A Simple Formality

• - Would you be so kind and empty the trash bin? 
• - No problem, you’ll just need to submit an RFA.
• - Submit a what?
• - An RFA. Request for action. I’ve decided to bring more structure into our household, and I’d like you to fill in and submit this simple form before I proceed to executing your request.
• - But my dear, what’s the point? It’s just a simple thing, to empty the trash bin. It will take longer to fill in the form, than to do what it requests.
• - In the present case, it might be the case. Nevertheless, for a start I opted for an RFA in case any action is required, be it re-painting the whole house, preparing breakfast or emptying the trash bin. An action is, after all, an action, and if you want to measure the efficiency and the workload, you need to record everything. That is why ...
• ... your form contains questions about “estimated duration of the action/event”, “level of skills required for performing the action”, “expected added value for the household” and  approval of the next higher manager? - asked the wife, by now pale with stupefaction. 
• - Yes, indeed. I will need these to prepare my monthly KPI report. 
• - KPI? Pan sobie chyba kpi!
• - No idea what you’re saying. Key Performance Indicator. I’m planning to make a few of them on a monthly basis, they’ll be useful for you, too. “Number of Actions Requested to Husband”, “Number of Actions Requested to Wife”, “Response Time of Husband” (time elapsed between RFA submission and the execution of the task), “Response Time of Wife”, “Task Difficulty Level v.s. Speed of Delivery” - you name it. We’ll meet regularly to discuss our findings, and take the required actions to optimise our household. As a result, we’ll have more time to do the things we like.
• - But at the same time we’ll need more time to fill in all the forms. I don’t know about you, but if there’s one thing I find a total waste of time, it’s form-filling.
• - No problem, I can fill it in for you. But first...
• ... I’ll need to fill in an RFA  to request you to fill in an RFA for emptying the trash bin.
• - You learn quick.
• - You know what, I’ll just do it myself.
• - No, you can’t do that, as you’re not in charge. According to the division of tasks in our household, I’m the one who is responsible for the trash bin, while your domain is, among others, the groceries. For a full list...
• ... you’ll need an RFA?
• - No, for a full list, please see the inside of the kitchen cupboard, third one in the upper row on the left of the sink.
• - Ok, just pass me the form, please. - said the wife, resigned. - I guess I have no choice, but just fill it in for this time. 

Fifteen minutes later the form was ready for submission. 
She handed it in to her husband.

• - Where’s the approval of the next higher manager?
• - Who’s the next higher manager? Can’t I just sign it by myself?
• - No, the form needs to be approved by someone other than you. And in case or our household, it has to be me. There’s nobody else here.
• - You mean, you’re my next higher manager?! You must be kidding!
• - Well, technically, we’re partners. But I’m taller, so in a way, I’m higher.
• - And who’s going to approve the forms you submit?
• - Someone else than me. It will have to be you then.
• - Ok, if that's the case, that’s fair. 
• - You see, I knew I’d convince you. It just takes a little getting used to... In the long run, you’ll see how much it helped us structure and organize our lives, so that we have more time for ...

But she didn’t listen anymore, resigned, studying the full list of tasks and their repartition between the two of them, glued neatly on the inside of the kitchen cupboard, third one in the upper row on the left of the sink. You could see a little smile when she discovered that the nasty task of filling out the tax-refund form was assigned to her husband, and she got the much less unpleasant one of watering the flowers.

There they went, occupying their time by filling in the forms and performing the requested tasks in order to save time for something else. They got so good in it, so efficient, that they even started to take pleasure in the form-filling, reporting, comparing the results with the previous months and taking necessary actions to amend the detected irregularities, such as the contents of the trash bin rotting away while Husband was on a business trip for the whole week, and Wife becoming totally useless in the meantime, missing the RFAs from her next higher manager.  They didn’t care about that something else they were saving time for.

This isn’t my story, obviously. It’s my acquaintances’, Mr. and Mrs. Corp. But I stopped seeing them some two months into their new procedure. They had no time to meet, their schedules packed with efficiency.

(Don't) Con the I

Rituals
Initiation
Exclusive Product Offering
Over-delivery
Myths
Relevant Sensory Oddity
Icons
Tribalism
Endorsement

Continuity

are the seven engines of Conversational Capital, a refreshing and comprehensive marketing approach, whereby the task of marketers is not just to create buzz around the product, but rather, to create a viable story about it and consistently deliver on it on the promise, year in, year out. 
The authors of the book (B. Cesvet, T. Babinski, E. Alper: "Conversational Capital. How to Create Stuff People Love to Talk About") are top people of a unique Montreal- and Amsterdam- based advertising agency, Sid Lee. Yes, their story is very appealing and gave me a lot of food for thought. And my thought has been very hungry. 

They claim that the story about your product is an integral part of the experience, and not just something applied to it, like rabbit ears to a chicken. Surely such claim appeals to a Rabbit, who wouldn’t like his ears to be applied to anyone else, be it a chicken, a fox or even a hare. The latter wouldn’t have appreciated such an exchange anyway, as a hare’s ears are as different from a rabbit’s as Conversational Capital is from conventional approach to marketing. 

The authors talk about a certain triangle and claim that it should be as compact as possible. The three points of that triangle are: who you are, who you say you are and who people say you are. This applies not only to products, but to people and organisations alike. 
They talk about creationist v.s. evolutionist word-of-mouth, the latter one being much more powerful in creating a story which will be talked about. And such talk is the most efficient, yet completely free-of-charge, marketing tool. 
So, if you want your story to sell, think first of who you are and make sure you do communicate who you are, and not something that you are not (but would merely wish to be). You’ll make people believe in what you deliver, and if you deliver it consistently to people’s content - they surely will talk about you. The book is about brand creation, but the authors admit that Conversational Capital applies in many other areas. 

Think of the Church, for instance. This is probably true of most, if not all, of the churches, but let me just refer to the one I know the best - the Catholic Church. The rituals (sure), the initiation (you join it by baptism only), Exclusive Product Offering (the “product” being applied to Salvation, is perhaps an unfortunate term, but however you call it - exclusive it certainly is), over-delivery (that remains to be seen, but I’ve heard of the near-death experience as being something indescribably terrific, so if Heaven is much more, over-delivery it certainly is), myths (sure, though we call them the Truth), Relevant Sensory Oddity (the smell of candles and incense, to name just one example), icons (obviously), tribalism (by joining it, you become “one of us”), endorsement (ever heard of Mother Theresa?), continuity (it has remained largely unchanged for over two thousand years). Coincidentally, a triangle happens to be also one of its symbols, though not necessarily meaning the same thing as the one mentioned in "Conversational Capital". 

So where has it gone wrong? Why is the story of the Catholic Church losing its power? Would the Church be failing to deliver on its promise? 

The problem is - nobody knows, as the promise refers to the afterlife. There might be some happy souls conversing merrily about the story of the Catholic Church in paradise, spreading the word about salvation which is guaranteed for devoted members, but no echos of those conversations have reached us, earthlings, so far.

Therefore whether this Church, any other church or spiritual path deliver on their promise remains a question of belief. 
But believing can make things happen. Therefore, as there are both believers and non-believers among us, I do not exclude the possibility that God both exists and doesn’t. Like a Schroedinger’s cat.

Coming back to Conversational Capital - it worked in my case. Completely for free, I’m spreading the word about the book now. Read it. It’s difficult to get in printed version, so getting hold of it already becomes an initiation: the book started to deliver on its promise even before it promised me anything. Someone was asking 70 euro for a second-hand copy (an e-book is there for you for a mere 16.99 eur, but the array of the things I believe in do not include an e-book. I need that Relevant Sensory Oddity that goes with the touch of paper under your fingers, and the pleasant sound as you open your printed book).

Just a little quote “to get people to say you are smart and funny, you have to be smart and funny in the first place.” This brings me to my favourite song by Daan:

“so don’t try to be an icon
con the I inside of you
that picture you’ve been painting
doesn’t look a thing like you”

This song could have been added to “Conversational Capital” for extra sensory oddity, in fact. With next printed edition, maybe?

The Mystery of the Double "L"

Apart from the “P” and the “H” at the start, which constitutes the key to understanding the difference between Poland and Holland of course, there’s also the “l”.  No need to explain the provenance of the “P” and the “H”, that’s clear as sky (if it isn’t for you, please don’t tell anyone, but see * below). Dus. As the Dutch say, not wasting too many words, (because you shouldn’t absolutely ever waste ANYTHING) when they mean “isn’t that obvious?/I told you I was right, but you wouldn’t listen/I’m going to do it anyway/I don’t care what you think”. Dus.

Therefore we may conclude that Poland and Holland are actually quite similar, except for the P and the H, of course. And that double “l”.

The temperature has just got me on the right path to decipher the mystery of the extra letter. Please read on. The extra “L” unveiled. Your life will never be the same again. 

All seated with the belts fastened? 

It’s January. The thermometer shows 11 degrees Celsius. 

Seven months ago it showed 12 degrees for a change. It was June. This splendid heat wave (1 degree higher than in January!) continued well into July. 

Holland is namely a country where you can expect temperatures around ten all year round. Ten plus/minus ten, the “plus” option only available occasionally, for a limited period and if you’re really lucky.

In Poland, in turn, the winters are cold, and the summers are hot.  Therefore, there’s no risk of mistaking January with its minus fifteen for June with its twenty-five. And people have to live with it. People have to be different, depending on how warm it is. They’d be sad and melancholy in winters, having enough of it towards the end of the cold months (usually stretching until mid- April), revived and energised in spring, happy and outgoing in the summer, slowing down and lazy in autumn. They are Scandinavians and Italians in one. 

But the Dutch are just Dutch. They don’t need to be anyone else, as the way they are: direct, frugal and enterprising - fits all the seasons. It fits zero degrees just as much as it fits plus eighteen (usual temperature in the summer).

They are much more leveLLed. No highs or lows. Always attending the same funny birthday celebrations following a fixed scenario and ending before it's dinner time, whether they are eight or eighty eight. Whether it’s plus eight or plus eighteen outside. 

And when it’s above eighteen? Goodness me, soooo hot?! That’s when Holland becomes Hotland and people put on their summer outfits. 

Hotland sounds dangerously close to Scotland. I’ll level with you:  I’ve just been tempted to develop another groundbreaking theory on the differences between those two... But you might first want to digest the double LL. Beware: the capitals tend to stick in the throat. You’d better take the lower case.

*) P stands for Poland, and H for Holland, of course.

A Robbit's Trip through the Tunnel

If you hear a language which is completely unknown to you, your brain still tries, unwittingly, to decipher what the strange sounds mean. This is what brains is used to doing, deciphering things. Unless you switch it off, which I cannot. As an occasional practitioner of meditation I never managed to arrive at a state in which my mind was void: the moment I think I might be there, I realise that the very fact that I’m realising anything at all confirms that I’m anywhere but where I was hoping to be.

Our mind hungers for the familiar. It’s not used to emptiness.

Some internet sites require me to prove I’m not a robot. I look at the weird scribbles and try to see something recognizable in them. I must admit, I failed a few times. My robotic arm interpreted an “n” as an “h”, very inhumane indeed. Fortunately, the machine gave me a second chance. Irritated, I typed:

- How about you? Prove you’re a computer!          
- The text you typed doesn’t match the example.    Try again.
- Oh yes, I believe you now. You are just a stupid PC.
- The text you typed doesn’t match the example. Try again.
- wzBr9krin10
Redirecting...

If your car breaks down, you can repair it or buy a new one. If your wife leaves you and demands half of your Facebook friends as a divorce settlement, that’s not a tragedy - you’ll sooner or later recreate your friend-reservoir. If all your plants at home die, you’ll buy new ones and this time make sure you water them regularly. There’s always a way out.

If you see an elephant climbing trees, you’ll think it’s a new species, a peculiar kind or a squirrel or a hallucination. If you see photos falling from the sky, you’ll think it’s the Cloud reaching it’s maximum storage space (you might also think it’s a hallucination, or a peculiar kind of a marketing event). But if someone tells you that “Colourless green ideas slept furiously” you’ll think he’s crazy, a poet or a fan of Noam Chomsky. You won’t think ideas can sleep that way. There’s always an explanation.

Anything that happens will sooner or later be grounded in the familiar. And if it cannot be understood in terms of existing systems - a new one will have to be developed. Quantum physics for instance. There’s always an explanation or a solution, it might only not be known yet. 

However weird the circumstances may be, we still manage, with time, to find our way and the answer. You’ll get those characters right one day. After all, things somehow work out. Always.

That’s why when we die we think we’re still alive, somewhere. Once we get out of that tunnel, which takes some getting used to, but after all - we’ve travelled through tunnels before - we say “hello” to those awaiting us and give them an update on what they missed on earth. Your wife divorcing you, your car breaking down, your plants dying and other vital information. They don’t have FB there - they really need some serious filling in. 

And then, flabbergasted, you see those ideas, green and colourless, sleeping furiously under a blue sky on a soft bed of a Cloud. They suddenly look so familiar.

That's the moment you're Redirected ...  for good.

(photo source: www.akinvong.com)

Shape of My Heart

He deals the cards as a meditation

And those he plays never suspect

I'm not so sure. I started to suspect something this morning.

He doesn’t play for the money he wins.
He don't play for respect
He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance *)

I saw it this morning on the windscreen on my car. The drawing was on the inside and only became visible after I’d scratched away the ice from the outside. There’s no explanation to it, this is not the way frost usually works. EWA gazed in AWE at the letters and shapes in front of her.

If this was pure chance it would mean that chance can be geometrical.

That “chance” might not be pure chance after all.

That there is a plan behind.

This morning I found the sacred geometry of chance on my windscreen. Einstein assures us God doesn’t play dice. Would he play cards instead? 


*) Sting "The Shape of My Heart"

Daily poem by H.P. Printer

end of life.

Open front door,

Smooth, shiny

surface of black

Close front door.

To exit press ?

Chosen personality

Not available.

This is not a poem. This really is a conversation I had with an HP printer this morning, who happened to be missing yellow cartridge. I just love HP printers for the subtility of inspiration they provide.

“I can’t print in black, because I miss yellow.” Fair enough. I can’t make dinner, because I lost my favourite socks.

“End of life.Open front door,”

You're not dead, you’ve only just arrived at your next destination. Open front door, and see what’s awaiting you outside of your capsule.

Would that be a “smooth, shiny surface of blackness”? If you don’t like it, just close front door. Stay dead, if you have problems accepting the new reality as it is.

Press “?” if you want to exit. That may bring you somewhere else, for instance – to a smooth, shiny surface of yellowness. After someone’s replaced the cartridge, of course.

And do make sure you choose the right kind of personality. The one you’ve selected is currently out of stock.  We can’t all be the same.

HP. HSP. A Highly Sensitive Printer.

PS. In case you enjoy this kind of stuff, chances are that you are an HSP yourself.  In such a case, I seriously recommend a visit to www.hsperson.com as well as the books Elaine Aron has written on the topic. They might help you appreciate the personality you already have, and have your HP printer congratulate you on the occasion:

“If you want to keep chosen personality, press ! Hurrah!”

Nothing rather than Something?

Children are born philosophers, but only some stay that way. Overwhelmed with modern technologies, exposed to constant shifts of attention, they risk losing their capacity for deep reflection. They’ll be quick and efficient in the superficial realms, but as philosophy demands time and profundity, not guaranteeing any quick gains – in fact, guaranteeing no gains at all - they might lose interest in that domain.

That’s why it’s better to limit the game-playing time and let them climb trees more. But what to do if the only trees they are interested in are the digital ones they can construct by themselves? I was quite desperate.

Maybe it is too late? Maybe the brains of my children have gone in the direction predicted by Nicholas Carr in “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains” and they will soon turn into efficient, quick and short-tempered robots (short-tempered they already are), who won’t be able to concentrate on a page of text longer than ½ of an A4 or reflect on anything but how to kill those aliens?

A recent visit to church proved the contrary. Bored during the mass, my 7-year-old bombarded me with questions:

-          How do people know that angels exist?

I was perplexed, but replied:
-          Well, they don’t actually know they exist, they believe they do. Just like some people believe in God, and others don’t.  
-          Can God do anything he wants?
-          Yes, he can.
-          So he can also do nothing? – he grinned suspiciously, as if preparing a trap for me
-          Well… I guess he can do nothing, if he chooses to.
-          But what I mean is not that he lies back and does nothing, but that he creates nothing.
-          You mean, that he doesn’t create anything?
-          No, I mean that he creates a nothing.
To be honest, I felt cornered and wondered if this wasn’t the time to ask him to stop talking. A typical excuse for your own lack of answers. I chose not to say a word, but he continued:
-          No, of course not. Nobody can create a nothing, not even God! – he started to laugh, and there were twinkles in his eyes, as if he’s just made a big discovery.

Which he did.

He will learn one day that there were some people before him who undermined the power of God, by positing that if God is almighty he should also be able to create a stone so heavy that he couldn’t lift it by himself. 

He will also learn that some religions don’t speak of God, but of Nothing. And I hope he can reconcile those notions in his clever blond head. Even if the trees he likes to climb are all digital.