Milestones

Today I was at a meeting that addressed in a momentary snapshot the current state of an organization.  It sought first of all a listing of those things the organization does well.  Then a list of opportunities was developed (those areas that need improvement).  It occurred to me that this dual view of listed achievements and areas of needed improvement if applied regularly to the individual would be a helpful exercise.  What if once a quarter every individual listed their current status in this way?  If these evaluations were kept in a journal, it would be most interesting to see developments and changing perspectives over time.  Of interest would not only be quarterly goals and achievements, but the shifting ground of the elements of evaluation and prioritization as insights and views changed with impinging realty and experience.  For example, there could be radical shifts in what one considered success as well as worthy goals.  I think many of us would be amazed at what we once viewed as facts and certainties eventually being viewed in retrospect as assumptions made from prejudice or perceptual blindness.

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Bipolar Behavior and the Final Death of Self-Denial

To some bipolar manic behavior is bizarre.  But to the one undergoing the experience, it is not bizarre at all; it is merely the consequential celebration arising from the final death of self-denial.  When bipolar, all wishes, hopes, and dreams are brought to realization.  The self is fully and totally affirmed.  The repressed self, the repressed private dreams and ambitions become actualized.  The mind steps in and removes all difficulties and hindrances presented by the old reality.  The belief in the new reality is total and transformative.  The great energy provided by mania is generated from the joy of deepest yearnings being fully realized.  The actualized dreams can be the assurance of attaining worldly position or they can be dreams of having an intimate relationship with the Eternal.  One projects self totally upon the world, and as a screen it reflects back to the self the self-image projected.  Thus, there is an exponential effect, as stimuli emanate from both self and screen.  The reinforcements are escalating, expanding, and universal. One operates in a tailored world—in a perfect world of one’s own choosing.  I look upon the bipolar person with pity and envy.  With pity because self-denial has finally come to this tragic pass, and envy because the experience of total fulfillment is one glorious trip.

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Birthday Wishes for a Friend

1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (NIV)

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.

Margin: the measure over and above what something minimally needs to be.  My birthday wish for you is that you develop and maintain a healthy margin in strength of character—in integrity, in endurance, in discernment, in generosity, in love, in faith, in conviction.  May you find God's abundant help in the design and fulfillment of your life.

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Running Wires and Cables

Tonight I would like to honor all those who run wires and cables.  Now with the many homes and buildings with cable TV and internet not to mention electrical wiring itself, the challenges of running wires and cables are frequently overlooked.  When the Twin Towers fell, I could not help but think of the huge investment that had gone into those buildings in terms of putting in place Ethernet cabling alone.  It was stunning to think all those man-hours of work could be destroyed so quickly.  (Not to mention all the other systems such as plumbing and air conditioning also destroyed.)  The challenges of running wire and cable not only involve overall planning and design, but endless adaptation to troubling details and tight spots.  Wire management involves not only getting the job done, but doing it as esthetically pleasing and nonintrusive as possible.   So the next time you settle into your easy chair to enjoy a TV program on cable, I suggest you give a moment’s thought to the installer who worked the minor miracle of making the cable link well-nigh invisible.

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For Puff-Puff

Sometimes all we can do is

Stop, Look, Listen,

At the site of naked pain,

Sometimes it seems so little can be done

Even prayer is stymied

And angels turn away

Cruelty born of cruelty

The tragedy is non-stop—

An eternal curse,

An endless inheritance,

Hell’s very essence applied on earth.

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Some Useful Terms

Parsimony – “…the principle of endorsing the simplest explanation that covers a case” Encarta Dictionary.

Misguided parsimony – cases in which the simplest explanation neglects to take into account the complexities involved.  For example, John is unemployed because he is lazy (the simple explanation) vs. John is unemployed because of the current economy (a more complex explanation).  Misguided parsimony can be an instance of the fundamental attribution error.

Another helpful concept is high self-monitor—someone who feels compelled to craft every response weighing and measuring everything they say tweaking it for the response of their current audience—a response in any case largely outside the self-monitor’s control.  A high degree of self-monitoring gives one an air of being forced, defensive, and lacking in frank spontaneity.  In dealing with a high self-monitoring individual one senses a level of difficulty much like that sensed when watching a relative novice struggling to find the right strings on a cello during a recital.  For example, if asked how they liked a movie, a spontaneous self-confident person without a moment’s hesitation might say it was a great (or lousy) movie.  A high self-monitoring individual when asked will have a flash of stage fright carefully weighing the impact of their evaluation and come across as struggling and forced and lacking in frank spontaneity.  Conversing with a high self-monitor can be a painful experience for everyone.

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Fundamental Attribution Error

In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect) describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. The fundamental attribution error is most visible when people explain the behavior of others. It does not explain interpretations of one's own behavior—where situational factors are often taken into consideration. This discrepancy is called the actor–observer bias.

As a simple example, if Alice saw Bob trip over a rock and fall, Alice might consider Bob to be clumsy or careless (dispositional). If Alice later tripped over the same rock herself, she would be more likely to blame the placement of the rock (situational).

The term was coined by Lee Ross[1] some years after a now-classic experiment by Edward E. Jones and Victor Harris (1967).[2] Ross argued in a popular paper that the fundamental attribution error forms the conceptual bedrock for the field of social psychology. (Wikipedia) 

  

This brings to mind Jesus’s warning regarding judging others:

New International Version (NIV)

Matthew 7: 1-5

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

The first point Jesus makes is that personality-based judgments frequently results in an almost reflexive countercharge—you accuse me of being clumsy or careless, you are the one who is clumsy or careless.  The person who just stumbled over a rock feels the injustice of the accuser overlooking any situational causes (the rock was misplaced in the first place) and so responds with a personality-based judgment of their own.  And, indeed, when one jumps to blaming character flaws in total disregard of situational causes one is being negligent in accessing the facts.  While carelessness is certainly a possible cause, it tells more about the observer than the observed if one jumps willy-nilly to judgmental responses rather than situational explanations.  In fact, if one loved others as they loved themselves, there would be a tendency to withhold personality-based judgments in favor of situational assessments.

What is “the plank…in your own eye” but a blind inclination to reflexively put others down—to seek to feel superior over your brother?  Hence the hypocrisy—you are not really interested in your brother at all (as you claim to be) but instead wish only to enhance your own reputation for rectitude.  Jesus flat-out judges people with this selfish tendency—a tendency of one-upmanship ingrained in the human heart and something to be overcome.

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