On Systems

Here's the thing, I agree with you, many of our systems are in fact flawed, corrupt, and otherwise broken. However, I also understand that systems are made up of human beings, and humans by nature are imperfect.  Hence the imperfect nature of systems, no matter if they are global, interpersonal, or anywhere in between, is natural.

With that in mind, I believe there are a number of ways that we as imperfect people can attempt to correct or alter systems with different degrees of effectiveness.

First, we can observe a system from afar and complain about its insufficiencies, the injustices it creates, and all other ways in which it is ineffective.  To complain about a system does little more than to bring attention to a problem.  I equate this to a poorly written social documentary.  Whenever I watch a documentary on a social ill or problem, I hope to have some sense of how to address the issue at hand by the time the film has concluded.  Now granted, these potential solutions may only be temporary fixes or may not be directly feasible for myself as an individual.  Nevertheless, there is hope that somehow the problem or issue at hand may be manageable.

However, a poor documentary ends with little to no practical for resolution for little to no one.  This is equivalent of highlighting a problem and doing nothing about it, often criticizing those responsible for it in the process.  Sure, this brings some awareness to the issue little else.  These muckraking commentaries or documentaries are little more than a platform for complainers to whine about their view of social ills.

In the same way, to critique a system's insufficiencies or other problems is just that: a public complaint.  It is an irate citizen complaining at a public forum about the toxic waste seeping into her private pool.  Her anger is real and perhaps her concern is valid.  However, it is likely that her concern will go unnoticed or unaddressed as those working within the system may find it difficult to see past her visceral anger. (See Tone Policing)

A second way that we can attempt to correct a broken system is to spit fierce venom at it directly and confront the problem head on.  This can sometimes take the form of an ad hominem argument when viewed from one angle.  While addressing the principal concern of a system may appear ideal in practice, the issue here is the way in which the concern is addressed.

Oftentimes when someone enters a new organization or role she is able to offer a necessary outsider's perspective to those who have been enmeshed in their bubble for any number of years.  This can be extremely helpful for the organization, agency, system, etc. in question.  However, the new individual and system must come up with an effective way of communicating with each other.  That is to say, the individual and the system must learn to understand each other and, in a way, speak each other's language before making any sort of real, meaningful, and lasting change.  Otherwise, the change risks being ineffective or seen as a judgmental critique of ongoing practices.

This gets to the third, and perhaps most effective, way of creating meaningful change: calculated constructive criticism shared in a similar language over a period of time.  Each aspect of this method is critical, as if you leave one out the whole process may be in jeopardy.  First, the method must be calculated, meaning it is well thought out and planned by those who wish to create change.  It cannot be something that is just done on a whim or it will likely create further systematic problems.

Second, the criticism shared by the outsider must be understood to be done in a constructive manner.  When one is receiving constructive criticism, she is encouraged to remove herself or any feelings of personal judgment or hostility towards her from the situation.  This is how constructive criticisms work.  Think, for example of the way in which art critiques work: an artist presents her work to a group of peers in an effort to gain feedback (whether positive, negative, or neutral), and then she does her best to receive it all objectively.  It is paramount that during such a critique, those who are offering their input do their best to provide honest feedback and attempt to remove the artist from her work.  In some cases, it is often beneficial to have the artist's name removed or masked from the critics' view to avoid this very thing.  That is often why you may see researchers' names removed from a study when they are being considered for publication: to avoid undue bias and prevent criticism toward a person or institution rather than the information presented in the study.

The third element of creating meaningful change is the importance of shared language.  The importance of speaking a shared language cannot be understated.  Consider for instance the vast diversity of acronyms found in a number of professions and organizations.  A fairly well known mistake was immortalized on the internet when someone mistook the shorthand "lol" to mean "lots of love" rather than its common interpretation of "laughing out loud."  Granted, that is not a necessarily an acronym, but it is easy to envision how a misunderstood acronym can lead to misunderstanding fairly quickly.  The same can be said of terms that mean one thing in a particular profession's jargon and something very different in a another's.  Consider the term computer that not long ago was used as a job title in the accounting field I believe.  However, now a computer is more likely to be the medium through which you are reading this than what a profession you aspire to.

Each of these elements combine to create an ideal manner in which to create lasting and meaningful change to flawed, broken, and/or corrupt systems.  As the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day and neither are many of the systems that run the world.  With that in mind, it will take time and considerable effort to create and ensure meaningful change in any system; and really, because, as mentioned before, systems are created by imperfect people, the best way to create effective systems is to regularly promote a culture that encourages open and constructive criticism.  With this in mind we are more likely to catch our errors before they have a chance to negatively impact a large number of individuals and other interconnected systems.

Or maybe I'm just naive.

Romance

Romance.  What is it to you?  What words or images does it conjure up in your mind?  Do you think of candlelit dinners or that sentimental movie where an old man tells his story to his memory-depleted lover?  Or maybe to you it is just the gentle brush of your partner's hand against yours.

All of those examples may very well be romantic, however I believe that they represent a large misinterpretation of the word romance.  You see, romance to me can be so many things.  It can be the glorifying of valor and honor in an propagated effort to recruit more able-bodied soldiers for war.  It could also be the sepia toned photographs with curled edges one finds in the attic after a loved one has passed.  Still, romance could even be the feeling inside brought on by the sound of big bands playing on an old wooden and brass phonograph, or perhaps a period piece that so accurately portrays a time that has past and enraptures its viewers.

You see, romance to me is sort of like coming home.  It's what I imagine comfort food may be to some, or a warm slice of homemade apple pie with just one scoop of french vanilla ice cream.  Romance to me is like a tall glass of nostalgia made just for me and just for this moment.  I am not saying that those other manufactured moments of perceived intimacy cannot be romantic.  What I am saying is that is that those are but a small sample of true romance.

Admittedly, not all romance is positive.  As I mentioned above, sometimes romance is used as a method of propaganda.  Marketers, advertisers, recruiters, politicians, and more know that we are motivated by deeply set emotions, especially fear and love.  If these people can attach their messages to something that pulls at our heartstrings, they know that we are often more likely to accept or "buy" their message.

For this reason, I believe that critical thinking is a skill that is so important.  I do not want to live in a world where nuance is is subjugated or coopted into a world of false dichotomies.  The world is more than black and white.  I will admit that much of romance is brought on in works of fiction and fantasy, and such romance is admirable when it is done right.  However, even in such works of fiction it can help to recall that the story that we are absorbing through our eyes, ears, and other senses, is passing through a number of filters.  There are the filters of the original storytellers, the membranes of those who may be retelling an old fable, the funnels of the artists using their skills to transport us into another dimension, and the lenses of our experiences through which we take it all in.

I guess all I'm saying is two things: First, romance done right is mesmerizing.  It can transport us from a bland summer day on an open field to galaxy lightyears away.  Secondly, be careful what you allow yourself to fully absorb into your being.  Learn to think critically so that you do not allow others' unanalyzed thoughts to become your own.

And yes, I am aware of the irony (counterintuition?) of that final sentence, but how else could I say it?

A Small Skirmish

You taught me efficiency and they label me with "procrastinate."  You taught me to use my resources and they tell me I'm a mooch, a pest, and a leech.  You encouraged me to, "Go anywhere!" and "Be Anything!" and they reach for their strings to tie me down.  This world can't hold me down.  This world can't tell me who to be or who I am, although I endlessly ask them for clarification.

You advised me never to be afraid to ask questions and they break out the muzzle.  "Don't keep us here longer than we need to be," they complain.  The peculiar thing is that they were never here to begin.  Their minds have been fixated on former selves, covetous longings, and romantic desires, but not here.  They try to shut me up so that they can escape to where they imagine their dreams are waiting for them, but then complain that nothing ever comes to fruition, at least not the way that they had imagined.

Maybe it's not my place to speak these words.  Maybe this is just pointing fingers, but what if it's not?  What if it's more than that?  What if there is meaning to the madness?  Don't you want to know if there is something buried below the superficial stickers that the world tries to stick on you?  Wouldn't you want to discover what is hibernating deep inside?  Or are you so afraid of the unknown that you would rather plaster further layers of predictable pain on your person?

Stanzas to fill the In-Between

This movie's boring, mundane even.  Maybe a month ago it still held onto some novelty, but no more.  I want to start a new one; can we stop and begin again?

I thought life was living, but somehow it's all the in-between times, like this.  Surely there is light somewhere beneath this crack in the surface.  And here.

I'm a torn and fraying noose ever since you cut me loose.  I'm brain without a skull, unprotected and dull.  A sponge that can't release the pain, the trauma, and the rain.  No, not without you cradling my splinters in your handmade mittens.

There are faint whispers here, but nothing comes to life in a vacuum. Am I sweating or is that your steady pulse shaking the table?

Please don't go there, don't leave me unless you're gone for good.  You know I can't cut the strings myself. My patience is so thick that I can't breathe beneath it.  You understand don't you?

Lust Haunts Me

 I needed you and all you did was give me a passing glance.  You held me up like a prop in your life and that's all I ever was.  Still, why can't I leave in the past where we were?  Why do I go digging through the cemeteries of unrequited loves?  Why can't I leave you and move to green pastures?

And in these moments where everyone is so far from me, farther than physical distance, I return to the vast expanses where I left all of you.  All of me feels like a remnant casting fickle shadows in the still breeze.  I pick up the pieces of my heart that I hardly knew had broken apart from who I was.

And on some occasions the listeners listen too closely to who they think I am.  And then the other times they don't take me seriously enough.  So then I retreat to my interior like in these moments, hoping maybe there I will find a truer version of myself. Hoping, somehow I'll find a new part of me previously hidden.

I felt like I knew you so well and you never knew me.  Now, neither of us know who was or who I've become.  Maybe I'm a beautifully textured surface waiting for the right words.  Maybe I'm a fish in shallow water.  I see no reflection in the mirror.

Get Outside

 I need people.

I knew it before.  I was crying out for community before, but it was all a whisper in the dark.  Now the people are gone or far away and I'm all by myself.  I need an external force.  I don't think you understand this.  People say, "Pick yourself up," "Do it for you," or "You'll never love someone until you can love yourself," but do I not know myself?  Can't I think critically about who I am?  Sure, I have blindspots like the rest of us, but I need something from the outside to push inside of me, to make me go, to ignite me.

What does a solitary man do in the midst of the silent worldwide chaos?  Like noodles dancing mad above my head.  The cords attached to me are loose like live wires.  Don't step close to me or you may shock yourself.

Wear a mask, run for shelter, don't tempt me.

Social interaction is rare these days and the live wires protruding from my brain are the only animated part of me that make sense.

Maybe there is wind outside, but it seems my spirit's left.  I'm a shell, can't you see me?  Everything evaporated but the disaster; I'm still here.

Impetus of the Movement or The First Step to Self-Discovery?

Sure, you can kill the martyr, but don't you know what that will do?  Don't you realize that's what he wants from you?  Kill him and watch him resurrect in the thousands of faces around you.  In your effort to make him disappear your garden will grow with more weeds than ever before.

Yeah that's what he wants, this masochist, this cult leader, this creator, this destroyer.  Kill him if you wish, but just know that his roots run deeper than the soil underneath him.  He has entangled himself in the lives of everyone he's met so you will have your work cut out for you.  He's grafted into every living thing he's ever touched, this world is flooded with his toxins.

 

Cut him down, chop him up, and burn all that remains.  Still, you will not destroy him.  He is the destroyer.  He'll destroy everything but himself, for that is what makes him who he is.  If the martyr kills himself he fails his mission.  He has to convince you that he is the the victim and that he is the enemy.  He drives you to anger, to rage, and to hatred, all with a shallow smile peeking through his teeth.  He knows you see through him, but that is his intent, to get you to fall into this thinly disguised trap he's laid.

Poor man, poor suffering soul.  He truly believes that he is flawed and that no one loves him, or rather that no one will love him otherwise.  That is how his story came to be.  Someone or something convinced him many years ago that he was nothing if he was not suffering.  He can no longer see any different?

Can you cure him?

That's what he's really asking.  Can you peek inside him to find who he was before all of this?  He truly is a sad soul stuck in this delusion, this fiction.  Inside that façade there is someone there, someone real, someone beyond suffering, but he doesn't know that man anymore, nor how to find him.  He's searched so desperately for countless years, but somewhere along the dusty road he forgot what he looked like.  He forgot how to find the man behind the mirror without any aide at his side.

He only knows himself through the eyes of others; that is why he clings to you.  He's a parasite, but not by choice.  He wishes he could be himself, but he no longer recognizes who that is.  He'll disguise his hurt, his brokenness in the perceived innocence of an orphan child longing for a caretaker.  He'll numb the pain with temporal pleasures, even try to sleep in the hope that he'll wake up from this nightmare.

Still, all the suffering he endures is hidden by the hurt he lets the outside world see.  If he would let them in, if he could just be vulnerable for a time, then maybe he could rediscover himself.  But instead he urges you to strike at him, to make the first blow.  His delusion has made him think that only this will remove the thick layers built around his heart.  The soft, almost innocent, and yet somehow sinister glare of his eyes whisper "kill me," but it's the gentleness that holds you back.  You cannot destroy a child, you know there is a boy inside there.

Somehow you have to find a way past his cardboard cutouts and all the layers built by years of scars.  There has to be some way you can open him up to himself.  Maybe you can wound him in a way that runs deep, a way that won't feed the martyr, but rather burst through the beast to puncture the boy.  Somehow, you hope, the boy will return before the beast takes over.

Somewhere inside the boy hopes for this too.  Somewhere inside the boy cries desperately to be set free.