Some Time Management Paradoxes

A whole collection here from Dave Pollard. Particularly like the first two.

Generalists / consultants shouldn’t worry (feel guilty / stressed) about not getting things done, it’s not the point of their work – the point is to figure out and pass that information along to someone who can do something with it. In fact delivering less is better. Doing is about learning, not about delivering.

Stress wastes / causes a lack of time, not the other way around. Time pressure is not a cause of stress, but the result.

Too easy “excuses” ? Well yes if your aim is excuses, but worth thinking about anyway.

Mindwalk

Conversation between a Physicist, a Politician and a Poet. Mindwalk with screenplay co-authored by Fritjof Capra, based on his “Turning Point”, subsequent to his “Tao of Physics”.

First I need to say, that I have previously seen Capra taking the parallel’s between Mysticisms of ancient cultures and New Physics into interconnected harmonies a step too far, but it raises many of the same issues as Michael Talbot’s “Mysticism and The New Physics” and he too seemed to take the metaphors too far with his later “Holographic Universe”. Intriguing and interesting stuff that you have to be very careful if and how to bring into real-life considerations.

That said, this film is played pretty gently, and despite the probable conflation of too many connected issues – too much of “the great convergence” into systems theory – it covers many interesting points at a pragmatic level – the politician asking “but how would that get me elected”.

Wisdom as the addition of values to science. The individual responsibilities of scientists (very reminiscent of Durrenmatt’s “Die Physiker”). Life as self-organization. Evolution as co-creativity. Adding Blake to Descartes and Newton. Very Gaia. Very little new, but intelligent and thought provoking presentation.

Thanks to Marsha and Krimel over at MoQ-Discuss for bringing it to my attention.

Musical Interlude

Saw Tommy Womack again on Saturday, this time as a double act with Alabamian Will Kimbrough, who I’d not seen before. Saw them at a Nashville venue I’d not visited before either, Norm’s River Road House.

Great little basement venue, in the middle of nowhere, and I discovered I wasn’t the only first-time punter who almost turned-back thinking “I must have taken a wrong turning”. Small packed entry-fee-paying crowd hosted by owner, cum barman, cum MC, cum mixing engineer Norm, someone who clearly likes his Americana.


(This painting from 2011 – courtesy Jim Osborne on Facebook.)

Tommy and Will alternated their original numbers dueting and harmonizing on guitar and vocal on each others numbers. Some great poetry from Will as well as the legendary guitar playing that preceded him, and Tommy’s venomous wit and manic rhythms. They made a great double-act, with a clear fondness for each other and each other’s material. Will’s “Hill Country Girl” lodged in my mind – must acquire the CD EP. Have to emphasise in these parts how unusual it is to hear and pay to hear artists play entirely original material. So much covers for the tourists.

Bought a copy of Tommy’s “Cheese Chronicles” biography of his brush with stardom in Government Cheese. Great read so far, helped by a common history of music through and beyond the punk period, and Tommy’s aforementioed wit with words.

Successful Mass Collaboration

Very interesting “Thinking Allowed” today with Charles Leadbeater discussing his “We-Think” (subtitle – Mass innovation not mass production).

Very brief part of the programme – but I was taken by the comment that all (that is all) successful bottom-up / de-centralised / self-organising collaborations like Wikipedia, Linux etc, not only seem to have some freedom-limiting rules, but also have some “aristocracy” to apply some form of governance. Collaborations that deliberately preserve or encourage 100% anarchy – total freedom and nothing else – do not evolve progressively. Governance is essential and an essential aspect of that governance is an “elite” with additional rights and responsibilities beyond those of general community members.

A thesis I’ve expressed many times, in a number of discussion forums that end up going nowhere fast, despite the progressive intent of their memberships.

Black Humour

Hope this guy turns out to be innocent … but an interesting real example of black (non-PC) humour at work. In service industries looking after the welfare of individuals (eg education, training, health-care, and to a lesser extent, food, drink & leisure retail service) Sylvia and I have often joked about the black humour amongst professionals (where Sylvia has worked). If “outsiders” (or god forbid, the “clients”) could hear the routine banter between such staff, referring to their charges in the course of a normal day’s work, they might well be shocked.

Was this case just black humour, or did the knowing banter turn to innappropriate action – murder is still illegal in West Yorkshire, right ?

[Post Note : Guilty of Murder]