the folly of procedures

Something I've noticed, especially working with Units of Competency when I was a business trainer, is that, when you try to document work tasks and roles in words, in a thorough and systematic way, simple things become complicated. 

Documenting of a job becomes a job in itself, and the task of documenting is not always relevant or helpful. Take a simple task like making a cup of coffee. Writing a procedure that explains how to do that task is quite a difficult thing, because you have to assume that the reader doesn't know anything about making coffee. So, you have to tell them how much water to put in the kettle, and that the water will get very hot so be careful not to spill it on yourself, and there will be extra steps depending on how much, if any, sugar the person wants in their coffee, and then there's the question of milk and getting the milk out of the fridge and opening the milk, and putting the milk back in the fridge afterwards, and the whole procedure has to be repeated as many times as there are people you're making coffee for, etc

And does having that written procedure help at all with doing the task well? 

education system

In school, teachers always make assessments of students based on certain criteria and how those criteria apply to all the students they've known. So, it's easy for them to misjudge students' motives and character. 

stuff of novels

I read a book by James Fenimore Cooper at uni, and I thought it was so boring and slow moving, but now I look back on it and see it as very earthy and deep - a fine work of literature, and I want to read more of him. 

There have been a few classic novels that I felt that way about, which isn't surprising. Life and the world were more slow moving in the past. It's surprising that I don't feel like that more often with old novels, but I don't. Reading Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, David Copperfield, etc...although they were written in the nineteenth century, they don't feel slow moving. 

Sometimes more modern novels seem very slow moving. Actually, they are very slow moving. I find that's the case with some of Thomas Mann's works. I started reading Joseph and his Brothers, and I just couldn't do it. It just refused to start. It begins with a kind of meditation the subject of which I can't remember. I just remember that nothing of substance happened and I kept reading - 10 pages, 20 pages - and still nothing definite. So, I gave up. 

It makes me think that maybe some literature from the past is lost to us. No one can read certain books because our minds don't work the way they did in the past. 

goals don't work the way you think

The story of how you resolved to do something and then worked towards it and persevered and eventually achieved it is always a story that you tell afterwards. Always a distortion. 

worldview

Sometimes other people think they understand your situation and your motivations better than you do. They're quite direct about it. They'll tell you what's 'really' going on with you, contrary to what you think. It's weird. They have it all figured out and they tell you your story in great detail, and if you disagree, they'll argue with you and insist they're right. 

a great speech

One of my favorite scenes in literature is in Dostoevsky's The Demons. There was a man who pretty much everyone respected, and this radical group was trying to court him and get him on their side, because he would be a powerful asset. So, after a period of time and getting to know each other, he agreed that he would come and speak at one of their meetings. 

They were stoked. It was a real coup. So, he arrives at the meeting and gets up to speak, and there are hundreds of people intently listening and ready to hang on every word. It's a crowd of true believers. 

He begins by talking about how he has really closely observed the group and thought deeply about his observations - really reflecting on the meaning and essence of the group. Then he tells them what he came up with - what he sees as the meaning and essence of the group. He says, it's really about (and everyone is expecting him to say something deep, but he says....) stupidity. 

It's one of the funniest and most memorable lines I've read. 

generations

We can learn about historical events and periods, but we will never know what it was like to actually live through them, unless we actually did live through it. 

One of my favorite quotes is from William Wordsworth's 'Preface to Lyrical Ballads':

For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves.[1]

It's so interesting because, looking back at the period of time he's talking about, from the 21st century, his time seems so slow and primitive. In our age, through the internet and computer technology, we can and do communicate with anywhere on earth virtually instantaneously. Wordsworth's was the era of the telegraph, the newspaper, and the train. 

It's like when you were in primary/ elementary school and you made the jump from 2nd grade to third, so you were no longer an infant, and things got a lot more serious. As an adult you look back on that and remember what it was like but still, compared with other life changes, it's very minor. 

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[1] Wordsworth, William, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1800, Bartleby.com, section 8