I have been conducting an email conversation with Dave Doolin.  We started when I commented on his post about putting an old blog in storage.  He offerred to take a look and it prompted me to go back and look at anything I considered valuable in my abandoned blog (beware the brugmansia).  The old blog was a feel good, express what you really feel exercise.  I never got much traction but I did get to rail about politicians which helped me from day to day.  One post actually hit the big time (lots of hits) apparently because people were searching Google for the term ‘sociopath weasels’.  I spent two days sequestered with some of the finest examples California can boast (I can’t believe that it was four years ago) and you can be sure that only the very best examples of sociopathic weasels practice law in California.  I was so disgusted by the experience and the ease with which predatory lawyers can milk big pocket companies that I had to pen this post to release my anger and frustration.  All this is a lead in to a link to that post.  I offer you my take on sociopath weasels.  By the way, the weasels won when the court case finally came up.  They used their recording of my deposition and nobody was willing to fly me to LA so I have no way of knowing how they distorted what I told.  All I know is that they flat out had no case.

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One more example of the exuberance of the 50’s automobile manufacturers is the Ford Skyliner available from 1957 to 1959.  It was a wonder to see the hardop retract and fold into the trunk.  This commercial with Lucy and Ricky captures something about the feel of the 50’s.  You just naturally expected Lucy and Ricky to be dressed up.  Today they would probably wear ratty sweats.  You can see what is coming as well with the banter as Lucy takes charge.  Women are serious and men are silly even though that wasn’t the theme in ‘I Love Lucy‘ where Lucy was always doing silly things.

A more contemporary appreciation of the Skyliner from a car auction shows off the syle that the car still shows today.

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Humans are full of themselves as a species

Human beings are a perverse species. We know we are at the top of the food chain but we misunderstand what gets us there. We think it is because we are smart and can out think the competition. But it’s not that simple. Humans use their superior intelligence to build tools and weapons that give them an overwhelming advantage over animals. But take away those weapons and tools and that advantage quickly fall away. Pit a naked unarmed man against a tiger. The man may be more intelligent than the tiger but not in any way that matters in the immediate situation. It is only when the man has tools and uses them that he will prevail over the tiger. We rely on those tools but sometimes they can lead us down the wrong path.

We classify things

One of our important tools is our ability to categorize similar items into buckets. Because of our intelligence, we like to think that the things that we do with that intelligence add value to life. We are great at categorizing things which means that we put them into buckets. We select some characteristic which our intelligence suggests is important and lump together all the items that have that characteristic. This is a useful activity for humans because it makes life seem simple. It fools us into thinking that we are in control. Instead of keeping track of many items and developing a way to interact with them individually we can simplify by putting things in a bucket with all the other items having that characteristic. Now we only have to know one way of responding to every item in the bucket. That is the way filing systems work. We put things into the file based upon some characteristic that we think is the most important.

One bucket – good.  Two buckets – bad.

In simpler times, putting items into buckets was helpful. There were only a few criteria to study and the risk of a wrong classification was small. Today the problem of misclassification is much bigger. I have always been miserable at filing. As soon as I put something away (file it), it is as good as lost because I can think of so many ways that I might have used to file it but not the one I actually used. I am forever looking through my files to find important documents because I can’t remember what classification I thought was important when I filed it.

Classification destroys valuable information or at least renders it invisible

Today, categorization can be a great handicap for two reasons. The first is that the complexity of life today makes it much harder to pick one category for an item of information. If we pick only one then we risk missing the connection to another category. We have no way of identifying the risk of misclassification. When we decide that something is X and put it in the appropriate bucker, it means that we will never look at it in any other way. Our simplification means that we will never consider any other way of dealing with that item. Perhaps it could belong in multiple buckets but that makes life complicated so we resist. Because we restricted our classification to one category, we will never look at that item from another perspective. We make life simple but lose the ability to see what is important at the moment. We are blind to the other possibilities.

What about you?

This is certainly true in my life and these days I struggle to see all the possibilities that might be attached to an action or event. My natural, human tendency to simplify makes this hard. Does anybody relate to this problem. If so ,please share in the comments. How are you able to get past buckets in your life?

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Chris Brogan has helped me from time to time as I make the transition from employee thinking to business owner. One time, he even found my blog and left an encouraging comment back when comments were rare at RCB. I will always remember that gesture and retain a very positive feeling for Chris as a result. I read his book and learned some very real lessons from it and him about building a presence on the web.

I don’t follow him every day but I did sign up for his newsletter. It doesn’t always resonate with me or maybe I just forget to read it all the time but this week he grabbed me with a meaty message that captures my mission. He said to….

Break out of other people’s scripts.

What a clear statement of what I need to do and what a sad commentary on my life that I am still trying to find my own script instead of following a script defined by others. It is not as if this is only my problem. This is how we are raised and educated. It is how civilization renews itself in every generation and keeps us from drifting back to the caves. But when if comes to making a living or defining what kind of life you want to live, it can be very limiting. All my life I have struggled with this problem. I truly wanted to set and then follow my own script but somehow I always swerved into the scripts of others. First my parents, then my teachers and finally my employers. Get a degree. Learn a profession. Get a good job. I never trusted my own instincts or my own passions. I colored withing the lines. I followed the rules. I never raised my eyes to even look at the possibilities outside the advice I was given.

Following their script doesn’t work

The result of this was some success but also some frustration. I was frustrated by people who played by other rules and achieved more as a result. It didn’t seem right but I wasn’t able to learn a lesson from my frustration. I continued to believe that getting outside of the box was not a path to success and that my failure staying in the box was just a temporary setback. I just needed to keep on doing what I was doing.

Other people are wrong.

Well today it is very clear that conventional wisdom was wrong. Degrees are not security or money in the bank. Corporations come and go and employment is not forever. Other peoples scripts are breaking down and the people living other peoples scripts are going down with them. It is time to bring those old dreams out the closet where you stashed them when you started following other people’s scripts. Turn them into a script of your own. Then start following it.

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How is it going?

As I begin week three using the weekly planning system, I still struggle with the time blocks. Steve designates 45 minute time blocks to his tasks. This makes a lot of sense when you are concerned about having enough time set aside to accomplish your plan. I could work that way in employee mode because of the controlled environment and task orientated work spaces. In my new work-at-home environment, there are distractions and options not present in the work environment and that makes it much harder for me to keep to a schedule. I haven’t been tracking the time as scheduled. I do check off the tasks and my record of accomplishment has been pretty good. Where I am falling short is taking too much time to complete my tasks (or in other words, being inefficient). If more time is necessary for the tasks than I am allocating then there is no problem but if I am wasting time, that is another issue.

Step up the daily planning

Since starting the weekly planning system I have neglected my daily planner. I wasn’t using it regularly before so it stayed on the sideline with the weekly system as well. I think it is time to bring it back and become more accountable for getting things done day to day as well as week to week. I need to pay more attention to the time devoted to each task on a daily basis and track against the plan.

Infrastructure Improvements

One other contributor to a lack of focus is my current office setup. At present there is only a computer work station with no working desk space for writing and other manual tasks and no handy storage for work in progress. This was adequate for recreational activities with a two hour max daily use but totally wrong for a full time work-at-home business. As I write this post, I am sitting on a couch in my office looking at piles of materials (work in progress) arrayed on the rest of the couch and all of the exposed surfaces (file cabinets, bookcases, chairs). This is after I spent a day last week cleaning up; reorganizing files and throwing out unneeded paper. It is very clear that organizing my planning can only go so far without an upgrade to the infrastructure of my office. If I intend to make a go at being a web entrepreneur, I need to invest in a desk and more storage. Maybe even a good office chair.

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What is behind Abraham Lincoln’s writing ability?

Abraham Lincoln is known for his powerful writing ability. The Gettysburg Address is held up as an example in school because of its brevity, clarity and emotion. It isn’t easy to write like Lincoln and much as we might like an easy ten-step program to learn his good writing skills, there isn’t one. An article  I was reading recently  described the art of Lincoln’s writing and discussed the techniques that contribute to his skill. The author recalled a letter responding to an article saying that Lincoln’s writing was accomplished by trickery and engineered construction. The letter asserted that engineering is a poor analogy to describe writing skill because it implies mechanical properties while writing is an art.

More than just familiarity with great writing.

While agreeing with the writer’s point, out author points out that there are numerous rhetorical devices in the Gettysburg Address and he describes some of the as they are applied in such masterpieces as the Book of Common Prayer, the King James Bible and the plays of Shakespeare, all of which were read and enjoyed by Lincoln. It is certainly not surprising to find that he would use the same devices in his own writing. But the author continues to say that many people in Lincoln’s time and since have read and enjoyed these works. He asserts that if familiarity and appreciation were all it takes to develop into a graceful and powerful writer, the world would be full of wonderful writers. Certainly the examples of great writing are inspiration and examples to learn from but even so Lincoln’s familiarity with great writing does not fully explain his skill.

Skill developed on the job.

The author suggests that the forces that helped make Lincoln such a effective communicator go far beyond his love of good writing. He believes that the long years of arguing cases in small town courtrooms helped him learn to use powerful and simple words and phrases to communicate with juries of common people. In these courtrooms, there was no place for long-winded phrases and flowery prose. In addition, he suggests that the importance of the telegraph in communicating with his generals during the Civil War helped him develop a skill at condensing his thoughts into strong, effective and brief communications.

What can we learn from Tweets and texting?

As I read this, I began thinking about two of the new communication techniques that have begun to dominate significant segments of our society – Twitter and text messages. Both constrain the length of a communication and force the author to condense and simplify communications. As I struggle to understand and use them effectively, I wonder if they might not have the same ability to teach concise and powerful communication today as the courtrooms and telegraph offices of Lincoln’s day. Certainly with the numbers of people embracing these new communication tools, everybody is challenged to condense and simplify their writing. Is it possible that new generations of writers will learn powerful new writing skills because of their experience with Twitter and text messages? I don’t know. Will there be a President, facile with these new forms of communication that will be remembered in the future for his writing just like Lincoln?

Time will tell.

This post has been reworked from  the original.  My intent was to improve the keywords but I did tweak the writing as well.  I will appreciate anyone willing to compare this to the original and comment.

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One iconic piece of furniture from the 50’s is the tulip chair designed by Eero Saarinen, the preeminent American architect of the mid 20th century.  This chair represented the promise of a wonderful future as I left home for college in 1959.  The simplicity and elegance of this chair and the matching table was completely alien to traditional furniture and even the new Scandinavian modern designs using wood.  This chair was seemingly one piece plastic although actually had an aluminum base and fiberglass seat and back, painted to appear as one.  They were expensive in the 50’s when I dragged my parents to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago when they took me to my first year at college and they are still expensive today.  My father felt that paying for college was better than buying chairs. The manufacturer still makes them and they still look like the future.  One of my early goals was to assemble a collection of modern classic furniture.  There always seemed to be better places for my money along the way so that stopped with our Eames Chair but what continues to amaze me is the timelessness of those designs.  So many of the pieces of furniture tagged as classics in the 60’s when my tastes were jelling are classics today.

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Yesterday I confessed that the word ‘proactive’ triggers an emotional response in me quite different from its dictionary meaning. Since words are one of our principle communication tools , when a word gets a ‘reputation’ or ‘goes off the reservation’ so to speak, it loses value big time. It is like an unguided missile.

Words only mean what we think they mean

Since words mean something only in the brain of the listener or reader, my negative reaction to a word in no way reflects the impression that is has on others. Yesterday Karen responded very reasonably in a comment that while she could clearly see that I get my panties in a bunch over proactive, she finds it very helpful in describing how she keeps her life on track. I had to agree with her. Just because I can’t stand a word doesn’t make it useless for others – unless they are trying to communicate with me- and , of course there is the problem for all of us.

Words can take up with the wrong crowd

Proactive, the word, has kept bad company in my world and I don’t trust it. In Karen’s world, proactive has been a model citizen. This just shows how unreliable words are for communication tools. They develop meaning and nuance for individuals that goes far beyond the dictionary meaning. Words take on a life of their own.

Words are a problem

This creates a real problem for writers. Words are our tools in making thoughts concrete and the principle means for translating thoughts from our brains to other people’s brains. But even though we try to pin down the meaning of words by creating dictionaries, words are squirmy, devious things that shape-shift and metamorphose in front of our eyes and behind our backs. The clear idea that I have when I say proactive is quite different from the equally clear idea that forms in Karen’s mind.

Words are out of our control

Musing over this problem only points out the terrible peril for writers as they try to put their thoughts into words. Clear as we might  be in getting the words to line up with our thoughts, we are powerless to control the interpretation of those words by the person reading them.

Karen will use the word proactive to represent all the positive qualities she recognizes for the word. I will hear the word and rather than understanding those positive qualities, I will see manipulation and trickery. It is a terrible burden for a writer because it is hard enough to assemble the right words to convey your thoughts. It becomes much more difficult when you realize that you must also understand how the reader will interpret those words in his own mind.

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But surely you want to be proactive

I have probably spent too much time in business meetings in my lifetime, attended too many business conferences, read too many corporate mission statements and written too many personal development plans over my career but I convulse when ever I hear the word proactive.

You know, the opposite of antiactive.

I can’t remember when I first heard the term. At first it must have seemed fresh and positive. It must have brought a new perspective to the whole world of personal development and business. Take the word apart and we find pro meaning positive and forward looking and active meaning not inert. Put it together and it means acting in a positive fashion. So what distinguishes PRO active from just plain active?

Not just any old action!

My first thought is that it must be the direction of the action. Pro-action is moving forward where action might go in any direction. So it means more than just taking action. You must take special, forward moving action. So if that is true what about the times when you catch yourself going in the wrong direction and you immediately change course, maybe going backwards or sideways from the direction you were originally going. What kind of action is that? RE action or maybe RETRO action? I don’t know.

The secret ingredient is…..

When we are urged to be proactive, what are they trying to tell us? What is the special message about what we are doing? They want us to act; to do something but how is our action different from just plain action? What is the additive to the action that makes it PRO action? What is the secret ingredient?

It is self-hypnosis.

From my years of doing my best to be a productive employee, PRO is a code word for buy in to whatever the consultant or the corporate manager is hawking. It is a way to set up a Pavlovian response to make the listener choose to do what the speaker says. It is so much more effective than telling us what to do because we resist direct instructions. We do want to be Proactive however so it the speaker tells us that X is proactive and that we should be Proactive, then we, eager little lemmings will decide to do X all on our own – because we are Proactive. We feel good because we are proactive and because we are proactive we do X. We become mindless followers. It is a code word to hypnotize ourselves.

Proactive or anti-lemming, you decide.

So that is why I am repulsed by the word proactive. Instead of urging us to think about our actions and take charge, it tricks us into accepting whatever the speaker is advocating. It triggers an unconditional response to accept the recommendation and act, without questioning the value of the recommendation.  Stop being proactive and start thinking for yourself!

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