Most of my life I've been trying to create a better world. Ever since I was a deluded young idealist.
All my friends grew up into intelligent successful adults. But somewhere along the road my brain missed the turn-off to maturity. So I'm sort of stuck. Still trying to make the world better. I should have joined Idealists Anonymous long ago.
To my credit, I do believe I've helped a few people along the way. And I do know that some superb CEOs have used my frameworks to ensure that their organizations became much healthier and more effective places to work in—at least transiently while they were there.
But make the world better? No. Not at all. Or at least not obviously or not yet. But idealists should not hold their breath. Some people may have looked at the havoc created by my so-called improvements and preferred to label me as someone making the world worse.
I remember being asked to inject amphetamines intravenously into a girl in her late teens—in a darkened room one afternoon. I was a junior psychiatrist visiting my ward, and I was instructed by the ward sister as to the prescribed treatment for this regular out-patient ... all junior doctors simply did it. Unfortunately, such "treatment" was beyond my comprehension. It did not really matter a fig to me she was expecting it, and so were the nurses. So I let the nursing staff know my view—nice women, who just felt sorry for a wet-behind-the-ears youngster like me—after all no one had ever been so foolish as to refuse to inject this patient before. So, accompanied by the largest available matronly nurse as a chaperone-bodyguard, I went into the room where the patient was lying on the bed expectantly. I opened the curtains, turned on the light and sat in a chair some distance from the bed. Then I introduced myself politely and explained that I knew what she expected, but that I did not personally believe it was a useful treatment and I would not give it. However, I was happy to talk to her and help in any other way that I could. There was some initial screaming and shouting. I realized that she owed it to herself not to comply quietly, so I persisted.
I won't go into the full story, but she didn't then, or ever again to my knowledge, get intravenous amphetamines. I didn't see her a second time, but I heard she opened a door to her own better world. I didn't get into trouble either, officially. But, boy, were the senior medical staff happy to see the back of me. Actually, I liked them all. They were highly intelligent, knowledgeable, hard-science oriented, decent, hard-working, supportive—and conventional. As I recall, not too many idealists among them. I was rather sad that they didn't see the value of someone utterly dedicated-to-patients and doing-what's-right: but I realize that meant I was unpredictable and uncontrollable—a maverick liable to cause social mayhem at any moment.
I've lost my thread a bit here, but the story is related to this blog and ones yet to come.
The point is that I'm currently working at the Root of the Taxonomy. This material is not specialist at all: you may have seen the story of Personal Endeavour and more recently, Creativity. It is all general material that has something in it for everyone, and always will. Well, emerging somewhere deep within this Root, there is a framework controlling us from inside our psyches dealing with how to create a better world.
Oh, No!
Oh, Yes! I am having at last to confront all that impulsiveness and compulsiveness based on idealistic illusions and misconceptions and causing so much irritation and so many social gaffes. Perhaps finally, at long last, I will get to release all that pent-up frustration and exasperation in an experience of awareness.
I can't wait to see what I am going to learn.
And I can't escape: because I'm committed to post this framework by end-2012. It should happen, even under less than ideal conditions.
But I hope not too many more blogs well up from long-suppressed memories.
WK
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Warren Kinston