rethink PERFECT

I was wondering, today, if couples in relationships ever fear growing apart, in effect have a fear of growing?

Although this term “…we grew apart” can be a bit/lot of a cliche there may be some real meaning or truth to the term.

Growing apart is obviously not physically growing but putting on weight could be another issue. So, presumably the growing means in the mind in an awareness and understanding of one’s self, each other and in life. That is, one person growing more aware than the other is the possible implicit fear, maybe.

But what if part of the growing awareness included how to bring along one’s partner, in effect grow together? This would alleviate the fear of growing apart. This fear, if it exists could explain how relationships can become stale and could very well result in the actual failure of such a relationship. Ironic really.

So, once we have overcome this potential fear of growing unevenly or apart we could then encourage each other to continually grow. But what is this “growth” that would allow us to help to bring along the other? I suggest it could be the growth in being aware of how we can continually grow and how to counter the fear of growing apart. I have a feeling that this is a long lost understanding or awareness that we all were designed to nurture continually in our life. ie this post is part of that awareness, maybe.

Yes this is a big call on my behalf and opens me up to prove a lot but I am starting to feel pretty confident that I may have stumbled on something unusual and original but most of all, something that is actually provable, measurable, practical and not just a philosophical idea.

I think this “growth” in awareness of how to grow in awareness is measurable and predictable and now I guess it is up to me to develop an experiment to do just this. Watch this space.

Refer to Rocket Science for further reading on how I think one can achieve this growth

“It’s not rocket science…” was the quote from Max, a guy I spoke/conversed with last night about the number one method that I think we humans use to increase awareness and understanding of a subject ie using conversation to convert.

I said to him that either is E=MC2 rocket science after it was coined, in my view, but the math behind it, I believe is complex and took Albert Einstein years to create/discover something so simple.

So here is mine:

RPC=((OC+F)⇔(A±S))

Rethink Perfect Conversation is for converting our Own Concepts through Feedback into Agreements and possible (plus or minus) Solutions

Once this is agreed to as not “rocket science” then we can simply ask the question why have we not personally or communally developed further rules of engagement, besides etiquette and politeness, to cope with serious use of such a simple equation and process? That is some rules for when the equation is perverted by one of us trying to convert the other’s concepts and not our own. And why, when I mention the need for such agreed rules do I get such looks like someone just sucked a lemon?

I don’t think that using conversation to  convert our own concepts. from other peoples’ feedback, into agreements and possible solutions, is rocket science either but it has taken me some 30 years to realise this explanation/equation and I think some 30 years more to complete and test the formula and to use it for converting the formula even further along with all the problems that I find myself with, from now on.

My letter to Lara Giddings Premier of Tasmania

(on the subject of the new euthanasia bill proposed for Tasmania)
Hi Lara;
When they argue that the medical staff should not HAVE to help people die,why not simply say that the people that assist to die should be volunteers.

My mum helped her friend, who was suffering from motor neuron disease, to die by asking the staff to do something and they used morphine. But it should not be up to us to have to make such decisions.

Thanks again for your new bill proposal.

Des Sherlock

[her reply]

On behalf of the Premier, Lara Giddings MP, I acknowledge and thank you for your email.
Kind regards

Elisa Robinson

Executive Assistant

Office of Lara Giddings MP
Premier
Treasurer
Minister for the Arts

This is my response to this image posted on Nat’s Facebook that was considered funny and light hearted.

Cat: oh yeah!!! Hearing ya!!

Desmond Sherlock: I think there will come a time when we will realise that anger is as unacceptable as prejudice and sexism. Sorry not funny to me

Scott: Anger is an emotion, its innate and healthy. Sexism & Prejudice are learned behaviours??? I think it would be totally acceptable to become angry if someone acted towards me with prejudice, how I act on my anger is the clincher!!

Desmond Sherlock: Funny, I find that people that try to justify their anger tell me this a lot when I mention that I think anger is understandable but to me no acceptable. I think anger is a choice of mine determined by my resentment when I have expectations of others. Simply put when I reduce my expectations of others I get angry less.

Have you ever noticed how some people get more angry than others over the same thing or that we may have gotten angry more when we were younger and in less control of our expectations of others?

I dont think I would like to hang around someone that felt that they can already justify their anger with me
now before it even happened as you seem to have done here. If I get angry at anyone for whatever reason, I think I first off owe them an apology for my poor behaviour as I think that there is always a better way to deal with poor behaviour than matching their poor behaviour. As they say two wrongs don’t make a right.

Cat: glad, sad, mad, scared. The fundamental 4 feelings (from which all other emotions form) – from psychology models. No doubt there are useful and not-so-useful and appropriate and not-appropriate ways to express all of those … but anger is by no means ‘unacceptable’ like prejudice and sexism’. Normal, healthy emotions.

Desmond Sherlock: No, to me anger is unacceptable. If I am breaking all the psychological rules so be it, who makes them anyway, Freud? My brother and I are the only two people that I know that believe this but it means that when our conversations are tinged with anger (it is pretty easy to recognise) we pull each other up and because we have already agreed that anger is unacceptable it is not hard to put up our hand and admit it.

It works for us so far and something that he and I have been working on for some 25 years.
This might be the paradigm shift needed to reduce and ultimately end anger by simply agreeing that it is understandable but not acceptable.

Scott: Maybe you are thinking of aggression????? There is no causal relationship between anger and aggression both have biological bases but aggression is learned, everyone experiences anger but not everyone exhibits aggression.

Cat: I’m glad it’s a paradigm that works for you and your brother Desmond, I really am. I think Nat’s post about being short tempered (which isn’t necessarily anger btw) when it comes to bullshit is really funny … really. And I find it mildly curious that you needed to equate a paradigm that you acknowledge is unique to you and your brother to something that is widely seen as unacceptable as sexism and prejudice …

As you say, the two of you have been working on this for 25 years … yet you needed to make a light-hearted joke ‘wrong’ with your statement …

As I said. Curious. But just as sincerely, very happy that you have figured out how to live without anger. quite remarkable

Desmond Sherlock: Sorry Cat “light hearted joke” I don’t see where I have used that?

Cat: Nat’s post is a light hearted joke …

Desmond Sherlock: To you and I am sure a lot of people it is but to me it is not as I see that being short tempered as one of the biggest problems in relationships and as I mentioned above voiced that ie “Sorry not funny to me”

Desmond Sherlock: Ok I will drop the word “anger” and rephrase it I think that being short tempered is understandable (can possibly occur) but not acceptable (as being inevitable to occur). ie with a little bit of work I can reduce it instead of me trying to justifying it (as some psychological norm or rule).

Nat: Oh Hi Guys? Look what happens when I post something “light hearted” and then piss off to the hairdresser! A robust discussion occurs without me! To end this discussion – as I did technically start it – I will say that we will have to agree to disagree. I think anger is a primal base emotion that we are born with – its a protective emotion we’ve developed thru natural selection. Like any emotion it can be used well (ie. an abuse victim saying enough is enough thru anger) or it can be used badly. And watching SBS last night on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome – some people have no control over this emotion. As an example of being born with anger as a base emotion – I’ve seen an angry baby. Pissed off! And expressing it. Finally, the best thing to come out of this discussion is that Cat and Scott have “friended” each other and I can tell you both – a valuable decision. Thanks Desmond Sherlock, Cat, Scott It’s been food for thought.

Nat: And working in the advertising/film industry will continue to make me feel very very angry at times. Good night xxx

Desmond Sherlock: How did you know that I was a hairdresser? Anyway, thanks all for the forum for my pet subject.

Desmond Sherlock: Sorry Scott I only spotted your post now.

That is interesting that you say that but I see anger and aggression as being inextricably connected. You see some people do not see words as aggression but I do.
“Don’t you think…” or “Why to you always say that…” or “I am sick of this…” are all rooted in and from anger and are to me mild forms of or the beginning aggression.

So sorry to disagree with you but I see aggression as the result of anger and anger as the result of aggression and usually it is in the form of being reciprocal between another person.
Then throw in expectations of others and resentment because they were not met and resentment because we lost control and you have a big mess that I think we call anger and displayed aggression.

If our anger is not displayed then maybe it is simply repressed and maybe it is called stress and sickness.
Some people think by being silent that they can “deal with” their anger. I just think it can be another form of aggression or display of anger.

Anyway I don’t want to repress my anger I want to reduce it by understanding its origins which I have been steadily doing.

What I do find amazing (but understandable) is that there are so many (so-called) experts out there on anger and facts as to why it is inevitable. I am yet to be convinced or impressed by any such evidence but have no facts or evidence to back up my view either, hence it is a view only not a fact or rule or norm etc.

So maybe we could all at least agree that no evidence or facts has been presented so far by any party in the discussion. I wrote this earlier today:

I Love Possibilities

rethinkperfect.wordpress.com

People seem to turn me off when they continue to offer their possibilities as facts & I seem to turn people off when I continue to offer their facts as possibilities. So we both are happy at least 🙂

People seem to turn me off when they continue to offer
their possibilities as facts & I seem to turn people
off when I continue to offer their facts as possibilities.

So we both seem to be happy at least 🙂

Now that all genders are supposedly equal the question that I think is very
important is who should seduce whom?

I find it very difficult to get anyone to buy into this conversation, with most
preferring to either put it in the too hard folder or the unimportant folder.

I don’t think it should be in either, as I think it could be one of the most
important questions that is not being asked with regards why relationships
are failing and also believe that if enough of us participated in this conversation
then we could nut out a solution or a workaround that would solve a number of
social behavioural problems that I reckon this issues poses.

At least most people start off by agreeing that in the past men did more of the
overt work at seducing (chatting up) and women covertly seducing (dressing up).
But now I am told that it is about equal in how men and women approach their mating cycle. But when I tell them that I am waiting to be seduced (chatted up) I am repeatedly told that I will be waiting a long time, and I have to admit that they are right there, so far.

So what are the down and upsides to overt and covert seducing?
When you think about it if you were nature and you wanted to create a system
where you were guaranteed to produce the greatest quantity of progeny then having
men as the overt seducers and the women as being susceptible to such overt seduction
would be that process, in my view.

But we are more than victims of nature, hence we create contraceptives to fool nature, to some degree. And when all else fails there is always abortions with some 85,000 done annually in Australia.

What would happen if we added another tactic or weapon to our contraceptive arsenal to combat nature and simply switched overt and covert seducers. Where men reduced their overt seducing (chatting down and dress up) and women took up the overt seducing option more (chatted up and dressed down) ?

It’s worked for me so far, but maybe I could have dressed up a bit more.

I just realised (again) that one of the most important pieces of thinking is the workaround.
Useful in design, business processes, personal issues and behavioural problems, for as
soon as you come up with a workaround the pressure is eased, the fear of failure reduced
and frees up our thinking even, so that we can start on even a better workaround.

When I was deciding to go to design school my brother took me to see his friend’s
port folio and I was impressed, with the work and my brother’s methods.
But I asked him what happens if I don’t come up with the answer or design.
What I have learned since is that there is no “the answer or the design solution”,
that all good design and processes are just a better workaround.

Here is an interesting read on workaround innovation in business

I was at my local club tonight and like a lot of men, now days, I kept my cards
close to my chest.

So a couple of, lets say, mature women rolled up and got me to take a photo of them
(an old trick).

I suggested to them “Imagine that you were equal to men and that you talked to them as much as they talked to you”.

“Yeah no men will tak to us” one stated.

“That’s what I mean, you talked to them, we are all equal now arn’t we?”

“Oh yeah, I think I know what you mean”.

This is the story of the sexual revolution in Australia, most women in my opinion don’t realise that they are equal to men and that they can now talk to men as much as they expect men to to talk to them.

I just heard that the average marriage in Australia last 12.3 years. Thinik how much longer it would last if women only participated in the equality that they have achieved over the last 100 years and if men waited for women to realise this.

Equality is an action not just a word.

Can you answer the following questions?

1. How conscious are you about your consciousness?
A: some

2. For example when is the last time you asked yourself this question?
A: Today.

3. For example out of 100, how conscious do you think you are?
A: 42, I reckon that I am about half way in my journey of consciousness, if I live to 85.

4. How much has your consciousness improved over the last 10 years and how do you measure it?
A: 25%, by looking back on my past relationships and where I was going wrong.

5. Have you had many Aha! moments and can you recall one?
A: Yes, when I worked what conversation was for, some 2 years ago.

6. How much does awareness of consciousness play in your day to day conversation and thinking?
A: 30%

7. How do you go about increasing your awareness of your consciousness?
A: By converting my concepts using other peoples’ feedback

I think that consciousness could be defined by our level of awareness or consciousness of it.

A bit of a conundrum, but hey, that’s probably what makes it so elusive.

What is consciousness? The question of all ages, it seems and not likely to get a satisfactory answer on Wikipedia, but worth a try.

It seems consciousness is a degree of awareness of it
i.e. an awareness or lack of awareness of consciousness.
The opposite being a subconsciousness or an unconsciousness or simply a
lack of consciousness, maybe.

I think I am speaking from a lack of conscious view point so please seek your own
interpretation.

So how do I get it? Maybe by asking a question is a good start.
I remember when I was 12 my teacher used to talk about “self-actualisation” and imagine
I actually remembered it but I am not much closer in my view, or at least 30 years into
another 30 year process (hopefully).

The funny thing is that people are talking about The Singularity event,
(predicted for around 2045) where the machines/computers become as smart or conscious as us but if we are charged with producing such a thing and we can’t even define such a state let alone know how to achieve it, then, at this point, I can’t see how we will reach it.

Hopefully philosophy will keep up/catch up with our technology in time to help create
and control such an event.