Tag Archives: #thedialetic

Better a Whistle Blower than the 80%

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Six Percenters now rule

A while ago I wrote about “6 Percenters” (click to read post here) which basically are the 6 percent of people who are difficult to deal with…. unfortunately they drag another 14% of weak people along with them, which creates the situation of the 20% of people who take up 80% of your time….

So, most of the time only 20% of the world are causing difficulties.

I’ve been thinking…. (Which is also another challenging situation as my mind is a very dangerous place and I never go there alone….!)

What I was thinking is surely,  if only 20% of people in any situation, or more importantly organisations, are ‘troublesome’ then any whistle blower who steps forward would surely be supported by the majority; that is the 80%.

I don’t think this is the case – perhaps it never really was…?

It’s all about me; and I’m having a guess

My particular observations have obviously been about the Police… and I must say they are my personal opinions and based on …. well what I just reckon from 38 years of experience and being right in the middle of it.  There is also a disclaimer that mostly this is not about individuals but more about a ‘culture” – plus it may also relate to a myriad of other organisations and groups where culture is everything, so although I base this on the Police, in looking around your office, or organisation, you may be thinking, hey, this is happening here too.

What am I talking about?  culture, whistle blowers, the percentages…..?

What I am talking about is that I don’t think in organisations that have a long history and intrenched culture that they themselves, and especially the individuals within the organisation, even know they are part of a different percentage; most think, most of the time, that they are part of the majority.  That is the majority of people who are NOT 6 percenters or their followers – which is about 80% of ‘us’.

In ‘culture orientated’ organisations and groups the ‘6 percenters’ have often ruled for years.  They have dragged the initial 14% and then progressively over the generations this percentage has grown to much, much, much more.

I think in some modern organisations, and from my experience, the Police, have allowed the ‘6 percenter mentality’ to become the culture.  The followers are not a group of weak people looking for a leader but are now the majority.  The 6 percenters, are now not 6 percenters, but the leaders, the influencers, the cultural caretakers, and have been for some generations.  They have progressively recruited in excess of the 14% of weak and easily led people and have been building this number over generations.   So, what was 14%, is now more like 74% – which is 80% of the organisation.

Bullshit, I hear you cry as one. Well, I actually hear 80% of you cry this, as you are now the majority.  The worse part of this sentence is, I think until I retired, I was well and truely in that group, if not one of its leaders – hence I think I speak from experience.

Bullshit, again I hear you cry.

Lies, more lies, and statistics

Well, lets do the only more confusing thing I can think of doing than writing the above algorithm of misaligned sentences – which is quote a few statistics.

I have a joke about statistics which my wife hates which goes like – “Three statisticians go hunting deer with bows and arrows;  they see a deer and the first fires his arrow and it goes a metre in front of the deer; the second fires his arrow and it goes a metre behind the deer; the third fires his arrow and it goes a metre over the deer; all three statisticians look at each other and chant in unison “We got him, we got him!”

So what are my stats?  They are taken from the independent review into “Sex Discrimination, Sexual Harassment and Predatory Behaviour in South Australia  Police” report published November 2016 by the South Australian Equal Opportunity Commission (click here for a link to the entire report).

Lets start off with a few doosies:

  • 45% had personally experienced sex discrimination while employed by SAPOL
  • 61% agreed it was very difficult to work part time and have a career in SAPOL
  • only 21% who had experienced sexual discrimination had reported it
  • half of those who reported it said they experienced victimisation, including being ostracised, ignored, bullied, or denied training or promotion

So, about 1 in 5 are reporting – what a coincidence, about 20% by my maths…..

I am not saying the above ‘bush maths and anthropology’ has any scientific basis, but, usually if something doesn’t seem right it isn’t – if you dont believe me ask a few fraud victims!  Plus, intuition saved many a cop from opening the wrong door or walking around the wrong corner – sometimes the map doesn’t match the ground – therefore the map is wrong!

Again, so?  What does this all mean.  I think it mainly means that it doesn’t matter how many new policies, working groups, task forces, media campaigns or big glossy posters  around the office – if the culture stays the same, the 80% go on merrily thinking everything is alright – oblivious to the reality.

What does this mean if you are a whistleblower

It basically means you are in the new 20% and you are fucked.  I am constantly searching the internet for a ‘good news’ whistle blower story – let me know if you find one.

Just look above at the SAPOL report and the things you face as a whistle blower – victimisation, bullying, etc etc – and these are probably just the identifiable consequences. What about the individual consequences?

I recently asked a few serving members what was the general discussion going on about the place in relation to the land mark decision against SAPOL in relation to discrimination (read full article here) and it appears that the 80% rule supreme – read the article and then read the below paraphrased responses heard around the SAPOL workplace:

“She was always a bit weak.”

“She was a shit cop anyhow.” “What a whinger.”

“We’re better off without her.”

The above were relayed to me via various sources and when I asked if anybody spoke up the answer was no – the 80% rule – the culture remains the same irrespective of posters and task forces and the Commissioner, the CEO, the boss or even the 20% trying to lead the way.

Who protects the protectors from themselves?

Better at Birthdays (10227)

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Well, here we are again – another birthday.

Last year I wrote a post called something similar, except it was 20454 days in the brackets (link to that post here).  That was the number of days I had lived to that point.  The number in the brackets of this post is the days I have left (if I live to be 85).

This is an important number for me.  Yes, I may be obsessed with death – but, after all, it is the one inevitability; you can’t count taxes anymore considering most multinational companies don’t pay any!   Funnily I’ve written so many times about ‘The Merchants of Misery’ and bullshit politicians who make us buy, make us spend and then blame us that paying taxes now is almost like paying for shit entertainment and being unable to get a refund…!!!

Death is a sad and depressing thing to think about on your Birthday – probably, but, it reminds me that the days we do have are limited.  We spend most of our days not thinking it could be our last, or that we only have a few left – we spend most of our days living as if we are going to live forever.  I personally have never met any immortals, or for that matter heard of any existing, so, the grim reaper will eventually come knocking for all of us….

It doesn’t mean that our life is pointless – just like it doesn’t mean our life has to be important to be well lived – actually for most of us our lives are not very important to the big scheme of things other than we are a small grain of sand in an endless beach of sand, which is somehow connected to all the other grains of sand, even if it is just for the briefest of moments.

I can’t wait for tomorrow when my Birthday will be over and I can get on with waiting for the next one….  What the…!!!!   Really.  Is waiting and hoping for tomorrow more important than living this day, this hour, this second.  Then again I don’t want today to end because there is nothing really to look forward to tomorrow, just work and the normal routine, but, I am excited about my holiday later in the year…. What the….!!!!  Anyway, I am glad that I got through yesterday and now I just need a day to get over it and regret just about everything I did, or didn’t do which would have made it better; if there was just a time machine, I would…  What the….. fuck!!!!

Yesterday and/or tomorrow are our obsessions!

Regretting and anticipating are time travellers – in our heads.

Isn’t my counting down the days to my death just a little macarbe and a little sad?  Probably; unless, it is used as a guidepost to the realisation that each of those days can be precious, the best day of my life, the last day… so, therefore I have to make sure I don’t waste it!

Two things about those days:

  1. Time is an illusion created by us with clocks and calendars – in reality there is only NOW.  Yesterday, the last hour, the last second, are gone and can’t be changed; tomorrow is imaginary, an illusion created in our minds about what might happen.
  2. Time, on the other hand is the only commodity that we can’t trade, yet it is the only real commodity that we have.  We get an uncertain amount, and it runs out when we least expect it.

Let’s just change our ‘time commodity’ counting system – I’ll call seconds dollars.  You are given a certain amount of dollars and told to go and shop and buy anything you like.  The trick is you never know when the dollars on your shopping spree are going to run out.  Now some of us are going to grab as much as we can, irrespective of what it is, if we need it, or actually if we really even want it, because we are just grabbing before the money runs out.  Some of us are going to casually walk around the isles, picking the best, experiencing the joy of the shop without the pressure of having to earn what we spend; and then there are the ones that are never really aware of what dollars are but they buy stuff anyway which they didn’t know why they bought it other than it was what they were told to buy to make them happy…. they they die, just like all the rest.

So, most of us complain that we are cash poor, never enough money – we’ll work harder and make more… and the miracle of the corruption of capitalism, is you can….  and you can buy more stuff…. and your stuff will make you happy?

But, not so your ‘time dollars’ – there are only so many and you can’t work harder, refinance or get a loan… or even borrow a few dollars from a mate…

There are only so many and you don’t know how many… and then you die, and the kids fight over your stuff that made you happy.

Happy Birthday – it was now, which was a few days ago…. and that moment will never come again, that day will never come again.  Thanks for all the Facebook messages, I haven’t read them yet, I appreciate that Facebook reminded you (as most of you have never wished me Happy Birthday before Facebook) and you had to press a few keys, on the day of my Birthday – thanks.  But, the phone calls I received, and the two cards that people posted to me kept me busy all day, in the now, in the real world, spending my time dollars wisely – I only have 10221 left.

PS:  On your Birthday, check the mail box – then you will know I spent a dollar for you…

 

 

Better at Thinking Like Einstein: Quotes

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So often in life when things are good or things are bad we are reminded of, or usually told by that wise arse friend some meaningful quote to either make us feel better, or often worse.  I personally love quotes as they mean two things to me:

  1. Smarter people than me have been in the same situation and survived.
  2. There are often few words which can explain complex feelings, people or situations.

I think point two is mostly lost in that the ‘quotes’ our parents said to us were corny and usually involved some life lesson that we weren’t ready for or mostly did not understand.

“count to ten when you are angry”
“a stitch in time saves nine”
“a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”

Oh God, the wisdom of our parents can be found, in later life, just when you realise that you did completely the opposite and fucked things up.

But, the real reason I love quotes is that smarter people have been where I am heading, or just been, or plan to go.  Einstein has many quotes which have been my mantras for years – all duly disregarded until after the fact and I repeat them to myself and say “Einstein warned you of this…. and you did it again.”

One quote which has stuck with me for years is:

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

I have always loved this quote and espoused it to anyone who would listen, and even those who wouldn’t – why I continued to repeat my mistakes over and over again….  Which in itself indicates to me I am not as smart as I thought I was. (I love the Einstein quote when he was asked what it was like to be the smartest man in the world and he said “I don’t know ask Nicola Tesla.” – even really smart people know there are people smarter than them!)

But, what prompted this little rant this morning is the quote:

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

I suppose somehow over the last couple of years this has become a realisation to me.  Things that really counted to me, couldn’t be counted – but, I was counting everything else to gauge my success, wealth and happiness.

I want to think more like Einstein – not in solving the secrets of the universe but in “Not trying to be become a man of success, but by trying to become a man of value – a better man” (bastardised Einstein quote!).

I do have a quotes section on my blog page – but can’t remember the last time I updated it – probably because profound quotes are not the way we think daily but only when giving a speech or when things turn to shit – and as said above it’s usually some smart arse just taking the piss.  Maybe quotes that truely guide our lives should become more of our lives – instead of tattoos of Chinese symbols for love and faith we should have quotes tattooed upon us to remind us, forever, that good choices are actually choices….

So I thought I should finish off with a list of  Einstein quotes, and hope that you find something in them for you – or at least throw one in your kids face next time they stuff up.

1. “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” 

2. “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”

3. “Truth is what stands the test of experience.” 

4. “The only source of knowledge is experience.” 

5. “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” 

6. “There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.” 

7. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” 

8. “Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.” 

9. “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” 

10. “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” 

11. “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” 

12. “I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.” 

13. “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”

14. “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” 

15. “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.” 

16. “To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.”

17. “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

18. “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” 

19. Life is like riding a bicycle.  To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

20. “Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.” 

21. “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” 

22. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.” 

23. “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” 

24. “The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” 

25. “Information is not knowledge.” 

26. “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” 

27. “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”

28. “Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.”

29. “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”

30. “All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.”

31. “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” 

32. “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” 

33. “You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I’ve only ever had one.” 

34. “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” 

35. “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” 

36. “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.”

37. “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

38. “The only way to escape the corruptible effect of praise is to go on working.” 

39. “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” 

40. “Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.” 

41. “Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”

42. “A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.” 

43. “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’n not sure about the universe.”

44. “Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” 

45. “In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.” 

46. “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” 

47. “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” 

48. “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” 

49. “The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.” 

50. “Most teachers waste their time by asking questions that are intended to discover what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning is to discover what the pupil does know or is capable of knowing.” 

51. “As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.”

52. “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” 

53. “I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.” 

54. “Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events.” 

55. “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”

 

 

 

 

 

(I put this last quote picture at the bottom because only older people have the inclination or the perception of time well spent to learn something new the old way – through perseverance ….. )

Better at Knowing How You Feel

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“Oh, I know how you feel…”

Really?

Hearing this phrase from well meaning friends, relatives, acquaintances, the girl in the drive through at McDonalds is a way of saying “I heard what you said, but let me either, not really care, pretend to care or tell you about when it happened to me – which of course makes me superior to you and my experience much more meaningful…..”

This platitude of “I know how you feel” is only ever really felt by those who actually have experienced what you are going through and know saying “I know how you feel” is not necessary so they don’t say it – you may catch their eye in that moment of feeling and you know they know – they do’t need to tell you.

Lets take a step back from my rant and talk about why I know that I do not know how you feel…

Firstly I realised and acknowledged to myself that I am not a full functioning alien empath and therefore can not physically, emotionally or even intellectually know how you feel…

Secondly, I can not read minds….

Thirdly, I spent most of my life thinking I knew how everybody felt, and why, and how they could fix it, and I told them how, if they didn’t listen I insisted….

So, my first lesson in knowing how somebodies feels is in acknowledging that I don’t.  The second lesson I learned, albeit the hard way, was that whatever they are feeling, it is their feelings, their way…. and it is not mine to judge that.

It does matter the circumstances, it doesn’t matter the judgement….

“Oh he/she is so strong considering….”
“He/she is so emotional over……”
“What a whinger….”

“Why won’t they talk about it, I’ve offered so many times….”

etc etc etc

Probably said with all the best of intentions (sometimes…) but really just bullshit platitudes to indicate that you don’t know how they feel – and this is probably what confuses you.  And, so many people think they can ‘do something’….

In a hard moment often people will call, or say “If there is anything I can do let me know…”  to which I always reply, “Yes, as a matter of fact there is, can you come around and wash my car / mow my lawn / do my washing etc etc”  As you can imagine you get ‘crickets’ in the conversation or on the other end of the phone….  Mostly, you have to realise that unless you have a time machine, or can bring people back from the dead, there is nothing you can do except be there.  I don’t need new friends in moments of grief, but they will often be the most supportive;  I need my old friends, but they are often the most scarce…  success has a thousand fathers and failure/grief/sadness etc is an orphan…

Sometimes, I think the people that really know how I feel, don’t contact me with the immediacy of action and the ‘can I help syndrome’ – they are the ones that fill my heart with the one line text, the card in the mail (do people still do this other than me…), the quick email that is the true indicator that they may not know how I feel but they remember how they felt when it happened to them….

Look, I don’t know how you feel unless you tell me, and you are probably not going to do that for a while as you are processing it yourself, and maybe will be for the rest of your life.

Look, I don’t know how you feel but you can cry when I am around and not be ashamed or feel weak…
Look, I don’t know how you feel but you can come and hide at my place….
Look, I don’t know how you feel but you can be as illogical with me as you like and I won’t judge….
Look, I don’t know how you feel…. and I won’t mow your lawn or wash your car….

The best of intentions are usually just that; it is like having every intention of doing something… they are actually for you and not the other person – like most things in life when we look at them…. which is usually not because we don’t know how other people feel, but because we don’t think about it in our daily lives and it only becomes a concern in times of hardship, grief or failure….  then it is just a platitude for us, again.

I feel like this post has run it’s course – but you already knew that.

 

 

 

Better on the Crazy Train

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I have written a lot about living our lives on autopilot – just going through life watching TV, jumping from shiny thing to shiny thing and then, bang, one day you wake up dead and think how did that happen, I had so much to do!

I think there is another trap in life, especially modern life and that is riding the crazy train with all the other clowns and not knowing it.

There are two major challenges here – firstly getting on the crazy train and then getting off.

The crazy train is also a very different place.  All the people on the crazy train don’t know they are crazy and don’t even know they are dressed as clowns and recruiting other commuters.

We all have to ride the crazy train.  It involves listening to the Merchants of Misery (The Media) and believing them; working at jobs that don’t mean anything or make anything (commonly known as bullshit jobs), doing anything that involves any government agency or Bank, etc etc

But, the crazy train is a means of transport and doesn’t have to be a way of life.

Here is my little example.  You have to get on the crazy train to undertake one of the above  bits of life in modern society.  You press the button and step onto the train with a clear intention of your destination – by the way you don’t have to buy a ticket on the crazy train, it free!

You look around and see that everyone on the train is dressed as a clown.  They are squirting each other in the face with plastic flowers, throwing buckets of confetti over each other, driving up and down the isles in those little cars and generally doing what clowns do – this is the purpose of the crazy train – pointless motion in costume to achieve little results.

You find a seat by the window thinking of your destination.

Suddenly a very nice clown sits next to you and asks why you aren’t dressed properly and points out that you stand out as being different.  You politely tell them you just want to ride the train to your appointment.  His is very understanding and agrees that it’s okay for you to do that…… but, …… suggests that just so that you fit in a little better you might want to just try on, you don’t have to wear it all the way, but just try on, this red nose.

What could be the harm you think – you do feel a little awkward and the nose might help.  After putting on the nose you are introduced to a few other clowns.  Each one suggests something else you might want to wear to fit in a bit more…. what could be the harm you think.

So as your destination is approaching, you are in full clown outfit and juggling at the end of of the carriage when your stop is announced.  You say you have to get off, but you have fitted in so well, it seems a shame to leave now.

Some insist you stay as you are the best juggler they have ever had…..

What, me, juggler clown…?  You yell out “No, I am not like you.” and as you do you catch your reflection in the window of the carriage, in full clown outfit, juggling and smiling through your clown makeup……

You stay on the crazy train.  You can’t remember your original destination but you are now going with everybody else and it seems like the right thing to do.

Suddenly the door opens and a person gets on with street clothes one.  You sit next to them and suggest they try on the spare red nose you have so that they will fit in a bit more.

Better at Not Knowing Who I Am….

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The other day I heard this great explanation of figuring out who you are;  it starts off as a little bit of a test and the interesting use of the word percieve.

This is a bit of a follow on from a post I wrote the other day about possibly being in a computer simulation (which I suspect may still actually be true!) – the thing about this post was in part, identifying who I actually was.

The dictionary meaning being “become aware or conscious of (something); come to realize or understand”

So here is the exercise about finding who you are…. I will use a car (an ordinary automobile, like the one you drive to work):

  • I am looking at a car (or even driving it, or touching it)
  • I can perceive that car.
  • Am I the car?
  • No.  I am not the car because I can perceive it.
  • I can not be something I can perceive.

You can repeat this exercise around the entire house with all the things you own.  You can even do it with your friends ….. “Am I my best friend, no, because I can perceive my best friend, so I can not be them….”

Now comes the really tricky part of this little exercise.  Stop worrying about all the ‘things’ and people around you and just take a seat and think about you.  Now we are going to repeat the exercise.

  • Am I my body? No.
    Because I can perceive my body.
  • Am I my thoughts?
    No.
    Because I can perceive my thoughts.
  • Am I my emotions?
    No.
    Because I can perceive my emotions.

What the…..!!!!!

What am I.
Who am I.
Who is this all perceiving me.

Good question?