Vicious Compliance and Being a Grownup

A long time ago, I learned a term that captured the essence of the second less-than-mature coping strategy I learned during early childhood.  The first, of course, was the confrontational "you're not the boss of me!" (otherwise indicated by the acronym YNTBOM).  YNTBOM was one that I tried out (it was also attempted by one or more of my siblings, and several other juveniles I was acquainted with).  It was commonly used in a specific setting--when someone we believed neither rightly possessed nor merited authority over our activities tried once too often to direct us.  We found ourselves being compelled by circumstances to do his or her bidding much of the time, unless we tried YNTBOM.  

Some foolish contemporaries tried the YNTBOM approach with their parents.  This was promptly addressed by timely corporal punishment administered by good old-fashioned parents.  A spanking removed YNTBOM from the arsenal employed when we were receiving direction from any grownup with good sense.  Our not yet fully-formed brains were able to perceive that YNTBOM was not effective on parents.  

Being creative and resourceful young humans, we developed another strategy that featured huge servings of childishness and immaturity.  We would do "exactly what we were told to do."  "Let go of your brother right now!" would occasion a tumble for the sibling being held up in the air.  "Let the dog out" would result in the dog running loose in the neighborhood because the person giving you that directive failed to specify that you should attach one end of the leash to the dog, and wrap the other around your hand and accompany the dog.  You get the idea.  A juvenile imagination can create a form of compliance that should probably be a corollary to the law of unintended consequences---a directive given to someone who only complies because they are forced to may result in an unanticipated outcome.  

William Oncken, a management consultant wrote a marvelous book, Managing Management Time, and in it he described a practice employed by subordinates who despised their supervisors--vicious compliance.  The subordinates, who don't respect the authority of their boss are not dumb enough to simply ignore the boss.  Instead, they do "exactly what the boss told them to do."  In the process, they comply with the boss' orders, but show him or her, so to speak, by causing problems by complying viciously.  Vicious Compliance--it's a great expression, isn't it?  It captures the practice perfectly.  It is a weapon employed by immature humans from age five to fifteen.  Beyond that, most learn more mature means to address their conflicts.  Only a special few stay with that strategy.  I am not a regular watcher of "The Office," but I will wager the characters on that TV show have demonstrated vicious compliance from time to time.  

I have tried to keep politics out of this little corner of the world, but I just can't help myself.  What do you think is happening when a law mandating across-the-board spending cuts takes effect and the people responsible for executing this law start by laying off firemen, teachers, air traffic controllers on the first day.  It is, after all, a way of executing an across the board spending cut.  Now, how about agreeing to make reductions in certain areas, provided the other guys agree to raise taxes, we can balance the budget by spreading things around a little--is that double-talk? Or how about agreeing to increase tax revenues, but only by removing loopholes and not raising tax rates, we can raise tax revenues without raising taxes, what's that?  They are probably sophisticated strategies dreamed up by overgrown 15 year olds

I'm thinking someone needs a spanking....  Anybody seen a grownup?

Making Sense

In my second day of listening to medical experts and researchers, I came across the most impressive line.  Mind you, we have been discussing brain chemistry and circuitry for two days.   We even went as far as listening to a study of the effects of skyping for your doctor visits instead of spending time in the waiting room reading National Geographic (or in my case, Parents Magazine, Highlights and Boys’ Life—my doc is also a pediatric neurologist).

We dedicated hours to hearing about genome research, translational research, intra-cellular therapies, premotor symptoms and alpha-synuclein.  I spent these days hearing from every kind of doctor you can imagine.  Twenty-four Ph.D.’s, seven M.D.’s, three J.D.’s, an M.D, MT-BC, and some degrees I didn’t expect—an M.P.P and a M.Div. 

How much can you cram into your head in the span of two days?   Does it wear down your receptors?  Can you lose your ability to organize and store all that information?  Does the fact that you cannot spell most or the terms being tossed from speaker to speaker make it impossible for you to absorb them?  When they are passing around the microphone allowing audience members to ask semi-intelligent questions, is it right to ask a speaker to spell all but three of the terms they used? 

Then, one researcher came forward and said it was not about staying put; it was about rewiring yourself with your own effort.  It can be done, with maximal effort.  She pointed out what was happening in rats, and told us we could do the same.  It gave me pause (not paws, mind you).   It’s no longer about staving off the inevitable, it’s about brain plasticity and rewiring the circuits you have lost.  I can’t resist calling it “heady stuff.”

 It became clear all at once this afternoon.  The final Ph.D. in our lineup finally told us something I could wrap my arms around.  Summarizing his thinking about brain experiments, he told us “Rats are not human.”  I knew at once it all made sense.  All this brain science and study boils down to that.   We prove what we are and what we are made of, by putting it to the test.  The rats can't do it for us.  

When I got back to my room and looked out from the balcony in the rain, I saw two ducks swimming in the pool behind the signs saying “Pool Closed.”

Trying It

The premise here is that there is a second half of life to explore in ways that you choose.  This may mean an entirely new avenue you always wished you had time to pursue, or an old one in ways that you decide, not someone else. All well and good.  It's pretty straightforward.  You have the time and the financial Independence, you spent the first half of your life earning it.    But the question soon arises.  What do I really want from all this?  Do I want to develop a talent I have neglected over time?  Do i want to devote this time/effort to myself and my family?  Am I in this to serve others or give back in some way?  The questions keep piling up for many of us.  It can be paralyzing, at times.  I know it is for me. 

Just lately, I have found that this vacillation between or among alternatives is pretty common, especially among the who want their second half to be more than just a well-deserved rest.  Not to say that I am beyond that notion of resting, just that I can't afford to get sluggish.  I have some special reasons for that.  Staying active, physically, keeps one active mentally.  If you don't believe me, look it up.  One of the best things you can do to ward off depression is to exercise regularly.  But I digress.  I have been dithering about what's next, and that's what i wanted to talk about.  The best thing I have discovered (or rediscovered, perhaps), is to start doing things.  Try on what you consider and see what fits.  I have tackled three things in the last few weeks, The first one is complete, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and want to do it again.  It is just not likely to become a lifelong pursuit.  The second is underway, and what I've seen so far is good, but there/s a lot more to go.  The third lies before me, and it is so different, I am starting to feel a little of that dread that attaches itself to big changes sometimes.  Wish me luck..       

Which Buffett Are You Listening To?

In recent years, I have been encouraged to listen to "that Buffett guy."  He has extensive knowledge of the world and an impressive track record.  As one approaches retirement, listening to people with a proven investing track record becomes increasingly important.   How you will live is a function of how well you obtain the right return on your investments and/or how well you absorb the philosophy Buffett offers.      

On one side, Buffett says "choose your heroes well."  The other Buffett says, "I've read dozens of books about heroes and crooks, and I've learned much from both of their styles."  

One says "Retire?  About five or ten years after I die."  The other, he says "Where it all ends, I can't fathom my friends, if I knew I might toss out my anchor."    

One says, "my ideas about food and diet were formed irrevocably early--the product of a wildly successful party that celebrated my fifth birthday.  On that occasion we had hot dogs, hamburgers, soft drinks, popcorn and ice cream."  The other says, "when I'm in port I get what I need.  Not just Havanas or bananas or daiquiris, but that American creation on which I feed...." 

Yes, it's Warren vs. Jimmy.  I am "buffeted" by the winds of change spilling across the tableau that is my life.  One is sensible, rich, unpretentious and highly successful in the world of investing.  He says "I don't want to sound like a religious fanatic or anything, but it (investing) really did get to me.  Prior to that I had been investing with my glands and not my head."  This in reference to investing in stocks.  He goes on to say "I'd be a bum on the street with a tin cup if the markets were always efficient."   

The other has accepted that "music is his life" and says, "now, I must confess, I could use the rest.  I can't run at this pace very long.  Yes, it's quite insane, I think it hurts my brain.  But it cleans me out and then I can go on."  

One Buffett takes me to where sensible thoughts and actions predominate.  One thinks about what one does in terms of dollars, for that is what will make life work.  He urges me to have a philosophy:  "Rule No. 1: Never lose money.  Rule No. 2, Never forget Rule No. 1."

I am a pragmatist.  That Buffett and his philosophy appeal to that side of me quite strongly.  On the other hand, I am learning see life as a moment-to-moment experience.  I see that music and love, friendship and peace are way too valuable to ignore.  I find the conclusion that "when you lose yourself, you just might find the key to paradise" makes perfect sense to me.  

This week I saw Jimmy in his final concert this time around in Jacksonville, Florida.  As usual, I was excited and thrilled, and moved to tears.  The event was a party for the human spirit.  People dressed in all sorts of ways to demonstrate kinship with Jimmy's message.  This time around, we were there hours before the concert, soaking up margaritas, people, sounds and sights.  It was a moving experience, not just a concert.  People of all ages were there, and it made me think about how I was spending each moment that I have.  Even in retirement as the world points out to me that I am getting older each day.  I don't care a fig for investment and track records in Wall Street.   Instead, I am concerned about living and dying, losing myself and growing older.  

Eight years ago, I went to a Buffett concert, and I enjoyed it.  Nothing changed for me as a consequence of that experience, I continued to try to live sensibly and focus on the future, at the expense of the present.  Retirement, after all, was approaching swiftly.  I needed to look at how I was investing and what the long term would mean to me (thanks, Warren).  In that context, I had to decide just exactly when I should retire and to fret about how much was enough.  

This time, with eight more years under my belt and in the throes of a new stage in my life, I felt like the experience was a mirror into how I was living.  It made me really think about what I listen to and absorb into my way of living each day.  

I decided in favor of Jimmy, no offense, Warren.  I know what I am trying to do, at least as long as I can hold this experience in my heart.  "I'm growing older, but not up.  My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck.  So, let the winds of change blow over my head, I'd rather die when I'm living than live while I'm dead..."  

The Coincidence of Sweatshirts

Until yesterday, I thought the Publix store was part of the phenomenon, sort of the field on which these odd incidents played out.  It was either simple coincidence or synchronicity (Merriam-Webster defines synchronicity this way:  "the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality—used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung."  Sweatshirts were and are always involved.  As I examine the events in my memory, I cannot claim these events posses synchronicity.  For the moment, I can only call them coincidences.    Perhaps, at some point I will be able to discern the other half of these events, the psychic one.  Until then, they can only be termed coincidence.  

Five times in the past several years, this coincidence of sweatshirts had arisen, and I had only recently noticed the connection to Publix.  You see, two of my sweatshirts have, on a total of five different occasions in the Publix parking lot, evoked unsolicited remarks and conversations with perfect strangers.   In each case, the stranger, noting what was embroidered on the sweatshirt I was wearing, asked to know where I was from and shared similar facts about themselves.  It had happened multiple times with only these two sweatshirts that I wear occasionally.  Nearly every sweatshirt I own has a location inscribed or embroidered on it.  Most prompt no particular notice or comment from passersby.  Those passing may nod their heads in greeting or simply make no contact, eye or otherwise, and walk past.  

But not with these two particular sweatshirts.  In each case, the locations referred to were nearly one thousand miles away.  In each case, the stranger initiating the conversation had either grown up, lived or  regularly visited the place featured on the shirt.  None of these conversations turned into anything remarkable, except to note that our paths were crossing nearly one thousand miles away from the location involved and we were aware of it.  It might not seem so strange if the pattern hadn't repeated itself so often.  I had noticed on the fifth occasion, that it only seemed to happen in the parking lot of the Publix grocery.   I had no explanation for it, except perhaps for the friendliness of people from the American Midwest.  That, and the fact that I live in an area visited by tourists and vacationers on a regular basis.  Perhaps that was enough to explain it.  

Then, yesterday came along.  We left early in the morning to visit my son.  He works for a University a couple of hours away.  As I surveyed the remaining clean sweatshirts in my dresser drawer, I noticed my college alumni sweatshirt from the university I attended more than a thousand miles away, and decided to wear it.  I decided I'd be making a statement in the college town we'd be visiting.  

The statement?  My alma mater, unknown in these parts, was worth noticing in this college town whose university population of more than thirty thousand students and employees eclipsed the population of the rest of the town itself.  I had attended a university which was about three one-hundredths of a percent of the population of the city in which it was situated.  The university I would be visiting, made up more than fifty percent of the town, and was more than twenty times the size of my alma mater.  I was making a statement all right, mostly to myself.  Then, it happened.  As we stood in line at the local Wal-Mart, the person in front of me in line turned and asked when I had attended my University (I graduated forty years ago), and explained her father had attended the school at roughly the same time, graduating two years later.  That was the end of it, as I did not know his name, I had been a dorm student, and he had been a day-student.  But still, another coincidence of sweatshirts.  It's spreading, I tell you, this is yet another sweatshirt and a different town and not at the Publix.  My advice--be sure you think about the sweatshirts you don as you venture out into the day.  Coincidences are everywhere, and sweatshirts are in the middle of it..  

Improving What's Here

One of the delights of life is that improvement is possible.   The fact of improvement is elusive, I know, but you have to admit it's possible.  So where do you look for help?  Looking at criticisms?  There's constructive criticism, isn't there?  In my experience, most criticism isn't devoted to improving the product or object toward which it is directed.  I suppose some might be--if it's actually constructive.  But most times criticism isn't constructive.  So, you are left with self-improvement, of which the self-appointed gurus will say "it is all up to you."  Who, me?

In any case, I have been considering what I can do to improve the product here at WO2 (that's fuzzy-speak for "What's on 2nd," which is where you are for just this moment anyway).  The result is a work-in-process, of course.  The bad news is that I haven't found the magic bullet.  Immediate drastic improvement is not on the horizon--most likely because yours truly will continue to be the source of what you see here.  

The good news is this effort has me reading E. B. White and Russell Baker again.  E. B. White's granddaughter, Martha, has written (or is it edited?--I think there is far too much narrative from Martha about her grandpa to say she merely edited) a collection of quotations from E. B. White and I am wandering through it.  I have run down some Russell Baker on the Internet, and he is part of the process as well.  I'm happily distracted.        

How did I get here, reading my favorite essayists?  I started with a book about how to be a columnist, and it was chock-full of good examples and ideas about writing.  It made me think more about this little space as an occasional essay, and not just a blog.  So I began looking at essayists and the people who have written about them.  Along the way, I found about 900 sites offering to write essays for harried college students who lack the time to actually craft their own essays when professors assign them.  There was also a link to an article about how today's students can't seem to write essays.  The good news is that there are YouTube videos available to show today's students how to do this.  I skipped them.

Time Out--I am writing this as I wait for the Super Bowl to start, and I had to wipe my eyes after watching the Sandy Hook Elementary School chorus sing "America."  Whew. 

I went to Wikipedia and found Aldous Huxley indicating that essays can best be looked at through a frame of reference with three poles--personal and autobiographical, objective and factual, and the abstract-universal.   A lot deeper than I get within these posts.  I stay around that first pole--the personal and autobiographical.  Will all this discussion from Huxley produce improvement?  I just like to write, for heaven's sake.  

I was ready to leave Huxley behind, but an example there led me back to E.B. White, and a quote from Russell Baker did the same for him.  So, now what?  I think I will just read some more.  My theory is that it will all rub off.  Well, anything's possible, even improvement.  

Funny, though, next thing you know, I ran across this quote from Huxley.  "There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." And I thought he wasn't helping.... 
    

Golf and Purgatory

Contrary to what some might think, I like golf.  I accumulate many more strokes than most people, and some might suffer if they played as badly as I do at times.  But, every so often, I will hit the ball cleanly and it will go where I intended it.  Those moments, along with the fresh air, mostly green and lush surroundings and, at times, the people I am playing with can make it enjoyable.  I put up with the suffering that takes place when I dub the ball repeatedly, or drive it into the woods or water.  I vacillate between seeing it as the result of karmic actions in my past (or past lives, perhaps) or accepting it as a form of penance for my many shortcomings.  

Karma, as I understand it, is the influence upon your life of the seeds planted by karmic actions.  It really isn't the outcome, rather it is the action itself.  We are supposed to avoid actions whose karmic effect produce seeds of future havoc (like my golf scores),  i have on occasion wondered if this was what the Buddha was talking about.  I even thought, perversely, that playing golf allowed me to expend massive amounts of the 'bad karma' I have accumulated.  What other explanation can there be for taking five strokes to escape a scrap bunker alongside the fairway on 13?  If golf is a place where I can work off all this bad karma, then all this suffering has a silver lining.  It's better to slice a ball into the woods than to incur some mishap in a more important part of life--yes, even though I am retired, there are more important endeavors than excelling at golf.  Did I actually use the word "excelling?"  If you have every seen me play, you would be shaking your head at my use of "excelling" in reference to me and golf.  In any event, playing all this golf might just be my ticket to eliminating the seeds of prior karmic actions of mine.

At other times, I can almost hear my mother telling me to "offer it up" as a penance for some other shortcoming I had developed.  I am a Catholic, born and raised as one.  I am not among the pillars of our church, and I practice Catholicism only slightly better than I play golf.      
I promise God on a regular basis that I will be better, but...   I had heard that the Church was playing down some of the punitive aspects of dealing with my shortcomings, even eliminating Purgatory, which is where people like me can expect to wind up even if we end our lives in good standing overall.   You see Purgatory is where you spend time if you die in good enough standing to go to heaven, but still have lots of the bad side of the ledger to clean up.  But, rumor had it that Purgatory was on the way out.  

I was embarrassed to bring this up to my parochial vicar, so I researched it on Google (the next best thing).  I thought that my obvious concern about all this punishment might better escape notice that way.  However, I now know that Google will add such inquiries to my profile and know that I am sufficiently less than perfect to be pretty concerned about Purgatory.  I wonder if they will sell my contact information to some gambling house, beer distributor or other merchant of all things sinful?  Ah, but that's another story.  Back to Purgatory.  The bad news is that Purgatory is alive and well in Catholic catechism, it was limbo that got the ax.  Limbo was thought to be the place where innocents who never had a shot at life (e.g., infants who died before having the chance to be baptized, etc.)  I am not sure what, if anything has taken its place, but limbo is out.  So Purgatory is likely to be my destination when I leave this mortal plain.  Unless, i perform enough penance while I remain here?  So, if my inadequacies at golf can be offered up as penance, golf might just be my best move.  I think I'll google it.