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Affluent comfort is security; freedom from care, anxiety, or doubt.

Compassion requires effort.

Effort, done properly, creates discomfort.

Thus affluent comfort rejects-refuses-repels compassion.

Affluent comfort is the realm of those with wealth and power.

Though a large majority of us do not live in the realm of wealth and power, a majority of us have been initiated into its hopeful pretense, and as initiates a majority of us have come to be comfortable within our servitude.

Thus our proximal comfort also rejects-refuses-repels compassion.

In our culture, comfort, affluent or proximal, has become the driving force for the majority.

The force of comfort, (an interesting juxtaposition), has always been a driver but the difference in recent decades is that technology makes attainment easier, so less effort is expended on improvement and progress. Less effort equates to more comfort and that in turn negatively impacts our ability to discover, to understand, to care.

To care, to want to right wrongs, to fight for Good, one must be rationally, actively angry and in turn one must listen for and learn from others’ rational anger.

Anger, justified or not, creates discomfort.

Compassion requires anger.

Anger comes from truthfulness.

Truthfulness requires effort.

Truthfulness creates discomfort.

It is a dilemma:

• I am not allowed to be truthful.
• I am not allowed to be angry.
• I am only allowed to work hard for myself or for the comfort of others.
• I am only allowed to be compassionate quietly, within my reach; and my reach is limited.

To choose compassion (even only within my individual realm) I must embrace truthfulness, anger, and effort, and I must consciously, consistently reject comfort.

Broken: reduced to fragments; fragmented; ruptured; torn; fractured; not functioning properly; out of working order.

We as a nation are broken. Yet we remain tied, bound, gagged to a system that is safely entrenched in practice, ritual, convention. And I understand that for those with power it is more comfortable to choose our moment over the care and consideration of future generations. And I understand why many of us with little or no power also choose to be safe within what we know rather than risk relatively comfortable moments for the untested turmoil that would be required to work for the future. Promising decisions are hard. Routine decisions are easy. To be safe is to abandon Justice, both today and for future generations.

Hard decisions are necessary in the face of injustice. Yet (by dressing up routine as promising and presenting status quo as progress) our system in this country has evolved to convince the oppressed that injustice is just; that they are better off in their shattered fragment than they would be seeking Justice for other fragments even if theirs would also benefit from that search. Our system in this country has taught us zero-sum thinking – that first and foremost it is about me, my comfort, my pretense, and secondarily it is about my fragment because opposing fragments are out to get what’s mine and there’s no such thing as mutual beneficence.

So to seek Justice, to attach urgency to actual hard decisions, I must do the following:

• Admit that it does not have to be a zero-sum game.
• Consciously realize that there is no such thing as a good decision.
• Begin to recognize myself as pretense.
• Risk comfort for untested promise.
• Risk the moment for tomorrow.

We are not functioning properly. We are not functioning according to Beauty, Truth, Wisdom, Justice. We have warped Form, Function, Discipline, Indulgence and elevated bureaucracy, convention, certainty, division.

We are broken.

Regardless of who makes a decision, instinctively…

• When a decision is made and it works to my advantage, it is smart.
• When a decision is made and it works to my disadvantage, it is dumb.

After instinct, decisions are according to their intent and/or outcome…

• When a decision is made by me and meant to impact only me, it is singular. Largely because singular decisions influence future decisions, they very rarely (if ever) impact only me.
• When a decision is made and it works to the advantage of the decision-maker and to the disadvantage of anyone else, it is manipulative.
• When a decision is made with little or no thought or process, it is careless and unreliable and the decision-maker is lazy, specious, untrustworthy, and potentially intentionally duplicitous.
• When a decision is made with significant thought and process, it is promising. Promising decisions are often untested and uncertain. Promising decisions are hard.
• When a decision is made from habit or in the course of practice, ritual, or convention, it is routine. Routine decisions inhibit potential for improvement. Routine decisions maintain status quo. Routine decisions are careless but thought to be reliable. Routine decisions pretend to be promising. Routine decisions are easy.

Is there any such thing as a good decision?

It feels like most decisions characterized as good decisions are in actuality routine decisions following practice, ritual, or convention. We tend to believe that safe is good and untested decisions made for change and potential improvement are risky and bad.

To be safe is to abandon Justice.

I am working this week to reconcile competence and improvement with understanding and equity.

• To be understanding is to be nice; as it should be.
• To be competent is to be truthful; construed by some as insensitive.
• The incompetent still need to be significant, contribute, and (in today’s world) earn a living.
• Objectively, an individual is a resource.
• Incompetence is not a reflection of an individual. Incompetence is a misplaced human resource.
• A reallocation of human resources is required for improvement.
• Financial compensation is a resource.
• A reallocation of financial resources is required for equity.
• Improvement requires competence.
• The long-term survival of Humanity requires improvement.
• Equity requires understanding.
• The day-to-day survival of the individual requires equity.
• To reallocate resources requires power.
• Power is afraid.
• Power is afraid that a reallocation of financial resources would diminish their compensation thus their power.
• Power is afraid that an equitable reallocation of human resources would require a reallocation of financial resources.
• So, power has created a system in which the privileged are gently guided on unique journeys to amazing accomplishments as enablers and defenders of the status quo.
• So, power has created a system in which the underprivileged, (the majority), are gently misguided, ill-advised, misled, divided, misused, stirred, manipulated, set against each other, distanced, displaced, oppressed.

So I believe I have determined that though competence and improvement appear to be at odds with understanding and equity, they are so only when we accept or believe the superficial rhetorical definitions spewed by power. Power wants us to believe that equity hinders improvement because power is afraid. It is power that holds us back, maintaining status quo, working very hard to keep us not only from equity but in turn competence, improvement, and understanding. If power weren’t afraid (and all-powerful) we could reallocate and make strides toward both long-term and day-to-day survival.

Here is an example of how power works to maintain. Today higher education is still largely for the privileged and the potentially-privileged (a potential that is still largely determined by power). The concepts, gently guided – unique journey – amazing accomplishments (from a bullet point above), came in an email directly from a large state university’s Student Success office reminding faculty and staff that “student success and retention are at an all-time high,” and encouraging us to continue this trend. When the students appear to do well, we look good and everyone is comfortable and happy so why wouldn’t we continue to gently guide each other into the jaws of this self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is our idea, (i.e. power’s definition), of understanding and equity – enabling the privileged and aspirants-to-privileged to become enablers and defenders.

Having worked for more than 20 employers over 5 decades, I also see this dynamic asserting itself more and more in the workplace. I believe the correlation between competence and compensation in the workplace has become less and less in recent decades. I don’t believe it has ever been what the ‘American Dream’ would have me believe. I am currently in a circumstance in which there is little to no correlation between competence and compensation, and I believe the larger an organization the more so this is true. From where I sit, the process by which compensation is decided is more strongly correlated with the extent to which one is an enabler and defender of the status quo than it is with competence. And just as with the students, we are all amazing and outstanding and phenomenal and great and happy and comfortable. Though obviously this comfortable lack of progress should not positively influence one’s compensation, and though one might be inclined to argue that competence should more positively correlate with compensation (as I appear to do up to now in this paragraph), if incompetence is merely a misplaced resource, then instead I would have to argue that one’s degree of competence or incompetence in a specific job should also not positively or negatively influence one’s compensation but should instead trigger a reallocation of human resources. And some might say, “yes, reallocate – the incompetent should be fired and sent on their merry way to find a new job.” But that is not understanding or equitable partially because this method of reallocating financial resources is moving in the wrong direction and (perhaps) largely due to the multitude of interpretations for incompetent. Again, incompetence is not a reflection of an individual; incompetence is a reflection of a system in which a human resource is misplaced.

Yet there remains a stigma associated with incompetence – there should not be. The shame is on power, and on secondary power; all those who work so very hard to maintain status quo. The irreconcilable difference here is not between equity and improvement or between understanding and competence; the irreconcilable difference here is between the pretense of entitlement and the day-to-day and long-term survival of the individual and the species.

Shame on me, shame on you, shame on us.

To question in an effort to change for the better could be taken for what it is, (an effort to change for the better), which should lead to a back and forth discussion and listening for understanding. But instead, an effort to change things for the better is far too often construed by the one being questioned as an attack and an attack instinctively triggers defensiveness. In defensive mode, instead of an exchange of words, one throws up a wall of words to...

1. Protect.
2. Dilute their responsibility.
3. Repudiate, discredit, invalidate the inquisitor.
4. Hide from the inquisition.

Large, departmentalized, bureaucratic organizations have become particularly adept at this, utilizing specialized departments, (legal and HR), to deflect and deter incoming charges. Smaller organizations, departments, and even entrenched individuals are also often quite good at dodging (what they see as) bullets. A single individual looking to make things better has no chance.

I could always do better. I am never good enough. I am constantly working to improve process. And in a new circumstance I am often able to do so – to a point; and to that point the effort also improves me. But ever since my fall from grace, (i.e. disability), I invariably, inevitably come to that point where I am stymied; not because of my potential or my capabilities or my willingness but because for most others it seems good enough is good enough. And to be told you could do better is interpreted as you are not good enough which is construed as an attack. So when I reach this plateau and I look around at the others happily wandering about and when I point and ask why aren’t we climbing that mountain or clearing that brush or blazing a new trail through that forest they look at me like I’m nuts and like I’ve hurt their feelings and they go back to polishing their walls of words, fluffing their plateau pillows, making themselves more comfortable. And so after a time, plateaued, I start looking for a new circumstance in which I can improve process. But of late, looking for a new circumstance, I am finding that my desire to make things better comes across so strongly I am scaring people away long before I am even invited to begin the climb to their plateau.

So, after years, decades of cycling through this inanity I am asking myself, is it no longer possible for me as a truthful senior with a disability to be taken seriously?

From my experience, the following could be consistently applied to any layered, hierarchical organization:

• There is Power: those who call the shots from behind their walls of words; almost always associated with greater income and/or wealth.
• There is secondary power: defenders of power, word-wall architects, enablers of status quo.
• There is the flock: followers, biding their time, fluffing plateau pillows, pretending to contribute.
• There are new arrivals: making their way to the plateau, perhaps adding a spark to a segment of the flock, perhaps even improving some process along the way.
• There are malcontents: part of a flock but looking for a better flock, or a better circumstance, or looking to make existing circumstance better. Malcontents only fluff plateau pillows when forced.

I am a malcontent who first finds my way to the plateau then works very hard to make existing circumstance better and only after considerable-effort-to-no-avail do I look for a new circumstance in which I can make a difference – at least during my climb to a new plateau.