an_understanding_of_ourselves

An Understanding Of Ourselves

William Shakespeare wrote in Antony and Cleopatra that "In time we hate that which we often fear". Carl Jung wrote that "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves". I would be remiss in having written this treatise, a censure of ignorance (the lack of knowledge; curable), stupidity (the refusal to gain knowledge; fatal), arrogance, needless complexity, sadism, fascism, feudalism, lies, liars, charlatans, and those who steadfastly stand in the way of the search for truth and for beauty, without confessing that I find myself almost daily standing under the sword of Damocles.

"Never mumble some sarcastic shit to somebody who can obviously fuck you up." - Ice-T, Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood

Courage is the ability and willingness to confront fear, ... uncertainty, or intimidation. I strive daily to act out of personal courage to keep from lapsing into mediocrity, to continue to hear the voices of those around me from whom I can learn. In one view of the world it is I who is the coward, not having the courage to "make my own way" or to "take a stand". In that view of the world the fascist tyrants, feudal lords, and tyrannical managers who impose their will with an iron fist are "heroes" who show "true courage". These people may point to Steve Jobs, an infamous tyrant as a leader, as their poster child. I would simply point to the Black Swan Theory. There will always be "events that come as a surprise, have a major effect, and are often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight". Don't flatter yourself. Very likely you aren't really that special.

It takes courage to speak with humility, honestly accepting that you are standing on the shoulders of giants. What I have written here is nothing more than a compendium of knowledge that exists for anyone to find. Yes, I have been fortunate enough to have lived through and experienced the introduction of Continuous Improvement and Quality Circles to US industries and the introduction of Agile Methodologies to the software development profession, and to have worked with men and women more talented and more experienced than I who were willing to share their knowledge, skills, and experiences with me.

I have been blessed with a yearning for knowledge and the capability to read and retain concepts and knowledge. But I have added little new to this knowledge other than perhaps a different summary, presentation in a different manner, and perhaps the application of certain facets of that knowledge to a new area of study (using deterministic chaos as an allegory for a design methodology is, for example, I believe a relatively unique perspective). I have included numerous quotes throughout this treatise specifically to show that I am building on the works of others and my learned knowledge of the world.

"A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."- Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Whether I am a coward for refusing to take a stand against the "giants" on whose "shoulders I stand" or whether I am a pragmatic woman for recognizing that I do so and not straying far from the collar of their jacket is a matter perhaps of opinion. Not subject to interpretation are the timeless designs of nature, the relentless laws of mathematics and probability, the impact of the work of Deming and Juran on the quality and efficiency of modern processes, nor even what is truth and what is beauty.

Arrogant, vain, insecure, and fearful men have always and will always use reductio ad absurdum to defend a position, using absurd arguments to explain why their position, untenable in a sane world, is the "right" thing for "this" situation due to "their superior knowledge". We all have in our genetic sequences the ability to recognize truth and to separate it from lies, and to recognize beauty and separate it from ugliness, garishness, pornography, and cheap mimicry. This intuitive ability helps us survive everyday encounters and has enabled us to survive as a species for hundreds of thousands of years. We may not always be able to define exactly why a particular statement, policy, or action is wrong, or what makes a particular painting or sculpture simply awful, but we know it when we see it.

The filter through which we view the world and perceive beauty and the truth can be "clogged" over time with the debris of lies, misfortune, and misunderstanding. What we must remember is that this filter is both "self cleaning" and can be strengthened through use! All that is required to keep it in the remarkable shape, the cleanliness and clarity of the child, and to improve it so that we can perceive the world around us with even more clarity, is to use it. To improve the clarity of your filter; when you see it, call a lie a lie, call an ugliness an ugliness, and call a wrong a wrong. To improve the focus of your filter; when you see it, recognize truth for truth, and beauty as beauty.

"Were you born stupid, Heinrich, or did you have to study?" - Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

The only thing that sets me apart from any other person, if indeed there is anything at all which does, is my insistence on continuing to see the world around me as being filled with wonder, with truth, and with beauty as does a child, and my steadfast insistence on pointing out to all when I see that "the emperor has no clothes."

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.” - Marilyn Monroe

I pity those who believe that I am too passionate about my topic or that it is unprofessional to mix engineering with philosophy, religion, art, and life. Passion is perhaps the greatest gift of being humans, of being aware of who we are, of our mortality, and of our immortality. Those who would have others separate their lives into components find it acceptable to profess brotherly love on Sunday but advocate war on Monday. They chastise their employees for waste while living lavishly.

...the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and ...the life which is unexamined is not worth living.... Socrates

I cannot find the lines dividing engineering, art, truth, spirituality, beauty, love, and life. I see the world as heterogeneous but as a whole, as having phases as different as that of gas, liquid, and solid, but, like H2O, still being of the same. Separating art from engineering does not improve the engineer, rather it lessens her by removing a possible point of reference. Separating spirituality from truth strengthens neither the pilgrim nor the philosopher, it only takes from them a means of understanding one another.

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.” ― Jack Kerouac

The simple desire for understanding is the key to much of life. We have to understand an objective to properly design a solution. We have to understand each other both to live in harmony and in love. We have to understand ourselves in order to find our own spirituality. We have to understand the universe around us in order to understand what is true.

The key to understanding is simple; refuse to believe that you know, while never faltering in the search for knowledge.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” ― Albert Einstein

My Engineering Philosophy

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copyright Katherine Elizabeth Lightsey 1959-2013 (aka; my life)

"If she uses the word pedant in either conversation or composition, she is one." - Katherine E.