The Preemptive Strike

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

How do we further our understanding? Perhaps by revisiting a previous thought and digging deeper. Why did that happen? Is there something simple that I'm missing? Therefore I am titling this article based on one possible conclusion resulting from many decades of personal interactions.

"The preemptive strike."
To begin. I will list many phrases spoken to me over the years:

• I don't like the way you think.
• I don't want to talk about it.
• You're so smart, you should write a book.
• Nobody preaches to me.
• I'm too old to change.
• Unless you are asked, keep it to yourself.
• You're a teacher, I don't want to listen to you.
• You don't have to say a word. And I find you offensive.
• There is nothing you have to say that we want to hear.

These phrases, perhaps have one thing in common. They are spoken by someone who has established an emotional opinion. Their self-confidence and self-esteem feels challenged. They are not in inquisitive or knowledge seeking individual. Perhaps an underlying short attention span. Extremely defensive, feeling offended as a result of "too much detail.". Perhaps a dominant personality accustomed to managing conversations, arriving at conclusions or opinions aligned with their desires. I would further conclude that once spoken, these phrases truncate any possible future collaboration or cooperation.

I recently read, that an opinion established through emotion cannot be changed by logic, reason, or critical thinking. The primary goal is to protect ego, their personal opinion of themselves, their self-esteem. Ego, personal opinion, self-esteem, all based on historical emotional interactions. Within our society of echo chambers, Democratic majority, it is easy to conclude how "the Salem Witch Trials" came to pass. Thus any similar statements uttered, would indicate that a cooperative productive mutual future is highly unlikely. Simply walk away, the statement terminates what might have been possible.

Nearly 30 years ago, I held a position of responsibility. The direct supervision of eight trained technicians. Responsible for the quarterly evaluations and performance reviews. In addition, responsible for weekly status meetings with management at the assigned corporate accounts. It was during those years that I purchased motivational cassettes through the Day Timer catalogue. One title comes to mind as I am expressing the above conclusions. That title was: "Why Don't We Do Better Than We Know How Already." As I recall, I listened to this cassette many many many times. It was during those years that I was sent to our training Centre in New Jersey. A five week course on "conflict resolution", a course I found to be child's play, many instances of role-playing and evaluation of scenarios. Why did I find it child's play? For whatever reason, what was being taught, was for the greater part already my natural personality and behaviour mode.

_________________________

Zig Ziglar, Motivational Speaker:

Born in year 1926 in Alabama, the infamous Zig Ziglar (*1) is one of the world's most popular and motivational speakers. His humble initiation and even his first job as a salesman never stood in the way of his positivity, the output of which yielded him great fame and prosperity. 

His words always seemed to be conveyed straight from his heart and amid his messages about honesty, integrity, hard work and virtue, Zig was a comfortably encouraging person. He seemed to make his listener understand that one could do absolutely anything at all.

*1. Top Results Academy. “Zig Ziglar Biography - Interesting Facts, Achievements, Career Details.” Accessed November 22, 2021. https://topresultsacademy.com/authors/zig-ziglar/biography/.

I'm "done-wasting-my-life" HERE!

 

UPDATE:
"fb" has become such an integral part of our world. "reactivated" because there are radio programs listened to daily that have facebook pages. Quick access to financial institutions by chat on their corporate page presence on the platform. Found that fb has established relationships in the past two years with Samsung and LG to "pre-load" the fb app as part of "bloat" that can not be removed, only disabled.
Tethered to the platform for reasons of daily life that are more convenient than the alternative of using 1-800 numbers and waiting in a cue.

Certainly will no longer be doing the "swipe-down" on the "most-recent" tab. LOL This time has now been "reclaimed" and "repurposed"!!! Trimming of "friends list" will be a persistent attention.

/h
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fb has become a toxic environment of echo chambers - the rest is a steady stream of sponsored/marketing content - I'm "done-wasting-my-life" HERE!

It is with careful thought and consideration over this past week that I will be removing myself from the Facebook platform.

A changed social media arena.

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It's been 18 months of pandemic, now extreme natural events this past week. Social media has become a series of "echo chambers". Since the beginnings of Facebook, it is now clear that those that have felt isolated or marginalized have gravitated to their "tribe". No matter how illogical or irrational, facts knowledge and information are the enemy. There are now many public and private organizations of critical mass to cause extreme disruption in all societies as a whole. Death threats against doctors. The topic of a program called "The Current" this morning on CBC radio. Over past decades, the aging baby boomer population has been unable to have a personal family physician due to the retirement of earlier generations. Both provincial and federal governments have provided paths of immigration for trained doctors. At this current time, many licensed physicians now practising here in Canada are receiving death threats. As per the program, a physician coming forward, being advised by the RCMP, a threat has been received, can find no protection under our Canadian judicial system to take action against a perpetrator that is already been identified.

Unbelievable! Perhaps not so unexpected! Echo chambers? Colonialism, capitalism and white supremacy. The beginnings of every independent nation today with colonial beginnings. The excuse I hear for current policy from people that I have no one for most of my lifetime, "people need jobs." One of the most recent face-to-face interactions last summer, I was told, "Howard, unless you are asked. I don't want to hear it." Wow! An acquaintance for close to 15 years, hook line and sinker, part of the status quo Western Canadian way of thinking. Hatred towards indigenous people, all past events are justified because "those people would not have developed the land and the resources". The subliminal message that indigenous people are inferior and incapable. Just a bit of history about Saskatchewan. During the mid-19 twenties, a town northwest of Saskatoon, was the North American, both Canada and the US, headquarters for the KKK. The Apple does not fall far from the tree. Geographical pockets of conformity, "nobody preaches to me". They will continue to be what they have always been, "proud Christians".

Most recently, "the CBC is a propaganda arm of the liberal government." Really? I listen to the Vancouver morning program's beginning, usually at 5 AM. Two programs, The Early Addition with Stephen Quinn, The Current with Matt Galloway. Paying special attention to this morning's programs. Are they politically biased? Paying special attention this morning. I hear interactions with the public at large in local areas of British Columbia. I failed to observe how this can be labelled political propaganda.

Facebook! Perhaps the time has come to leave this platform. Evangelical Christians elected the most obnoxious president the United States has ever known, Trump!, The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has self identified as now becoming a person of deep faith conviction. Hook line and sinker, now a Christian. Remembering the morning after 9/11. A coworker came over and said to me "Howard, everything happens for a reason. If people would follow the Bible more closely, things like this wouldn't happen." A toxic evangelical Christian workplace. The social media platform is a broad global likewise, "toxic environment". Logic and reason and many will block you. As with my personal musician friend, "I don't want to know". People have retracted into their "cocoons". To further demonstrate, a childhood friend from my high school days. This past summer I dropped in for a visit. As is my usual conversation, I steer the topic to something general in the realm of public events. Then I ask a few questions, and give a few verifiable facts, which have led me to a particular conclusion. In very short order, I was labelled "I should disturber". Wow, more than 50 years later because I have knowledge and understanding, I have facts. Another example of "I don't want to hear it". Five decades, a senior in his own mind space, echo chamber. 

With careful consideration, I realize that an aging population, those of us that are baby boomers, find ourselves in circumstances that cannot be resolved. Therefore, I took the action to disconnect from my childhood friendship. There is no possible way to assist or help a dominant alpha male in an echo chamber. Profanity and hostility are all that they have.

It is thus with careful thought and consideration over this past week that I will be removing myself from the Facebook platform.

Our Inheritance

This morning I made a Facebook post.

It is as follows:

Looking for feedback of my early morning conclusion:
Two male children.
The firstborn inherits the dominant behavioral characteristics from the father. The second born inherits the dominant behavioral characteristics from the grandfather on the mother's side.

Personal observations reflecting over 50 years would lead me to the conclusion that this is the general rule of genetics.

Soon afterwards I ever received this response:

Genetics are predominant and account for about 85% of our physical and psychological characteristics. People are reluctant to accept this and are always trying to manufacture or buy advantages for their kids. Bad news (such as the 50% chance of becoming an alcoholic, if either of your parents were) is just ignored rather than faced up to! 

With a high school education and only my personal life experiences to reflect upon, I often reach out for an opinion.  It can quite often lead to an aha moment! Are We There Yet?  No!  There is no destination that we refer to as “there”. What we experience is the here and now, the being in the moment, the steps along the journey.

Previously, I have discussed our human condition, that is, the development of our mind.  Modern psychology and biology has determined that it is complete, approximately at age 30.  Of course, we all know that you can learn something beyond the age of 30.  It would be silly to make an assumption otherwise.  With this in mind, I would like to present the following analogy.

Let’s take a quiet afternoon drive through the mountains on a beautiful sunny day.  Picture the surrounding landscape.  Picture one of these mountain slopes and equate it to your life.  That slope of the mountain represents gradual erosion.  In this quiet secluded valley, the slope that represents you, and the slopes of the mountains around you have many similarities.  Everything is beautiful.  Everything is in harmony.

Now I present to you a curveball, on the mountain slope that is “you”, or may be, perhaps the slope that represents someone in your social network.

It It was collectively decided that for the future advancement and benefit of our valley, we will log these mountain slopes.  Prosperity and growth will follow.  We will have jobs and economic development.  It doesn’t matter which slope we log on.  Perhaps this began on a slope near you, maybe on your own slope, over a century ago.

Within the first two decades of this initiative.  Economic activity is robust, and everybody is on a winning team.  The common thought of the community is that “divine providence” has smiled upon us.  Everyone agrees, life is perfect.

Move forward two centuries.  We see the results of the practice of clear-cutting over decades past.  Our community is at risk, the mountain slope is unstable.  Seasonal runoff saturates the ground, and a landslide could happen.

During those first two decades of logging, clear-cutting became the practice.  Everyone agrees.  Just as with the development of your early preteen years, logic and reason predetermined by the Democratic majority of the community establishes educational practices.  All children must recite the Lord’s prayer at the beginning of each school day.  We strongly encourage all families to join a local faith community and follow what has become “standard practice” of their group.

This example of “standard practice” is the process of indoctrination of young minds, pre-adolescence.  They have firmly established geographical community conformity.  There are no exceptions.

Two centuries later, after the practice of clear-cutting, it is self-evident regardless of the attempts at tree-planting, reforestation to the original slope can never be established.

Throughout the history of our human existence, it has become apparent that many of the attributes of society are inherited.  They are rituals and cultural practices  handed down.  There is one other interesting aspect to this hereditary situation.  That is this.  We pass the stress and hardship of individuals on through genetics; it mutates the offspring to establish future survival.  We have documented this with respect to indigenous people, and indigenous schools, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the residential school survivors carry the genetic scars of life which they themselves never experienced.

Another interesting aspect of our species, and our lives, is that once at problem is identified within our behavioral context, it takes approximately five generations for the genetic mutation to be eliminated.  This then requires that for the next five generations.  We must acknowledge the past on knowledge and a conscious effort made to take corrective action. When we consider the social cohesion of our surrounding communities, it is highly unlikely that any family would continue for five generations to achieve a goal. Therefore, when I received a response that 85% of an individual is inherited, I arrive at another conclusion.  Family lineage is incapable of accomplishing a greater good for their future.  It is therefore only community-based initiatives with long-term goals that could achieve such an end.  This brings the forefront another dilemma.  Community initiatives are driven by democratic process.  To a high huge degree, the democratic process is driven by the populism of the moment.  Populism is self-serving to those in power and authority.

To understand the preceding cascading circumstance, it is highly unlikely that goals can be achieved for the greater good of our species.  Everything that is politically driven, has selfish goals, greed, and economic prosperity as the only endgame in town. Our species is inherently crippled both intellectually and genetically to achieve long-term goals.

Perhaps there is a positive outcome.  We are perhaps into our second decade of artificial intelligence, determining individual credit score.  Big Brother is deciding.  Whether you qualify for a loan.  For the first time in human history, your community, social status is not the contributing factor regarding qualifying for a loan. If we can extrapolate this into our future and use artificial intelligence to establish common goals and boundaries regarding communities’ greater good, we can set in place long-term goals.  For the first time our species will be free of theological determination, and “divine providence” guiding our future.  The establishment of broad databases of social, economic, biological, just to mention a few, criteria can provide the future boundaries.

Big brother needs to take the wheel.  The United Nations’ declaration of human rights, being a starting point for artificial intelligence decisions.  I would conceive that only be on geopolitical boundaries, for the greater good of all members of our species, can we manage our ecological conditions and circumstance.

Our own individual circumstance, our inherited characteristics from parents, and grandparents, even if recognized, have little effect on the navigation that is required.  The short temper and intellectual ability of a family member being inherited cannot be corrected.  Just as the clear-cutting of the mountain slope cannot be corrected two centuries later.  We have many mountain slopes as analogies within our Western world.  This past four years has been self-evident that genetic behaviors to have elected a president that is so disruptive, we must find a better way.  Further to this, it becomes more self-evident that since World War II, our community educational systems have failed us.  That such a presidency has occurred, is a failure on the education of the general population.

And thus, in December 2020, the prospect of new initiatives for 2021, new directions and goals have possibilities.