It can be slippery slope. But it doesn't have to be. Somewhere with the concept of "social media" the masses blurred professional and social in some ways that don't work in wars and everyday--which also blended. While our country appeared on the worldstage like a slurrpee there for the taking or violating or squishing or pole dancing around or "whatever" people in all the realms and sectors and industries stayed focused on what works better. Insta-advertising along the way even asked, What could be better than slurrpee?
At first we had debates behind closed doors and in the open; meetings in churches, schools, and loosely-"departments". Everybody offered advice, best practice, out of the box, and let it be. What was the old quote? "A point in all directions is as good as no point at all."
People did create small businesses, think tanks, and curriculum for the development of success. The media has spotlighted many entities alongside spectacular failures and individual choice to en masse movement(s).
It is what it is won the never-ending day on the books while realism in writing took on the added dimensions of personal survival stories. At least that was less embarassing for some than a subjective/narrative style on the pages of a newspaper or magazine. Each of the three political parties conceded dominating. And money/lack of money started and stopped building.
Minds hem and haw long enough to make or break "deals". Most decision-making is not performed in the split seconds before handshake. And most grown ups have had experiences across a wide breadth of living which inform and deform what's happening.
I gave up a fight with an AI human resources icon. Rude-o-meter off the charts.
Peanut buttet and crackers.
Re-reading an important (imo, in my opinion) book called The Forever War.
We have to stabilize these wild extremes and we have to do it by using the basics of U.S.
It's what happens sometimes.
Found the quote I was looking for:
"....it seemed obvious enough that what lay at the foundation of the Taliban's rule was fear, but not fear of the Taliban themselves, at least not in the beginning. No: it was fear of the past. Fear that the past would return, that it would come back in all its disaggregated fury. That the past would become the future. The beards, the burqas, the whips, the stones; anything, anything you want. Anything but the past" (34).
There's a lot in there that is relevant for us.
Some of the people my age who joined the armed forces when we were young had a little movement in No Fear. At least, I heard about that from them. Good fit strong. An individual not going to lose heart for joining the fight. And inspiring to other professionals. Even health care workers tried adopting the notion, working it into their challenges. Some of the first pumped up to themselves regarding the smells and needs and wounds of patients. Then mental health workers braved, I'm not afraid of you, your problems. From service workers it seemed to spread to office workers, or at least getting from sofas into offices at first. It wasn't about rebellion. Or protest. Or invince-ability.
It was about a deep, profoundly deep crack in our foundation. It was the younger generation's response to our elders' trembling hands and lips. It wasn't taking possession. It was an aligning as an anchor generation. And this contributed to anchored-on-the-whole. It was aligning in a righteousness. But it was amidst terrifying schism, so the righteousness needed to be active, ongoing, forever. The schism(s) wouldn't stop shaking everything and everyone until we did this thing. Until we adopted the Constitution, sewed stitches in ripped flags, helped someone get a library card or become a citizen, spoke up for the country in dark, vague places. Until we really started to get it and not just blame and shame.
After the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s to that time everyone in the world felt the fear and not just of a past that seemed to be stalking, suffocating, replacing, blotting out possibility of future, but of the present. Everything as war, everything as against and oppressive, everything as anti-human, anti-life was making the past, present, future a smear of civilization. That smear could be wiped away by God or other humans in a blink. That smear could be seen from space in our pollution. It seemed to match up to the Biblical stink that reaches heaven. All smeared like that people of all ages were finding it hard to function. But people couldn't say.
It took no fear and overcoming fear to say. Or to function despite. Or to walk away.
We did. We had some stellar examples of people saying, I/we don't know, don't know how
and CAN'TS, can NOT, CANNOT, cannot
In America we filled in. We asked, cannot or won't? And from there filled in. No fear curved like light into doing it!!!!!
Don't do it like you're F'in me.
Sir?
Heard me.
I wiped all the shaken down the sides of my apron. Smarter than smart, a key to through-the-box-but-not-through-the-box on critical thinking. We'd been a swarm again. America, buzzing awake, droning more alive, reinvigorating schedule for the safety. Managers had been like the organs in Baltimore, the ones with so many buttons and pedals and pullies an organ player can keep pace with city or bigger.
Thirty some years ago we were awash in this. Humanity coming together with trade and tariffs and computers and people, so many people. Economics or the egg? We tried to joke as we shift-changed, like jumping onto a wagon coming from the wild, wild west with a baker's dozen just in case.
It would be smooth shake-making then the thing would barf extra. Drops of shake mix, money, messy, drops like pennies. Phases of repairing trust, to spend, to be promoted, to feed our families, to blend as not equals. It was that on the scales that made people who'd worked on salesfloors and in restaurant "houses" glare at some of what us younger people were and were not doing.
Was it a camel's skin? I called my mother from a "cell phone". She had to call me back on that in this swish of generational sea crossword puzzle.
At pivot points in the economic rebuild there was technicality to deal with even as lights and machinery was being turned on and the daily lists of no-shows and product needs were being generated. We half-joked about that. Do you want to work at the airport today?
Seriously
In grocery stores there were managers called to aisles because, overnight, there became 13 choices of white bread, not the previous seven. I may have to ask regional--another layer of management. Back then there was and wasn't strong corporate presence in-store, nor as much consistency with who had enough ink to run the day's press.
What do you mean by that?
M'am?
Huh? Sir?
He was looking over some writing about American business that I was writing. M'am. He passed me back the milkshake. Well, at magazine school....And we filled the hour upon hour with leveling up on education that we had missed out on. Same world, unbalanced equivalencies.
Shirt of hair, it's a Biblical reference, my mom and I finally caught up in phone tag.
It's in the Bible?????
Yeah, the Bible. Remember that book? Or are you too mod?
No one says mod anymore.
When we do an interview we have people sign like permission slips, releasing the information so the writer can write it into an article.
But why an organ?
Well, you said "I AM the milkshake machine."
He blinked at me. Twice, hard. I didn't know if it was lack of sleep or something else. He "read" me trying to "read" him. You heard me?!?
I did. I try to be a good listener. And milkshake maker.
Smiled then and took an unflavored to: flavor.
At another job shift was settled in, weighed and combined as one body politic--crew. An older person who never let go of the broom let empty boxes fall from home-closet shelf to floor. People ran over. What is it? The guesses ranged from bugs and spiders to cramps and heart. Shush up an' I tellya. We did. Someone in the drive-thru with new and improved timing mechanism honked. What is it? A crew leader asked. See that?!
Whole wide world rushing STOPPED. The shelf?
People got out of the way as she wielded the broom into pointer and poked it at the wall where the shelf had had to be connected. It was missing screws and had a mess of hole. We didn't do that. Some people went back to stations. Somebody started breaking down the boxes meant to cover the incomplete job. A crew leader told everyone: I will let the General know.
Thankya, the lady said.
No comments:
Post a Comment