This is a piece I wrote some two years ago, a piece for my daughter before she was born. The reason I did this was because I felt that if something happened to me, I wanted her to have some idea as to who her father was, I wanted her to not be left wondering with nothing but the words of others. It is also where I began to actually connect with her, it made me think more heavily about who I am and what kind of parent I aim to be. It is also where I really started to connect with what I wrote. Perhaps there is some value in it for others too.

This is for the new tag #forthechildren

To Part One

The Endless Conversation (part two)

If we are presented with a problem and we know how to fix it, is it really a problem at all? Let's 'pretend' I am overweight. This is my problem. What do I know about it? Pretty soon (based on what I know) I would come to the conclusion that I should change my eating habits and exercise a bit more. Problem solved. Well no it isn't, as I am yet to actually perform any action based on my thinking. If I think (assuming my solution is correct) and act inline with my solution, the process will lead to weight loss.

However, another problem arises. Knowing what to do and doing what is known are separate mechanisms. I 'may' love cake, or perhaps I hate exercise, or both. This means that the solution to my problem may be located in a region I am unwilling to walk. I think this is why TV shopping makes so much money. They offer 'solutions' to people so that they can avoid the aspects where they experience pain or fear. In my case, giving up cake or going for a jog. When the piece of promise equipment doesn't work, we can blame it for not being good enough and look to purchase a 'better' one. But to actually solve the problem, we have to get to the root of the problem itself, not avoid it.

What are we willing to suffer to solve our problems may be a decent question to ask at this point. For me personally, it seems that I am quite willing to put my body through pain and stress at a gym, yet unwilling to deny myself a piece of chocolate (or an entire block). We all have these areas that we are willing to suffer for and others that we will not go near. This seems natural. But, what if the solution to our problem lays in an area that we are unwilling to suffer yet it is imperative that we solve the issue?

As an example, it seems that we have a few global environmental issues on our hands. Whether man-made or natural, changes in the climate will have drastic effects on the way in which we live and likely, even our survival as a species. I am no expert, but it would appear whatever the solution is, it lays in an area that would mean we would all have to completely restructure the way in which we operate as a society at government, industrial and community levels. The problem is, our society and the cultures held within (which we all created and are all a part of) are both uncomfortable with change and attached to current processes. The solutions probably lays in a cultural no go zone.

Change is movement, and movement requires energy (force) this force applies pressure (stress) and things move and affect other things which in turn, affect more. With our massive brains, we have been able to harness and direct energy ourselves. This gives us the ability to direct change without relying on nature to do it for us. This is great except, we don't fully understand all of this complex universe in which we live and how our direction of energy is going to knock-on to other nodes in the system.

So, we limit it to what we do know because what we don't know we can't factor and, it is generally scary to think about as it is enormous and the unknown contradicts our clever image of ourselves. Due to this, we end up using our hard-earned energy maintaining what we know or developing where we feel comfortable with change. This means that the society we have created with all of our collective thoughts over however many millennia has a built in system to protect it from change, even though, because it lays within a much larger system that influences it, change is inevitable and has been proven in countless ways, right down to our very own DNA.

Perhaps we just aren't willing to ask questions. Society can't ask questions of itself, yet each human component that makes it up can investigate (using the mental simulator) independently, discover and make small changes that could in fact become enormous changes down the line. But doing so would eventually require thoughts and actions that lay outside of the groups norms and, we know how much we don't want to leave the group. We would much rather leave the thinking up to the smart people with high IQ's and degrees that are qualified to do the quality thinking for us.

This seems like a decent process yet they too, with all of their intelligence are consistently caught in the same trap as the rest of us. Remember the smoking and the fossil fuel examples? Expert scientists may have made and developed the goods, expert business leaders and marketers sold them, but we consumed them and therefore we must all take responsibility. This is a system after all. Without a market, every product fails.

In a training session recently, one of my students got an adjustable desk and we talked about it a little. This is the kind that goes up and down at a touch of a button to avoid or alleviate back pain. These seem to be a good idea and perhaps every office worker should have one as standard but, that is a different matter.

Another member of the group had had one for a while already and I asked how often he used it. He replied not so often, but he adjusted it whenever he felt pain in his back. We tend to only shift our position when we are in pain, under pressure, uncomfortable or suffering. If we know this is the case, we can mentally simulate potential physical, psychological and emotional pain areas without any risk. Wouldn't we then have a chance to move the proverbial desk before the pain starts?

Taraz

To Part Three

Perhaps you have heard some of this before, perhaps not but it is was a point where many ideas converged and a point from which many more sprang. This was almost a year before I joined Steemit and started to write. Some of my thoughts might have changed, many have stayed the same but, I do feel like I am growing and each day, becoming a better parent than I was yesterday. Feel free to comment and add your views. I will link the next tomorrow.