Either-Or

Have you ever wondered how the games we play affect our thinking; our view of the world?

Consider the difference between Eastern and Western game pieces. On one end of our world we have Mahjongg. On the other, we have checkers. The Western games are ordered black and red, up or down, right or wrong. Choices are thereby simplified. Eastern games are not as straightforward. To succeed, one might have to take a path congruent or obtuse to the goal.

Western thinking, through the Greeks, have been affected by this concept of either-or. Do you sacrifice the sickly member of your team in order for most to survive? Make the hard choice.

But sharpening the choice to one or another fails to pattern real life. Sometimes we make the hard choice with the hope to bring back the fallen member over time. In the long view, both win.

I have an example. When my children were young adults; one well and one ill, I had to choose who had to leave the family home. I told the sick one to leave. Why? In the blunt light of either-or, the welfare of the well took precedence. I am happy to say, though, that the story did not end there. The sick child did not wither and die. He learned the hard lessons of the street and became a humbler man because of it. Not to diminish the harshness of the choice, but by reinforcing my love in the face of hard choices over the intervening years, my son and I are reconciled.

The moral of the tale? Be slow to assume the consequences of your choices. Don't give up in the face of a "negative" choice. Hope gives new chances, and life is more complex than pass or fail.

Neverending Story

Trailing ends leave me nervous. Maybe they bother you, too. Do you tuck in the tag sticking out from your friend's shirt collar? Will you wind up the trailing strand on a ball of wool? Must you watch the movie to the bitter end? Then maybe you are like me, too.


I'm a lifelong Trekkie. I partly blame my mom. She would not tolerate rivals, and Star Trek rivalled her for my attentions. So she planned dinner to start ten minutes before the finale. Ten minutes to six. She would trot up to the television and turn it off, "Dinner's ready." I'd thought for many years that it was terribly inconvenient that television programming did not accommodate people's dinner schedules. It only dawned on me many years later that mom planned dinner hour on purpose to mess with my schedule. All those missing finales, they left their mark. I'm never sure when I watch a re-run if I've seen the whole thing through. So I set myself down, even today, to revel in the pleasure of a finished story.



The paper-back sections of the public library similarly leave me with trailing ends. I admit, I'm trolling the science fiction section. Especially in SF, it seems, authors get themselves a series going. It must be a great deal of work manufacturing entire worlds and civilizations. It is a terrible waste to use it all up on one book. So we have ourselves our trilogies and our tetralogies and our heptalogies. Anyways, back to our problem in the paper-back section of our public libraries. Typically they contain fairly current novels. Which means they have perhaps the third volume but not the first or the second. I am thrust in to the middle of the story without context. Or worse, I am fully involved in my hero's tale with no way of knowing how it ends. To this day I'll pick up any Asimov novel I come across, just in case it might be one I've missed. I'm sure I've read Foundation dozens of times, fearing it's one of my missed books.


How does all this talk of trailing ends have to do with life and blogs? Now that I'm halfway through my earthly toil, it seems to me that life itself is a story with trailing ends. Often I've thought of writing of what I've learned about parenting, courage, success...but the lack of a satisfactory conclusion has held me back. My children are a work in progress. I'm a work in progress. I cannot say that one way or another guarantees satisfaction or an end to problems. Problems are interwoven in to the fabric of our life. They mess up the edges of our lives, leaving trailing bits of undone business around. Perhaps that tension of an unsatisfactory conclusion drives us forward to do better, to give another try. Let us hope that is the way to respond to life's trickeries.


It does no good to throw the book to the ground (or toss our relationships to the side) because they do not satisfy.


Thanks to sammystuff for her lovely wool picture. http://sammystuff.blogspot.com/

When you realize you are in a pissing contest...

Get out as soon as possible! So goes the advice of Randy Pausch, the man of "The Last Lecture". In so many ways I can relate to this inventive, creative man. Like me, he managed his ambitions within a bureaucratic framework. He found his way around and through, and picked up a few arrows around the way. His nonchalance towards the arrows, I must learn. It comes with the territory if I happen to be someone who loves breaking ground.

So anyways, so much of what he said resonated with my own career. What is new is his attitude towards the barriers. He did not let resentment build. He used each barrier as a reflection of his own determination, and found new ways around them.

What is most revelatory for me was the above statement. "When you realize you are in a pissing contest, get out as soon as possible!" Why? Because the dream is more important than anyone's ego! Isn't that why I strive to break ground, over and over again, even when the aftermath may include a little pain, misunderstanding, ruffled egos, diminished opportunities?

So how do you get out of a pissing contest? What is your rival saying? What is their chief need? Have you expressed it back to them, letting them know you understand? In the last lecture, I think Randy asked, "What is it we are not understanding here?" He put it out on the table. He listened. And he helped his obstacle overcome his concerns.

For personalities whose chief interest is "return on investment" (I relate to the "Gold" personality in a color quiz), I have to address their fears and concerns. "Because it's cool and fun" just isn't going to be enough.

The "gold" card is borrowed from http://www.softskillsexpert.com/TrueColors/TC_About.asp one of the many color personality training programs out there.

Feeling Better Today

I've had a swim, a think, and a little talk with the people that can help me out of my funk. We're not out of the woods yet, but I do have a plan.

In the meantime, I untangle a ball of wool. Funny, how an embedded twist of cord can jam up the whole works. The trick of untangling is not to push too hard. Shake it up, let it fall naturally where it may. Then pull gently until you find a knot of resistance. Massage the knot and coax it apart. Take a good look to see where the twist went wrong. Then flip, untwist, make it straight again. Quick, roll it in to the ball where it belongs. Tell the cord, see? This is how you were always meant to be. I could never use you to make a scarf or hat until we got straightened out. Before, I'd take a stitch and stop. Stitch and stop. Never seeing progress, hardly going forward at all. Now we can stitch along in no time. Just you see what we can do together!

Then shake the tangle again. No yanking. No forcing. Patience, patience.

The tangle picture is compliments of a fellow blogger, So Sue You Can Sew!