GTWTAFUBAR

Most of what I write about is small and relatively unimportant. I think this is important, because we can't begin to solve a problem without understanding it. Everyone seems to bemoan how polarized things are, but nobody seems to understand why or how to fix it. This doesn't provide any fixes, but tries to show a clear view of the problems (or as my former professor Russell Ackoff would call it, the Formulation of the Mess- a mess defined as a system of interrelated problems).

This is a post about why people are acting so crazy now. About why our politics are so bitterly divided and why nobody seems to be able to agree on anything. The first 5 letters of the title stand for "Global theory why things are" and the rest you can look up if you don't know it.

I'm going to make a generalization here, for which I have no particular evidence. But this is an opinion piece, so I can say whatever I want without any evidence. OK, call me a Republican.

Here's what I think is happening: As a rule, people don't like change. This should not be surprising, because I'm not aware of any animals like change, and we are more or less animals. And at the risk of sounding ridiculous, change changes everything. It makes it difficult to know what to do when or how or where or whatever. It doesn't make it impossible, it just makes it more difficult, and people don't like things being more difficult.

And yet we live in a time where everything around us is changing rapidly. I would suggest that to many it feels as if things are constantly changing, that the world beneath their feet is not stable, making it scary and unpredictable. For year, people said "Everyone talks abut the weather, but nobody does anything about it." And now we have changed the weather, and do we like that?

I lived through the time when microwave ovens were introduced and I remember how wonderful and terrifying they were. "They cook with radiation? Like nuclear weapons radiation?" Imagine how those people, who are for the most part still alive, feel about what's going on today. It's gotta feel like the foundations on which their life is built are crumbling.

I've gotta admit, I like this stuff. For me, I was born at the perfect time. But I love new technology, and I've spent enough time with people other than myself to know that I shouldn't expect anyone else to react in even remotely fashion as I do.

Too much change makes people fearful and cranky, and fearful cranky people don't make thoughtful choices, because they're constantly in some state of fight or flight. They react from their amygdala, aka lizard brain. The part of your brain that does fight or flight really well and pretty much everything else really badly. It's purely reactive, and it leaves people ripe for the picking by demagogues and on a less extreme basis, by public figures who frame things in simplistic ways. Good versus bad, us versus them. Flee or defend yourself.

There's really no rational reason to fear change, but nothing about this is rational. If you react to change in an emotional way then you are at the mercy of people telling you to be fearful or angry about it, especially if there's nothing else to cling to. And so these upset, vulnerable, largely poor and not highly educated people are being rallied to recapture the past. To preserve what they already have and not give anything they have to anyone else, worthy or not.

Amazingly but not surprisingly, this self-preservation response even includes things that are not in their self-interest, because understanding self-interest requires a nuanced level of thought that the lizard brain does not do. A perfect example was Kentucky, where a population that is highly dependent on Medicaid expansion and the ACA voted for a governor who promised to take that all away. Because Obama. And because his opponent was a lousy candidate.

More than anything, what upsets me is the pessimism than underlies this behavior. I know that we're not living in the golden age or anything, but my goodness, life in the US is pretty good and I wish there was some collective will to make it better and not say, "we can't." Pay a few more dollars in taxes. Fix the roads and the schools, have a good public transportation system. Provide a safety net for those who need it. These are not lofty goals. They're basic.

I hope we can get past this stage, and I wish I was more hopeful about it.

In serviceable

So Friday was in service. In service is so mysterious that the school needed to send out an email explaining what it's about to parents. To students I can say it in a shorter form- it's team building, which when you're an adult you get to call team building professional development.

Let me go on briefly about team building. It's something that works really well with a group of people who have a common goal. One of the reasons ropes stuff is effective is that there's a discreet, clearly articulated goal that everyone understands and buys into.

The problem with doing in a professional development context is that everyone involved in most situations don't naturally have common goals. In a simple artificial construction you can simply dictate a goal. but when you're working within an organization that's a recipe for disaster. Consensus building requires its own set of team building activities. A goal imposed from above will feel arbitrary and won't achieve the buy-in necessary for success.

But here's the thing. It's pretty well known to most of my colleagues that I dislike the whole big meeting thing and that I find them useless. But I can't go on one day about how one should never be bored and then drone on about how bored I was during in service.

And I wasn't. That's the importance of being present. Whatever's going on, think about where you are and what you are doing. And be where you are and do what you're doing. Nobody at my table would have for a moment thought that I was disengaged in any way, because I wasn't. I discussed, I expressed opinions, offered suggestions, the whole deal. And yeah, I even complained about it. But all in the context of what we were doing. What's the point of being bored? Better to engage than sit there watching the clock.

What's alarming about this is how simple it is and yet how difficult it is for people. I need to think about this more.

It's all Jefferson's fault

I was just reading a depressing article about the state of the American family. People, especially educated, upper middle class people, are feeling very stretched and stressed out. They feel torn between job and home, especially when they have young kids. Of course they're torn. It's a binary choice.  You can't be at work and at home. You can't be hanging out with your baby and expecting to earn a significant income. You can't help feeling like you're missing out if you're not home with the baby and good luck trying to juggle them both.

It's all Jefferson's fault. Why did he have to put "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence? What did happiness have to do with anything? I had a cynical hippyish teacher in middle school, known in school circles as the guy who burned the dollar bill at the podium on Parents' Night ( it was the 60's) who said it should say "pursuit of property." But pursuing happiness is a relatively new and specifically American thing.

Let me start by saying that if you have to pursue happiness in the first place then something's out of order in your life. Happiness should be a state of being, not a pursuit. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I'm happy 24/7, but I sure don't go out looking for extra, and all-the-time happiness is an impossible standard anyway. If we've learned anything from pop culture this year, it's that happiness has to coexist with sadness in order to have a fulfilling life.

To my mind, the key is understanding what makes you happy, as differentiated from what gives you pleasure. That takes a level of self-examination that most people really aren't up for, especially the tired, stressed ones. Too bad, because they need it the most.

Part of the problem is the expectation of being amused and interested at all times. I'm tired of hearing how people are bored. Existence isn't boring. One of my favorite quotes from Car Talk was when Tom Magliozzi reacted to someone calling something as boring as watching paint dry. He said he'd painted something that weekend and watched it dry and that, you know, it wasn't that boring. Fun and entertainment aren't the same thing. Neither are amusement and happiness.

Everyone has choices. I'll be the first to admit that mine have been easier than most people's, but that doesn't change my inclination to take things as they come and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But if you make a choice and then continue to stress out about it, you haven't committed to the choice. It's FOMO for grown ups. There are lots of paths I could have taken but I took the one I'm on. And that's okay, whatever it is.