Belly Button Lint

Feeling Lint-y?

Category: Growth

  • Theme:

    Does your leader want you to fail?

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    1–2 minutes

    If yes, get out: without that basic level of trust, you will fail, be it sabotage, gossip, or lack of resources. It is too corrosive.

    If no, communicate better: lead upwards to ensure your leader’s success, which will translate into your own.

  • Theme:

    the industrial cognitive labor trap

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    1–2 minutes

    Industrial work as cognitive labor is a problem: first, industrial work is repetitive, with the worker serving the mechanization of his/her labor. Second, the monotony stifles innovation or novelty, by which you may find value in yourself, leaving the cognitive industrial worker to rely on wealth or status for value, not any inherent/intrinsic virtue.

    This valuation of social status separated from personal worth is vital to undermining any rebellion against the system: you are not you but merely the benefits the system provides. And since the industry champions repetition with only incremental change, the more predictable you are, the more promotable you become.

    And yes, novel risk takers create transformative wealth, but they are not the vast majority of cognitive workers funneled into industrialized, managed positions.

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  • Theme:

    Motivation: The why

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    1–2 minutes

    Anyone, any team, can perform a task. But to do it well repeatedly, they must care, and that comes from belief.

    If the leader doesn’t believe in or effectively communicate the strategy, the project will fail, no matter how talented the people.

    You must know and believe your “why” to motivate and lead.

    from Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, Extreme Ownership

  • Theme:

    who dares, wins

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    1–2 minutes

    Typically, the winner is determined by (1) might (overwhelming scale), (2) surprise (unexpected violence or betrayal), or (3) weak point leverage (fulcrums or flexibility).

    Given the goal of a revolution, you will not have the numbers to win, so the revolutionary must use (2) surprise and/or (3) weak points. This is called terrorism or guerilla warfare.

    To attempt a pacifist rebellion is to protest from inside your moral strictures: we can only beg for concessions and policy tuning from a violent state. Further, in our clamoring, disruptive asking, we are verifying the state’s power to give and our subordinate status.

    If you protest but do not dare, you lose perpetually.

    from Ward Churchill, Pacifism as Pathology

  • Theme:

    doubt and faith

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    1–2 minutes

    Having faith beyond doubt is to stop seeking: perfect faith is perfect stagnation. Pure faith obliterates curiosity.

    You may still perform and struggle, but personal change will be incidental. The world may change through your performance, but only towards a singular, less considered state.

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  • Theme:

    violence as bleach

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    1–2 minutes

    Consider violence as a harsh problem solver: it removes obstructions and stains. However, like any caustic agent, the short-term fix applied repeatedly is corrosive to the structure.
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  • Theme:

    Naivety or the Calculus of Kindness

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    1–2 minutes

    Naivety is not kindness (in fact, it is often cruel), yet kindness is linked to a lack of understanding as if moral action precludes effectual action. Meanwhile, rationality is portrayed as sharp and hard, cutting away the soft for the "greater good."

    However, if rationality leads to kindness, the seemingly foolish move becomes the smart one.

    Still, if we wish kindness to be smart, we will find ways to justify it despite the harsh realities we face daily.

  • Theme:

    learning from your mistakes

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    1–2 minutes

    Crossing a line makes it immediately clear where the line was, but up until then it can seem vaguely established. The action clarifies.

    This prompts two critical responses. Firstly, do you rectify your breach and learn from it? This involves recognition and acceptance that a misstep was made but goes beyond apology into responsibility.

    Secondly, can the lesson transcend specific domains? If viewed as a learning opportunity, a singular failure can catalyze broad improvements or realignments.

    The difficulty with focusing on learning by analyzing mistakes is that it emphasizes not failing, which thwarts risk-taking and becomes less about nurturing resilience and fortitude than maintaining brittle pride. Instead, oscillate your focus: lessons learned should limit repetitive errors, provide predictive models, and bolster forward momentum.

  • Theme:

    winning at losing

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    1–2 minutes

    The problem with winning by identifying with the underdog is the position reversal: once you win, you have moved from identification as the oppressed into a position of oppressor. To maintain your revolt against power you must set yourself up for defeat so that you once again have a bully to fight: put yourself back into the role of oppressed.

    You maintain the moral high ground by deferring the actual responsibility (realpolitik) of retaining the high ground.

    That is to say, the confusion through identification fails in its role to support, focussed more on the optics of maintaining morality and revolution.

  • Theme:

    Beyond Linguistic Duality

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    1–2 minutes

    As soon as you start arguing a binary approach is developed from which to consider and oppose. This is often a linguistic move: seeking the antonym establishes distance and distinction.
    Another way of knowing, outside of concepts of language and conceptual understanding, is realizing something in totality. This is a version of wisdom beyond blunt dualities, yet can appear unintelligent: they do not have articulated language or positions, yet they are avoiding the symbolic logic traps that tangle us.

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