have enough income.

The assumption made by economists tends to be that good people will be picked up by the competition, but that isn't necessarily so: there is, in fact, a chance that these people could possibly be lost from the profession.

In my industry, which was reformed by the Victorian Governments of the 1980s and 1990s, this is exactly what happened - despite some belated attempts to keep key people by designating them as being crucial, and excluding them from voluntary redundancy offers. The changes to the industry were enough for some of those people to leave - and the pressure I've been under recently at work has been enough for me to consider leaving the profession I work in (which is not aeronautical engineering, in case anyone is inclined to think so in response to me using Boeing and Airbus as an opening example :) ).

It's not only that change can be a difficult thing to manage - people can get tired or worn out (burned out) by constant pressure, the constant to compete and win work on a cut-throat basis, and just want a quieter, less stressful lifestyle. That is probably known about in terms of people making a "sea change" or "tree change", but not everyone is able to make that sort of change - many don't have the money (I was going to type "resources", but let's not beat around the bush here: it basically comes down to money).

What happens to them? Well, break downs, mental health problems, and lifestyles of desperation, in a nutshell.

And why are people driven to these circumstances? Because, in my opinion, we have ingrained the mantra of "growth and competition" into our social fabric.

The accepted view is that we have to have competition to prevent overpricing because of a monopoly - and woe to anyone who tries to suggest otherwise! Well, I'm about to suggest otherwise ...

As one such alternative, how about the "Star Trek" approach of "no corporations": people do their bit, and money is not used. Or ... how about Sue-Ann Post's suggestion of paying EVERYONE a wage of $500/week - in order to sell goods, prices might actually come down. Of course, the formerly rich would no longer be able to indulge themselves in ostentatious displays of Porches and the like, but I don't see them living the same sort of lifestyle as the rest of humanity as necessarily being a problem :)

I've read in a number of channelled books suggestions that the economy work on the basis of 10% profit at each stage, with the vagaries of supply and demand pricing consigned to history.

It's a suggestion. It has its advantages and disadvantages like all of the approaches I've mentioned. For instance, do you know that business typically allow 2 - 5% of their annual costs for the costs of competing to win work? Doesn't that count as a disadvantage - true, maybe not as significant as the overpricing of a monopoly, but it still exists as a disadvantage - especially if everyone in the monopoly was actually behaving as ethical, spiritual people ...

So too does the human and environmental price of our growth and competition based economy - in fact, those are the main costs of our addiction to competition.

Sadly, I suspect the people who make decisions think the people who drop off the system aren't worthy of being counted, but, apart from the wrongness of such a discounting of human life, I also know from my personal experience just how much valuable experience, knowledge and skills are being lost as a result. One of my former team members once said that I should be available as a skill for all in my industry to use - sadly, knowledge has become a locked up commercial resource, rather than for greatest benefit of greatest number of people.

I also consider Adam Smith's advocacy of growth (if it was him - I need to check that) to be environmentally unsustainable - it is like a pyramid scheme, and there will come a crunch when no resources are left on our finite planet to sustain the extra growth.

Well, it's all just something to think about - and nothing is forever. As an example, in the ancient Celtic system days used to start at sunset, not midnight ... and during the Middle Ages east could be at the top of the map rather than north ... and once upon a time forks had three tines, not four. It all can change :)

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")

Notes:

1. To be a little flippant, I could say my personal breaking poiint is measured by 5 decades of gender identity issues (after transition the endemic discrimination is an issue) + 3.5 decades of comeptititive private industry consulting engineering (hence this post) + 1 decade of increasing health problems + being ashore for 1 decade + some personal stuff i won't go into here + GFC induced job insecurity + pressure for a work trip to a location where there was a good chance of me not returning ... fortunately the last of these, the trip, was cancelled, and I am starting to get back into doing the things I know I need to do - apologies for the quiet while I've been dealing with all this -although, mind, it is now my turn to - GLADLY - repay the support I received during that crisis to someone near and dear to me.

Tags: economy, attitudes, society, social engineering, competitiveness, about me,

First published: Frysdagr, 23rd September, 2011

Last edited:Friday, 23rd September, 2011

Post No. 304 - Jealousy

Is the story in the article for which I have provided a link below the ultimate end point of a society which condones jealousy by encouraging idiotic views such as "it only proves they luv ya" (see here).

I dislike extremism (I've been on the receiving end of it too much myself, particularly from right-wing/fundamentalist neo-Christians claiming all sorts of unrelated things will happen from allowing same gender marriage), but I consider that, in this case, there is a direct link between society's views and the behaviour of people. This link is similar to the violence against LGBTIQ people exhibited by SOME neo-Christians in response to anti-homosexuality pronouncements by the Pope. The violence exhibited in response to society's encouragement of jealopusy is more often emotional, mental, verbal and psychic, rather than physical, but those forms of violence can be as damaging as physical violence - or more (I have buried people driven to suicide by verbal violence in the form of discrimination).

A FAR more constructive approach to the personal insecurity underlying the "does he/she/ze love me?" would be:
(1) ask the other person(s);
(2) work out ways that each party in the relationship understands are the other's way of showing love, and take note of what other party(ies) want to experience;
(3) deal with your personal insecurity/fear/lack of confidence directly, until you feel pleasure when your partner(s) is(are)experiencing pleasure (see here - and, by the way, not everyone feels jealousy!).

That last one would be a particularly big one, given the extent to which many people seem to go to in order to avoid facing their personal demons (drink, drugs, denial, etc). Might have to have some social engineering to enable us to get over that one - just as, here in Australia, we needed social engineering (plus legislation) to get people to start wearing seat belts and avoid driving while under the influence of alcohol ... or we needed social engineering in the form of schools to make sure most people could read and write ... or we need social engineering in the form of public education camapaigns to control the spread of HIV/AIDS and increase awareness of mental health issues ... or social enegineering in the form of lobbying politicians to legalise homosexuality (in the 70s and 80s in Victoria) or extend antidiscrimination legislation to protect other at-risk groups (which I was involved in during the late 90s/early 00s).

Social engineering in the form of "public" schools basically led to the British Empire and its attendant issues and problems: any time someone wants to object to social engineering, I point out that it has already been done, and what is being advocated now is really just undoing the bad social engineering that has already been done.

Doubt that? Do some research on rates of sexual jealousy in hunter-gatherer societies.

In my view, jealousy, as we know it, is predominantly a socially engineered construct.

"King-hit killer jailed for 10 years", The Age, 16th August, 2011: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/kinghit-killer-jailed-for-10-years-20110816-1ivhf.html

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")

Tags: attitudes, emotions, relationships, society, social engineering,

First published: Sunnudagr, 21st August, 2011

Last edited: Sunday, 21st August, 2011