Regarding Random Rituals, Recognition, Response, Resolution and Revolution

Do you think it’s time to start again? So do I — every day!

I want to start up this blog post revisiting what I took up the other day (in my previous post — there must be link lying around somewhere)… and add a little twist (which you might have done yourself — but just in case you were too lazy, I’ll pick it up and do it for you ).

It’s not a great leap from where I was to the idea that recognition is something that leads to slavery — and since I (like Mick Jagger) don’t wanna be your slave, recognition is not a metric that I need to care about.

On the other hand, the vast majority are very fixated on counting beans — and all this coolbeans business is in part due to a steep fall in the price of bean counters (over the past couple decades). These days, you can’t take two steps before stumbling over yet another measurement guru — but just between you and me: even nit-pickers don’t count the crap these nut-jobs pay attention to (perhaps they have a different perception of “virtual reality” than what might be considered normal).

With ever more bots chasing each other around — and counting, measuring up, and otherwise following and tracking and screwing up each other’s nuts and bolts — there is definitely an inflation in the meaning of numbers… and numeracy has quite certainly become somewhat of a bubble market. But I digress….

I had actually resolved to write about resolutions — and I don’t mean graphic.If you actually plan to resolve to do something, let me present you with a little thought experiment: Let’s say (just for kicks) that you can either change the world (let’s also assume the change is “for the better“) or your level of recognition in the world, but not both. Which would you prefer? If you don’t know my answer to that question, then I think you should be more concerned about your reading skills than New Year’s resolutions.

Assuming you have been able to figure out my answer, let me reward you with a wonderful tidbit that was shared with me this morning — it’s a quote:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

This quote is attributed to Viktor Frankl, but I have yet to read its source (his book titled “Man’s Search for Meaning”). I have read quite a lot about Viktor Frankl, but still have read none of his writings (in their entirety). The reason why I consider this quote interesting is because of the way the word “response” is used. I think a “scientist” might view this as an observation made by someone other than the person choosing (i.e., from an “objective” perspective). My gut tells me, though, that Viktor Frankl might have preferred an interpretation that the subject (at least) also subscribes to (and thereby gives meaning to).