de-Coupling

At a young age, I looked up to my Dad: tall, handsome, and well-groomed. I shined his shoes and fetched his coffee. From that vantage point (looking up from the floor), he was a towering figure. An Army discharge, he turned to Sales/Collection. Hence, my reptilian brain associated older with bigger (coupling).

Today, at the gym, this well-built guy (who looks like Mad Max) came around to reclaim “his” spot. Oops! I thought there was no one using it.

Anyhow, it dawned on me: as time goes on, our innate assumptions (coupling and connecting data) need de-coupling e.g. bigger is not older, in my case, or more is not always better ( more torture, any one?).

Suggested “coupling” to be looked at

• beef, bell -> salivate (Pavlovian dog). Then, bell (no beef) -> salivate. Pair-association principle. Sell the dream (subscribe to the credit card, take the cover girl on vacation). Just up the road, you’ll see? Like in the Gold Rush era, only benefited those who sold digging tools and Levis jeans
• Stanford prison experiment (robe and ring, insignia and uniform showing ranks = authority figure, as in “Catch Me If You Can”) or gray hair gray beard, in our Confucius orbit. The coupling: older = wiser = respectful (Madoff). Once in a gym, an older man exposed himself in the shower and motioned for me to join him – what did he want for us to do together?!?. Let’s learn from recent revelation about Pastor/Priest abuse and subsequent cover-up. Of late, Pope denounced the Doctrine of Discovery ( NPR piece April 1, 2023). Fake it until you make it – Santos Syndrome or Silicon Valley’s Out for Blood (black turtleneck = Steve Jobs? Good luck shopping for Wall-Street wardrobe).
• Billionaires give a lot back (coupling money and charity). If any, it’s their divorced wives and estranged kids (Johnson Johnson).The demand for the pocketbook looms far larger than that for the heart. Conversely, the smaller the chips, the more the giving (Gordon Moore). Size does not equate with generosity or giving.
• Again, in our “Confucius” system, teachers were always right (then why the chalkboard and eraser). You might as well inscribe it in stone, like Moses and the Ten Commandments: “Thou shall not lie ” (to your students after collecting their money e.g. ITT). Turns out, it’s the teachers’ teacher who did not know left from right (back to de-coupling Number 2). I owe this to Hans Rosling’s Factfulness (consult “Lies my teacher told me, by James W. Loewen). “All men are mortal” but when it came out of the mouth of Aristotle, it carries more weight. All in the branding. Not truth out of the mouth of babe. We’re taught to first learn character (unfortunately, it meant Never ever question the teachers. The results? rote learning.)
• High finance uses euphemisms e.g. institutional ‘investment portfolios like derivatives with hockey-stick graphs (bell with some bones)…while de-emphasizing its hot-dog portfolio of high-risk derivatives. Even Housing turned out not a sure thing (2008). So are some Valley banks (2023)
• So much emphasis on men being horny. Then why all the play tools made for women? Raped victims at times were young boys or altar boys. With Hooters we ‘ve got Chippendale dancers for girls’ night out (Go Steinem).
• Essential workers celebrated during the pandemic. For a while. Until inflation and interest rates did them in (a great scene in Margin Call when Demi Moore tried to cross-talk with her co-worker in an elevator, with a quiet janitor-lady caught in the middle at mid-night). Perhaps when more boomers need caregivers, then we’ll see the return of Essential workers ( Filipino nurses or robotic caregivers). McDonald is concept-testing its first contactless Ft Worth store
• Heroes and those who died in war were hailed. Then the opposition and revisionists called them dumb (for not letting others die for the cause in their place?) as in McCain vs Trump rivalry that spans over a decade (as of this edit, still in print in his $99.00 coffee-table book). We need to assess context, intent, circumstance, and unintended consequences. No blanket and rush-to-judgment! Meanwhile, the Marines always charge – albeit Normandy or China Beach, leaving “just war” or “ unjustifiable “ to civilian to debate. Hindsight always sees better. (the difference lies vastly in a G.I. Bill, or else we’ve got a much bigger homeless problem).

Before this blog, I was exposed to Bard? What about Bob? “It says here in the system, that your scores are up this month”….

Just as our political system is fragile, a new “authoritarian” (AI) figure is forming, knowing us better than we do ourselves (Predictive). Ménage a Trois = man + woman + machine (beds should be redesigned for the comfort situating of the machine between couples).

That guy at the gym might have big muscles (I admire him for it). But he is much younger. So my initial assumption I.e. bigger = older was shot. I am back to digging. Like an archeologist of my reptilian mind. For my own sanity in a world that doesn’t seem to distinguish one from the other (keep doing the same thing over and over, hoping for a different result). More is not always better. Faster does not mean more accurate (yet the engineers keep pushing the envelope), higher rating (herding) couldn’t be more wrong (Dominion settlement).

Forget Coupling for convenience. Stimulus – response. Ring the bell and “salivate”. Hail to the King! Wearing a crown (bell), he must be the Absolute (beef). This reminds me of Le Chat Bote, a French kids’ story. about a good cat who set his master up to marry the King’s daughter (fabricating a robbery, borrowing the King’s costume, grifting and up-selling his master to royalty).

BTW, propaganda works best when we resist least: exhaustion, crowd surge, human waves, dehydration. conformity and contagion to herd hypnoses “I once was lost…wretched …”. Typical “problem-solution”. Then “God the Father, Mother Mary”. The climax: we’re reduced to becoming mere orphans, thirsty and hungry. Abandoned. In isolation (socially persecuted) then, the other shoe: the pre-set solution for a receptive audience.

No wonder Thoreau remarks: “all men live and die in quiet desperation”….Unless they rise, resist and review those unexamined coupling of the past. We evolve gradually then, per Hemmingway, suddenly.

It’s not entirely the Emperor’s fault. It’s ours, for not: ” Sir, you’re naked”. (The Emperor with no clothes). Woe is man’s impulse to conform and compromise. For the sake of harmony and peace. Then, peace (the trigger) is just a dream. We mistook peace for predictability and stability while deep down, we know with our gut that Change is the only Constant.

Keep moving and resisting to stay in place.