Some days are pretty black...

I woke up feeling extremely inadequate...to put it mildly.  I'm too attached to many things, of course: not making enough progress in my outside of work activities, the state of business activities of my present position,  various things not currently in my control that put me in  a place where I don't want to be, etc. 

And of course it's a case of seeing the glass mostly empty when it's largely full, because, dammit, after all, it's not full!  And because I want to be the center of attention, THE Guy Who Can Do Anything. It's totally absurd and unrealistic.

But that doesn't de-legitimize the feelings. Those damned feelings, are of course universal - they are part of the hum of life itself.  All of us are born in tears and nakedness, and that's just when we're getting started out in life. 

And I'm writing this as I'm eating a wonderful breakfast of  barbecued pork, yogurt & fresh blueberries (no doubt harvested by people I could not be able to trade places with in my worst nightmare.)

The Great Way might not be difficult if one does not pick and choose, but that's not to say it's a walk in the park on a sunny summer's morning.  Some days I so want to pick and choose that it's difficult to choose not choosing.

And that too is practice - being satisfied in unsatisfaction.

C. 3000 Posts on: The Impermanence and Irrelevance of Authoritative Narratives

The Blogger thing tells me that this is the 3000th post - which, with a profile post written probably means it's the 2,999th post.  I'm not sure why that's particularly relevant, but quite a few bloggers do post such kind of milestones.  Very few celebrate their 567th blog post. But with millions of blogs out there, you can't rule it out entirely.

As I surveyed the info-sphere this morning to jog my memory into what I was going to write about, I came across a few articles, as I often do.  Two articles of the "authoritative business genre" really spoke to me this morning (here, and here).  Actually they didn't; they didn't speak to me metaphorically; neither did they speak to me literally.  In fact, they whelmed with with their evident irrelevance.  Woe is us - which I think is the right way to say it, but I'm not entirely sure.

One of the articles deals with the "Yin-Yang of Corporate Innovation" or something like that.  The other deals with Wired UK's "smart list" of "people who will change the world."  Let me present additional data to make your day.

Ever hear of the "magazine cover indicator?"  It's what investment market players call a "contrary indicator." That is, in a mainstream (not specialized) business publication, there's a concept well understood by "those in the know" that's being propagated to a mass market of information consumers, that's made people money. Like the famous cab-driver that gave the millionaire stock tips on the eve of the Crash of '29, that's an indicator to cash out, because the "last buyers" in the market are being told of what the Big Play is, and after the last buyers, there are no more buyers.  As you can see from that last link, sometimes the cover's pretty uncanny in its ability to predict the future by reversing the "plaintext narrative" of the cover.

Now considering the Wired UK's article...did you ever notice that the very name of Wired is a magazine cover indicator? I did, a bit more than 12 years ago. The name of the magazine first arose in connection with the wired internet. And if you regularly read this blog you can well understand why I view that as a contrary indicator come true, but even if you don't, the term "Dot Com Bubble" should remind you.  I do read Wired from time to time; it does tell me of things and people I might not normally be aware of.  But whether it's an issue of Wired or Fast Company (is that still around?) or the various industry fora I attend from time to time, my first instinct is to deconstruct the main narrative because that's exactly what the smarter minds than that possessed by me in the industry tend to do.   I've also had the benefit of knowing people who swore by those stories in mainstream publications, only to be found woefully overtaken by events.

Regarding the Times article on the "innovation" while the author of the article throws around a lot of buzzwords ("Open innovation" is a recent current favorite, now fading), the author - and his sources, in particular, it seems, John Kao - fail to express what that might actually mean in today's world, because it sure doesn't mean what's stated in the "plaintext meaning" of the article.

Many companies these days are thinking how to challenge Google or Apple.  And some of them are asking the wrong questions, because in part they don't "get" what how these companies got where they are and they don't at all see how to actually succeed in their endeavors despite what these companies are doing now.  Rather instead they - like the authors of that Times article - are taking away models of innovation from them as though somehow they were fixed narratives.  Well you heard it here first: Google and Apple will each stumble big, and in different ways.    And so will you and I if we continue a cookie-cutter prescription for the way things will be.

There's that exchange from the movie The Matrix whose "capping phrase" has entered our discourse:

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

There are no hard and fast formulas to the way one lives one's life, carries out one's endeavors and enterprises, etc. There's only what we can do with ourselves.  You can get a good view of this through a mindfulness practice - after a while you realize that your preconceived notions are just in your head, and sooner or later, what you thought was "impossible" is in fact possible.

I'll (almost)  finish this post with something I did yesterday - a 書道 of "cloud."   I started doing this a while back with no talent, no knowledge of innate ability and no experience, like everyone who starts anything for the first time.  This one is not my worst ...hopefully I'll get better.   But if I had clung to the thought that I'd never be able to do this at all, I wouldn't have been able to do even this at all.  So there it is...

Now let me finish this post with a final thought for you: Does the narrative of "there is no narrative" apply to this blog post or not?

The degree that it does or does not I don't think can be known at this time.

Patheos and the True Person of No Rank...

Have you ever had the fortune to meet one, or have you  at least  met somebody who's at least had a modicum of success trying to attain no rank?

It is hard because a lot of folks kind of like the rank, even if the rank is pretty meaningless.  Some people like the rank of being Buddhists so they can set that in opposition to some kind of straw-man "scientist."  (And some scientists like to point out that some Buddhists...)

Some folks want to be called European-descended, or Asian-descended, or don't care to be bothered that there are European descended or Asian descended...and amongst the two categories just mentioned there's a host of other sub-categories, too...(Asian? What kind of Asian? Laotian? Japanese? Nepalese?)

I could go on.  The "No Rank" in the title of course doesn't refer to the deliberate blindness to difference; it refers to the not making a big deal out of difference where it exists.  Sogen Roshi could make a 心 that could dance off the paper; mine ain't gonna be within a light year of that for this lifetime, perhaps. Perhaps not.  But vendors still sell me the paper and ink.

Assuming Rank or being blind to difference can cost you in the business world; I know of more than one manager who soured his relations with a company by not treating the very junior guy who met him with a modicum of respect. I can't remember how many times the gaijin　(外人) made a presentation to the locals assuming they were smarter, more capable, etc. than the  日本人 to whom they where presenting.  Deals have been soured because  vendors have perceived the customer as "Other" or because they became just a bit too aggressive and assumed to much of the customer.

All of which is to introduce - briefly - why I find the whole thing about Patheos more overblown than not, and  not because of the "Asian Thing." (What kind of "Asian?" Tibetan? Chinese? Is that a distinction or not?)  But because its kumbayasity is also creating a rank where none need exist.  The people who might ban the practice of Buddhism in the United States or fly planes into buildings or launch drones into places where they might kill innocent people aren't going to take the stuff at Patheos seriously.  Yeah, they won't take my blog seriously either; you got that right.   But I don't really pretend that it would; like I've said numerous times, the purpose of this blog is to more or less help in the struggle of memory against forgetting, and as a kind of practice in itself.   If somebody reads this and figures out that that they can still suck at 99.9% of what they do and perhaps improve, today, this moment some 0.01% of their life, perhaps in that moment their lives and the purpose of this blog can be made worthwhile.  And sometimes, - heck perhaps often - despite what this Ph.D. says,  it is profoundly difficult work of vital importance to change that 0.01%. (Kierkegaard was right - sometimes somebody's got to come around to make everything difficult.)  

I think the mission of Patheos is doomed to failure because it takes its "mission" too seriously to include that which would pop its bubble of inclusive self-righteousness.  Patheos's mission limits itself to the point where it excludes the very real fact that some folks are going to be jerks on the highways, including but not limited to yours truly on a bad day.  It excludes Kyle the Reformed Buddhist (sorry Kyle, but the "Men's Right's" movement reminds me too much of the He-Man Woman Haters Club to be taken seriously, even though I will grant that there are real issues with presumputions of the law and unequal treatment of gender that does give men the short end of the stick at times.)  It might include me; in fact I'm sure it would, but the reality is the work and the reward and the fun and the true changes that can be made are elsewhere for me.  I wish the folks at Patheos well, but when the Buddhist folks move en masse to the Next Big Spiritual Place (can the Huffington Post be far away?) well, re-read this.  Not to say the Patheos folks might not do some good, but as long as the on-line sutras and other stuff are elsewhere, I've no real need to poke around there very much.

Beliefs, Wishes, Delusions

I had written a few months ago about Kessid Church and how it seemed a bit deceptive of them to have what was in effect a fundamentalist church that was "fed" new members by a health club.  Well, the chickens have come home to roost for Kessid Church- follow this link and watch the (flash - not iPhone/iPad friendly) video on the page from about the 15:00 mark.

I hadn't seen the comment left on my blog post until now:

As a Christian I can Assure you that even Jesus Christ was against organzied "religion". Christianity is about loving God, loving others and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to the rest of the world. Mumon you seem to be very leary of any group that doesn't fit into your fundamentalist "box" [sic]. How is promoting Gods genuine love corrupting Vancouver and the greater Clark County area? If anything Christianity is bringing back moralistic ideals to an already declining society. I welcome you with open arms brother, you don't have to like me or my beliefs but know that regardless how angry you are right now, God still loves you! :)  

Now I wasn't in the least bit "angry" of course when I wrote that post, or the e-mail to that church.  But I think it's likely that this is what was in the minds of the folks at Kessid Church when they started their venture: They thought they  were "promoting God's genuine love" and "bringing back moralistic ideals to an already declining society."  (I am always intrigued by how conservatives are inevitably using adjectives with "-ic" on the end of the word when there's a perfectly good alternative, nearly identical, that's shorter and means exactly the same thing.  Can somebody tell me why they do that?  But I digress.)

They likely thought they  were "promoting God's genuine love" and "bringing back moralistic ideals to an already declining society."   The hubris behind such a statement is breathtaking to me. They were promoting "God's" "genuine" "love."  Anyone who believed differently from them was not.  And they had morality on their side.  They had a guy who could suspend not only disbelief, but the laws of physics, economics, biology, and mathematics for His People.  We other skeptical schmucks were "stuck" with reality.

"Nobody could have predicted" then, that such hubris might lead some folks to think that such a belief might lead them to make rash choices, such as that the cash flow from a health club could pay the freight on a budding megachurch.  And this in a place - where two other outfits had failed before, one in an economic boom time.  And this in a time when the region's economy was in free-fall, in the worst economic decline since the Great Depression. I do hope the place taking over the club, though succeeds.  Not that I'll join them, but I do hope the area comes back; Vancouver WA is still in a real-estate depression, relative to boom times.  But the complete insanity of what these guys did; it's breathtaking.   We've had some economic successes locally recently, but these have generally been places that have folks behind them who know what they're doing because they've done it before.  The Kessid guys were evidently utter, rank newbies, by comparison.

It is clear from watching the video to which I've linked that these guys were young,  enthusiastic, and utterly without the sort of business-sense needed to build a resilient operation.   That is why I sent them an e-mail, empathizing with their loss, reminding them of Buddha's parable of the mustard seed,  and hoping they would understand that in one's endeavors, skill is often more important than belief.

I hope  they will come to realize that it was the hubris and greed of taking their beliefs for reality, and becoming to attached to those beliefs, and the "wants" behind those beliefs that is related to their debacle.  It would make them ultimately healthier, happier, and  better able to really be  part of our community, which includes people of all types.

And to provide a bit of contrast on the topic, here's some folks trying to live on one dollar a day. While they too seem young, idealistic, and perhaps slightly naive, I think their feet are more on the ground and they are more connected to reality, at least as we are aware, than the Kessid crowd.

Update: Evidently they did keep the "center" separate from the church.  Except - and if you read the article and comment tellng me, "See! They used a manager!"  please  remember the folowing:  they made a blunder so colossal words fall short: by calling the thing "Kessid Center."   Consciously or unconsciously,  this  harebrained branding scheme  a) conflated the center with the church and b) conflated the center with a weird, foreign-sounding word  (even though it's Hebrew for something good, I'm told).  The latter effect of course would drive away nativists, and the first one would drive away Progressives.

But then, it seems like a good idea to keep church and workouts separate.