The Northwoods Notebook

Sideways

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:04:00 +0000

Black or white? Chocolate or vanilla? White Sox or Cubs? Good or evil? New Darren or old Darren? Debates always seem to center about absolutes. People choose their side and argue to defend it. Perhaps it appeals to the competitive nature in people to stand up for their side and fight against the other. Perhaps it’s a primal instinct: If you get to the food first, you survive and the other guy starves. It’s a behaviour for which we can thank natural selection, and born into each of us.

At what point, though, do we have to put away childish things? It may be in our nature to compete, to win the point for our side, but do we need to continue to function on primordial behaviour patterns or can we move beyond them? When does cooperation make more sense than competition?

Collectively we’ve been cooperating since the first people gathered into clans, then into settlements, cities, and nations. As we’ve aggregated we’ve slowly expanded what we see as “our side” from ourselves, to our clan, our village, our nation. Collectively, we have the proven capacity to look beyond our individual interests toward common interests.

Yet, still we fragment. Even as we expand the collective, we move to segregate ourselves. Yes, we all live in the same village, but that person looks different from me. That one speaks with an odd accent. And that one speaks of strange thoughts. For that, we isolate ourselves from these people not like us. We pick sides. Us vs. Them. Absolutes.

What in nature has only two sides? Even the thinnest sheet of paper has an edge. It can be hard to see unless you’re looking for it; so hard to detect that most people don’t even consider that it exists, until they end up with a paper cut. And just what is that edge? Is it a hard border between the sides? Not quite. It’s the place where the two sides have a common boundary, a region independent of either where elements of each side come together. It's the yin and yang of the whole of the sheet.

The yin-yang symbol shows us how sides are not as simple or absolute as we like to believe. It has intertwined black and white elements representing how the boundary between the two is fluid. And more, each region contains a piece of the opposite within, showing that neither exists, nor can exist, in isolation.

But there exists an ideal without borders, in which there are no sides to choose. Perhaps the best illustration of this is a perfect sphere. The sphere has only one side. Yet if we hold it up we only see a part of it. Two people looking at it simultaneously will each see it differently. Each will see only those parts of the surface within their scope of vision, as well as anything that is behind it. Each viewer will see the sphere in a different context. It is the same sphere, but viewed from different perspectives.

In order to understand the nature of the sphere we need to rotate it. We need to change our position and look at it from all directions. We need to examine it from above and from below. We need to look at it in different light. Without making the effort to do that we only see a small fragment of the sphere and can never fully understand it.

Looking at the sphere isn't enough, however. We must be willing to change where we stand, even if only for the purpose of taking on a different perspective, or we lock ourselves into an isolated context. We can't know the sphere just by examining it. We have to be willing to change ourselves as well.

That level of understanding isn’t easy. It can’t be done with a closed mind and heart. In order to gain a thorough understanding of anything you need to embrace a variety of new perspectives. This isn’t something that can be done in an instant. It takes a lifetime commitment. It requires the ability and willingness to move from the comfort of certainty into the unknown.

Each of us has this ability, or the potential for it. Some are born with natural empathy for other perspectives. Some acquire it with age and experience. And some have it forced upon them as the certainty of their circumstances is upended though tragedy. However we come by it, having acquired this empathy allows us to grow beyond our own selfish needs. It gives us the capacity to understand that, instead of taking all of the food from the other, if we share the food we each may have the strength to acquire more. Once we no longer have to waste energy competing we may even be able to gather enough to store or even give away. We gain the most important understanding of all: Together we can be greater than each of us, but only if we’re willing to give up choosing sides.

Fighting to Win, While We Lose

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:14:00 +0000

I'm not one who likes to take sides in a fight. I'm of the belief that both sides in any argument usually have something worth listening to, even if it's only to cause you to reexamine your own position from a different perspective.
One thing I won't stand for in a debate is turning the discussion to the man, not the position. It's flat out cowardice, desperation, and indicative of holding an indefensible position.
The public debate in the US is getting ugly. Mud is flying high as bank accounts are falling. Such behaviour is reprehensible. Politicians need to remember that they are public servants. The serve at our pleasure. The debate should be about us, not them.
They had better wake up, or the citizens of the US will gladly add their names to the rolls of the unemployed.

A Summer of Contradiction

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:56:00 +0000

This year we've seen the Winter That Would Not Leave, and now we're already on the downslope of summer. A strange season, summer. So many people can't wait for it's arrival, and when it arrives, they retreat indoors to the comfort of their air conditioned homes. Bookshops are awash with lists for "Summer Reading" yet this is the season people have awaited so that they could go outdoors and do fun things: who has time to read if you're running about in the sunshine?

It's a season of contradictions, is summer. Winter is disliked because of the occasional need to shovel snow. Yet the grass of summer needs weekly mowing, sometime twice weekly, without fail. There's more mowing than shoveling in any given year, is there not? The famed "summer romances" also seem at odds with behaviour. Sweaty, smelly, over-heated bodies just don't want to get close to each other. Not much romance there. In winter, you can cuddle with your beloved in front of a warm fire. Have you ever seen two people huddling in front of an air conditioner? It's not the most romantic sight you'll encounter.

Maybe it's for the best that the sun is rising later and setting sooner now. Before long, the chill nights of autumn will be upon us. Then the fickle human race can complain about raking leaves, being cold, and dreading the coming winter. Then they can look forward to the complaints and contradictions of the next summer.

What was that again?

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:25:00 +0000

Language is what connects us. The ability to communicate allows people to express ideas, pass along useful information, or eve to entertain one another. Clear communication is all important. Why, then, do people keep screwing it up?

Stand in an express line at a grocer: Ten Items or Less. Less than what? If they're talking about a discrete count of the items, it's fewer, not less. The smaller bottle of ketchup has less catsup than the giant bottle, but if you have two small bottles and one big one, you have fewer big bottles even though the two small ones together may contain less condiment overall. Simple, no?

Perhaps the grocery example is overused, however. Maybe it should be used ten times less than it is. Wait a minute. Ten times less? We hear that phrase, or one similar, all the time in advertising, but a peek in a fourth grade math book will show that any number greater than one multiplied by any other number greater than one will result in a larger number than the factors, no? So how can something be ten times less? It can be one tenth of the original, or 10% of the original, but if you multiply any number by ten it's going to yield a result ten times greater.

These are just two common examples of language misuse we see every day. That such things get past editors into print or spoken media is disturbing. What's more disturbing is that the lack of editorial control is resulting in people thinking that these kind of mistakes are the correct way of saying such things. It's a downward spiral.

The real irony, however, is that just at the time when the internet is bringing about a resurgence in written communication, people are becoming less adept at communicating via the written word. We write like we speak, poorly, not accounting for the lack of visual clues in writing or the regional or cultural differences the reader may have with the writer. People write for themselves, not their audience, and get angry when they are misunderstood by their audience. Why be mad at them? They didn't write it.

That may be our own fault, though. We're enablers. Whenever we allow poor communication to pass unchallenged we help pave the road for the next occurrence. Maybe we should stop accepting it. If we clog up the grocery lines because we refuse the "Ten Items of Less" lines, who knows what might happen? If we don't buy the products that promise "ten times less" undesirables, maybe the marketers will change their strategy. If we don't respond to the professional queries asking you to "plz send ur information" maybe they'll hire people who are willing to take a moment to write in a professional manner. Creatively burying our collective heads in the sand and ignoring the offenses removes their voice, and with no voice there is no power. It's not a big loss for the offenders: they weren't using their voice correctly anyhow.

Aren't we special?

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:58:00 +0000

"Specialization is for insects," wrote Robert Heinlein. His character, Lazarus Long, delivered a litany of things a human being should be able to do, before making the aforementioned declaration. While writers get remembered for predicting all manner of technological advances from space travel to atomic bombs, they tend to be overlooked by social predictions, especially when those predictions tend to augur things that are more dubious or undesirable.

We're becoming a highly specialized society. Each person has a role and that role becomes as much as part of them as their name. When we meet someone new, we identify them by their name, and by their job. "What do you do?" is often one of the earliest questions asked in conversation. We have become defined by our specialization.

Is specialization a bad thing? Some degree of specialization can certainly be a benefit. It allows us to become expert in one specific area, giving us the chance to excel beyond what a typical person could. Specialization is what gives us craftsmen and artisans. Few of us would consider that bad. But what of overspecialization? What happens when a society becomes so specialized that everyone is a specialist? Do we cease to be people, relegated instead to being parts in a machine?

It wasn't always this way. Though individuals may have excelled in one field or another, they often needed enough general knowledge to maintain their daily lives. If the rood leaked, you fixed it yourself; you didn't call a roofer.

The dangers of overspecialization are often overlooked. The world is full of specialists whose specialties are vanishing. As technology advances, old technologies fade away and new ones develop. What happens to the specialist in those cases?

Beyond the specialties is generalization. The generalist need not be the proverbial "jack of all trades, master of none" but can be someone who understands the underlying fundamentals, not just the surface details. The generalist can adapt to new situations because they come at new situations from the root. A specialist often has to unlearn things to learn new things. Can they do that well?

Being a generalist in a specialized world can be a difficult thing. When we interview for a job, they want specialists. A specialist may not be what's best for their business, but they're looking for another cog for the machine. Imagine DaVinci trying to get a job today: "Painter, engineer, scientist, writer, ..." Such a resume might seems to a potential employer as "too scattered and unfocused". What a tragedy would it be, passing on DaVinci because you were too narrowly focused on a specific desire?

Closed Minds, Closed Doors

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:23:00 +0000

"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers." Never were truer words spoken. When someone gets precisely what they ask for, they're usually rather unhappy about it. We've all seen this time and again from bosses, spouses, most anyone who asks and receives. Why is this? Are these people fickle, and simply not content with anything? Are the greedy and want more even after receiving what they sought? If it the fault of the people or gods granting them this wishes? Or, is it that they're not asking for what they really wanted?

While all of these may be true to some degree or other, it's very often the case that people do a poor job of articulating what it is they want. It's a matter of context. When we describe something, it's very rarely a complete description. It may seem perfectly accurate to us, and may be accurate, but is it complete or are we using personal context to fill in the blanks in our mind? What about someone who doesn't share that context? With what will they fill in the holes?

This happens more often that we'd like to believe, and we've come to expect, even accept it at times. If this happens in writing, the reader becomes confused. Imagine reading a news story in which the reporter neglected to detail the context. "Due to the weather, the banks overflowed." Huh? Are we reading about rivers or money? That would be unacceptable to us, so why so we allow it in other instances? When you hear the classic phrase, "I'll know it when I see it," you're looking at someone unable to articulate what it is they want, and give us the necessary context.

Sometimes, though, it goes beyond articulating what's wanted. It might well be a matter of not knowing what's wanted. Anyone who has search job boards will see this frequently. Does the hiring manager really want an expert in X-Widgets, or do they want a well-rounded employee who can work with X-Widgets as well as a variety of other things? It could be either, in actuality. The company might have a specific need it's trying to address, or it cold be the case of the person writing the job description just throwing in buzz words with abandon. It might be that really want the latter, but end up hiring the former due to their poor communication.

Context is a dangerous thing. We take it for granted, but it can bite us if we're not careful. It's not a new problem, either. How many stories abound of wishes granted that make the wisher miserable because the wish was, perhaps deliberately, misinterpreted. The solution is as hard as it is easy: step outside of yourself and see your request in a different context. It's easy to say, but hard to accomplish. If you can master it, you will have acquired a gift of communication few can match.

Staring at a wall

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:48:00 +0000

Staying on that treadmill may be destroying your heart, and slowly killing you. You're thinking, "Wait a minute. Isn't exercise healthy? Isn't it good for your heart?" When you're on a treadmill you're in a controlled and artificial environment. The terrain never changes. The air temperature is constant. It never rains on you. There are no obstacles to overcome. It's convenient. It's safe. But is that a good thing?

It's the diversity of environment and experience that makes a run interesting. It's about feeling the sun on your face one day, and a gentle mist the next. It's about running around the occasional bolder or pit. It's about uneven terrain that tests your balance. These things improve you in ways that a safe, controlled environment cannot. You adapt to a breadth of experiences, rather then grow accustomed to a single experience. Reliance on a predictable environment leaves you a fish out of water when you're removed from it, and you become afraid of change as a result. Those accustomed to a diverse environment don't fear change: it's as natural to them as breathing.

There are more treadmills in our lives than those we find at the fitness clubs. Not all of them excerise our bodies, and not all of them are good for you, yet we run along on them as though it's the natural way of things. Look at the routines of your daily life: You wake, shower, maybe a quick something that passes for a breakfast, commute to work, work, commute home, microwave a dinner, sleep, repeat. You're running in place. Yes, your career may superficially benefit in the way you benefit from the exercise, but what about your spirit? Are you living, or simply existing? Are you experiencing the world, or staring a wall with your iPod drowning out the remaining vestiges of your environment? Are you becoming a part of the world, or becoming apart from it?

There is a simple test to see if you're running on a treadmill or running through the world at large: describe your experience. If you can tell of the nuances of the path, the smells in the air, the feel of the wind on your face, the sounds around you, then you're out in the world. If the best you can do is describe the color of the paint on the wall at which you stare as you run... Which experience would you rather have described to you? Why would you choose to be the main character in a story you don't even wish to hear?

We need to get off our treadmills, be they physical or metaphorical. We need to learn to accept change, and embrace it, rather than be ruled by fear of it. Risk is a great mentor and we should avail ourselves of its teachings. Experiencing diversity strengthens the soul, and it's good for your heart.

A Question of Faith

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:24:00 +0000

Your best friend is from another planet. You have no rational way to explain this belief. You have no evidence to support it; you friend has never said or done anything out of the ordinary. Nobody else has told you that they believe this, and yet you somehow know it to be true. This is the essence of faith: belief when there's no rational foundation for that belief to exist.

Faith and reason are at the opposite ends of the continuum of thought. Faith exists in the absence of reason, and reason requires no faith. Pure faith cannot be explained. It's self-contained, created wholly from within ourselves. It begins as a spark of inspiration. Faith is internal. Reason, of the other hand, is derived externally. We observe, we discuss, we form an hypothesis and we identify facts that support it. We find facts that dispute it. We revise and reform the hypothesis, and the cycle continues. Reason is always subject to debate. It was created from knowledge, and when the knowledge from whence it came is called into question, the foundation cracks. Faith, on the other hand, is not subject to debate. Internally created from a spark of inspiration, it stands alone, not subject to outside forces.

Pure faith, or pure reason, is abstract, however. Can a human being ever possess either fully? Can we, creatures constantly subjected to outside stimuli, be inspired in such a way that the experiences of our being don't form part of the foundation of that inspiration? Is it possible for us to believe without knowing or wanting to know, and is it possible to know fully without having to make even a small leap of faith?

People don't exist on the fringes of the continuum, but rather along the path. Even when we're strong in our beliefs, we can't help but try and back them with facts; we can't help but to rationalize them. And yet, once we do that, we expose faith to reason, and it's reason's nature to be questioned. The more we justify faith, the more we try and explain it, the more we try and prove our beliefs to others the more we move away from faith into reason.

You can try and prove the extraterrestrial origins of your friend. You might find strange writing in his home. You might see him displaying powers and abilities beyond those of normal men. He might confess his nature to you. He may take you to his home world. All of these shift your belief from one of faith into one of reason. The more you know, or think you know, the more faith fades, for even if all the evidence presented to you turn out to be fabricated, you can no longer return to the purity of faith that once created the belief; you're reason's child now, and subject to it's laws.

Neither faith nor reason are the better choice. Neither are a choice at all, really. They define each other, like dark and light. One doesn't exist without the other. What's important isn't picking sides, and using the opposing side as the scapegoat for our own failings. What's important is realizing that we exist on the continuum, and accepting that. We will rationalize our faith, and we need to accept the consequences that in doing so we open it to dispute. We will make intuitive leaps in reasoning, and need to accept they will be inexplicable. It's all interconnected: yin and yang, dark and light, each defining the other, and each possessing some aspects of the other. Finding which balance point is right for each us simply requires a little leap of faith. Jump.

I Have a Great Idea

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Five simple words. Five words uttered daily from dorm rooms to board rooms, and as often as not the results can be equally disastrous. The problem isn’t the ideas themselves. All manner of ideas are conceived at any given moment. Some of these are the grand thoughts that may change the world in unimaginable ways. Others are...less so grand, born of such things as an excess of spirits or a profound lack of judgement, or in the case of the aforementioned dorm rooms, typically both. No, the problem isn’t in the idea, but in the predetermined assessment that the idea is a great one.

All truly great ideas must undergo scrutiny. An idea is proposed. Others listen to it, and assess it. It gets discussed. Some people dispute it. Other people support it. It gets applied to new situations. Many questions are asked, and many questions are answered. In each case, though, the determination of the greatness is a process in which the wheat is separated from the chaff. It can be an arduous process, and sometimes a hurtful one. When we propose our ideas we need to maintain a thick skin. Sometimes, breakthrough ideas are pushed aside for years before something shifts the paradigm and allows them to be seen for what they truly are.

At times, however, we become so enamored in our own thoughts that we lose objectivity, and the moment that we unilaterally decide that the idea we’ve just conceived of is a great idea, we close ourselves off to other possibilities. Yet we announce our idea, show it off like a proud parent showing off a newborn child and declaring that she will one day become the first person to set foot on Saturn. We bask in the glory of what we’ve accomplished, and our hearts swell with self-satisfaction. That is, until someone points out that Saturn probably doesn’t have a surface to stand upon. Your child has just been insulted. It’s personal now. When confronted with the suggestion that our ideas may not be so grand as we’ve announced, we react.

The reaction themselves are usually quite predictable: they tend to follow the five stages of grief. The first response is one of denial. It is a great idea, it’s simply that those people who say otherwise don’t see the brilliance of it. The problem isn’t the idea, it’s them. After a while, denial gives way to anger. We get upset that people are attacking our ideas, and by extension attacking us. We fight back. We insult them. We attempt to discredit them so their critique will hold no merit. Farther along comes bargaining, We rationalize convoluted ways in which our ideas can still be great. We create Rube Goldberg schemes to make the square peg fit. Failing that, we withdraw, defeated, beaten down, or so we feel. Finally, hopefully, we accept that the process was about the soundness of the idea, and wasn’t a reflection on the thinker. We understand that even bad ideas can be the seeds from which great things can spring.

The sharing of ideas must be a selfless one. The child we birth must be allowed to go forth into the world to find her own way. It’s difficult to do, but necessary. Try as we might to support a bad idea in the guise of a great one, it will never stand the test of time. And those that are truly great will never need propping up. The child must be allowed to find her own way in the world, and while all the accomplishments she attains will be forever hers, not yours, you can bask in the satisfaction that you helped bring her into the world.

Winds of Change

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Day gives way to night. Winter passes to spring. Stars are born and grow cold. Change is inevitable. And yet, though we live in an ever-moving universe, we attempt to deny the undeniable. We anchor ourselves in time, clinging to what was instead of letting the currents carry us forward. There’s comfort in familiarity. When we surround ourselves with what’s known, and what’s predictable, it offers us a chance to relax. We don’t have to be on guard in such surroundings. We don’t need to be aware.

Therein lies the danger. While we cloak ourselves in familiarity, we protect ourselves from external risk only to subject ourselves to a risk far more insidious, and one self-created. Without change there is no risk. Without risk, there is no awareness. Without awareness, there is no growth. We live in comfort, but we live in stasis. When we lay with the devil we know, we none the less lay with the devil.

Change does not require us to abandon the past. Words on a computer screen may reach a wider audience than could be imagined even a few decades ago, but a monitor doesn’t touch the soul the way a fine leather-bound book can. A message delivered electronically is expedient, and wholly practical in many instances, but it lacks the tactile elegance of a hand-written letter, sealed with wax. One does not need to supplant the other. Change is growth. It’s not about replacing the old with the new, but expanding the collective of our experiences. It allows us new tools to use in conjunction with the old.

Stasis is easy. When we cling to the safety of the known we do not need to make choices. What we need today has been decided for us long ago by those who took the risks, who learned the safe paths from the dangerous, and passed their wisdom along through the generations. Staying in the realm of comfort we live forever in the shadow of the pioneers of old. The farmer who refuses to give up the way of life his family has lived for generations may believe himself to be honoring his ancestors, but at some point that way of life was started by someone who took a risk, and made a change. Does the comfort of tradition honor the founder of the tradition? And, by staying in the safety of the known, do we serve our inheritors or are we passing the responsibility of change along to them?

Change can be daunting. When we accept and embrace change we place ourselves in a world we don’t understand. That can be a frightening prospect as much as it’s an exhilarating one. How we adapt defines us. How we choose defines us. Not all change is good, in itself, but the process of dealing with change almost always is good. When we accept change and open our awareness to the greater unknown that comes with it, we lose our fear of change. We no longer exist as victims of change, but as partners with it. Change becomes our ally, and in that union comes comfort of a different nature.

A Symphony of Chaos

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:37:00 +0000

You’re listening to a classical musician practicing a piece in another room. You can hear the perfection of the playing, each note perfect. You can feel the passion in the musician’s expression. You can tell that this musician is a master at his craft, and yet the music you’re hearing is meaningless to you. Try as you might to recognize it, it sounds disjoint: a fragment of a mystery; a piece of chaos.

Most of us start off as the musician. We have a passion, and we seek to improve upon it. When we pick up our instrument for the first time it can be an unwieldy beast. Try as we might, we cannot make it sound right. It will screech, twang, and sound out of time or off key. Yet as we work our craft, our skill increases. The screeches become fewer. The timing becomes precise. The pitch becomes perfect. We learn, over time and effort, mastery. But mastery of the part does not imply mastery of the whole. Each part, however perfect in itself, is incomplete without the others. And even the sum of them, if not synchronized, would be chaos.

As we grow and mature in our skills, and in our thinking, we learn to see the orchestra as an entity, not just as the sum of the individual instruments. It becomes, in our eyes, a thing unto itself: a collective whole, rather than simply a collection of pieces. Our perception shifts. And again we grow. We abstract further. We now see the whole of a performance: multiple movements within a symphony; different pieces with a unifying theme collected into a concert. And again we grow, and abstract even further. We see a season’s worth of performances, and the threads that unify it. And we abstract again…

The fractals of music are the fractals of thought, learning, and life itself. From the intonation of a perfectly pitched note held for an exact duration, to the collected body of music created in the whole of human history, we see the order and the chaos that is indicative of everything we do. We start work assigned to a singular task. As our skills grow we take on more responsibility: leading a team; a project; a department; a division; a company. If we truly master the abstraction, we can see the perfection in the mundane as well as the beauty of the grand. And yet, thought we understand each of the layers, we don’t feel compelled to control them all individually. Understanding the collective requires understanding the mechanics of each layer that make it function, and trusting in them. There is order in the chaos, and if we try and apply the order of one layer onto another, we disrupt that order leaving only chaos. We cannot assume that because we understand one layer that we understand the parts from which it is made.

It’s possible to listen to and appreciate a piece of music without seeing into the fractals. It can be appreciated as an atomic whole, indivisible. But those who divide that atom appreciate it at a different level, and see the beauty of it on a myriad of differing planes. And once that depth of understanding is reached, there’s no going back. We’ll never again appreciate it in the same way as those who see only the atom, and we’ll never truly be able to explain to them the layers we see; they lack the abstracted reference points needed.

While it can be isolating and frustrating seeing the world differently than do others, it can also be exciting. When we understand the fractals reaching toward singularity, we foresee the discovery of the next abstraction outward, and the reaching of a new plane of understanding. From that single perfect note, we can anticipate outward toward another symphony yet to be written. We learn to appreciate the beauty of the unknown.

I Win

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:46:00 +0000

Competition is everywhere. We not only compete on the playing field, but we compete for jobs, for the affections of that someone who catches our eye, we fight for the better parking space. It’s so deeply ingrained into us that we even make up competitions for ourselves if we don’t have anyone to compete against. “Yep, cut the lawn in 5 minutes less than last week, I did.” We compete to the point of being silly about it.

Competition can be a good thing. It pushes us forward to become better. If we run that race a little faster, it’s because we worked to improve ourselves. Even the silly speed record on mowing the lawn has its merits. If you can organize better to get a job done in a shorter time, it leaves you more time for other things. There’s a tangible benefit to that kind of competition.

And the loser of a competition can gain as well. We learn from our failures. If we finish second in the race, we analyze what went wrong. Did we make a technical mistake? Was it a strategic mistake? Were we just flat out beat on ability, and can we adjust our training to improve ourselves? The lawn mower, should his new system take longer will, perhaps even without knowing it, use that knowledge to either adapt it further, or abandon the dead-end road in favor of another. In a clean, healthy competition everyone wins.

But then there’s competing to win for winning’s sake. This is the point where benefit ends, and destruction begins. It becomes, not about winning, but making those we compete against lose. It’s about hurting them physically, making them unable to compete. It’s about damaging their credibility so they’re not taken seriously. We see this kind of thing far too often in politics these days. Candidates are no longer telling us how they’ll improve things for us, but rather they’re telling us how the other guy will make things worse. They’re not looking to win on merit anymore, if ever they were, but looking to win by default. Winning is the only goal. Their opponents become damaged, justifiably or not, and they themselves rarely come out unscathed. Not only do they not improve themselves in the way they would in a healthy competition, but they usually suffer counter attacks from their opponent, leaving them damaged as well. Someone may win, but overall everyone loses.

Perhaps it’s time we make a conscious effort to compete less. Life was more enjoyable when we didn’t have to win every game, wasn’t it? Who ever won playing peek-a-boo with a young child? Pick one day and hang up the running shoes, put away the lawn mower, and put down that mud you’re about to sling and play peek-a-boo. When you see the smiles it brings, you’ll have won something far more important than any competition.

Mea Culpa

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:00:00 +0000

It's time to launch a world-wide search to find them and, once and for all, make them accountable for all the trouble they cause. Who, exactly, are they? Simply put, they're not us. That is to say, they are the convenient scapegoats we use to absolve ourselves of any kind of responsibility for our own actions or inaction. They allow us to decry the things we dislike, without having to ourselves risk the uncertain outcome of our own decisions.

What makes us foster blame on the collective other, instead of standing up for our own mistakes? It's not hard to understand: We're taught all our lives that we must be right; Being incorrect isn't allowed; Failure isn't tolerated. We're measured by our successes, even if those successes are meaningless. We're punished for our failures, even if those failures are a door to a greater understanding. School systems reinforce this paradigm every time we're given an assignment, a quiz, or a test. Being correct awards us with a good grade. It doesn't matter if we actually understand the material so long as we can answer the question correctly, using whatever means we have. Failure, lack of understanding, is so abhorrent that it becomes an indelible stain upon us. It's so deeply socialized within our culture that we become terrified at the prospect of failure and, it follows, unable to even admit our mistakes out of shame.

Fear of failure leads us to let others shoulder the responsibility, whether they're qualified or not. Rather than assume responsibility for ourselves, or (horror!) others, we stand back and let someone else step in and make the decisions for us. It's a nice arrangement. If all goes well, we can bask in the success and applaud ourselves for our wisdom in following such great leaders. If it goes wrong, we're blameless: the failure was, after all, caused by them. It sounds ideal, but we've seen time and again that it doesn't always make us happy. All too often, we end up drifting between ambivalent and miserable.

Failure is nothing to be feared or reviled. We must dare to risk, even at the cost of failing. It's a strange dichotomy that, though we're taught to avoid failure at all costs, instinctively we know that risk often leads to the greatest rewards. Who hasn't risked looking the complete fool over love? When it comes to love, we don't judge how we'll be perceived if we fail. We leap. We know the reward, should we succeed, is worth it. We forgive others' failure in matters of the heart knowing that we, also, are prone to similar disasters. There's a lesson to be learned there.

We shouldn't make a habit of failure, to be sure, but neither should we be fearful of the occasional lapse. When we can dare to fail, and fail spectacularly, we open the door to equally spectacular success. When we're no longer afraid of the stigma of failure, we can respect our failures as our greatest teachers. Only then can we wrest responsibility from them and wear that mantle ourselves. We become them, they are us, and we welcome the responsibility.

Fish and Visitors

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Wajda) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:05:00 +0000

Even with the most beloved of guests, there's a point when enough is enough. As delightful as it is to have visitors, eventually they need to move on. If they don't, what was once a pleasant visit just gets awkward and you begin to look forward to their departure. Then, just when you think that perhaps they might have left for good, in through the door they burst forth again and you realize with horror that it was only a day trip; they're still here.

Make no mistake about it: I love winter. The stillness recharges me. The cold invigorates me. But there comes a time when, as much as I love to see its arrival, I'm more than happy to see its departure. It's important we part on good terms each year. A timely exit allows me to remember its visit fondly and, as the months grow long, to yearn for its annual return once again. Should it overstay its welcome then what should be longing may well, next Autumn, turn to dread.

Winter felt like an old childhood friend this year more than it has in a long while. With its arrival came plenty of lingering snow, blanketing the landscape with beauty and the promise of play. The sustained cold wasn't the snarling wolf clawing at your skin, but just enough to better appreciate that warm mug of cider and the crackling fire. It was a memorable and pleasant visit.

But I'm tired of entertaining now. It's nearly halfway through April and I have things I ought be doing instead of catering to the whims of a season that just doesn't know when it's time to leave. Winter, my friend, I cannot make you leave. It would be rude of me to ask, and just as pointless as you're far too much the force of nature to bend to my will anyhow. But if you value our friendship, take heed: parting isn't a time for sadness, but an opportunity to look forward to our next meeting, and the great times we will have together then.

So, can I give you a lift to the airport?