The Tao of "So?" III

In the first two missives of my philosophic manifesto The Tao of “So?”, I have offered readers practical tools designed to deflect responsibility without abdication of either authority or credit.  If you recall, the thrust of the methodology is to reverse a question around so that responsibility is returned squarely onto the inquirer. I truly believe that among all the potential motives for doing so, that most completely shrouded in the fog of apathy is personal development.  As leaders it is our responsibility to teach our charges.  And what lesson is better learned than that which one acquires through experience?

So while at first glance, it may seem the primary motive for following the Tao of “So?” is work avoidance, and it may well be, we can always fall back, if our approach is challenged, to this instance being the perfect opportunity for the ever elusive teachable moment. “What path is better remembered than that blazed personally?” you might offer the skeptical minion, “My reluctance to provide a direct answer is predicated on the belief that your struggle will better prepare you for the opportunities soon to be encountered in your assuredly bright future.”

It is unavoidable however, that at some point, you will be faced with that all too uncomfortable scenario; a minion who will not be outflanked by clever word play. You will recognize him by his impatient stare at the ceiling as you apply rhetoric that most likely you have offered before (even a language as complex as English has a limited number of word combinations to be applied to any specific set of circumstances). Confirmation will come when upon your pause he lowers his eyes to meet yours, his face flushes a bit from frustration and his voice lowers a register, “You suggested that yesterday, I was here late last night running it down and I still don’t have an answer!”

Don’t panic! Now is the time for nuance.  First, do not avert your eyes; weakness will be interpreted as surrender. Tilt your head just a bit.  Assume a paternal smile, just a slight upturn at the corners of your mouth. Note; if you are in the habit of wearing a moustache, you might practice the art of releasing just a small tear into your eyes to make them glisten as with affectionate pride, so as to simulate a smile. Lower your voice for sincerity, “So, how do you think I can help you?” You have once again taken the high ground, successfully repelling his attempt at a pincers movement. Important: Do not mix this up with, “How can I help you?” or “What can I do to help you?” Remember, your goal is to avoid participation.

Once you have established that any ideas about your assistance will be born of your challenger’s imagination, you are free to dismiss them without prejudice.  Always return ownership of the solution to your pupil. You are there to support his approach to the extent it is successful.  His success is your success.  But failure must forever be associated with his lack of ability, effort, and intellect!  After all, didn’t you give him the benefit of your assistance to the extreme limits of your experience and insight?

Mastery of deflect and return techniques are only achieved through years of practice, or if one is lucky, an abundant supply of timid or intellectually challenged underlings.  Remember, intellect and intelligence is not the same thing. Intelligence is the ability to learn from experience and assimilate new knowledge. Intellect is the ability to reason. Eventually, your minion will either demonstrate adeptness for intellectual processes or quit in frustration while wondering aloud, “Why did my professors keep telling me I was so smart when clearly I wasn’t?”

This is the moment you have been waiting for and you should be happy to rid yourself of a non-thinker. You should be as proud when you have identified a true thinker.  They have shown a propensity for gleaning the lesson you are trying so diligently not to spoon feed them; namely, the only chance for success is to rely on one’s own talents.  And with this leap in understanding, a self-starter will be born. They will at last make sense of the slogan hanging on the wall above your credenza:

My Job is to Make Your Life Better!

 

 

The Tao of "So?" II

You will recall from my last post the introduction of the Tao of “So?” If you have not read that post or (and this is much more likely) you have forgotten, the few minutes it would take to read it would hardly be worth the effort.  So I will briefly recap: In my quest to understand the world and its workings both physical and metaphysical I developed an approach to answering the great questions. My strategy was to simplify the investigative process by stripping away the complications associated with concern for others’ problems. The key component of this technique was the question, “So, what does it mean to me?” Hopefully you can see the implication therein that if it is not my problem, I am not invested in solving it.

We have seen the power of deflecting inquiries by illustrating that there is no connection between the subject of discussion and one’s self.  But you may be assured that from time to time the more ambitious among your peers and minions will try very hard to pierce the veil of apathy. As beautifully simple as “So?” seems, the master eluder must also be able to employ another technique I have dubbed, “The next obvious question.”

On its face, this seems a simple enough task.  For example, you see that your car’s red temperature light is glowing.  Your first question is, “Why is my temperature light on?” The answer is almost obviously, “Something is amiss with the cooling system!” Your next question would be, “How do I determine the source of the problem?” Once again, the near obvious answer is, “I’ll open the hood and take a peek at the engine.” So far you are doing well and would be on a par with any certified auto mechanic.  Assuming you possess the knowledge necessary to open the hood, upon doing so you encounter steam swirling and rising about your face. Your brilliance up to now emboldens further inquiry, “Where is the steam coming from?”  You naturally trace the steam to its origin where you find a hose connection that is leaking radiator fluid.  I could go on until you break your knuckles with an ill advised attempt to fix said leak yourself, but I believe this sufficiently illustrates my point; every discovery results in a new question until you get to the root cause of the problem where corrective action may be taken.  And for the merely talented this is sufficient.

But for the brilliant, your ambition is to avoid being dragged into both the search for truth and the resulting efforts identified as necessary to solve what you are trying to isolate as someone else’s problem. For this you need a slightly more sophisticated approach to, “The next obvious question.” I introduce to you, “The next obvious answer!”

Don’t panic!  I am not asking you to devote any of your precious time or energy to developing complex, valid answers to questions you deem unimportant anyway. What you need to learn is how to identify a question to which the answer is so obvious it cannot be contested. Thus you have forced your annoying petitioner to start down a path of reasoning that will deliver him, like it or not, to a solution that requires no participation from you.

I warn you, this is advanced deflection and should be attempted only by the most experienced responsibility self-absolvers.  The slightest error in navigating these waters could result in major embarrassment, or worse, additional work.  Read the following very carefully and make it part of your personal toolkit.

Rule one; never, under any circumstances, ask a question to which you do not know the unequivocal answer. Open ended questions are fraught with danger.  If ever faced with someone else’s dilemma, and you cannot counter with a question that will immediately deflect ownership, raise your eyes to the ceiling, stroke your chin and state; “My, that is a poser!  Let me think on it and get back to you when I have something helpful to offer.” Then stare hard into the eyes of your petitioner and say, “Let me know when you have found the answer.”  Then look at your watch, stare absentmindedly in any direction other than your annoyer and walk away as if you’d just remembered you had somewhere else to be.

Rule two; when posing your question to which the answer is obvious, assume an intellectual air. Act as if the connection between the issues at hand and your question/answer is so obvious that your disciple would have eventually recognized this on his own.  Do not say so in as many words!  Let the target of your tactical attack believe he has stumbled onto the truth by himself.  To do otherwise would be insulting and undermine your attempts to make the student believe you are mentoring him.

Rule three; if at any time after contact has been broken off, you stumble upon a solution to subject conundrum, do not seek out the individual you had previously so successfully dismissed and offer your help! You will only reinforce his original undesirable behavior which was to ask you a question in the first place.  Instead, sit on this piece of wisdom.  If, after some time has passed, your nuisance reemerges because he has failed to solve his own problem, be nonchalant. Once again, stare as if momentarily wrapped in deep thought, this time out the window… to demonstrate that your office has windows. Then off-handedly infer your solution in a way your minion will be able to see the answer on his own. Never spoon feed, suckle.

My experience has taught me such concepts can be complex.  If you feel you have any questions at this time don’t ask now.  You will benefit greatly from the exercise of trying to answer them yourself.  And if you cannot, the question was probably not worth asking in the first place.

  

The Tao of "So?"

The universe is a truly complex place: What with the mysterious nature of the big bang and the structure of galactic filaments and the uncertainty of quantum phenomena and Pi. Would someone please explain Pi to me? And don’t pretend to be professorially elusive by passing it off as a simple ratio. Nothing that goes on forever can possibly be simple.

As complex as the physical world appears, its child’s play compared to human behavior. In the physical world, for every effect a cause can be isolated and identified.  Have you ever heard of a planet spontaneously reversing its orbit?. Of course not but we have all changed our minds about something. As complex as the cosmos is, to the limits of our experience, it seems to be predictable; or at least demonstrate predictable patterns.  Can the same be said of people?

I believe that Psychology, Sociology and the balance of human behavioral sciences are severely limited.  The practitioners of these dark arts gather data and apply statistical methods to define the likelihood of human behavior.  But these pseudo prognostications are always couched in averages and probabilities, trends and tendencies.  Their limit is reached however with the attempt to predict the next behavior of the next test subject with total accuracy.  Look to your own life experience and count the number of times you have asked yourself, “Why did I do that?”

Obviously the person uttering that question has recognized a personal failure and in retrospect has identified the moment of critical thinking breakdown.  After the event and its consequences have played out, the errant individual can clearly see what should have been done and where they strayed from the trajectory that would have resulted in a satisfactory conclusion. But that only helps them navigate future occurrences; and then only if they can successfully assimilate their experience into tomorrow’s challenges. And just like the psychologists’ predictions about specific event related behavior, it’s a long shot.

I have learned during my journey through life that my own capacity for recognizing dangerous waters and executing a plan to navigate them uninjured are no better and often less satisfactory than those of my fellow Terrans.  If you are new to these writings or don’t believe me because I have in some previous encounter dazzled you with my B.S. (for the more naive among you, this is not an abbreviation for Bachelor of Science) at some time, refer to my previous posts for examples.

Recognizing my shortcomings I determined to develop an approach to life that would significantly bolster my chances for long term survival.  After brainstorming, defining, executing and reviewing I gravitated toward the notion that simplicity is key.  In fact; the simpler the better!  Thus I committed to constructing my own personal philosophy, “So?”

The journey began by first stripping away all of the philosophical baggage acquired by several decades of life, its challenges and associated failures. What need had I for the likes of Plato, Buddha, Nietzsche or Elmer Fudd?  Had they ever put a rabbit in the pot? No, because they let themselves get muddled in complexities and nuance, subtlety and moral relativism.  I needed a guiding principle stripped of elitism and uncertainty. I had to have a statement that truly defined me: “I yam what I am!” 

Thus, I had begun the journey of self-realization; define yourself in terms that leave no doubt you know who you are. What words more clearly state comfort with one’s self? But could this be seen as vague? Perhaps an acknowledgement of one’s limitations: “I yam what I yam. And that’s all that I yam!” a brilliant blend of self-assurance and modesty.

Once I was comfortable with who I was (am) it seemed reasonable to use the same technique in defining the world.  I began the process of stripping away the layers of complexity.  It was my goal to render the world understandable; only to myself of course, the rest of you can cling to your multi-level misunderstanding of what the heck is going on as long as you wish.  But for me, the quest is to define every observable event in as simple terms as possible.

Now I can see how many of you would perceive this a daunting task.  There is so much to understand and so little brain power to apply.  And very early on, I’d estimate in the first ten seconds of my new crusade, it occurred to me as well. I determined that what I needed was a lens that would allow me to focus on the truly worthy questions of existence. The focal point of said lens would be… Me!

To eliminate the vast majority of subjects that could be pondered, I would concentrate my efforts on only those that affect me.  While contemplating how to separate the wheat from the chaff, I turned to the myriad drill down techniques I had been exposed to by virtue of the seemingly never ending parade of business management seminars thrust upon me by various employers over the course of my career.

But all of their offerings included data gathering, measurement, analysis, flow charting; it seemed counter intuitive to me that the search for simplicity should be so complicated.  I resolved to find a new technique; one that would allow me to strip away the layers of distracting conflicts and identify the truth.  Then the revelation appeared as clear as Johnny B. Good a ringin’ his bell.  Any conundrum encountered or proposed by another would have to pass the test; “So, what does it mean to me?”  I refer to this technique as the Tao of “So?”

Whenever I find myself struggling with an issue of any kind, my first step is to ask, “So, what does it mean to me?” If the answer returned, either from my own internal voice or some other sentient being seeking wisdom, is ‘”Why, nothing at all!” the problem is summarily dismissed. I have found that somewhere between ten and ninety percent of dilemmas are eliminated at this stage.

If, and this happens more often when the question is posed by someone else, the answer is other than, “Why, nothing at all!” I find that a slightly modified test using the proper inflection, “So, what does that mean to me?” will convince the petitioner that we have come to the end of the trail as far as chasing this rabbit is concerned. For particularly knotty inquiries posed by highly energized seekers of truth, this test may need be applied several times before the inquisitor becomes frustrated, exhausted or rendered unconscious by a sharp blow to the head. It is unavoidable that some intellectually talented over achiever will eventually thrust past my parries and identify some connection between his issue and lack of interest.  At that point, I turn to another brilliantly conceived technique.  See my future posting entitled, “The Art of Delegation”.  

 

Suave and Debonair

I haven’t always been the seriously cool cat that you all know.  No, this project took some time.  My early attempts at sophistication would often result in some level of embarrassment.  I can understand why today, knowing the finished product, you would be surprised to read this.  But I offer you a few examples from my formative years.

Sometime in the late sixties, I can’t pinpoint the exact day, while the rest of the world was turning towards flower power; I was discovering my inner cowboy.  Do not be misled.  I was the product of a typical California suburban upbringing.  I wasn’t raised around horses.  My family did not live on a ranch.  I couldn’t tell a steer from a dairy cow.  But there was something about the direction of society, especially its younger members, which put me off.

I did not care for music that glorified the drug culture.  As I believed that the purpose of shoes was to protect ones feet I favored boots to sandals.  I kept my hair short because it was easier to care for and fit more comfortably under a football helmet. I preferred lifting weights to smoking dope. Well, to be honest and fair to the dope smokers, I never smoked dope, or anything else (no, not even once… uh, uh) legal or illegal.

One of the benefits (and there are detriments aplenty) to growing up an only child is that you are less likely to learn to submit to peer pressure because for the first few years of your life, you have no peers.  It never occurred to me that I might not be cool. I can present no evidence today that suggests I was cool, but in high school I never thought of it. I was not a pimply faced freak that others avoided at all costs.  I was a jock!  But I didn’t really hang out with the jock clique.  I spread myself around.  One day, I would hang with the music geeks; the next I would be chillin’ with the student body government types.  Hell, I didn’t even mind being seen talking to the science geeks while they spent their lunch hour playing chess.  Nobody ever seemed to mind where I spent my time… not to my face anyway.  Remember, by the time I was a sophomore; I was six feet tall and weighed in at about two-fifteen.  I was universally respected and a favorite of the football coaching staff.

As I stated, I was finding my inner cowboy while everyone else was turning Haight-Ashbury.  I wore Levis, like everyone else, but mine were tight, not baggy.  And instead of Hush Puppies or Converse All-Stars, I wore Acme boots (until I saved up enough for a pair of Dan Post; sheet, howdy).  I even carried a pocket watch in my jeans watch pocket.

One day while laying a line on some sweetie as we awaited the bell that called our tenth-grade English class into session, a friend, David Jessup, asked if he could see my pocket watch.  I absent mindedly handed it to him while I continued dazzling my retinue of one with sparkling conversation.  David returned my watch just as the bell sounded and I slid it into the proper pocket without a second thought.

At just about the mid-point of class, I believe the topic that day was The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, my testicles began to tingle.  Now when you are a fifteen year-old boy, you are hardly surprised when your body introduces a new sensation to your brain. But this could not be put off as a reaction to whatever daydream I was engrossed in. Jostled out of my Shakespeare induced fog, I realized that my pocket watch alarm was ringing, pressed tightly against my pelvic bone: Whoopee!  I struggled to retrieve the offending time piece while seated, resisted all the way by my thirty-inch thighs (weight lifting).  I finally had to stand up to get the watch out and turn off the alarm. “Thanks, David!” laughter all around. With that, the teacher changed course, “Well, Dale, now that you’re awake we can turn our attention to the annual student body government nominating convention.”

Each spring, my high school engaged in the practice of selecting the following school year’s class and student body government officers.  It began with a nominating convention wherein student delegates would spend a Saturday listening to speeches by office holder hopefuls.  The delegates were selected from grade-level mandatory classes.  For example; all sophomores were required to be enrolled in an English class. So, each English class would select a cadre of delegates to send to the convention. Likewise freshmen were from Geography classes, juniors were from History classes, seniors were from Civics classes.  I’m not sure who represented the guys who spent their entire high-school career in auto shop working on their chopped hogs, but as they all looked like they were thirty-years old sporting pony tails and full beards, I’m sure they would have asserted their rights through the local Hell’s Angels chapter, if needed.  Anyway, by virtue of my errant chronograph, I was selected as one of the delegates from Mrs. Sandra Coler’s third period English class. As I left class that day, I remember hearing from a little voice in my head the woeful refrain, “Beware the Ides of March!”

The big event was to be held on a Saturday in the school’s gymnasium. There were rules: Dress was business office; men wore ties and jackets, women dresses.  Each delegation was assigned a State of the Union and required to impart some information regarding its culture. Seemly decorum was strictly enforced by the Senior Class Sergeant at Arms and his deputies.

I awoke early on the assigned day, eager to play my part in the governmental workings of my alma mater.  I donned a pair of grey dress slacks (boy, these sure seem tighter than the last time I wore them… the freshman class sports award banquet of 1969), a white shirt with one of my dad’s ties and a blue sports jacket.

As my dad was currently attending some kind of professional training in Boston, it fell to mother to help me unravel the mystery of the double Windsor knot.  I’m still not convinced that we got it right, but the pressure in on my Adam’s apple and the slight light headedness suggested we were in the neighborhood. All dressed up, I examined the result in the bathroom mirror.  I moved in for a closer look at a pimple (I was fifteen, what did you expect) and noticed to my horror; I had whiskers! Well, it was truthfully more like fuzz, but this would not do.  As a duly appointed member of the delegation representing Mrs. Sandra Coler’s third period English class, it was my solemn duty to be clean shaven.

I proceeded to my parents’ bathroom to retrieve my dad’s Schick electric shaver.  Oh, oh!  Dad had taken the Schick to Boston.  What to do?  There was only one path.  Fortunately, my father’s abandoned Gillette safety razor with disposable injection blades was still in the drawer. Today I would learn the manly art of razor blade combat.  Over my mothers’ admonishment, I lathered up and set out to become a man.

Up one cheek and then the other; across the chin, “Ouch!” rule number one, there is no “across” in safety razor shaving.  Immediately, a thin red line began to grow into a gusher-like flow. I wiped the foamy cream from my face.  The offended nerves were punishing me with an excruciating sting.  I recalled my Boy Scout first-aid training; direct pressure.  I held it for thirty seconds.  Lifting my finger from the wound, I learned half a minute was not sufficient.  Pressure applied again, this time for sixty seconds; no good!

The appointed hour for the opening gavel was fast approaching.  My mother, having had the benefit of growing up with eight brothers, recalled a memory from her youth.  She grabbed a scrap of toilet paper and held it to the Grand Canyon sized gash. After a moment she took her finger away and the patch stayed in place.  It seemed as this application of the ancient and mystic Tee Pee would keep me from bleeding out.  “By the time you walk to school” my mother did not drive but it was only a quarter-mile hike, “you should be able to take that off.”

I arrived at the gym and was standing around in the lobby waiting for the days’ proceedings to begin.  Unexpectedly, I was joined by Sis and Ronnie (their real names were Mary and Sharon but everybody knew them by their popular monikers) who struck up a conversation. Ronnie was a member of my delegation, but I didn’t really know Sis except by her association with Ronnie.  They were inseparable; outside of class, where you saw one you saw the other. Ronnie was cute but Sis was the kind of girl that looked just a bit more mature than the typical fifteen-year old.  Her hair was dark blond with sun bleached highlights.  She was tanned winter and summer.  She was generally made up as if she were in for a night out on the town. It was rumored she was dating a college sophomore. Every school has one.  All the boys know her by name.  I was shocked she knew mine; not to mention the confusion I was sensing about her choice to talk to me in the midst of schools crème-de-la-crème.

While I was lost in the sparkle of her deep blue eyes, she asked, “What’s that on your chin?” Involuntarily, my hand rose to the scrap of paper.  It fell to the ground and without thought I bent to pick it up.  This was more pressure than the gray dress slacks could contain; RIIIIP!

In retrospect, I should have seen this as an omen regarding the rest of my life.