Paper Clips Parable

[Thanks to Bill Moore for planting this seed in his weekly sermon!]

In 1958, Lloyd’s Bank of London undertook a study to find out what happens to a typical batch of paper clips as they are released throughout the workforce.

Out of their original batch of 100,000 paper clips, they found that:

·         3,916 were used to unplug tobacco pipes;

·         5,308 were used to clean under fingernails;

·         5,423 were used to pick teeth or scratch ears;

·         7,200 were used as hooks for belts, suspenders, or bras;

·         14,163 were snapped, broken, or otherwise twisted during phone conversations;

·         19,143 became mock card game chips;

·         approximately 25,000 became lost, swept up off the floor or thrown away.

Only 20,000 of the original batch of paper clips (20%) were actually used to clip papers together.

So-o-o … It turned out that only a minority of these paper clips, each one created for a specific function, was ever used for their intended design! The overwhelming majority were used to fulfill some ancillary purpose.  

The saddest fact is that more paper clips (25%) were swept away and left unaccounted for than were used for their originally designed purpose.

However, the “flip side” of this story is that such a simple device was found to have so many different – ancillary – uses.  And there was no way of tracking how many different uses EACH ONE of the paper clips was called upon to fulfill, or (since they are re-usable) how many different batches of paper any one of them was called upon to bind together! 

Here’s the parable:

The paperclip is of no use unless it is bent to the specifications of its designer.  It starts out as a straight piece of wire. 

 It must be FLEXIBLE/MALLEABLE (VULNERABLE) enough to be shaped into something useful, yet strong enough to retain its useful shape and perform under pressure. 

A “hardened” wire that refuses to be bent – as in “I’m just fine the way God made me!” or “You can’t hurt me!” – will remain much more limited in its usefulness and utility.

It remains an enigma how such “hardened” wires can become so twisted over time – so “bent out of shape” from internal intractability as to become even less useful:

 How like life that is!  Flexibility, malleability, and vulnerability … accompanied by core strength and resilience of character … are key hallmark elements needed for successful navigation of life.  With these elements in place, one can fill many different purposes in many different circumstances over time.  Strengthening our constitution, then submitting / subjecting ourselves to great purposes and allowing ourselves to become BENT to the specifications required for those purposes undergirds our greatest hope for a  future worth everything that’s in us.  Quartermaster

Mind Minding

 “ … findings … published in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion [by Anthony Fabio, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh] indicate that among people predisposed to hostility, watching more TV than their peers poses a greater risk for injuries requiring hospitalization – potentially because they are more susceptible to television’s influence on violence and risk-taking behaviors.”  [Micaela Corn, Pitt Magazine, Winter 2016, p. 26]

Aside from the obvious, several things caught my attention in this article. 

First was the conjecture that some people are “predisposed to hostility”.  How so?  Such a “predisposition” might, of course, arise from genetic imprints or from the environment or from both – TBD.  However, I’m inclined to think, no matter what the genetic imprint endows, reinforcement or de-inforcement from the environment can have a defining impact.  Thus, whether one does or does not have an inborn inclination to violence or hostility, a predominating exposure to violence and hostility will either reinforce or over-ride the original hardware.  In the latter case [i.e., with an originally “non-predisposed” blueprint], a predominating exposure will essentially REWIRE the workings to create a de facto “predisposition”. 

It turns out that the brain is an exquisitely malleable organ!  Thus, it can be “Post-Disposed” to whatever it is “fed” or challenged to tackle.  From Stanford University, we get this clip:  

“ … today we recognize that the brain continues to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. This phenomenon, called neuroplasticity, allows the neurons in the brain to compensate for injury and adjust their activity in response to new situations or changes in their environment.” http://web.stanford.edu/group/hopes/cgi-bin/hopes_test/neuroplasticity/

Second, the increased liabilities among this “hostility” group may not simply be a matter of watching more TV, but a matter of selectively watching more violent TV.  Thus, one can vicariously identify with superheroes unbounded by social norms.  Being, thus, vicariously “licensed” as a superior being with superior intellect, superior prowess and superior powers, it “naturally” follows that there are associated immunities which compel and indemnify higher risk-taking behavior.  “Untouchable” and “immortal” are associated inclinations predisposing one to hostility and increased risk-taking.   

Impulse control in response to the environment is one of the defining challenges of a nascent and immature mind. 

Mental immersion or “trafficking” in the gratuitously sensual is a “Gateway” pursuit, predisposing one to multiple calamitous outcomes. 

With reinforcement of such immersion, increasingly permanent tracks are etched in the brain which cannot easily be “pruned”.  Unfortunately, trash tends to pile up! 

“Garbage in, garbage out!”

Information Technology Axiom

And when the Environmental Services trucks (self-editing, societal disapprobation or professional intervention) are deterred from clearing it away, it can become an intractable barrier to progress.

PTSD is a complex mental immersion construct that can rarely be completely undone.  But emerging neuroplasticity research, combined with new tools being developed in Virtual Reality, and combined with high intensity exercise regimens, may bring new promising possibilities.     

Mind-altering drugs modulate multiple levels of “neuroplasticity” – both chemical (via neurotransmitter mimicking or antagonism, including hypersensitization and desensitization/tachyphylaxis), and biological (carving out alternative neuronal “tracks”).  Provocative/violent movies, video games and TV can, similarly, be categorized as “virtual pharmacologics”.  Trafficking in child pornography on the internet is a massively expanding public health concern. 

Diet is one of the most diverse sources of brain-body interaction that can dramatically affect brain function.  While a highly selective “Blood-Brain Barrier” exists to protect – generally – against toxicities and inflammation, biologic mimetics and hyper-or hypo-physiologic signaling can cause major havoc, leading to degenerative changes, dependencies and addictions.   

Thus, “neuroplasticity” runs both ways:  Optimal conditions can enhance neuronal capacity and trafficking, whereas sub-optimal or toxic conditions (perhaps including stress?) can limit or diminish or derange capacity.  We’re still stuck with greater or lesser modulations in our fundamental biology.  (While some claim IQ can be affected to modest degrees, nobody has yet figured out how to make us all geniuses – I’m still anxiously waiting!) 

Finally, while all may not be lost in sub-lethal traumatic brain injury, the recovery of completely “normal” function in such cases – or following years of abuse or neglect – becomes less likely with time.  “Scarring”, both chemical, biological and psychological, can impose severe limitations on functional recovery/restoration.

Every moment we’re making judgment calls.   “This is OK.” “This is NOT OK.”  “Do THIS, not THAT.”  “I can do better.”  “Time is slipping away.”  “I can’t be bothered.”  “I HAVE TO be bothered!”  Better judgment calls come from experience in making better judgment calls. 

Summation:  Whatever we are predisposed – or become “post-disposed” – to be, do or pursue, we are built with an amazing capacity to survive.  Whether one is inclined to believe that capacity is bestowed by a creative Power of the universe or by “Survival of the Fittest” emergence from astronomical dust, the capacity is awesome.  However, that capacity can be compromised or violated in many different ways.  But it can also be expanded.  How we do our “Mind Minding” in the 21^st Century will become increasingly critical.  The top 350 million “fittest” out of a world population of 7 billion will be positioned not only to survive but to thrive.  The rest will increasingly and unnecessarily struggle – mostly because of neglected or abused “Mind Minding”.  Quartermaster  

“Binge-O-Meter” Point to Ponder

“After analyzing viewing habits for more than 100 serialized TV shows, Netflix found that some genres are fully consumed – a season watched from start to finish – faster than others.  Fast-paced, twisty thrillers and horror shows like Breaking Bad hook viewers for 2 ½ hours a day, on average.”  [TIME, June 27, 2016, p. 23]

Force the Issue

In describing the ERTIA UNLIMITED “Lifecourse Diagram”, one of the major points to be made is how important it is to make ourselves “helpable” … i.e., by showing some degree of initiative … by being a “Player” , with an inclination to advance and with some reasonable prospects and positive possibilities of making life happen.  Otherwise – with our innate inclination to defy the very “authorities” that are pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into our personal universes to help get us appropriately launched – those huge investments will dry up and leave us holding empty bags blowing in the wind. 

Unfortunately, we never see it coming!  We’re too busy seeing how much we can “get away with”! 

“Man is a curious creature:

He can’t read the handwriting on the wall

until his back is up against it.”

Adlai Stevenson

And why should we?  Life just continues to get better … doesn’t it?

We start out life completely hapless and helpless but, over time, we become independent forces to be reckoned with.  By age 1, we’re beginning to walk and talk.  By age 2, we learn the word “NO!” and begin asserting our own will and determining our own Destiny.  (Look out world, here we come!)  By age 5, we’re in kindergarten and beginning to read (we don’t “know any better”!).  Each August, we start a higher grade in school and make new friends (and start believing we “Know it ALL”).  At age 16, we get a driver’s license; age 18, we graduate and get to vote in real elections and drink real alcohol; age 21, we get to declare ourselves completely independent; we get a job, get married, have children, buy a house, get promoted, buy a boat, go on cruises, etc., etc., etc, and eventually retire to Florida.  Ain’t life GRAND! 

Besides all that, even the “losers” on TV sitcoms seem to be doing OK and they’re not even half as “Special” as we are!

Facts are hard, and hard facts are sobering.

We are, in fact, NOT going to “make it” – at least in the manner to which we would like to become accustomed – without substantial investment on our own part, taking on increasingly challenging tasks and responsibilities under increasingly demanding supervision with increasingly global expectations without help from substantially significant others. 

·         Donald Trump wasn’t launched in life at a minimum wage job in a sweat factory.

·         All major professional sports figures have “Agents” who look after their wellbeing

·         Professional Mentors and “References” are extremely helpful in advancing professionally.

And if you can’t bring something other than “Joker” cards to add to the deck, you’re not going to be a viable “Player” at the table. 

Point to Ponder

The “Unconditional Love” of our earliest years becomes more “Conditional” with time.

I marvel at what I call the GREAT DISCONNECT of Country-Western Songs:

[Ref.  http://lifemasterymusings.blogspot.com/search?q=San+Francisco]

“San Francisco Bay Blues” [by Jesse Fuller]

“I got those Blues where my baby left me down by the ‘Frisco Bay.

An ocean liner came and took her away.

I didn’t mean to treat her so bad;

She was the best girl I ever had.

She said ‘Goodbye’; she made me cry;

She made me wanna lay down my head and die.

I ain’t got a nickel an’ I ain’t got a lousy dime.

If she don’t come back, I think I’m gonna lose my mind.

If she ever comes back to stay, it’s gonna be another brand new day …

Walkin’ with my baby by the San Francisco Bay ..

Walkin’ with my baby by the San Francisco Bay.”

OK, how about let’s get real?  With background revelations like “treating her so bad” and “I ain’t got a nickel an’ I ain’t got a lousy dime”, one has to ask:

What in the world could one rightfully expect

“the best girl I ever had” to do?

C’mon, man, let’s own up here! 

How much personal equity are you putting into this relationship?

And what kind of a “Catch” are you, anyway?

Then there’s

“I can’t give you anything but love, baby. 

That’s the one and only thing I’ve plenty of, baby.”

Jimmy Mc Hugh & Dorothy Fields

In the words of Charles Barkley:  “Is that all you got!?!”

Empty pockets, poor prospects and pandering promises won’t fly very high, very far, for very long.  

One of the most iconic fables of both the 20^th and 21^st centuries – so far – was Star Wars, along with it’s sequelae and prequelae.  Its indelible tag line was: “May the Force be with you!” 

What was left unsaid was:

“The Force” can’t – and WON’T – positively influence INERT GOODS!

The “Force” referred to in this narrative is the impact of significant others.  It’s what got Wilma Rudolph multiple Gold, Bronze and Silver medals in the Olympics and Pan American Games; it’s what got Barack Obama – and every other President – elected to the Presidency of the United States of America; and it’s what got this writer both a Ph.D. degree and every major career move. 

So here’s the “Charge” and the “Challenge”: FORCE THE ISSUE!  Become ERT material!  Make an imprint.  “Lean In”.  Make something Good happen.  Make something GREAT happen!  Be a “Player”.  Put all the assets you’ve got to work.  Light up SOMETHING on the scoreboard!  Become “investible” material and get connected to someone or something that’s going somewhere.  Without an external force like the wind, a kite won’t fly.  Favorable forces are “out there” waiting for ERT Material to materialize.  I can’t wait to see where your ERT is going to take you!!  Quartermaster