... differences that make a difference ...
... differences that make a difference ...
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Chanticleer Calls - September 1, 1999
Welcome to this
first edition of "Chanticleer* Calls", a twice-monthly newsletter
for discriminating readers, thinkers, feelers, speakers, listeners, and cogitators.
“WHAT IS THIS
ABOUT, AND WHY HAVE I RECEIVED THIS EMAIL?”
Good questions. First,
you’ve received this email for one or more of the following reasons:
Regarding what this
is about … this is about me collecting various personal observations, insights,
opinions, anecdotes, jokes, quotes, aphorisms, etc.,
and attempting to package them twice a month into a message which entertains,
enlightens, and provokes. The guiding principle which
inspires this effort, and which will fuel it in the weeks and months ahead,
can be expressed simply as:
This Is Not
That : Implications of the Obvious THIS IS NOT THAT
What makes an expert
an “expert”? In addition to attributes like knowledge, skills, experience,
etc. – I’ll add one that you might not so quickly recognize. Experts can
make fine distinctions which you and I “non-experts” cannot, or do not,
make. For example, once every four years I’ll watch the Olympic ice skating
competition on TV. To me, unless a skater falls or makes obvious mistakes,
one skater looks about as good as the other. However, the “expert” commentators
on television can point out subtle, or not so subtle, flaws in a particular
move or spin or jump as each skater skates – flaws which I just cannot
see. Sure enough, when they replay the routine in super slow motion, I
can detect the dip, the hesitation, the loss of balance, that the commentator
pointed out. The “expert” can see differences that I can’t.
Some of these differences
don’t make a difference. For me, the fact that I cannot differentiate a
9.5 triple salchow from one scoring 7.5 does not much affect
how I live my daily life.
However, some differences
DO make a difference – sometimes huge differences. Some differences
can insidiously appear as similarities if we’re not careful.
When we fail to properly detect these differences – when we act as if “this
is just like that” instead of recognizing that “this is NOT that”, we many
times create troubles for ourselves.
So THIS IS NOT
THAT is about pointing out examples of how we fail to recognize differences
which can make a difference in how we respond and react to what goes on
around us.
ANECDOTE
Many of you know
I recently embarked on a new career. Depending on your perspective, my
new career path is either “unemployed”, or “self-employed”. I choose the
latter since I enjoy being my own boss. My first decision as boss was to
give all my employee two weeks vacation, which I (the self-employee) have
used to do some painting around the house. I painted my bedroom a nice
green hue, and after I finished I stood back with hands on hips admiring
my brush work and congratulating myself on a good job.
But then as I replaced
the light switches and outlets, I noticed some small spots which didn’t
get covered. I got my utility light out and inspected for more missed spots.
I found them, so I got the paint back out and did some touch-up. The next
day I moved furniture around, and again, I found more very small spots.
My self-proclaimed
“good job” on Wednesday had become, by Friday, my “what-was-I-thinking-about-while-I-was-doing-this?”
job.
This (my Friday evaluation)
was not that (my Wednesday evaluation).
General lesson: Just
because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there to be seen.
QUOTE
“We tend to discriminate
against people to the degree we fail to distinguish between them.” – Irving
J. Lee
OBSERVATION
I’ve been treating
myself in the afternoons to a frozen yogurt at the local Braum’s store.
The other day I walked in and noticed a man at the order counter, with
his middle-aged daughter and about six young children, some of whom I assumed
were his grandchildren. As I stood next to the man and the
mother, most of the kids were running wild in the seating area. The
counter staff did not immediately come wait on us, and after a few
minutes the man said in a loud, agitated, impatient voice to his daughter,
“Well, if anybody’s ever going to wait on us...”
I got my yogurt and
sat down, while the man and his daughter continued ordering meals for the
brood. The man, still apparently agitated, walked to the seating area where
some of the kids had planted. He noticed an ash tray on the table, then
the sign which advised that they were in the designated smoking area. Even
though no one else sat in the store other than me (sitting, as luck would
have it, in the non-smoking section), the man asked the kids, “Why are
you sitting in the smoking area? We don’t want to sit here.” He continued
to nervously look around, and up, as if he expected tar and nicotine clouds
to descend from the ceiling at any moment. But the kids ignored him and
kept playing and talking and trying to spin the seats off their supports.
Still searching for
the smoke-to-come, he sat down and realized that the air conditioning wasn’t
working properly. He started fidgeting, looking around, looking
up at the ceiling fans, tried to loosen his collar, caught my eye for a
second and muttered – I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or himself
– “Isn’t it kinda warm in here?” Meanwhile, the kids kept playing, oblivious
to their grandfather’s discomfort. Once his daughter arrived with the meals,
he upped everybody off of their seats and herded them down to my end of
the seating area, since “this is the no smoking area and I think it’s cooler
down here.” Of course, he hadn’t actually BEEN in that area, but I guess
to some people, hopes sometimes expediently become
experience.
It struck me that
the kids had not yet ‘learned’ how to be uncomfortable in all the ways
that the man had learned. The kids played and laughed and cut up without
regard for how long it took to place an order, what the signs on the wall
said, or that the inside temperature was only 25 degrees cooler than
outside, instead of 30 degrees cooler. But I’m sure with repeated
exposure to the behaviors ‘taught’ by the man, the kids will eventually
learn their lessons well.
Our behaviors have
implications.
IN THE NEWS
Former Senator Bill
Bradley, a potential candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination,
in a response to reporters’ badgering questions about whether he was a
“left-leaning progressive” or “more moderate than Mr. Gore”: “I’m not helping
you at all. It’s too simplistic to put somebody into a particular mold
when the person has a heart beating and a brain functioning.”
You go, Bill! Don’t
forget the wise counsel of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who anticipated these image-is-everything
and political-platform-by-polls sentiments 160 years
ago:
And then on the other
side of the aisle, of course, there's George W., Jr., who's campaign short-hand
isn't "24/7", but "not in 7/25". (Personally, I'm
kinda tickled to learn, after several years of wondering, that, yes, he
actually HAS done something.) * * * * * * With the beginning
of a new year in Texas public schools, annual pleas for instituting prayer
in schools made the news again.
In the Katy Independent
School District (ISD) near Houston, there’s a move to allow students to
vote on allowing “solemnization” ceremonies that could lead
to prayer. A high school senior is quoted as saying, “We should at least
be able to vote. Majority rules. That’s the way our U.S. Senate and everything
runs.”
Maybe his Civics
class doesn’t cover the Bill of Rights until second semester. Let’s hope.
Personally, I’d like
for the state legislature to pass a law requiring all those who insist
on interjecting their own religion into the public schools to have
mandatory prayer with their children each morning before school, in their
most innermost bedroom closet. Failure to comply would be punishable by
placing bumper stickers on the parents’ cars which read, “My child’s
parents are hypocrites in the _____ ISD”.
Some actions and
behaviors make a difference; others do not. But they all have consequences.
* * * * * * The chairwoman of
the Center stated, “It will be similar in a way to a senior citizen center,
except that it will be for teens.”
Oh. Okay, similar
to a senior citizen center, but for teens…. Of course – teenagers aren’t
anything more than senior-citizens-in-waiting who haven’t started
to shrink!
The Center will have
ping pong and pool tables and “in addition, a computer room will have Internet
access for research or homework.”
Yup, I can see this
….. “Mom, I’m going to the YAC with Billy to access the Internet for my
non-homework-related research project.”
* * * * * * “The Columbine shootings
really brought it home for us, “ said the assistant superintendent for
support services. (This title is much too long for a door
name plate, so I assume it’s abbreviated to ASSS.) “We saw the need to
move forward quickly to prevent something like that from happening here.”
As if.
This (reacting to
an incident) is not that (preventing an incident).
So is it just me,
or does anybody else detect conflicting messages to teenagers here? The
school district wants to surveil them, while the city wants to herd
them into an institutional “place they can call their own”.
Wouldn’t it be nice
if the schools represented a place the kids could call “their own”?
The kids at Braum’s
will learn how to become like their fidgety, discomfited grandfather. And
the Irving teenagers will learn how to solve problems like their city fathers
and school district administrators. Because our attitudes and actions result
in consequences, sometimes beyond those we anticipate.
AND FINALLY …
I heard a radio commercial
today for pre-owned (I prefer “used”) Lexus cars. The voice, presumably
a recent purchaser (or “post-pre-owner”)
Think about that.
Let’s accept the dictionary definition of “ego” as “…the part of the psyche
that is conscious, most directly controls thought and behavior, and is
most aware of external reality”. This says our ego “controls thought
and behavior”. Hmmm. I wonder, then, who controls the controller – what
controls the ego?
“It’s good for my
ego” = “This car helps me control my thought and behavior, and makes me
more aware of external reality.”
A car?
Oh, but wait – here’s
another part of the definition: “… an exaggerated sense of self-importance”.
“It’s good for my
ego” = “It’s good for my exaggerated sense of self-importance.”
Okay, finally – truth
in advertising! Yeah, baby .... YEAH!
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