Inheritance Inheritance

Ever since my little baby girl was born, the question of what to leave her with has been haunting me, you know, when I am gone.

It might not be unusual for any dads to want all the good things to be happening to their children, even though that is mathematically impossible. I have been thinking, if there is one thing I want to leave my daughter with, what is it?

Surely you would hope your offspring carry all the good genes you have been proud and bragging about; surely you would also hope all the good stuff has not landed onto you would land on her; surely you would hope she is going to enjoy her life like anyone has or hasn't been able to; you might also go as far as wishing that those hardships, which made who you are, are not going to make her struggle as much as you have done…the wish list is endless.

STOP.

None of these are within your control, no matter how much insurance you have put aside to reinforce the unpredictable, no matter what wise choices you want to make on her behalf. This is beyond you, and that, is a fact.

So the question is, what is the thing YOU want to leave her with?

What would be the one thing when she grows up, and I am gone, she would appreciate, more than anything else? That seems to lead to a plausible answer, memory, or in logical terms, evidence of all what has happened. Admittedly, this is the reason for my "one DVD for every birthday". Memory is what completes the missing of existence, what offers a sense of belonging.

To put this into perspective, what can we leave to the next generation who will be standing on the same planet as we do?

As intelligent specie as ourselves, we are often driven by the very question of who we are, what our purposes are, if any. Although sometime I do find it fascinating that when we try to understand so much about the world while we know so little about ourselves, little about where we came from. Just you know, the acceptable answer for me to question like "what will you do when it is coming to the end of this physical world" would be, preserving human knowledge.

Another one of my wildest imagination is that if there is a gigantic recording device, casting upon on planet earth, to record anything and everything that has been going on this very place from the point of time of which we can comprehend till now, to go on to the rest of our existence. Can you imagine what it is like if we get hold of that tape, sit down and watch? Apart from the overwhelming length of time, I think we will be bored with all the blank and repetitive daily activities the human race has been carrying over centuries, even with fast forward key pressed. There is just not that much of excitement. Moments such as great inventions, major history changing events, or even wars, will seem to be such rare seasonings on a massive plate of fried potatoes – there is just not much thrilling stuff going on.

But then, if you try to keep yourself awake during this long movie, and watch really close, I think you would probably find, there are some interesting aspects of history, although seemingly random and ad hoc, were driven to certain directions by those rare sparkling moments, by which I believe, mutation is the decisive factor of nature evolution. The impact of such moments depends on the context, but the common trait is, these are never created by one individual; they are collective efforts. Every hero has his time and place, where his influence converged with a stream of efforts resulting at critical mass. Only by then, the normal daily life is subtly being swayed from one route to another, undetectable for most of us.

Now, back to what I was nagging about inheritance. Officially I don't want 20 years down the line, there is my daughter, sit and get bored by the long-winded DVDs with no excitement whatsoever. Apart from telling her what has happened before she could remember, it won't tell her anything about who her dad is. For her and my own sake, it seems that the choice is fairly simple - contributing to the critical mass aggregation activities. At the very least, I would have something for her to feel thrilled about.

My time is limited

I don't like wasting time, wasting time with whoever appears to be hapless.

Not that I don't like to help, but if you appear to be hapless and clueless in sorting your own shit out, how am I supposed to believe that you are going to make our interaction not just as dull and disheartening as you are?

No offence, but my time is limited.

I am like a lot of other souls out there, desperately want to enjoy a meaningful conversation, and seeking for good causes for amusement, as Bill Bryson puts it. Conventionally, some may argue, not everybody has the luxury to undertake such search, when many of us fix our heads in commitment to make ends meet, despite the indulgence leading to the ever increasing outgoings. That's a choice, isn't? So I say, if you even consider yourself to be a boring person, go away so we can avoid the embarrassment and the likelihood that both of us get upset, I really don't have time for that.

Believe me, it does not take a great physiatrist to tell whether someone is trying to make things better, trying things which aren't destined to be. Those who do not accept what's been given easily are those who has hope to get out; for others who are willing to take what has been left or lack the motivation to refuse, their chances of getting anybody's time are slim, if at all possible.

So pretty simple, if you want my help and time, make yourself worthwhile first, otherwise you are just robbing me off, and that, is not tolerable.

Pointless exercise

Let me start this by asking you a question, is there a moment you suddenly realise, "oh crap, whatever has been kept me busy like hell in the last 12 months has just been rendered as useless. It is not going to make any difference in what matters." If the answer is positive, then you would probably want to continue to read the following.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I am sure you probably had been working your ass off, and probably had succeeded a few things in the stuff you had your eyes on, or had made some customer smiling rather than grudging, launching couple of products onto the market which made onto some sort of review lists. That is probably giving you a warm feeling of accomplishment, or fulfilment. But, you know that's not what I am talking about; the funny thing is, that's also not what you, have been thinking about either.

So what's wrong?

Needless to say that everything is moving at a speed which is slightly over what we have been trained for, which is not necessary a bad thing by the way. We convince ourselves that we know how the shit runs, and we cook out a plan to get us from where we are to where we want to be. As you don't have too much time to think, which you might have been kept telling yourself of, you decided to get started. "We can't predict the future", as we normally referred to back up our ways of working.

True that.

We forgot something. So what is it?

Well, before we go any further, let's take a brief look at the two causes which make this negligence almost inevitable, almost.

·         Firstly, we are busy, way too busy. "I am already late for another meeting which I don't think I want to miss"; "if I don't reply this email within next 5 minutes, someone is going to jump off the cliff, literally."; "You must be joking me! We absolutely can not delay this for another day, either I have this by end of today, or I am not going to make it for tomorrow morning coffee."; "We have to get this bug fixed within this week, otherwise we are shut off from this customer forever and ever.". If any of these sound familiar, then you have just identified yourself to be in this group. But don't worry, we are certainly not alone here.

·         Secondly, our heads are in the sand, very deep. "We have been pulling every string possible, throwing every heads available, doing every thing we can, to make this happen - we are on schedule."; "Damn it, why the blood-swearing design doesn't appeal to the focus group, we must have got the wrong crowd, or the sampling method is wrong"; "We are the market leader in our sector, but not sure what happened, within 3 months, that market has been superseded"; "We are closely following our competition, we are ready to take them head on…WTF, it looks like we are in totally different games here. They are not even looking at what we have been doing". As I said, when we are walking on top of some level of establishment, that establishment appears to be eternal, regardless what second laws of thermodynamics thinks.  The thing is, nothing is there forever, not even the same every other day, if we really want to get philosophical.

The two causes are leading to the same consequence, we are way out, we don't even have the right target, or it's evolving, and we are not – we are fucked.

What makes this even more painful and hard to swallow is, at subconscious level, you actually knew this, you knew you are looking at a moving target, you knew you are not keeping up with what is happening out there, you knew you will miss the pole, you knew you are doomed – you knew this will be another, pointless exercise, all along.

Why didn't you do something about that? Now you see why I want to lay out the two causes first, they are just there.

We don't want to change, that's what I believe as the fundamental nature of human mind, or the source of the profound conflicts with reality – everything changes, at all times. (And yes, I never believed those who tell me in interviews that they are not afraid of changes.). The fact is,

• -          "who am I to question the status quo?"
• -          We don't spend enough time in watching everything else is going on while our own shit is being dealt with on daily basis, fires all over the place.
• -          Under statistic assumption, when some of us picked up the scent of moving targets, we convince ourselves with figures, measurement, or whatever we find emotionally pleasing, that everybody else is wrong, we are right. We will come out as the one stick to the plan and win.
• -          Ok, we knew we might be off the mark now, but what can we do about it? "There is too much uncertainties, and I am not the one setting the post, why should I take the risk now? I mean, after all, if I see it, someone else must have seen it too right?", "we don't have a better plan so I'd say we do what we have said we're gonna do, and leave the rest to the higher power".

-          We miss what really matters, not because we don't see it, it is because what matters is normally hard, and we don't like that.

This time it is a certainty – a pointless exercise. It will be a cruel reality check for individual and entire organisation. More often than not, this will come at a time when it is already too late.

Had enough of this? Well, the way out is pretty simple, just do the opposite of everything I have just rambled down.