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novapsycheToday, while waiting for my bus, I witnessed a family of at least 20 ducks cross a 4-lane highway at the height of rush hour. It was not something one sees every day! (And it was such a nice day, too. I can see why those ducks wanted to get over to the little pool on the other side of the road....)
I'm currently working at Title One, a title company. I type and fiddle with files all day. I don't deal with the public. That's the major plus to the job. Also, my office environment is interesting. There are between 20-30 employees in our building, and I see about 10 on a regular basis. The people are funny (one sardonically so), gossipy, and coarse (it is not uncommon for employees to let fly one or more curse words.) It's unline any office I've worked in before. If only the position paid better. I'm going to ask for a raise in a couple of weeks.
Politeness and other social conventions are ways we are taught to automatically treat somebody.
But we don't know how to treat people. We have generalized gestures, mechanistic phrases, jargon, lingo, and pithy sayings that reduce our interactions with other humans to tasks that require little thought or emotion. Politeness is enacted with little thought or emotion; but there are so many applications for the phrase "excuse me" that such conventions are efficient modes of communication.
However, if we take the time to understand someone, we automatically know exactly how to treat that person. The empathy is natural. The gestures are no longer automatic as they are for the stranger. Any solutions that might be conceived would be done in common, as per the norm. This is what compromise is, honestly mutual compromise. (The compromise might even be a covenant.)
***
If Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to toss his hat into the recall election in California, why can't the Democrats elect a movie star for President? Someone who's already played the President. We could give potential candidates a battery of tests; or maybe put them on a new reality TV show that would be the biggest summertime hit, Nielsen-wise.
***
The government's program to give security volunteers/recruits paid college tuition strikes me as resembling Babylon 5's Nightwatch. At least the baby steps, the building blocks, of a U.S. equivalent.
I'm currently working at Title One, a title company. I type and fiddle with files all day. I don't deal with the public. That's the major plus to the job. Also, my office environment is interesting. There are between 20-30 employees in our building, and I see about 10 on a regular basis. The people are funny (one sardonically so), gossipy, and coarse (it is not uncommon for employees to let fly one or more curse words.) It's unline any office I've worked in before. If only the position paid better. I'm going to ask for a raise in a couple of weeks.
Politeness and other social conventions are ways we are taught to automatically treat somebody.
But we don't know how to treat people. We have generalized gestures, mechanistic phrases, jargon, lingo, and pithy sayings that reduce our interactions with other humans to tasks that require little thought or emotion. Politeness is enacted with little thought or emotion; but there are so many applications for the phrase "excuse me" that such conventions are efficient modes of communication.
However, if we take the time to understand someone, we automatically know exactly how to treat that person. The empathy is natural. The gestures are no longer automatic as they are for the stranger. Any solutions that might be conceived would be done in common, as per the norm. This is what compromise is, honestly mutual compromise. (The compromise might even be a covenant.)
***
If Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to toss his hat into the recall election in California, why can't the Democrats elect a movie star for President? Someone who's already played the President. We could give potential candidates a battery of tests; or maybe put them on a new reality TV show that would be the biggest summertime hit, Nielsen-wise.
***
The government's program to give security volunteers/recruits paid college tuition strikes me as resembling Babylon 5's Nightwatch. At least the baby steps, the building blocks, of a U.S. equivalent.