Many are called, but few are chosen

A sample of ideas going on in my head.

It may come as no surprise, but I wrestle mightily with ideas on a weekly (daily) basis especially when it comes to what I write about, and not just for my own personal enjoyment or struggle (perhaps both, one must imagine Sisyphus happy after all). I'm full of doubts, and largely I think this is a good thing, on balance at least, I believe it’s better for people to doubt what they know to be true and entertain the idea of how they could be wrong, but ignorance is bliss, fools rush in and are so certain of themselves. It is tiresome, so I can understand why people don’t all leap towards the wrestling and struggling with ideas.

Be that as it may, it takes a lot to fully fledge out an idea for an article into a reasonable coherent 1,000 words of digestible literature. So, for something different this week – and absolutely nothing to do with me struggling to come up with one – we’re going to visit several seeds that have yet to turn into beautiful trees. Just so we’re clear, these are crude, unfinished ideas, so please treat them as such.  

The brain is a wonderful creation that creates wonder. Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash.

My first point is about how failure isn't final, it's necessary. I remember back to my psychology studies where a number of students kept purporting this, in my opinion, idiotic idea to do away with the concept of failure because it makes people feel bad (or that there's no such thing as failure if you keep trying). I couldn’t disagree more as it's essential to know where you went wrong so you can even attempt to begin to try again/improve. Specific goal setting = setting grounds for failure. If you keep it (deliberately) vague you don't know when you fail (this gives the person the illusion of "feeling good" about yourself). We learn from things like failure, pain, embarrassment and shame. You must be able to make a mistake and be offered a chance to redeem yourself by learning from it.

My next point is somewhat associated with the above (and also a Michael Jackson song), I'm starting with the man in the mirror: why personal responsibility will always be unappealing. In my estimation, the general societal woes and cultural decline has led to an uptick in using the out of externalising blame instead of growing up and fixing your shit basically. One of the main reasons why I do what I do is because I feel it is lacking in society. If I want to change myself it starts with me, and a key part of that is shifting the locus of control back within me, and not externalising blame. By externalising blame, you end up placing too much control of yourself (thoughts and emotions) in the hands of others, and it’s about reclaiming that for the betterment of yourself. Explained in another way using the Jungian notion of “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

Thirdly, and we’re really cracking on here, this is just a taste test of what kind of maelstrom exists between my ears! Moving on to the subject/s of trust, trust issues, and why don't you trust me? I think it’s rather self-evident that there has been a mass erosion of trust society-wide at multiple levels; individual, relational, communal, national and international. Causes and effects; state of politics and international relations, use and quality of media/journalism, public shaming, trial by mob or social media, for example. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated this erosion of trust regardless of what you felt was the right course of action. Nowadays, it's more about winning and losing than understanding and empathy/compassion. Too much is invested in fearmongering and division – outgroup bias on steroids. More and more either don’t know or care about their neighbour/s which highlights to me this withdrawal and distrust from even those in your immediate vicinity. I’m not sure how to go about un-driving the wedge that is now seemingly between us all, but I’m trying…in my own way.

Lastly, for this week’s article at least, is an idea I’ve dubbed “The George Foreman theory of generational divide” (may his soul rest in peace, only recently passing away). To some he’s a boxer, to others it’s a grill. The generational gap and how to bridge the distance, or more to the point, misunderstanding between “eras” let’s say. I’m not sure the people even want that, judging by current sentiments. So, what is it that we don’t understand about each other? Another related issue is how to (better) utilise our aging population. How to be grateful for (or at least understanding of) those who came before – it’s very in fashion to just condemn the previous generations, but will future generations look on us just as “kindly”? I could link this to the accepting personal responsibility and externalising blame point, in that apportioning and attributing blame is readily thrown backwards (and I’m not saying it’s completely unwarranted either). I think that a lot of people struggle to accept one’s fate for living in the time we occupy (epoch) and that retributive justice is an endless game of tail chasing, and doesn’t create meaningful change going forward.

So, there you go, folks! Let me know what you think of this style of article and whether you prefer one big central idea or multiple smaller ones. In the meantime, I’ll keep wrestling away with realm of ideas to be back next week with some more thought-provoking stimuli, for as the masses said to the artist, “please suffer for us again soon.”

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.