April 28th, 2004
"I've discovered that, although I am good at what I do, I still need to "look the part" and speak at least some of the language. It's hard to do sometimes, because I often sit in meetings and say things that I want to crack up and laugh at ... and then people sit and nod thoughtfully at the pyramid of piss I've just put up!"
-Me, explaining the absurdity of it all as I see it.
"Yeah, talking the talk and walking the walk is real important. And I know what you mean about not laughing when talking shit (and having them eat it up). I think we have something in common there, which is the low male voice of authority. I know I've often been in situations where people take what I say as final word I'm sure for no other reason than I have that type of voice. We've been trained to respond to the booming male voice. A lot of managers use it as a crutch (often unaware)."
-My friend Ken, completely getting my point.
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<Retort>I got an email berating me for my "loose and sloppy definition of systems." Well, phew to you, Stu. I wasn't talking about a scientific definition of open, closed, static, dynamic, cybernetic, etc. systems, I was using my own observation-based definition. And I am very familiar with the concept of negative feedback systems to maintain stability. I just used the fact that one must externally impose constraints on said cybernetic systems as an indication that the system is a maintenance-based failure; it isn't static if one must use feedback loops to charge or discharge elemental properties to maintain a buffer zone. Thank you for your email, though. Despite how it sounds here, I appreciated hearing your feedback.</Retort>
I had a thought the other day that the reason I am obsessing about 1) static and dynamic systems, 2) the toe-hold of life, has everything to do with the fact that I have seen some changes in my life in the past four or five months, and I am really trying to hold on to my old job, while the new company changes things around me. And I am trying to hold on to old habits, while the situation that precipitated them has changed. No wonder there's a lot of stress; I'm pining for Good Old Days that probably never existed except in my mind. My own little mental version of a cybernetic system? :-)
I've been trying to create a static system in my mind based on a dynamic environment. And at the same time I've been prattling on about how a dynamic environment is necessary for life. Almost as though one part of me is telling the other part of me that I've got to change my thinking and behaviour.
Addendum, April 29th: For definitions of what constitutes a cybernetic system, search for the term "cybernetic system" in Google. But the simplest way to understand a cybernetic system is through an example. Here's one: Imagine you live in a house with a furnace and an air conditioner (not a stretch, is it?) Now imagine that your thermostat has these temperature settings: 1) Heat the house if it gets colder than 20 degrees Celsius, 2) Cool the house if it gets hotter than 25 degrees Celsius. That's it. It's a cybernetic system, since it has these features:
- Input (the air conditioner and the furnace)
- Outputs
- A "buffer zone" or "programme range" (in the case above, 20 to 25 degrees)
- Negative feedback (something happens when the range is exceeded)
- Self-awareness (the thermostat)
And that's all there is to it. There are countless examples of cybernetic systems in nature and science (see, my very words betray my prejudice against science as "natural") but my argument never was about what constitutes a system. I was simply saying that systems are all, ultimately, failures, because they need external influences to maintain them. There is no perfect system, therefore there is no such thing as a system. It's just a word slapped on a temporary and dynamic state. And I then got nasty and said it's wishful thinking to pretend that there are such things as systems.