Twitteretter

I am resorting to Kafka far too much lately, as I did on Twitteretter 346 a few days ago. And here we go again. Let me tell the story. My Spanish company bought new premises five years ago, refurbished them for our activity and applied for an opening license from the local council. Five years later, in which, by the letter of the law, we should have refrained from using our premises, we got the inspection needed to issue the license. And, lo and behold, we failed it, as our disabled toilet was missing a handlebar. Fair enough. We were served notice to fix this within ten days, which we did, providing photographic evidence of our new, shiny handlebar, but failed again, as, from the photo, the council has deduced the bar won’t support the legally required weight, even though it does. We are now searching for an extremely heavy person to photograph standing on it, so we get our license, although that stunt may land us in trouble with Health and Safety. Good job we have nothing else to do ...

Sometimes I think I am too impatient for the future to arrive. I wish things went faster. I want to jump to the point when my business projects arrive at that ever elusive success destination. Or to my next holiday. Or to the end of a cold, grey winter, to the weekend or, nowadays, after a year of coronavirus pandemic, to vaccination, a pint in a pub or a meal out with friends. This, I think, is natural, a trait probably shared by all humans. We set our mind on a destination, both distant and uncertain and, since we don’t like waiting, and we hate uncertainty, we immediately wish we were already there, preferring the certainty of success to the toil of its pursuit. Alas, the future does not work that way, and it cares little   for our wishes. It arrives, precisely and reliably, one minute, one hour or one day at a time, whatever your chosen unit may be. Once you understand this you realise you better enjoy the process, make the most of it, as it will be what most of your time is sp...

This is a fundamental choice that probably divides humanity into 2 distinct groups. On the red corner (no political connotations to the colour, just playing with a boxing ring analogy) are those that wish they could do only what they like. A lot of their time is spent regretting having to do things they don’t want to do and feeling generally unhappy and frustrated by the opportunity cost of those activities. On the blue corner, those who like whatever they have to do. Since they have to do it anyway, they make the most of it, enjoy it, and avoid all the frustration and regret. This different attitude tends to also make them more successful at whatever they are doing and, by succeeding, frees them up to do more of what they like to do more. Like Neo, in The Matrix, you can choose your pill, or corner in this case. The path to the blue corner is easy, it starts by liking whatever you are doing right now, and, since you are now reading or watching Twitteretter, subscribing and sharing Len...

One thing we are all missing during the lockdown is experiences. We have become a society which punctuates a generally grey, monotonous existence, with exhilarating experiences organised by a thriving industry. Long haul trips, city breaks, spa weekends, adrenaline chasing adventures and cultural events. This rainbow of colour has now been replaced by the monotonous repetition of the lockdown, for most, every day the same as the one before and the one that follows, which many are struggling with. This brings into focus what might be a fundamental problem with our so called normal existence, the greyness of the days between the punctuations. We only have one life, as far as we know, and accepting that daily irrelevance and making do with the occasional bright spot is a surrender of sorts, giving in to the demands life places upon us, instead of placing demands on it. Don’t get me wrong, experiences are great, but everyday needs be an experience, the punctuations should be just variety L...

I have just taken a look at the Collins dictionary. I was interested in the word gig, defined as a life performance by someone such as a musician or a comedian, synonyms show, performance. The reason for this foray into the dictionary, which I rarely engage in, was the many references I find lately to the gig economy, basically to those without the protections afforded by normal employment, to the self employed, which have become one of the worst affected groups by the lockdown. Plumbers, handymen, drivers for hire and the like. I get the simile to gig performers, who suffer with the same uncertainty and insecurity, but gig is a specific term implying performance of a public nature. I guess politicians prefer to use that somewhat positive connotation than the unsecured or working not employed, which would be more accurate and descriptive. Wait… Politicians… Accurate… Descriptive… I see the problem. I guess insecurity is not great, but thinking you are gigging does make it sound cooler ...

When it comes to living life, one of the choices to be made is whether to just live it, day to day, slowly advancing towards death without a narrative, or whether to search for meaning, to try to make your life count for something, to make a difference (whatever you may find your meaning in). Searching for meaning may make life more fulfilling, at least when you find it. The searchers like to think so. But, also, searching makes life undoubtedly harder. It is not enough to just live, the searchers demand more, expect more from their existence. As a consequence, what would for others be a perfectly fine day, for the searcher is a day wasted, if it does not contribute to the existential narrative. The temptation of nihilism is always there, the void, its tempting mindless rest, which the searcher, at times of exhaustion, envies of others. But, alas, once you choose meaning, giving into the void would be admitting defeat, calling it quits, which the searcher, invariably, refuses to do Len...

A few days ago I started a Youtube channel designed to offer Twitteretter to its thus far limited audience in a new format, video, cognisant of the fact that many do not read these days, and of the importance of trying to reach those, maybe even more than reading audiences. As I marketed the channel, something curious happened. Curious, but I think significant. I received many comments on the appearance and set up of the channel and suggestions as to how to enhance it, gadgets I should invest in to improve my lighting and delivery, additional elements I may consider for better visuals, etc. No comments, however, on the content which, in my mind, is what matters, maybe not in many other channels, but certainly on Twitteretter. This seems to be what we have come to, a society concerned only with the wrapping, not with the content, superficially surfing reality on a sensorial wave, without a rational rudder to keep us away from the rocks. I will focus on the content, to the horror of many...

I’ve read a lot over the years. I’m always reading at least a book, often several in parallel. As a result, I know a lot of facts and have been exposed to many opinions and thoughts. I speak several languages. I don’t rely on technology for arithmetic, as my body comes crowned, factory settings, by a computer for this purpose, which needs using to develop full powers. In the past, all these would have been significant advantages, in the workplace, in travelling, in conversation, in writing. But today, anyone equipped with the right technology can not only compete with my capabilities, but downright demolish them. These are the early days of technology enhanced humans. Does this mean my efforts and education are wasted? This remains to be seen, but I think not. I think abilities and capacities are still important, not so much in the result, replaceable nowadays, but in the process, which shapes the mind, giving you tools to take better advantage of the technology enhancements on offer L...

A few days ago I found myself in the unfortunate position of reading an interview I gave to a regional newspaper. Misfortune, not because my interviews are necessarily boring or uninteresting. Rather, because its execution reflected with fidelity the most salient characteristic of the journalist that interviewed me. His millennialism. Sentences were literally abandoned halfway, the chore of writing them disturbed by more interesting stimuli arriving through my reporter’s smart phone. The effort required to keep the piece coherent, the grammar honest and the reporting accurate soon overwhelmed him to the point of surrender and the abandon that follows it. I can only surmise that the editor was either non-existent, a result of a cost saving effort by the paper, or also a millennial who found equal difficulty in reading a piece stretching to several paragraphs as the reporter found in writing it. Not that it matters. The mediocrity thus produced fits snuggly with the rest of the journal L...

I have started producing a video channel, on YouTube, with Twitteretter posts, read by myself in English and subtitled in Spanish. This is a bit of an experiment. I am interested in whether this initiative will drive any views and following. My expectation is not many. I know that I would get many more should I start a channel on start up and running business, an area where I have significant expertise and where I have built a reputation over the years, but which I regard as much less interesting than Twitteretter. We seem to be more and more focused on consuming information for its practical usefulness, rather than its intrinsic interest. And in our utilitarian and consumeristic universe, usefulness is defined exclusively in economic terms. Alas, Twitteretter does not aspire to teach you how to make a living, but to get you to think about how to live a life. And for this, I fear, the audience is much smaller. Still, let’s not pre-empt the experiment, only running it will tell Length: ...

While coronavirus continues to rage, wreaking havoc and destruction all over our planet, we continue to develop and manufacture our vaccines, the silver bullets that may slay the monster of quasi lycanthropic horrors. The problem is global, and so called First World countries are well aware of this. Many are contributing money to initiatives to fund the purchase of vaccines by the poorest countries in the World. On the face of it, solidarity, an admirable, philanthropic gesture. But, alas, what one hand gives, the other takes away. These same countries are buying and storing vaccine stocks which exceed what is needed to vaccinate their whole populations, so there are no vaccione stocks left for the countries they have funded. A live experiment, trying solidarity and selfishness simultaneously. When doing so, the latter will win the day. Virtue is often more fragile than sin, less prepared for the head on clash. If you act morally and immorally at the same time, you are acting immorally...

I‘ve lately had several interesting experiences with traditional media, including the BBC and Spanish papers. The routine is well honed. They ask for an interview and contact you with a few questions. Your answers are then edited, taken out of context, mixed in a perverse ratatouille with information, not always true, they’ve gathered elsewhere (in what they call investigative journalism, basically writing a few sentences in Google and clicking on a random selection of clicks presented) and printed as an article or interview where truth, inaccuracy and misrepresentation fight in equal terms for space. Headlines are concocted with the sole objective of generating clicks and complete disregard for veracity or coherence with the body of the piece. You are only safe from misrepresentation when between quote marks. The final result is reminiscent of Frankenstein, not the beautiful and insightful Mary Shelley romantic novel, but its main character, the conflicted, well meaning, ugly monster...

As a species, humanity’s technological accomplishments are, to our current knowledge, unparalleled. We’ve mastered fire and electricity. We’ve escaped our gravitational earthly prison, sending satellites and even people into orbit. We have put men on the moon. We are sending probes to faraway planets, have connected our whole species via the miracle of real time communication and are in the cusp of domesticating quantum theory to build computers. We are now even attempting to create intelligence, in our image, but more powerful. Despite such staggering shows of prowess, there are some challenges, some problems, that still escape us, and may do forever. The shower door, for example. My observation is that we are, as a species, so far incapable of creating a shower door which efficiently fulfils its purpose, namely keeping water in and the floor outside dry. However modern the home, or swanky the hotel, a wet bathroom floor remains, almost always, an inescapable reality, a humility cure...

This is something that maybe only happens to me, but I do of course project this onto the rest of mankind and assume that it happens to everyone. Making phone calls fills me with dread. I am not talking about calling a friend, or a family member. That is fine and I happily do it. I am talking about using it to book a restaurant, or a dental visit or to order something over the phone. I dread simple phone calls to people I do not know. When I make them, of course, they go quite smoothly most of the time, nothing untoward happens, they often even produce the desired outcome and they are always fairly predictable. But my dread persists, not enough to prevent me from calling, just enough to make it feel awkward. I grew up at a time when bookings, reservations, appointments and purchases were made face to face or over the phone, so I cannot imagine what I would feel like if I had grown already at a time when all that is done online. Does this make me a kind of extremely overaged millennial?...

Statesmanship. A word invented to summarise the range of qualities XIX and XX century democracies expected from their leaders. It means many things, depending on who you ask (I’ve been conducting just this experiment the last few days). Seriousness. Respectability. Concern for the nation and its peoples. Integrity. Steadfastness. Grit. Virtue. Capacity to sacrifice. Responsibility. All those answers, and many more, are correct, they all contribute in different measure to the statesmanship pot. In the past, statesmanship was directly proportional to political success, meaning the higher a politician scored in perceived statesmanship, the better his or her acceptance by the electorate. However, this may be changing and, judging by some electoral results of late, some alternative adjectives, not included in the statesmanship concept, may be correlating to political success, at least in some countries. Brashness. Sleaziness. Goofiness. Dishonesty. We need a collective noun to summarise the...

Conspiracy theories grow like well fertilised weeds in the fields of the coronavirus pandemic and the vaccines we’ve developed to fight it. They’ve always been amongst us, a malaise probably as old as intelligence itself, but a diet of unmediated, virus-like, social media and extensive social and economic difficulty is fuelling what may be their unprecedented spread. When analysing them carefully, I conclude that they result from the combination of a hankering to understand a complex reality and the intellectual laziness which prevents their proponents from completing the analysis of such complexity. They are unnecessary to explain reality, but they provide safe harbour from the storms that rage between blissful intellectual indifference and uncompromising, relentless enquiry. They provide a veneer of intellectual sophistication without the effort to build the underlying substance of extensive understanding. They are the laziest path to being able to say: ‘I know what you know not’...

The XXI century has witnessed the birth and spread of a series of computer programs and environments for unmediated, simple communication which have self-abrogated the common moniker ‘social media’. Few appellatives are as inept to describe their subject. The name implies, for a start, that other media, whether it is traditional printed media, broadcasting, literature, etc., are somehow not social. Further, it ignores the fact that these technologies are used as much for asocial or antisocial behaviour as they are for social behaviour. Social media, or social networks, may have been, as a name, an aspiration. But it is one that not only has not been fulfilled, but that is unlikely by its design, by its innate briefness and the ease with which messaging can be uncritically repeated and amplified. I do understand that, from a marketing view point, the much more apt ‘dumb media’ or ‘lazy media’ would not have quite the same effect, but they would at least show honesty and self-awareness L...

Curiosity and passion are historically interesting. At many times in history, probably most, they could bring about strepitous downfall. But today, in most walks of life, they are the key to not only success, but also happiness. At a time when information, data and calculation abilities are no longer advantages, and when things change so quickly that our capacity to adapt is continuously challenged, the most important assets education can give young people are passion and curiosity. The passion and curiosity which will drive them through an uncertain, rapidly evolving environment in which jobs for life and single field careers are but a distant memory and in which those able to take advantage of the inherent system’s flexibility will flourish, whilst others will flounder. Gone is the time to teach information and exercise memory, replaced with a time for rapid experimentation and ultimate adaptation. This can be terrifying or incredibly exciting, depending on the tools in your toolbox ...

The question is prompted by watching, in disbelief, the quick success of business ideas which, at least to my mind, contribute little to our society or way of life. It’s hard to find deep meaning in rising stars like Tik Tok or Facebook, to name a couple. Their success appears fast and huge. Of course, success is not only measured in economic terms, impact and significance carry the day long term, but I may be in a minority these days in professing this iconoclastic view. Even in financial terms, there are larger successes by more meaningful businesses, but they are less public. Meaningless enterprise relies on publicising its success to feed its progress, the proverbial emperor’s new clothes. Plus, our system is not perfect. Meaningless or even harmful businesses will always succeed, but not in numbers. Cocaine trade has succeeded for decades by feeding the need of some for mindless escapism, in the same way as Tik Tok succeeds today by feeding the need of some for mindless narcissism...

I have been having a few conversations of late with people who are considering changing careers. They are well paid, successful, but profoundly dissatisfied in their professional life. This is not unusual, we often choose careers combining intrinsic factors, such as what do I enjoy and what satisfies me, with extrinsic ones, where are the best employment opportunities and the biggest salaries. Extrinsic motivators tend to wear out over time and, if we initially prioritise them over intrinsic ones, which are more durable, we can find ourselves in this position. Unfortunately, career changing carries a big penalty in loss of income and status when you start again in a new field, and this penalty makes changing intractable for many. But it should not be. You have only one life and you should use it free of the chains the system restrictions impose on you. Shed your fear by imagining how you can be happy on a lower income and a more meaningful job, and make the change, while you still can...