What’s a good belief? (a poem)

What’s a good belief?

Believing in yourself in a sharp, vigorous, multi-colour reality,

When others see hazy, lazy, grey?

Believing in yourself while in a calm zen place,

So you can then step out into the noisy street, to believe in others?

Believing what you cannot see, hear, touch, smell or taste?

 

Love is something to feel, but not touch.

Love cannot be directly seen, heard, smelled or tasted either.

But you can directly break or make love.

And they say more of it is good.

Except when you hurt someone,

By loving their friend more.

 

Do you love that you still believe in love?

Or believe in love, to make sense of everything else?

 

What about ‘being the best you can’?

Perhaps not just an empty, threadbare cliché.

Instead, the slogan of a popular culture,

because success itself is popular and valued.

 

Success has become an industry with a momentum of its own.

Loads of people spend a career measuring success,

Arranging events that celebrate it,

Broadcasting it and contrasting it,

Advising or coaching others how to grasp success.

 

Love and success. Running free as the children of belief.

Wait. When you believe in children first, love and success will come.

The World is definitely circular…

Battle of the Sexes

 

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/aug/21/john-mcenroe-says-he-could-beat-serena-williams

There isn’t a more pointless and ugly battle in the World than the battle of the sexes. Or the phobia/tension between homosexuals and heterosexuals. Or the phobia/tension some people have for trans-gender people.

Put a bunch of girls together and watch the bitchiness come out. Put a bunch of boys together and watch them drag everything to the lowest, crudest level. Put a TV camera in their face or mix the girls and boys together and everyone’s trying to make an impression. Go figure!

When parents get into a divorce battle, sadly their children can become cannon fodder. And worse, the kids blame themselves for the battle.

Fake it til you make it?

 

Are people basically divided into two broad camps – the ‘fake it til you make it’ (the marketers & promoters) and the ‘keeping it real’ camp’?

‘Fake it til you make it’ is about projecting confidence, whether real or illusionary. It’s downside is arguably in making our social groups less cohesive and less real. ‘Fake it til you make it’ can be spectacularly successful – politicians, singers/rappers and A-list movie actors being examples of this. Ironically though, politicians campaign to solve real problems, rappers rap about their gritty own life struggle to success, whilst successful actors choose to star in movies that often have themes of real strength from overcoming adversity of some kind.

Some pioneering cultures have a phrase about ‘keeping it real’. Others talk about ‘keeping your feet firmly on the ground’ (unless you work for the weather service, the airlines, the navy, NASA or Virgin Galactic).The ‘keeping it real’ camp includes support groups, social workers, therapists, counsellors, teachers, coaches, trainers and assessors of all kinds. This camp arguably advocates that ‘struggling to succeed is simply walking the journey’ is what life is about and that being honest about this struggle helps us to build important bridges with fellow human beings. In the world of entertainment, reality shows are in theory about ‘keeping it real’, although programme directors inevitably choose hyping the truth over the reality, if if means improving the viewer ratings in a competitive industry.

What about in the field of design – which camp do designers fall into? Steve jobs said ‘Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.’ In product design, great and successful designers don’t tolerate fake. They are obsessed with building amazing, perfection and excellence. In contrast, fine artists can excell at illusion in their art, folling the viewer’s eye into almost believing the two dimensional is actually the three dimensional. Or that the World shown within their art reveals a far more beautiful perspective on the World outside. Musical artists and actors generally want to create real. It’s the marketing staff of their companies that want auto-tune, edit and airbrush.

Whichever of the two camps a person falls into, perhaps real performance is still the key goal and ambition the driving force. Oscar Wilde famously said ‘all of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars.’ Life arguably isn’t about ‘suffer in silence’, ‘know your place’ and ‘mustn’t grumble’. It is about ‘be the best that you can be’, ‘dare to dream’, ‘give yourself a break’, ‘learn from your mistakes’, ‘recognise the perfect parent does not exist’,  ‘respect yourself’ and ‘strength through adversity.’

Lastly, somewhere along the line, as we switched from selling the products of our labour to selling the services of ourselves, the ‘fake it til you make it’ mantra started to dominate, in business, in our romantic lives (as singles) and increasingly, everywhere else. How do we jolt ourselves out of that mantra?

More Dadly, more manly…

What’s the essence of manly? Arguably it’s being dadly. Not fatherly, hunkly, studly, playerly, or suger-daddily. But why? Dads deliver the goods. Not always with the slickest style, the sweetest smile, the flashest dancing, or the charmiest words. Instead, Dads do it with simple, raw, worthy actions. And deep enduring love somehow comes running! Not in a way the Dads understand or can even explain. But in a way they can believe when they see it. Complaints come running too. But tempered with a shrug, a slight grin and a shake of the head.

So how can us Dads get across the coolness of Dadly to hunks, to studs, to players and to sugar-daddies that they’re just a caterpillar lifeform on the way to butterflyhood?

We have a sacred mission. And for us step-Dads, it’s a mission made one step harder. But then, what’s character unless it’s tested?  We’re manly enough to take a character test in our stride.

But what does dadly mean for the kids? Unlike for the Dad’s partner, you are completely uncool. But when you listen, you listen some more, you set some boundaries, you help, you fund, you build them up, you protect them from life’s disappointments, you earn a place in their hearts, cool or not. And so it goes…

Going off the reservation, taking the road less travelled, taking a walk on the wild side…

  

In my experience, it’s the small tributaries of the river, the overlooked pockets, and the unexpected that offer the most value. Whether you’re a traveller, a student, an explorer, a researcher, or an investigator, what is fresh, what’s genuine and what is original, is the stuff outside the mainstream and off the beaten track. Another aid is in joining up our unexpected insights from one ‘tributary’ with those of another. And by holding two opposing ideas or concepts in your head (as a traveller, reflecting on what you see through local values and through your own cultural values is an example of this). In some ways, stating all this is blindingly obvious, but in others, it’s revealing a pathway to the sublime & subtle.

We make progress as a species, as a culture and as individuals, by pushing our buttons. By pushing our boundaries, making improvements and gathering new insights. So far, we’ve done this faster than any other species, except perhaps viruses. And it’s been high-growth-off-a-high-base too.

Is human love more advanced than the love shown in other species? It’s hard for us to see, even when as researchers and nature filmers, we’re looking hard. The love an animal mother shows for its offspring, given its mental and sensory capabilities, is probably just as valid as human love for other people, given our own mental and sensory capabilities. And arguably, we’re more prone to cruelty and indifference than other species too. Especially since our awareness of the World (and the Universe) is so much greater.

Finally, is it wrong to let our children get bored? On the list of wrongness towards children, I doubt it figures in the top ten, although you may disagree. However, given the direction the World is going, we’re going to need to maximise human creativity like never before.

Like for many things, the earlier you start, the more proficient you can become. Perhaps already, we provide:

-too much of too few types of entertainment and

-entertainment without mental challenge,

to the younger generations (and ourselves). As an aside, we arguably produce too much content that simply feeds our basic emotions and prejudices too.

Technology that encourages people:

-to screen out the complexities of life that we should not ignore,

-to screen out the information we need, to make informed decisions with, as parents, as voters and as citizens,

isn’t something to be applauded and worshipped. Instead, we should be critical of it and demand better. All of us, including our kids need to become those critics.

Parenthood 2

    

Parents want to be coaches to their kids. Their kids just want them to be cheerleaders!

As a parent, leaning in is seen as interference. Stepping back feels like loss of control, but it does provide overview.

Becoming a parent  – way bigger than dating someone from another culture, changing religion, or undergoing gender reassignment.

Parenthood 1

If you’re a parent, try to only pay forward your hopes and your inheritance. Not your insecurities and your debts.

When a child first learns to say no, don’t despair. That’s the beginning of a lifetime of them making their own stamp on the World.

Parents spend a lifetime learning things the hard way, so they hope their kids can learn important lessons from them the fast way. Kids  try to learn  off their friends, or from online games and think they’re learning key stuff the fun way & the easy way. Real life is waiting patiently to teach them the consequences of their choices (about who they learn from)…  Then ironically as parents, they hope their own kids will learn important lessons the fast way…

 

UK Social Comment 3

Match fixing in sport is at best, the height of short-term thinking. Sport by definition is about competitive, but fair play. Changing the players’ incentives dissolves the purpose of the event.

What’s worse; UK football players (Sturridge, Wellbeck & Sterling excepted) with no real hunger to win for their country in the World Cup, or the UK national selectors who simply don’t have the courage to select a team with less apparent talent, but hugely more hunger to win?

Rags to riches to rags in 3 generations. Parental fulfilment; riches to rags to riches in the first 3 decades of your children’s lives.

Countries that construct laws that they don’t apply rigorously and fairly, cease being taken seriously by outsider onlookers (especially potential investors & skilled migrants).

Why in this day and age, do some governments appear to willingly let default rule over design? The UK is facing persistent (and successful) immigration of illegal migrants, who fled their home country because of persecution and prejudice. Yet when those illegal migrants arrive in the UK, ironically they see evidence of police corruption (eg London Met Police), significant criminal re-offending & hardliners taking over UK school curriculums with impunity (Birmingham).

The Mirror of Life

When they’re very young, your children look to you for everything.

And they mean everything to you.

When they’ve grown a bit, they look to you for reassurance and entertainment.

It entertains you to reassure them. And it reassures you when they think you’re entertaining.

Then when they can walk and up until their early teens, your children look to you for decisive leadership.

You go round in circles about how best to be a good leader in their lives.

Then they look to you for money and your applause.

First you pay them while they stay and applaud them while they do. Then you pay them when they leave. And applaud them when they set out on their own.

Eventually, they just look to you for your applause.

By now, your money has run out. So all you can do is applause!

Then finally, at your funeral, they give you their applause. Or if you’re really lucky, their applause comes one day sooner.

 

Family Communication/parenthood

Regardless of how you define success (creating widespread financial security, creating close family relationships, adapting old traditions to modern times etc), some extended families appear to have above-average success with their members. Some have average (with some exceptions both ways) and some have consistently below-average success. A secret to above-average success is arguably; consistent messaging, clear messages and smart messages.

How do you get consistency?

• As the grandparents/parents/Godparents/caregivers/mentors/uncles and aunts, discuss and agree what you’d like to see (the group norm). From the discussion, good ideas will emerge from all the participants that everyone can benefit from.
• As a senior group, reinforce the same messages to the receiving person if and when they consult you.
• Your style and life examples can vary widely, but the substance of the messages needs to stand strong.
• To get a strong extended family, make sure you have a set of consistent messages for the family group members.
• If you promise reward or punishment for compliance/non compliance, follow through, so people will take you seriously in future.
• Using or giving in to emotional blackmail will probably mean people take you less seriously in the future.
• Sometimes consistency is about persistence and not accepting second best.
• Also, if the next generation’s apparent norms seem a step backward, that just means there’s more urgent work for the older generations to do and that new approaches are needed, not that we should all accept less as a society.

How do you get clear messages?

• Don’t send mixed messages (one message will cancel out the other one undermining the credibility of the senders – a bit like the noise from hearing two radio stations at once).
• Support the ‘what’ message with the ‘why’ and ‘how’.
• Make sure the receiving person is actually listening.
• Getting their attention amongst the ocean of other messages bombarding them in their daily life may be a big challenge in itself.
• Link cause and effect where you can.
• Separate symptoms of problems from their cause, so people don’t confuse the two things.
• Emotion has its place (demonstrating love and conviction), but don’t let emotion (what you feel) get in the way of the message (what you say), although what you say should in theory reinforce what you feel.
• When the receiver plays back a distorted version of your message to you (which can happen for various reasons), take the time to clarify the real message instead. However many times it takes.

Smart messages.

• Concentrate on the substance of the message.
• Pick your words carefully.
• Identify the most important messages you need to send. Concentrate on those – get the big things right.
• Watch out for messages that backfire, or have huge loopholes in them.
• If your messages aren’t smart, all you’re doing is storing up trouble for the future and proving to the sender that you have no more insight or knowledge than they do.
• Although no one is born being a great grandparent/parent/uncle or aunt, borrow good ideas on how to improve from all good sources. This can include; observing nature, listening to other parents’ experiences, drawing from your cultural roots, taking behavioural insights from other situations and adapting them to your own situation.
• Technology might change daily, but human emotion doesn’t evolve and social relationships remain a fundamental human need.
• Today’s generation might choose to spend large amounts of time playing computer games, but the opportunity cost is high. Those games don’t equip them for real life in any significant way (coping with love, loss, parenthood, tricky human relationships, foreign travel, buying a house, a demanding career etc), highlighting the need for smart messages from the key people in their life instead.
• Smart messages might include reminding people that the ready availability of new technology doesn’t replace their need to control their own life, seek wisdom out, take personal responsibility, use their initiative and work on becoming a better person every day of their life.