Kindness, Take Two
Hi! Party Friday!
Hope you all are doing swell well ell ll l...
So, last post was a kinda tongue-in-cheek post about thou shall not suffer an asshole for a boss. Now that wasn't very kind of me! woo hoo!
The point is fair enough. The point being that since we are no longer in survival mode then our collective agenda is quality of life. And that starts with the people we have leading us, no more assholes. Kind people please!
Still though that is not very kind of me to express a post promoting kindness in a very ungraceful fashion. <3
Welllll, that's cause I do have an important follow up point to make about the subject of kindness: kindness take two.
Mean people frustrate us. Mean people bring out the meanness in us or just turn us off. They certainly don't inspire us to be kind. We don't like to see that ugly response bubble up from within ourselves so we just walk away. Benjamin Franklin had another take on this topic of in his autobiography.
Bullies like Steve Jobs know this. Jerks know that sensible people will just turn around and walk away.
Yesterday I put forth that it is in our human nature to promote bullies, jerks and assholes as leaders because that is what we respond too. Now I would like to point out that the human nature problem is actually much larger than just a tendency to promote assholes. The much larger picture is that the jerks are self-sustaining once entrenched where sensible people will stay away.
Collectively then as a species the challenge of overcoming having jerks for leaders is akin to an individual person who is an alcoholic trying to quit alcohol. In both cases human nature is the problem. In both cases the solution is not to pretend that there is a cure but rather to acknowledge a lifetime commitment to managing the problem is required. You are always an alcoholic, even when on the wagon. We all collectively will want assholes for bosses even when we have kind ones.
If we really want a quality of life where our leaders are kind people...kind people who are no more corrupt than occasionally stealing an office pencil then we have to manage ourselves our entire lifetime. Everyday we must renew our commitment to manage our nature: outloud and with sickening repetition.
Blech. That managing ourselves stuff sounds just blech, doesn't it? What to do?
I know, party on! That's right we use human nature to solve a human nature problem. We create a pop culture management solution that reminds us in lyric, art, music, comedy, laughter and entertainment to be our better angels and only promote kind people! Now that's fun! Let us start some new traditions with new idioms, expressions and colloquialisms to remind us to stay the course with kind people. Our future movies should have heroes in Hollywood who are kind sensible people!
A dance off! Yes! Let's have some fun! And this "party on!" attitude will be a recurring theme as Irreni World Scale ideas are rolled out. We need to sell ourselves and sell each other on the kind of people we want to be and kind of world we want to live in! We do that with culture! art! sports! wine! song! and dance offs!
Dance off! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaaJyAjvajo
Cheers!
The future is coming!
Well come! and well met!
Hope you all are doing swell well ell ll l...
So, last post was a kinda tongue-in-cheek post about thou shall not suffer an asshole for a boss. Now that wasn't very kind of me! woo hoo!
The point is fair enough. The point being that since we are no longer in survival mode then our collective agenda is quality of life. And that starts with the people we have leading us, no more assholes. Kind people please!
Still though that is not very kind of me to express a post promoting kindness in a very ungraceful fashion. <3
Welllll, that's cause I do have an important follow up point to make about the subject of kindness: kindness take two.
Mean people frustrate us. Mean people bring out the meanness in us or just turn us off. They certainly don't inspire us to be kind. We don't like to see that ugly response bubble up from within ourselves so we just walk away. Benjamin Franklin had another take on this topic of in his autobiography.
I continued this ... Habit of expressing my self in Terms of modestWhat I want to focus on here is the point Franklin makes that "modest sensible Men, who do not love Disputation, will probably leave you undisturb'd in the Possession of your Error;". Plato said something along the same lines when he was explaining why it is that good honest people do not participate in politics. Plato's point in the book "The Republic" is that good honest people do not participate in politics because they will not sully themselves and compromise their principles. Since politics is always corrupt then, according Plato and similarly Franklin, good folk won't get involved.
Diffidence, never using when I advance any thing that may possibly be disputed, the Words, Certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the Air of Positiveness to an Opinion; but rather say, I conceive, or I apprehend a Thing to be so or so, It appears to me, or I should think it so or so for such and such Reasons, or I imagine it to be so, or it is so if I am not mistaken. This Habit I believe has been of great Advantage to me, when I have had occasion to inculate my Opinions and persuade Men into Measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting. And as the chief ends of Conversation are to inform, or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well meaning sensible Men would not lesson their Power of doing Good by a Positive assuming Manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create Opposition, and to defeat every one of those Purposes for which Speech was given us, to wit, giving or receiving Information, or Pleasure: For if you would inform, a positive dogmatical Manner in advancing your Sentiments, may provoke Contradiction and prevent candid Attention. If you wish Information and Improvement from the Knowledge of others and yet the same time express your self firmly fix'd in your present Opinions, modest sensible Men, who do not love Disputation, will probably leave you undisturb'd in the Possession of your Error; and such a Manner you can seldom hope to recommend your self in pleasing your Hearers, or to persuade those whose Concurrence you desire.
--Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of B.F.
Bullies like Steve Jobs know this. Jerks know that sensible people will just turn around and walk away.
Yesterday I put forth that it is in our human nature to promote bullies, jerks and assholes as leaders because that is what we respond too. Now I would like to point out that the human nature problem is actually much larger than just a tendency to promote assholes. The much larger picture is that the jerks are self-sustaining once entrenched where sensible people will stay away.
Collectively then as a species the challenge of overcoming having jerks for leaders is akin to an individual person who is an alcoholic trying to quit alcohol. In both cases human nature is the problem. In both cases the solution is not to pretend that there is a cure but rather to acknowledge a lifetime commitment to managing the problem is required. You are always an alcoholic, even when on the wagon. We all collectively will want assholes for bosses even when we have kind ones.
If we really want a quality of life where our leaders are kind people...kind people who are no more corrupt than occasionally stealing an office pencil then we have to manage ourselves our entire lifetime. Everyday we must renew our commitment to manage our nature: outloud and with sickening repetition.
Blech. That managing ourselves stuff sounds just blech, doesn't it? What to do?
I know, party on! That's right we use human nature to solve a human nature problem. We create a pop culture management solution that reminds us in lyric, art, music, comedy, laughter and entertainment to be our better angels and only promote kind people! Now that's fun! Let us start some new traditions with new idioms, expressions and colloquialisms to remind us to stay the course with kind people. Our future movies should have heroes in Hollywood who are kind sensible people!
A dance off! Yes! Let's have some fun! And this "party on!" attitude will be a recurring theme as Irreni World Scale ideas are rolled out. We need to sell ourselves and sell each other on the kind of people we want to be and kind of world we want to live in! We do that with culture! art! sports! wine! song! and dance offs!
Dance off! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaaJyAjvajo
Cheers!
The future is coming!
Well come! and well met!
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