CuppaGemma

“Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.”  Sigmund Freud

We can only go so far and so long not noticing before the mental cost of delusion-ation outweighs fixing the problem. The slam of reality against our shell game of perception can at times lead to a grand sad story of implosion. Or as was more eloquently stated….

“The reality is more excellent than the report.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

From a distance you can look in at systems and groups and see larger themes and patterns. When you are away from the emotion and the drama of the moment, you can see how the dominoes line and will fall. An interesting read on this is by Jared Diamond, his book COLLAPSE is well worth a reread.

So why all these thoughts on failure- why the focus on the brokenness of people or the disheartening outplay of events?

It’s always intrigued me what can be learned from how things fall apart. What’s the fault line that led to an implosion? Where are the granite walls against communication installed. How is it that some folks are mired in on set of systems or thoughts, and how can we work together to unmire and do things differently now?

But you can’t just sit and watch and think and thank and thunk till the day and the week are done. Or commit just a little bit, see how things go and then move in more.

“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.” Meister Eckhart

“The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to leap a chasm in two jumps” David Lloyd George

Origami is the same and different each time. You have a piece of paper that is a square and you make it something else. To do it properly the folds must be crisp and even. If you do nothing, you create nothing. If you sit with the paper neatly tidied in cellophane wrapping going on and on to others on all that will come of it, one day all you will have is yellowed blank paper and coulda woulda spools that you have to keep recrafting instead of remembering.

I prefer the company of men at work.

It is with regret and pragmatism I make the observation that the company of women in the workforce can in many cases be reduced to archetypal Grimm characters who have lost their edge but crack the whip. Many, not all.

There is something among women that cannot be shared.  Not the gallant prince, but power. No one will deny that women have to work hard, often harder than their male counterparts and still will receive less compensation, smaller titles and ultimately less respect. The dragon breath of reality sighs upon us. Okay, so be it, we will manage.

Many of us are driven to work hard, be agile and smash ceilings. We buy aspirin and mints. There is a fatal flaw I have noticed showing itself in more than one job and in more than one instance.

The way up, and remaining up will always be a marathon not a relay race. Only one woman can get crowned.

That’s the crux of it. We don’t look to other women as people we will help to also step up. We don’t build a network of friendships and support.  We forget the value of collaboration. We use other women to get us where we need to be, or to reemphasize why one and only one of us may be on top.

On order of a mortal sin, someone who is younger, simpler and less jaded may not replace one in a position of respect and power. Power, like a man, cannot be shared.

Cindys the world over must find a way to deal with this.

In many instances we can do a great number of things but are intentionally marginalized with tasks of sorting lentils from ashes. So over and again the work is done with a smile, and the whip is cracked. The relationship did not start out that way of course. In the company of women, a younger one is taken in by an older one to help set things straight, make things better.

And all is well and good inside the moated universe of the office until the handmaiden is perceived to be outshining the mentor in one way or another. This will simply not do. It can not be allowed. She will be picked apart to the bone, or laden with too many tasks to ever accomplish them all, or each task will be microscopically dissected and sent back for revision.

Could Grimm write us a tale set in the modern office?

Women have subtle ways of denying one another. The New York Times did a piece on this, Backlash: Women Bullying Women at Work on May 9th. The quotes in it are telling. No one wants to mention it. Women have quit over it. We are all holding ourselves back because of it.

It’s there as a wholly different problem then a nice set a gams being remembered more than a pitch for a change in strategy. This problem with men is known and tractable.  But women sharing power- that’s a game of musical chairs. There is only one throne to be had.

We forget Emily Post and play passive aggressive chess matches of belittlement where the pawn can’t specifically call out the queen unless she is speaking with a rook or knight who happens to be in the right time and space to understand.

The problem with the company of women is that we are expected to serve as a shadow, not as a team.

One woman serves as the other’s step.

For whatever bundle of cultural mores we cannot be the group that rows in sync and that hand over hand helps to bring others all up. We do not want to add more girls to the board room. It seems, in the company of women that more than one in the position of power is intrinsically threatening. Darn, I thought we had already graduated high school.

In the original Grimm’s story it is the little pigeons who cry, “Turn and peep, turn and peep”.

They get the attention of the king’s son and he passes on the false bride (who actually hacks off her own toe to make the shoe fit) for Cinderella instead. In the workforce of women the goal is not to be the bride (there are indeed those of us who have been there, done that).

The goal is to level the field.

A chance to work hard and to be respected for what you can do. The ability to serve and build a team. To make things happen. And were we to help one another out, a level field would mean more women overall. That’s not a moral I have found. Yet. Because it is in many, not all places that we find this dynamic.

So we reach out beyond the confines of one little moat and look elsewhere. We work with men, we work with women who are compassionate over competitive or we go off and do our own thing. Create our own set of rules. We don’t play games.

If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we
should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as
well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics
of probability.   Vannevar Bush

Texas Hold’em is a game about which I would like to know both more and less.

Less because it reminds me of the distasteful smell of thick billfolds, cigars, french fries and marriage. More because understanding people how they attempt to maneuver you, how you could maneuver them is intriguing. And more because there is something in the brokenness of greed to see banker boys going bald in better suits, yet still the same silly kids spilling ketchup on their pants in the heat of a moment.

French fries, it would appear is something not to be outgrown regardless of socio-economic status. I suppose it would be useful to know a bit about the cards too, but the whole game really is about something else.

It’s what happens between hands.

“Having the nuts” means you are the man on the top of the game.  Beyond Sklansky even, you own it and the pot like some desired woman will be yours. But really what the game is a little bit of math and a lot a bit of tom foolery. I like the game without the cards. Though much can be said for how they are held, thrown and the “what you do” with your chips.

How do you earn trust and then make that into something for your own benefit, to be used against the person who has now disrobed their mind or their hand a little bit more than is proper? They are all like peacocks or turkeys trying to subtly grandstand out one another.  That’s the whole point of the game. To get into their head, know what they are thinking and play three steps ahead of it. The wisest player of all never forgets it is a game, no more and no less.

I recall nights in Tokyo when the games were smaller and I’d bring drinks and noshes back and forth. I didn’t mind the task since I was wholly amused at the posturing and the talk- like a really good bout of marbles and pool chicken rolled up into one and with a couple of hundred dollars at stake.

The games then went on larger pots and more appropriate venues since it would be passe to order in Domino’s pizza and drink domestic.  The bigger leagues meant the American Club, cigars and somewhat better hamburgers. Then you play for four and five figures.

There was something about the game of manipulation and blank faces or innocuous questions that both riled and made me want to pay attention.

If you know the game you can understand it, and outwit it- or at the very least sense the marionette strings that are being tied to your arms. Then you can tangle them because you understand the connections.

If money’s not an issue, then there is no issue.  That snips the strings and stabs the heart of ego with a rusted dagger.

Once you see the pot as a pile of bills and nothing more you’ve bested the players, because there is no competition, the pot is just money.

Money without desire is just a bunch of numbers. It could be compared with a ladies afternoon of shopping and haggling. Frocks and baubles. The power of retail conquest.  And to compare the game of men with the arena of what women do causes discomfort below the navel, since prowess is compromised by comparison.

Damned metaphors stain the mind.

“Out out brief candle….

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

signifying nothing.”

“To maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant …” Stephen Colbert

When the amount of effort you need to spend to rationalize to yourself that, this is “okay” exceeds the amount of effort you would spend on solving the problem, it’s time to move on and step away.

We can only rationalize so long and so far, that if only we tried a little harder and did a little better things will improve. But this is not Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne. They were a team who worked together, and in end helped all the folks in Popperville with their town hall.

The awareness and acceptance that a position is untenable means that you know systemically something is broken and further instead of helping hands to change a tough situation to a hopeful one– there is finger wagging, cover your cooley speeches and a discounting of both the issue or the accountability and the actual scope of the problem.

Divorce can be like that. You are supposed to work things out. For a lot of different becauses. Then you have two people who can have wildly different interpretations on what is broke, how to fix it and why it all got to the point it is.

But ultimately you have something that lacks friendship and a willingness to give hope bones.

The same can be said of a job or a company. Because all we are really is the relationships we have with people when you boil it down.

And if at the root of concern is a lack of trust and an unwillingness to be honest, then you either decide to numb yourself with bland pleasantries and count the hours to being somewhere else. You work hard at not noticing reality.  Maybe there is some salve in petty nastiness, but like too much tequila at the bar, that wears off pretty soon and then you feel sick.

Very hard, so hard you lose track of the story you tell yourself on why this is working and is within the scope of normalcy. You whitewash comments and commentary to your friends and family. It’s easier that way.

Or you take steps to cleave yourself out of the situation before it starts to bring you down too. Having experience both ends of the equation (rationalization and candidness), and in the context of divorce and work, I have found it’s much easier start over. The precise moment when the string snaps and actions get taken is another post. Because thoughts need to be actions not only late night ceiling stares. And how you do that cannot be reduced to bullet points.

It’s a private folding of hand where you quit the game. No pomp and circumstance.

Just, I’ve had enough and good night.