a setup for failure? (August 19, 2007)
This one is complex and difficult to write because there are so many dichotomies in the essence of what is true about failure
and success. The feeling is of definition and what constitutes the notion of what is absolute about those terms in our culture.
This thought will take so many twists and turns as a result.
I view our culture today as a population of quick definers; a culture that wants quick definitions for the environment around
them. Trust is a lost concept, and many experiences back up that notion. However, with trust gone, the culture seems to have
adopted skepticism. Lives are busy, and decisions seemingly need to be made now. Skepticism is the initial endorsement
whereby people become annoyed and angry by those that do not fit the plan. This mental endorsement of skepticism becomes
more engrained with each subsequent failure by someone to break through the skeptical mind into someone they can trust.
With frustration in hand, cultures seem to be frustrated, bored, and at a loss for what possibilities exist for the future. Life
seems to be a grab bag at times, and many feel like they are the only ones to have been too slow to reach their hands into the
pile. Everyone is looking over their shoulder to see what the other has in their possession to determine their own status.
Households pay their bills and do their chores as if life exists for that purpose. Maybe this is why we tell our kids to dream big
so that they don’t have to live with this purpose. Do adults have to live boring lives? Do kids need to see adulthood as
excruciatingly boring? Why do people interrupt good conversation about life to do the laundry? The inconsistency of our
intentions is that success only exacerbates the complexity of life taking away from finding comfort in self. How can that be
success?
My experiences from this culture indicate to me that people who find enjoyment daily without the schedule of chores are the
people I enjoy hanging with. A short stupid comic dialogue is all I need for a successful day, far more important to me than
laundry, grass, or any other chore combined. Sure, work is important, but work can be enhanced much more by casual
dialogue rather than mundane conferences or memos. I think chores are from time past when survival necessitated such
activity. Conferences and memos are from time past when information took a week to filter through an organization. They are
exercises in futility for the most part. Who made the law that grass could not be bigger than four inches tall? A daily round of
dialogue with people is more fun for me than a party whereby everyone asks each other the same competitive questions over
and over again. How’s your job? How’s the house? All that stuff. Mendacity, I say! =)
Rather than teaching kids by example that growing up sucks, I think they should see adults having fun. They can look forward
to non-puritanical collegial feelings of understanding and compassion for what life is on a fundamentally deeper level. Adults
could talk about them having fun with their kids, and having their own dreams, too; rather than telling their kids to have dreams.
I think the single most frustrating thing for a kid is to be told that they should have dreams, but then not have any real examples
of anything that they can dream about. Are we setting them up for failure despite the best of intentions?
(c) kenneth martin
This one is complex and difficult to write because there are so many dichotomies in the essence of what is true about failure
and success. The feeling is of definition and what constitutes the notion of what is absolute about those terms in our culture.
This thought will take so many twists and turns as a result.
I view our culture today as a population of quick definers; a culture that wants quick definitions for the environment around
them. Trust is a lost concept, and many experiences back up that notion. However, with trust gone, the culture seems to have
adopted skepticism. Lives are busy, and decisions seemingly need to be made now. Skepticism is the initial endorsement
whereby people become annoyed and angry by those that do not fit the plan. This mental endorsement of skepticism becomes
more engrained with each subsequent failure by someone to break through the skeptical mind into someone they can trust.
With frustration in hand, cultures seem to be frustrated, bored, and at a loss for what possibilities exist for the future. Life
seems to be a grab bag at times, and many feel like they are the only ones to have been too slow to reach their hands into the
pile. Everyone is looking over their shoulder to see what the other has in their possession to determine their own status.
Households pay their bills and do their chores as if life exists for that purpose. Maybe this is why we tell our kids to dream big
so that they don’t have to live with this purpose. Do adults have to live boring lives? Do kids need to see adulthood as
excruciatingly boring? Why do people interrupt good conversation about life to do the laundry? The inconsistency of our
intentions is that success only exacerbates the complexity of life taking away from finding comfort in self. How can that be
success?
My experiences from this culture indicate to me that people who find enjoyment daily without the schedule of chores are the
people I enjoy hanging with. A short stupid comic dialogue is all I need for a successful day, far more important to me than
laundry, grass, or any other chore combined. Sure, work is important, but work can be enhanced much more by casual
dialogue rather than mundane conferences or memos. I think chores are from time past when survival necessitated such
activity. Conferences and memos are from time past when information took a week to filter through an organization. They are
exercises in futility for the most part. Who made the law that grass could not be bigger than four inches tall? A daily round of
dialogue with people is more fun for me than a party whereby everyone asks each other the same competitive questions over
and over again. How’s your job? How’s the house? All that stuff. Mendacity, I say! =)
Rather than teaching kids by example that growing up sucks, I think they should see adults having fun. They can look forward
to non-puritanical collegial feelings of understanding and compassion for what life is on a fundamentally deeper level. Adults
could talk about them having fun with their kids, and having their own dreams, too; rather than telling their kids to have dreams.
I think the single most frustrating thing for a kid is to be told that they should have dreams, but then not have any real examples
of anything that they can dream about. Are we setting them up for failure despite the best of intentions?
(c) kenneth martin
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