Kosanya~

            Accounting for the differing sentiments toward these institutions is principally the focus on you and your needs.  The government is not focused on any particular individual, and treats its constituents with cold, callous, impersonality.   You cannot make any special requests for special treatment even if you are willing to pay extra, and those interacting with the government do so on the government’s rules.  There is no flexibility, and one can largely count on being treated with a combination of mistrust and contempt. 

            Contrast that with Federal Express or Apple Computer.  First of all, you are greeted by extremely helpful salespersons who ask if they can help.  They are usually smiling and have good manners.  They are eager for business, and want to help patrons purchase the company’s products and services.  If a patron wants something special from these companies, they can usually accommodate special requests; although one might have to pay a bit more.   These business are usually open Saturday, and both are open 24/7 on the internet.  You can also speak with live person with just a short wait.  Given a choice, would you rather interact with Fedex or with the government?

            One’s neighbor’s business is even friendlier.  You are greeted personally with a warm handshake or maybe even a hug.  You are not just invited to purchase the goods or services, but also asked for your feedback about how the business could do better.  You have an influence on the business that actually wants to serve you.

            With this in mind, what institutions do we want to grow and expand, and which ones would we like less of?  Which ones are more conducive to a civil society, and which ones breed contempt?

One night SaraJoy Pond, a doctoral student of Instructional Psychology, woke up in the middle of the night and scribbled down an idea.  She constructed a proposal and submitted it to the Brigham Young Social Entrepreneurship competition in 2009 and won.  She then began networking, acquiring mentors, partners and funding to bring her idea to life.  Thus, the Tipping Bucket was born.

The premise of the organization can best be described by their slogan, “Change the world or your money back.”  The reason it is called the Tipping Bucket is based on the image of adding drops to a bucket until it is full.  The Tipping Bucket accepts one social venture at a time and puts them in the bucket.  The bucket is essentially the budget for the project.  They then set a timeframe to raise the necessary funds and if the bucket fills, meaning the funds are raised, then the bucket tips and the project moves forward.  Drops in the bucket are donations, $1 at a time.  If however, the bucket does not tip none of the donations are processed.  So, every donor only contributes if the project has enough money to be completed.

Success for raising funds is predicated upon the project in the bucket utilizing their networking potential to spread the word and get drops in their bucket.  The Tipping Bucket is the facilitator that has established a sustainable fundraising system.  You can check out their organization at: thetippingbucket.org.  Go ahead and a drop while you are there.  Right now you could help schools in the DR Congo through their project partner, Sowers of Hope.  Change the world or your money back.

The author of this article mentions several criticisms that have been made about the book: it is amoral, its propositions are not proved by any serious research and moreover, 48 laws are far too many for people to remember them. I intend to address these criticisms before I make my own.

Are 48 laws too many?

Personally I don’t think the number is that much important. Or rather, it depends on the scope of the book. Advice that is meant to help you in tough, sudden situations must be very easy to remember. On the other hand, a guide for life has to be complex in order to be accurate, because life is complex too.

I wonder, however, if in this particular case there are not too many laws. Of course it depends on the content of each law (to which I haven’t got access), but reading the titles I have the impression that some of them are quite similar. For instance, let’s take Law 1, ‘Never Outshine the Master’; Law 19, ‘Know Who You’re Dealing with. Do Not Offend the Wrong Person’; Law 24, ‘Play the Perfect Courtier’; Law 32, ‘Play to People’s Fantasies’, and Law 38, ‘Think as you Like but Behave Like Others’.

To me, all these laws convey the same idea: ‘Flatter the people that could hurt you’. No need to make five of them to express that. If the contents are different, that should be conveyed by the titles. So either there are two many laws, or some of them are mislabelled.

Writing a book without doing exhaustive research

That is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. If you had to know everything about a subject before giving your views about it, most people would never be able to voice a single opinion, and I for one wouldn’t be writing this article. What is dishonest is to present as scientific a work that is not founded on serious research. While one example suffices to prove that something can happen, a thousand cases are not enough to prove that it must happen every time.

Again, I do not know if the authors of The 48 Laws of Power consider their book as scientific work. In any case it is up to the reader not to take everything an author says as indisputable truth, just because it is said in a very assertive way. And for instance, when Greene writes in the introduction of the book that ‘There is no use in trying to opt out of the game (…) Instead of struggling against the inevitable, instead of arguing and whining and feeling guilty, it is far better to excel at power’, I think his statement rather belongs to the realms of personal opinion, than to those of absolute, scientific truth.

The 48 Laws: a guide to amorality?

I do not believe in morality, in anything being good or evil by nature and in general. In my opinion (which I sincerely believe to be the truth though I admit my own fallibility), things can only be good or evil relatively to the purpose you try to achieve through them. For instance a war can be very bad for the people who die in it and quite good for people who make profits from it. On the other side, curing AIDS and hunger in Africa would be good for African people, but it would aggravate the overpopulation in the world and the impact on the environment and in the end, result in very great problems for everybody, including African people.

Nothing can be good or evil in itself because those adjectives imply a personal, subjective judgement. Something that is good for me might not be good for my neighbour. And, do you know, that is exactly the main flaw I see in The 48 Laws of Power. It is not amorality: if someone wants to achieve power through these rules, why not? If others don’t agree, it is up to them to prevent it, but everyone has a right to seek fulfilment in his or her own way. No, the trouble is, precisely, and unless I am very much mistaken, that this book gives a series of rules to achieve a goal that it presents as good in itself.

Against all odds, a ‘moral’ book

I quote again: ‘There is no use in trying to opt out of the game (…) Instead of struggling against the inevitable, instead of arguing and whining and feeling guilty, it is far better to excel at power’.

It is up to each of us to decide if ‘to excel at power’ through following these rules is indeed far better than ’struggling against the inevitable’. Just as it is up to everyone to decide if it is far better to undergo painful and expensive surgery rather than ’struggling’ all our life against ‘inevitable’ features like our sex, skin colour, height or ageing signs. Some will enter the game, others won’t and that is just as fine. No one has the authority to tell us that there is no use in living our life in our own way (but all the same, if you seek power and are not a white heterosexual man or a tall, young, preferably white beautiful woman, I recommend to choose surgery).

Seriously, to say people should follow a set of rules, without a disclaimer such as ‘This rules are useful if you desire power above everything else, or at least above everything you’ll have to sacrifice to get it’, is exactly the sort of thing moralists do. It is ironic enough that the book should be considered amoral, I wish it were! In fact, it just follows The prince’s moral instead of The Bible’s, but it’s moral all right (and this is humour).

Power, OK… for what?

The book suggests that power is desirable, useful, in short good for ourselves, without answering the question: for what?

Are the things that I can gain through power worth all I will have to sacrifice to get it? Are the evils I will avoid really worse than those I will bring upon myself by following the rules?

The book says yes, without even mentioning what is exactly that you gain by getting power, and disregarding the fact that only every reader can tell what matters most in his or her life. In mine, for instance, it is being true to myself, and since some of the rules go absolutely against that (some others don’t and I have found myself using them) it would be very irrational for me to follow them. Which is enough to prove that they are not good for everybody.

Sources:

The 48 Laws of Power | An amoral life guideHow to master ‘The 48 Laws of Power’ Robert Greene – The 48 Laws of Power

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            I always thought that when I retired I would do volunteer work with an organization I really liked and would enjoy the work.  However, things have changed a great deal over the years.  There was a time when a person who volunteered was simply an assistant to someone who had more work than they could do on their own and you didn’t need to have any special skills other than typing or filing.

            Today, however, I have discovered that volunteers are actually unpaid employees, taking the place of workers who once were paid do the job, but were downsized out of positions.  Because of this, businesses, or organizations only want people who have experience working with their type of business or organization.  Now, rather than assisting someone with their work and being told what to do, they want someone to come in knowing what needs to be done and how to do it.  Sometimes the volunteer even creates their own job or heads a department of volunteers.

            It has gotten to be just as difficult as finding an entry level job.  Everyone wants to hire someone who has experience, but how does one get experience when they can’t get a job that will teach them.  We used to be told that doing volunteer work was a way to get experience, but that is not true any longer.  I’ve tried to volunteer at the museums for example, but as far as I can tell they only accept college students or former teachers and the like, who have some specific knowledge about what are in the museum collections. 

It seems like a waste of that knowledge when only those who direct tour groups actually need to be able to share that kind of information.  I suppose they want people who are able to backup the docents, but in the meantime if I was an expert in a particular subject I would not want to work checking coats, selling tickets or just watching museum visitors and answering questions and giving directions as necessary.  I seldom see anyone approach the museum staff that is standing around with nothing to do; does that take a special skill?   

                No matter how much self improvement we try to do, such as improve our looks or further our careers, our core personalities will always be more or less the same. I think it would be very difficult to change something like that. I think also that the best way to find the right partner for ourselves is not try to mold our minds and bodies into something we are not, but rather accept ourselves and love ourselves exactly for who we are. That is a big challenge for many people because they see themselves constantly as a never ending self improvement project. Somehow they are just never pretty enough, smart enough, educated enough, successful enough, or nice enough for people to like them. They spend their lives trying to make self improvements in the hope that they will finally find a person to appreciate them for who they are and treat them for what they are worth. Unfortunately, they find out that those people were attracted to them for all the wrong reasons, such as all that shiny and falsely attractive success that they have created around them. When the relationship matures and grows, people begin to connect emotionally beyond all the false pretenses. That is when they are forced to face who they really are and what they really need in a relationship.

               We need to take an honest look in the mirror and begin to love and accept the reflection. This is the only way to receive the love we so badly need. My current goal in life is to be true to myself and to love and accept myself with all my faults. When I was younger, I used to wish to become somebody successful and important. Now I realize all I want to do is just be myself. I am already somebody important and my success will be determined to the extent that I find the courage to stand up to people who put me down and be myself despite everything. There are such self help books written for women like “Act Like a Lady, but think like a Man”. This book was written by a man. A man who mistakenly thought that he knew what it took to build and maintain a successful relationship. I guess he forgot about something called honesty and self acceptance.

Kosanya~

I am aged 83 now and a lifelong student of predictive practices that affect our lives.  Comparatively recently, through a computer program  I developed, I discovered that most of the harm and losses I could trace, had happened within a 40 hour period on a certain day in April every year, but only if I am outside my home.  I also got married on that day.

This day is 81 days from my birthday and I could find no correlation to explain my vulnerability until the program traced backwards.  I discovered that this day was 284 days before my birthday.  Was I conceived on that day?   Could this be why that day is so significant in my life?

Checking with friends and family I discovered that others had similar correlations, not always bad, not always related to the same original event.  So long as I avoid being outside my home during that time, I remain safe.  Prior to my discovery or if I forgot to stay at home during that time, I suffered the consequences.  Consequences that seem to remain affecting me from time to time all through my life..

I suggest that others who have suffered notable events, study their dates and times of occurrence and research possible patterns of good fortune or misfortune in their lives.

Also learn how to enhance the beneficial or protect themselves from harm and loss.

invincible@heartserene

If you look back through your life to the boyfriends or girlfriends you have had how many of them have you said “i really love you” too? Then within months split up and moved on to the next person and telling that person the same thing!

People get married say they have fell in love then bang its all over so was it really Love?
No cos if it was they would still be together and wouldn’t have split up.
Or found someone else.

Men and woman have affairs, in their relationships cos they say they are not happy or not getting what they need. But they say they love the person they are with! How can this be?
If they loved each other then they should be getting what they need and their needs would have been met and they wouldn’t have an affair in the first place.

I know some marriage break ups are due to other things like being in an abusive relationship, but why abuse that person if you love them? Why would any one want to hurt someone if they loved that person it is beyond me.

When you are with someone or suppose to love someone then they think that they own you and you can’t do the things you like to do cos of this.
No one owns no one in this world even if you are married you still don’t own each other, we all have our own lives to lead and should be allowed to do what we want to do without the feeling of being owned and then you can’t do what you want.
So again is this called love? Stopping the other person from doing or being what they want to be.
To me it is called being owned and no one has the rights to do that.

On March 13th 2010 he was doing a television show in Rome when he apparently had chest problems he was rushed to the hospital he then died over the weekend.

this event means alot to me because i was watching the first ever videos of He Pingping getting into the guinness world records and thought i would show some respect towards him and give him a little spark of fame in the afterlife, he truly was an amazing person for his size.

He shall be missed.