The Illusion of Promotion

We imagine that the word promotion is a positive one, a word that defines success and achievement. But from a small amount of observational experience, when you look at how promotion can affect a person's life- not just the part of it that exists at work- I'm less convinced that it is always so positive.

Within the workplace, promotion is portrayed as a reward, a gift, given to someone with recognised talent. It can be said to be given so that a person has a job best suited to their level of competence, a distinctly flattering description.

However, in the context of a persons entire life, I think that very little may be gained from promotion. In some cases, I think that a person gains nothing at all, and instead they merely trade one benefit for another.

Do you remember how big Cars are?

There could be a scale of human inventions, sorted by size and simplicity. Where on this scale will you find the most common vehicle in the western world?

The Small, The Big...

On the small end of the mechanical scale, we have examples like wrist watches, light bulbs, and pens.

These are simple enough that we can use them every day without effort, and also small enough to be replaced without much care if one stops working. If a pen that I was writing with ran dry, it would be more likely that I would reach for a new pen, and less likely that I would burst into tears.

On the large end of the mechanical scale, we have machines which construct skyscrapers, dig tunnels through the earth, and look good in James Bond movies.

Grades of the Sexes

Boys and girls each have a different way of judging, from first impressions, whether a member of the opposite sex is worth chasing. In fact they are not just different ways, they are the complete opposite.

Imagine that everyone has an imaginary score they give the opposite sex when they first meet them, and maybe get to know them a bit. Let's say it starts from zero at the bottom and goes to the highest and sexiest mark of 100. If you're in the market, you want to find a high scorer.

So both the male and female species have the same target so far. What's opposite about them? The way they work out the marking...

The Time of Truth

Compare a tree and a house. The tree begins as a single small item, and the house begins as many small items. Both, over time, grow larger. The one tree expands into many branches. But the many bricks become one house. These are two images of the ways that I imagine a person can seek to understand the universe we live in.

A man could say that we currently have lots of bits of knowledge, but we do not understand enough. He would say that we need to add more knowledge, and when we have enough knowledge, we will be able to bring it all together to build one big picture that explains life. This is like a man building a house. He starts with some materials, like bricks and cement, but he is not happy with what he starts with, and needs to find more. This might be described as the way of philosophy and science.

Another man could say that we have enough knowledge about the origins of the world, and from that, we understand enough. He could say that all truth can be worked out from the foundation. The foundation gives us the simple picture that life fits into. This is like the tree. The seed that the tree came from contained all the information the tree would need. If you understand the seed, you would have no problem understanding the tree. This might be described as the way of religion and history.

Philosophy and Circles

A common criticism I see online is that someones worldview, or philosophy for life, is circular. It is considered a negative point when someones opinion of how things work backs itself up against any questions.

An example of a circular argument that would annoy an atheist might go something like:
"There is a God, who is beyond our understanding."
"Can you prove that?"
"Not conclusively, no, because he is beyond our understanding."

It is obvious that a circular argument can be annoying, but I do not think this refutes it. Other than circular, there is only one other form that a worldview can be, and I do not think it is necesserily superior. The other form is incomplete.

Maturity and Dependance

Say the world understands 2 states: Immature and Mature. The aim (in most cultures, I wonder about ours at the moment) is to move from Immature, which we are born into, to Mature. Our aim is to grow mentally and emotionally, just as we naturally grow physically.

A lot of the world seems to assume that these 2 labels are parallel to 2 others that we naturally go through- Dependant, and Independant. This view says that being Dependant is child-like, inferior, and Immature. But when I become Independant, I am adult, superior, and Mature.

It's easy to see where this view comes from. From birth, we Depend on adults to survive. But as we grow older, these caring adults encourage us to become more and more Independant. That, at least, is the word commonly used, but I don't think this is the best target to aim for. Maybe parents encourage Independance so much because a part of them is impatient for their loved ones to fly from the nest! "You need to learn to be Independant" (for 'be Independant' read 'Go Away'.)

Faith and Evidence

Any article or video on the web that mentions anything about religion usually has a predictably long thread of comments by users expressing their own opinions. Apparently, people have plenty of views on the subject (which personally, I hardly find surprising!)

One of the ideas that often makes its way onto these mile-long threads goes something along the lines of "Your belief is based on faith, and faith means ignoring any evidence on the subject, hence you, sir, are an idiot."

I disagree with this. I consider faith to be something that, in my experience, usually complements the known evidence. I have found it distinctly rare for a persons faith to go in the opposite direction of available evidence.

Imagine a scale running from top to bottom. At the top of the scale is "I believe this is true", at the bottom is "I believe this is false", and in the middle is "I don't know". People will be born, for most topics, with nothing on that scale. The default position for believing any topical item will be the neutral- the middle- "I don't know".

4 Reactions Model

Shown in the image is a small model. It is about reactions. It obviously isn't meant to be very encompassing, and it also puts things in quite black-and-white categories, which I know life isn't. But when I thought of it one day, I liked the way it challenged me, and it made me think about how balanced some parts of me were.

Two instances, and two reactions.
The instances are events that happen to us in life- good things (+) and bad things (-).
The reactions are our reactions to God- "You are good" (*) and "Why, God?" (?)

The two instances and two reactions form a total of four possible results, as visible on the grid. We'll look at each of them. First let's speed through the obvious two.