March 14, 2021
The Disappearing Boss – a newsletter
Issue 1 of The Disappearing Boss goes out this Sunday.
March 12, 2021
Labour-saving
Slaves and servants enable the translation of my desires into someone else’s action. I don’t have to actually do the work, but I can reap the benefit from it. It always involves coercion of some kind – beatings, death, imprisonment, the threat of starvation.
Machines and software enable the translation of my desires into something else’s action. I don’t have to actually do the work, and I can amplify the benefit from it. This appears benign, but somewhere (often far away) coercion remains involved – for the people who make the machines or the software, or the machines behind the software, and the people who do the physical jobs hidden behind it, or controlled by it.
Teams, collaborations, co-operatives, movements – these enable translation of our shared desires into our shared action. We do have to do the work, and there’s no reason we couldn’t build our own machines or software to amplify it because together, we share the benefits of it.
The only thing we have a right to from others, is the ability to ask for their help. It’s up to us to put in the kind of effort that moves them to say ‘yes’.
March 11, 2021
Spring
I’d kind of forgotten about blackthorn blossom, until I took the car out for a last run on Monday. It … Read More “Spring”
March 8, 2021
“XXX” Day
For me, the trouble with having a day, or a week, or a month on which we celebrate a particular group of people, or a particular relationship, or a particular sacrifice, is that doing so allows us to forget about these things for the rest of the year.
If these things really mattered to us, shouldn’t we be addressing the issues they raise every day?
March 5, 2021
An antidote
Here’s an idea to cheer yourself up.
Reach out to someone you haven’t seen for years – an old colleague, a school friend, a fellow hobbyist – for a catch-up.
Chances are it will work wonders.
For both of you.
Thanks to John Hakim for doing that for me today – it was like old times. We’ll be doing it again soon.
March 4, 2021
Depression
Beck’s negative triad – or how people get (and stay) depressed.
Imagine what would happen if society fostered this process on purpose?
March 3, 2021
Consider the lilies of the fields…
“Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? … for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.“*
We don’t have to wait for God. We could do it now, for each other. There is plenty to go round.
Then people could just ‘do their thing’.
*King James Bible Matthew 26 – 32.
March 2, 2021
Money
Money is a human construct, representing a promise to pay. That’s all. No matter what it’s made of – shells, gold, base metal, paper, bytes – as long as the promise is good the money is good.
Money doesn’t make the world go round. Promises do that.
And we can never run out of promises.
March 1, 2021
A re-think
Today I found out that my car is beyond repair, destined for the scrapyard. Before lockdown there’d be no question of going without a car, but now? I’m not so sure.
In theory a car gives me ‘autonomy’. I can get in it at any time I like and go off anywhere I choose. In practice that autonomy is (rightly) curtailed at the moment, and likely to be for a while yet. So it seems a complete waste of all that embodied energy and raw materials to have it sat on my drive, slowly deteriorating through underuse.
It’s hard to imagine life without a car. This might just be the practice I need.
February 26, 2021
Contact
Lately, I’ve been creating and organising an archive of my blog posts, articles etc. At the risk of sounding narcissistic, it’s been interesting to see how my thinking and my expression of that thinking has developed over the last 5 or 6 years. Some things haven’t changed though, and I think you’ll enjoy this extract from 2018:
“What struck me this week was the idea explained in this video, of ‘sawubona‘, of really acknowledging each other as fellow humans when we meet, along with Seth’s discussion of how industrialism has squeezed out the opportunities for doing this in our modern lives and businesses.
Last Sunday I was wandering around the shoes in my local T K Maxx, when a gentleman asked me for help.
“Are these women’s sandals?”, he asked. Then he explained that he was buying for his father in India, who has had an operation and needs loose-fitting sandals to walk about in.
“Well, yes I’d say they are, but for what your father wants, they are probably OK.”
“I need a size 7 really, but I can’t find any in the men’s section, maybe these will have to do.”
10 minutes later, we’d found a men’s sandal in the right size style and colour, and I’d found out he was a bus driver with a degree in politics and economics. I’d learned about corruption in the Indian health service, and we’d given each other a little hug.
Sawubona. We had seen each other.
I’m fascinated by systems and processes. Not industrial ones, human ones. That run like clockwork, but with space for Sawubona.
No – they run like clockwork to create space for Sawubona.“
Just the other day, taking myself to a different Co-op for my weekly shop, and walking back the long way via several independents, I discovered that even in the time of Covid, Sawubona is possible and more precious than ever.
It’s certainly something I’d hate to lose when things get back to ‘normal’.
Thank you for taking the time to see me.
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