One Man’s Ramblings

This massive image above is the model phone I have recently purchased through eBay.   When it arrived  I unwrapped the box and got really REALLY excited when I saw it.  It was shiny.  Alas, my excitement was followed by bewilderment when I couldn’t turn the bloody thing on.  I tried everything… except pushing the little button on the side (see above picture).  Turns out the graceful person I sent the phone back to tested it and it worked for him… just fine.  OOPS.   Me being used to pressing the red button to end a call (i.e. the button you ALWAYS USE NOKIA ENGINEERS) thought that the phone would have turned on that way.  It didn’t.

My definition of the problem was wrong

When you start something from the wrong basis or the wrong starting point it doesn’t matter how well you analyse it… you will never find a cause because the cause ain’t there!  You defined the problem wrong in the first place.  Like me and my hapless phone skills you are labouring under the wrong assumption.  If you walked to the bus stop and caught the 533 bus into town when you wanted to go to the Gold Coast, you are going to the wrong place.

Same thing applies when we tunnel down to our favourite perception rather than testing our known definitions of a problem.  This is not easy but it might save you six weeks waiting for you phone to return!

A while ago I set out to learn the guitar.  At the time, I had the bright idea of teaching myself.  Fast forward a few years and now I make the same mistakes I did years ago and I have absolutely no way of progressing forward without relearning the basics from scratch.  What a bummer.  Nevertheless, through this experience I have learned something.  There is no shortcut to brilliance… no not even if you want rock out.  You have to learn the ropes… there is no other way.

Learning requires that you “actually” learn

The amount of students that I meet that don’t really want to learn the process.  I get emails asking me for help and very often they haven’t even tried.  I must admit, it doesn’t really bother me that much… I am more worried about them!  I mean my stuff is pretty easy.  How are these people going to survive with a hard ass boss?  It makes me wonder about the state of things.   Anyway, what really surprises me is that people believe (as I did for many years) that they think the easy answer will come to them.    Such thinking produces dire results.  We cheat and look for the easy way around.   In short, there is no easy way around… you have to do it.  It seems like a simple thing doesn’t it?  Yet we very rarely want to go through it.

Ask a millionaire they will tell you

Even though we live in an age that promises the get rich quick answer, there really is not a ‘get rich quick’ scheme.  Even though people like Branson and whoever else you may conjure up look like the made money fast, they had to learn something along the way.  They picked up some skills, they put them to work and they learned there way through the problem.  I am not saying that it should take years, but you won’t wake up one day and suddenly realise, “oh crap I am rich”.  Sure, it does happen.  But, you want to learn a language… you have to do in a way that works.  That’s a whole other post!

What you can do to avoid ’shortcut mentality’

Shortcut mentality wants to have easy answers.  The kind you find on the back of your cornflakes packet.   To even learn how to garden, bake a cake, make a sandwich, or do anything that you wish to do… you have to learn it.  Our mind plays tricks on us by saying that we can circumvent the process.  That if we just get the ‘good’ information we will be set.  There is nothing that is not worth learning, that won’t cost you something.  The better the information, the more it will cost you… the higher barrier to entry.   Think about what Stephen King knows about the fiction game or what Richard Branson knows about haggling?  They have learned things that got them where they are, along with a whole lot of luck.

Taking a shortcut is good if it’s efficient to do so but if it means you have to go back to where you started and start again… then it’s not worth it is it?  Think about your life, business, job or family.  What do you have that didn’t require some effort in learning?  Remember, getting there quick is good if it’s smart but if it’s not… you will only have to go back to where you started and hit it again.

For some time now I have been renting.  This is not my preferred choice, it’s my only choice. I simply want to say this: some professions require you to be dishonest and compromise your personal integrity in order to make it.  In my understanding, telling your tenants, “you will help them” or “you will look into it” is lying.   Don’t say one thing and then do another.  That’s deceitful.

My recent decision that most real estate agents can’t be trusted comes off the back of a lease arrangement.  When I first rented the house I have now, I had two pets.  One died.  Fast forward twelve months and we now have one dog and are looking to get another.  A simple thing isn’t it.  I mean really, It’s a dog.  I am not asking for a new fence, a back door that closes probably or a light in the kitchen am I?  Neither am I expecting them to continue a committment that the law says they should honour.  Far be it from me to ask for something so commonplace as that.

What I want is what they agreed to in the first place.  Two pets.  Six months of negotiating, two or three phone calls to the most useless rental tenancy agency in the whole damned world and alas no second pet.  I mean really why do we have the RTA anyhow?  The amount of times I have called them and told them what my current real estate are up to and nothing.  You know what they told me last time I called them, negotiate with them.  That’s why I rang the RTA in the first place!  Renters rights in this state are a joke.  A living joke.  I know we have it a lot better than a lot of other countries.  Still, the tenancy agreement contracts you sign in this state are not worth the printed paper they are scribbled on.

Now to my point.  Let’s play the imagination game shall we?  I ring you and ask you something which you say you will look into and I rest my phone comfortablely in it’s socket, eagerly awaiting for you to call.  Two, three weeks later nothing.  I call again, same deal.  Fast forward six months and still no response.  It’s a dog, damn you, a dog!  I had two pets on the original lease WHY CAN’T YOU GET YOUR BLOODY ACT TOGETHER AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!  I will tell you why, because you find it easier to lie and continue to feed me grain fed BS.

I have all together lost faith in the rental system.  Over the past six years I have been constantly lied to, tricked, had lease conditions changed and told by the very body that protects the tenants in Queensland that there is nothing I can do.  I no longer have any faith in real estate agents and so help me God if I ever get the money to buy a house, I will do so privately.  Why? Well I would rather eat broken glass then put my money in the hands of real estate agents.   Over the past six years I have been burned more times that I could ever hope to write about in one sentence.

Having said that, I am simply relating an experience here, I am not generalising.  This is my experience.  I have heard of people who love their agents and get on famously with them.  I try.  If I learned anything from fishing it’s this:  don’t put your hand back in the mouth of a fish that just bit you.  Yes, it’s an obscure metaphor but it works for me.   I am sorry but I just don’t trust real estate agents anymore.

* Image Credit: Shiny Binary

Recently I have been in somewhat of a funk.  I thought as time went on that I would get better (like how I used to loose weight during winter… whoops!).  You know what?  I think I have finally worked out that if you don’t pay attention to your secret heart level desires… you get sick.  I had previously known that I had pushed myself a little too hard… but seriously… was I ready for this?

Your sleep patterns may become erratic

I have noticed that when I put my head on the pillow part of me is still awake.  No, not that part!  I am talking about my heart.  The creative essence of who I am.  The lesson I have learned is that if you have a heart led desire you need to follow it to it’s conclusion.  Yes, even if it pays nothing and yes even if it doesn’t work.  In my case I found my sleep deprived from me on a regular basis.   This doesn’t mean it will happen to you but it did happen to me and is still happening.

You get random diseases

I found that this recent slump in creative output has also declined my health.  Ok, so I may be drawing a strong long bow here.  Ahem.  BUT! Yes, that was a random conjunction… however it serves the purpose for what I am about to say next.  And, that is this… I got sick a lot more often when my creative output declined.  Now, I am an academic so I know enough about ‘peer review’ and so on so I am aware of this thing called research.  I am choosing to ignore it in this instance because I am speaking about my personal experience.  I got sick a lot more often then I used to when I was writing more fiction and making films (my hearts desire… incidentally).

A general sense of restlessness

I found that without the creative output in my life I have become really restless.  More so than usual.  I find that on a day where I don’t have to do anything I will sit around and basically let my ass grow fatter.  You feel like you haven’t done something… you know you should be doing.  Those creative urges can’t go unchecked.  You have to make sure you have them in check so that they don’t scare you into doing nothing!

So what does this have to do with your hearts desire.  You have something in there that needs to be developed.  Even if you make no money, even if you get nowhere, even if you are a total failure at something you really want to do… if you don’t do it… this may happen to you.  There is a discreet link between our spirits and our body that I am only now becoming aware of.  If you don’t listen to your spirit and follow it … you may find your health leaving.  If you ignore your health, your spirit may let you know that you are being an ass… through making you think differently or by making you violently ill.  It’s a two way street.  Going both ways at once.

For the love of GOD spend time developing a heart’s desire.  I am not talking about ’selfishness’.  I am talking about the thing that resides in the middle of you that you have a sense of goo about.  A sense of inner goo.  The substance of substances.  In your guts you know that you have to do it… so you should be doing it.  DO IT!  I am imploring you through this post.  I am not talking about sick desires either, so take that hat off.  I am talking about the desire you think you were born with.  That one.  Right next to self-preservation.  I think the world would be a better place if at least 10% of it’s residents… no 5% would decide to follow that desire.  I know, people need to take out our garbage… who better than the garbare person who loves what they do?

* Photo Credit: Kicks on Fire

Lately, I have noticed a couple of emerging trends.  My ideas and opinions always seem to be on the fringe of what’s popular and as a result there has been an increasing degree of fragmentation in my life.  What do I mean by Fragmentation?

I find myself unable to relate to what other people are going through as my life experience is anything but normal.  Yet, I suspect there is no normal to compare myself to… neither do I find the measuring stick of “this is what should happen”.  No, I find this disconfirming.  That isn’t even a word… I hope my point is clear.

Have you experienced this?  Fragments?

Fragmentation is when you find yourself disassociated from the whole.  In systems terms it means you are a loosely disjointed from the group, moved into a space where you find yourself disengaged.  I must admit, this is probably not an intentional move on my behalf… yet it is increasingly so.  Some of us look at big trends whilst others of us find the bits that sticks the glue together in everything and wonder why we pretend it’s not there… is it a conspiracy of silence… I can’t say.

Fragments.  Yeah fragments.

I wonder often if my mind is able to deal with disassociation.  My grandfather was like this too… he spent a great deal of time by himself.  Isolated… and loving it.  The end result?  He died.  I am not sure however, if this isolation and his death are related… though I am sure I could manufacture some statistics… if I knew how to count.

Fragments…

I think that the idea we are joined together in the human race is an interesting one… if not a little misguided.   We are joined by common things.  Yet in all the joining we are not joined.  In our lives we are largely disconnected.  We participate vicariously in our actions and our real selves are hidden even from our partners.  Yet, this won’t apply to everyone because a fragment is a small piece of something that fits somewhere or nowhere.  There is no generalisability in fragmentation… except that the disjointed nature of things is highly inconsistent.  In that we can generalise.  I think or not.  So we can say that disconnections are general but there shape is novel in each incarnation?

Ok, I am going to watch Australia’s funniest videos to cheer myself up.  I tend to laugh at the bits that nobody laughs at.   So maybe I should watch Robocop 3?  No, that would make me cry.

Have a go at these lyrics:

Tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen;
pour myself a cup of ambition,
and yawn, and stretch, and try to come to life.
Jump in the shower, and the blood starts pumping;
out on the street, the traffic starts jumping,
with folks like me on the job from nine to five.

Nine to five, what a way to make a living;
barely getting by,it’s all taking and no giving.
They just use your mind, and (depending on verse) “they never give you” or
“you never get the” credit; it’s enough to drive you crazy, if you let it.

They let you dream just to watch them shatter;
You’re just a step on the boss man’s ladder,
But you’ve got dreams he’ll never take away.
In the same boat with a lot of your friends;
Waitin’ for the day your ship’ll come in,
And the tide’s gonna turn, and it’s all gonna roll your way.

Nine to five, for service and devotion;
you would think that I would deserve a fair promotion;
want to move ahead, but the boss won’t seem to let me.
I swear some-times, that man is out to get me.

Nine to five, they’ve got you where they want you;
There’s a better life, and you dream about it, don’t you?
It’s a rich man’s game, no matter what they call it;
And you spend your life putting money in his pocket.

You have to admit this song paints a depressing picture doesn’t it?  Working all your life “for the man”.  As a wise man once told me… they can take your life but they can’t capture your spirit!  Keep your head up people… don’t let the man steal your joy.  You are not your job!

Rant over.

A key idea that emerged in recent years for as meaning something to me… is this strange idea of ‘pragmatism’.  In a very dirty definition this has to do with a description of events and things that involve practical elements or what kind of knowledge we think is useful.  So a pragmatic question might be what is useful as opposed to what isn’t useful to say or do.

Coming down out of the academic ’stratosphere’ for a moment I realised when I was reading something for a piece of work I wrote on strategic thinking (unpublished paper … so far anyway) that for the best part the desire to focus on the pragmatic means a desire to focus on that which is observable as ‘evidence’.  Or in my own words… stuff that works well and is seen to be ‘of use’.  Here is my key problem:

How will you know what works unless you try it…

I am in no way a philosopher of any sort.  Neither would I consider myself a bare bones pragmatist… it’s just a bunch of books and words.  However, this struck me about problems and how we approach them when I was writing and reading with my colleague had written.  How can something work and you not know it?  I give you the Campbell “Old Spice” Paradox:

You need to have experience in order to know what works.  However, what works doesn’t always (if ever) work the same way as things do in other contexts.  So, as I found Roy Bhaskar to explain in a round about way… philosophy fails to explain a lot to me.  This could be my remarkable denseness or the fact that I have come to find it a tiresome bore to interpret and try and decode the dense philosophy territory of philosophical works.  The exclusiveness of the language is my main concern… secondly the oversimplification of things to the point of sheer ignorance is the other.  But I digress… back to the main point.

Being too pragmatic, means I am not willing to try something because I don’t know if it’s going to work because I can’t establish it’s usefulness!  It reminds of what Horst Rittell said of wicked problems… you only have one shot to get it right.  We often don’t know what’s going to work so we model, test and fail… often.  The key thing to pull out of this is that often in life, love and the imagination there is a place beyond analysis.  A place where the most obscure of ideas has a home.  Call it irony, confusion or plain stupidity… my experience tells me that things in life often are confusing.

In closing this note on the key problem of being too pragmatic I want to deliberately confuse you by saying that it’s also one of the greatest strengths to recognise what works well, even if you don’t know it’s useful to do so.  What works well, often isn’t what works well.  This makes you hated.  But if you manage to convince people that it works well and they believe you… when you are dead they will say “nice” things about you, name halls after you and create bronze (well puter) statues in your honour.   Remember, if you have one shot to get it right be prepared to fail and succeed at the same time… it’s what I do!