Tip of the iceberg

The world weighs on my shoulders
But what am I to do?

You sometimes drive me crazy
But I worry about you

I know it makes no difference
To what you're going through

But I see the tip of the iceberg
And I worry about you...

I often think about the metaphor of “the tip of the iceberg”. It's a common phrase, and we all know it suggests there may be something huge, mysterious, and dangerous hidden from our view. But do we use that knowledge effectively? Does it make a difference?

The world weighs on my shoulders...

Over the course of a couple of years I participated in many earnest conversations about the future of humanity and the fate of our planet. I found it amazing, and frustrating, how often conversations among dedicated, like-minded people turned to anger and acrimony.

You sometimes drive me crazy...

After a while I learned to recognize the pattern. I learned to spot the icebergs and to predict their intersecting courses. I tried to warn folks. Like the familiar history of a certain ship, people would wave me off and say, "There's no iceberg out there. Even if there is, it doesn't pose a threat to me."

I know it makes no difference...

Icebergs are big, slow-moving, and ponderous. There's plenty of time to change course, to steer a conversation differently. But there's no iceberg out there. And even if there is, it's not a threat.

But I see the tip of the iceberg...

Crunch.

After a while all those colliding conversations begin to look the same to me. I see frustrated people standing on the tips of icebergs, shouting angrily, throwing snowballs at each other, wondering what happened. And they're far apart. Too far to talk, usually. Below the waterline the hidden parts of icebergs collide long before their tips ever meet.

But what am I to do?

Sometimes people declare, "You can't say this. You can't have that conversation. It just doesn't work." I can see why. But I find greater value in thinking of the situation this way: In what circumstances could we have that conversation? To whom can we say that? When, and where? In what circumstance is it safe to have that conversation?

It seems to me the important first step is to acknowledge the existence of the hidden part of the iceberg. Too often we try to talk about the tips of icebergs without recognizing the submerged assumptions, the accumulated history of feelings and memories below the surface. Even if we don't talk about those things explicitly, if we can at least acknowledge they exist, if we can recognize the rest of the iceberg and adjust to accommodate it, then we might have more satisfying dialog. Then we might have more effective, more productive dialog.

We might invite other people over to our iceberg. Or we might climb down from the tips of our personal icebergs and meet elsewhere. Sometimes we might mean saying, "Sure, we can talk about that, but not here." Or it might mean deciding, "This is better suited to a different audience." Mostly I think it means behaving as if we know the iceberg is there.

I see the tip of the iceberg...

I've seen the tip of the iceberg, and I've learned that acknowledging the rest of it does make a difference to what we're going through.

 


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"I see the tip of the iceberg" quoted from the song, Distant Early Warning, lyrics by Neil Peart, Rush, Grace Under Pressure, 1984.

Photo by Ralph Clevenger, 1999

This is a follow-up to an earlier piece: Of icebergs, NPR, and language

Two worth reading

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

I've been planning to recommend Ursula K. Le Guin's delightful book, Changing Planes, since I discovered it a few weeks ago. The reward for procrastination is an opportunity to pair it with Jose Saramago's unusual book, The Cave.

Changing Planes presents itself as a sly travelogue, a collection of short stories that describe some of the planes of existence a traveler can reach after experiencing the peculiar combination of stress, boredom, and indigestion that occurs only in a modern airport.

The book's back cover blurb observes that Le Guin's stories of exotic places and peoples all reflect the here and now of 21st century life. Most notable for me were the perpetually annoyed and squabbling people of Veks, the reckless genetic experiments on Islac, the thoughtful people of Ansarac who took some bad advice but abandoned it for their own time-tested wisdom, and the sad holiday island of Great Joy.

While searching Le Guin's web site for supplementary links I noticed her recommendation of Nobel prize-winner Jose Saramago's books, Seeing, Blindness, and The Cave. The titles Seeing and Blindness caught my eye because I've written a bit myself about seeing and not seeing. Saramago's writing style may challenge us, but readers who appreciate William Faulkner's page-long streams of consciousness should be equally comfortable with Saramago's technique. What Saramago's charming characters discover deep within The Cave is both disturbing and liberating:

“They are us!”

 

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The Cave and other books by Jose Saramago are available from Powell's and from local bookstores

Ursula K. Le Guin's web site is worth exploring

“We shall not cease from exploration...”
quoted from Four Quartets, by T.S. Eliot

 

Internet mud wrestling

As we careen headlong into a future that's globalized, industrialized, and urbanized, I suspect we lose our connection to our rural roots. Barely a generation removed from the farm, we're already losing the context that informed the common sense our grandparents shared.

I hope we've retained some of their common sense, enough to appreciate the insights expressed in some of our grandparents' sayings. Almost daily, on the Internet and on TV, I witness reminders of this one:

Never wrestle a pig in mud.
You both get dirty --
but the pig enjoys it.

The pig enjoys it.

Seeking, finding ... seeing

To paraphrase ... some guys ... we can't always find what we want. But if we try, we just might find what we need.

To be wise is to see...

 

No more burned marshmallows

My parents often took me camping when I was a young child. At night we sat around the campfire, and sometimes we roasted marshmallows. Well, my parents roasted their marshmallows. I burned mine.

I hadn't yet learned patience. I was too eager to get to the toasty marshmallow result to spend much time holding the marshmallow away from the flames. Clearly they toasted faster if they were held closer to the flames. Or right in the flames. Then they caught fire, burned, and charred.

Each time that happened, I blew out the flames around the blackened sugar lump, waited as long as I could stand for it to cool, and then ate it. Sometimes I tried to remove the charred black crust, but that rarely worked. So I ate burned, black, slightly-sweetened charcoal.

Mmmm ... charcoal.

I assured my mom and dad, and my friends when they camped with us, that "I really like burned marshmallows! I enjoy eating them that way."

To prove it, I quit trying to toast them carefully. I deliberately held every fresh marshmallow right in middle of the flames. I became skilled at burning them. I declared they were even tastier when they caught fire twice. Three times even.

"Mmmm ... I really like burned marshmallows!"

But I didn't, of course. Burned marshmallows taste bad. They taste like burned ... well, they taste like burned anything. They taste burned.

Eventually I tired of pretending to enjoy burned marshmallows. I decided that learning to be more patient might taste better than pretending to enjoy the flavor of charcoal.

Now, as an adult, sometimes I see people work very hard to pretend that unpleasant outcomes are really going just fine. Often I hear people tell me things that sound remarkably similar to my childish proclamation, "I really like burned marshmallows!"

I don't believe them.

Culture as conspiracy theory

"Oh, you and your conspiracy theories!"

Yeah, well, I tell ya what...

When a small group of people try to fool a bigger group, I call it conspiracy.

When a small group of people try to fool themselves, I call it denial.

When we all try to fool each other, I call it culture.

Arithmetic allegory(3+1=4=1+3)

Did you just say, "3 + 1 = 4?"

Yes, I

That's all wrong! 4 = 1 + 3 !

No, it's 3+1.

1+3!

3+1!


It seems to me there's something they do not see.

Haiku tunnel (carpal)

The typing finger
with carpal tunnel treatment
having writ, moves on

To be wise is to see

I'm intrigued by the notion of seeing as a metaphor for learning and for understanding. I'm also concerned about wisdom, how we apply our knowledge, and how we make decisions. So it caught my eye when Canadian blogger Dave Pollard mentioned that the word “wise” originally meant “to see”. The Online Etymology web site reveals

 “to see,” hence “to know”
(see vision)

See vision, indeed. See. Vision. Perspective. Viewpoint. Foresight. 20/20 hindsight. Insight. Take a close look. Take a closer look. Seeing is believing. Blind. Blindness. Blind spot.

Do you see what I see? Do I see what you see? How do we compare and communicate what we see?

Have you ever been with other people while looking at one of those optical illusions? Have you ever been the one person who couldn't see what everyone else sees? It's frustrating! It's easy to suspect they're just playing a prank.

Or, have you ever tried to help someone to see the other image? That can be frustrating, too. “Well, if you kinda squint your eyes this way and turn your head...now do you see it?”

In a way that experience is the whole point of this blog. It's the point of my other web sites, too. Can I see what you see? Can you see what I see? How do we acknowledge and demonstrate what we see?

It seems to me that our culture often tries to tell us there's only one thing that can be seen. Ever. If we see something else, well, we'd better keep it to ourselves. Our culture tells us, “This is a picture of a vase. It's only a vase. If you think you see something else in this picture, well, you're wrong! Because it's a vase.”

We have 24-hour “news” channels, and magazines and newspapers and radio stations, all to remind us that this is a vase — and only a vase. Vase, vase, vase. Wait! Breaking news! “Some nut claims to see faces in this picture. Har har har, isn't that quaint? Faces! Now back to you, Sue, with the 5-day vase forecast.”

Blindness. Blind spots. Vision. Perspective. Insight.

To see, hence, to know. To be wise is to see.

 

A startlingly different view of the world

“He was constantly reminded of how startlingly different a place the world was when viewed from a point only three feet to the left.”

That's from The Salmon of Doubt, the book Douglas Adams was writing when he died.

Imagine: A startlingly different place, and only three feet to the left. It seems to me that three steps to the left is an easy journey to see a startlingly different world. That's worth the trip, don't you think?

 

Sides of a coin

“Oh, they're just two sides of the same coin.”

Yeah, well, have you ever looked at a coin?

The sides are different.

Today is a good day to vote.

Some kinds of people

There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can do math, and those who can't.

No? How about this:

There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who can do binary math, and the other 01.

Hmmm...

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who don't believe in categorizing others, and ...

Doh!

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More at DavidBerreby.com ...

I don't do book reviews

Books. I like 'em. I read a lot of them.

Often I recommend them to others. (Perhaps you noticed?)

Unfortunately I suspect my recommendations might be more effective if I could muster the willpower to write detailed, enthusiastic reviews. As much as I enjoy books, and as much I want others to appreciate the good ones, I greatly dislike writing book reviews. They remind me too much of book reports and school homework assignments.

Reading a book is fun. Writing about it takes time away from reading the next one.

As a kid in fourth grade I went on strike over book reports. I refused to write them. Specifically, I declined to participate in a classroom contest to try to write more book reports than the other kids. It seemed pretty clear to me that the contest was designed to get some (many?) of the kids to read more. The prospect of gold stars and smiley stickers on a wall chart (or the prize, whatever it was) didn't offer much incentive to me. I already averaged about four books checked out of the library at a time.

My civil disobedience prompted an emergency parent-teacher conference. Although I didn't exactly prevail, we did negotiate a concession: I agreed to stop setting an example of disobedience in exchange for the teacher's acknowledgement that the contest wasn't likely to advance my education.*

Now I have better incentive to write book reports reviews. I want other people to benefit from useful books as much I have. I want other people to read those books. But book reviews still feel like homework to me, and writing them does take time away from reading them.

Unfortunately the statement, “You should read this book because I say so”, doesn't seem to work very well.

I often think of books as tool boxes filled with idea tools. I have some background in engineering so that feels like a natural and obvious approach. For me, recommending a particular book is like recommending a particular tool for a particular task.

“Hi, there. I see you're pounding that nail with a brick. How's that workin' for ya? Have you considered a hammer instead? I just happen to have a hammer right here.”


Most models are wrong, but some are useful. Good books are full of ideas. Some of them are wrong, but some of them are useful. There are many I might recommend to a particular person in a particular situation. There are a few I recommend widely because they're especially versatile. These are my Swiss Army, Leatherman, toolbox-in-paperback, recommended books:

• Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think,
  by George Lakoff
  
  
• The Fifth Discipline,
  by Peter Senge
  
  
• Ishmael,
  by Daniel Quinn
  

Each of those three is really a subset of the author's ideas. Each author has body of related work — more toolboxes filled with more tools — but those three are immediately useful.

I know I should say more, of course. But I'd rather be reading.


---

* I give my 4th grade teacher, the late Mrs. Harder, a lot of credit for her unusually candid admission.

More book recommendations with inadequate reviews...

 

Tarheel Tavern #85, setting an example

Welcome to this 85th example of the Tarheel Tavern. Our theme this week is setting an example. My friend and sustainability advocate, Chris, recently posted about the ways he demonstrates sustainable living. Like a blog meme, his example inspired me to think about the ways I try to demonstrate sustainable attitudes. It also reminded me of the theme of ...Slowly she turned, a regular Tavern participant who is slowly turning toward a new blog host.

I remember commenting earlier this summer that part of the value of her community gardening effort is to set an example. When I experienced one of those light-bulb-over-the-head moments three years ago I realized my best contribution would be to persuade other people to see value in sustainable living. The value of mowing my lawn with an electric mower is for my neighbors to see me doing it. The value of bringing my own reusable bags to the grocery store is for other shoppers to see me doing it. I'm very conscious that the value of this blog and my other Internet projects is for readers to see ordinary, real-life examples.

Mr. R., blogging at Evolgen, understands the value of teaching by example. He's also aware of the challenge of setting a good example consistently. As a science teacher he tries to inspire his students, but even the most dedicated science teacher can find it difficult to muster enthusiasm for nine straight weeks of nothing but dihydrogen oxide.

Writing Iddybud's Journal from the northern annex of Tarheel territory, Jude reflects on the challenge her mother faced and the influence of her mother's example. And she finds the sacred within the ordinary.

Mandie, approaching motherhood herself, sets an example of frenzied activity that makes me tired just to summarize it. Have you ever watched one of those home remodeling shows that recap a whole weekend of work in 30 seconds of frenzied sped-up video? Well, Mandie set that pace without the benefit of video effects. Picture a pregnant woman rebuilding multiple home appliances, cleaning gutters, jump-starting cars, constructing a corral, and taking crash courses in fire safety and plumbing 101, while eating chocolate and talking on the phone.

If that makes you tired, you might catch your breath while watching telenovelas en español at Pratie Place. Melinama describes a lifetime of bad behavior by the character of Doña Jacinta. (Viewing hint: "You know she's bad because she dresses in black and carries a cane.") Although the bad guy gal goes down in flames, some viewers wonder if Jacinta escaped too easily.

Real-life TV photographer (but not real name), Colonel Corn describes an interview with a rock star who sets an example by helping real life victims of abusive relationships.

A huge toxic waste fire in central North Carolina became a scary part of our real life this week. At Sustainability Southeast (another project in which I'm involved) we consider the example this sets: the example of our investment in our health and investment in our quality of life.

Over in western North Carolina, the Scrutiny Hooligans observe that a politician sets an example of “do as he says, not as he does”.

At the national level, the political example gets worse. A political operation that trumpeted its particular concept of moral standards recently discovered it doesn't live up to its own example. Ron takes issue with the search for scapegoats as he examines the Foley Fallout.

Thanks, everyone, for sharing your examples. Thanks for sharing what you care about.

Share what you care about.

That was the answer that energy and sustainability problem-solver Hunter Lovins offered when asked the challenging question, "What can I do?" She didn't hesitate before she replied, "Share what you care about."

That's the value of teaching, the value of parenting, the value of community gardening, and the value of blogging.

Thanks for sharing, and thanks for reading.

 

Blame the squirrels

I know a guy who just bought a new car. He believes it's powered by squirrels. Just like in the cartoons. He believes there are squirrels under the hood that make his car go when they run frantically inside those exercise wheels meant for small pets. Every morning before he leaves for work he tosses a handful of nuts in the glove box to keep the squirrels running.

That fantasy ran out of gas, of course.

But he still believes. “Damn lazy squirrels!” he curses, pounding the hood.

“Damn lazy squirrels!”

 

Those arithmetic stories are clever and all, but what are they about?

I spend some of my time trying to persuade people. I want to persuade effectively, so I spend even more of my time thinking about how persuasion works, and how communication works, and sadly, how they don't work.

Arithmetic metaphor #1 is a warm-up, I suppose. It expresses my frustration at how much time and energy we can expend arguing about disconnected idealogies.

The second is about systems thinking -- understanding parts within the context of the whole. It's about remembering the bigger picture. When we understand the system of arithmetic we know it's absurd to reject one little part of it. Or we ought to know that. But how often do we reject one truth among many because it's just a little too unpleasant, a little too inconvenient, or little too scary? Does that make it go away?

I think not.

Finally, the third allegory is about how we demonstrate understanding...or not. During a conversation via blog comments elsewhere I asked participants how we might demonstrate to each other that we really understand each other's views. “Repeat the other person's argument back to him or her”, was the only reply I received.

That reply left me frustrated and dissatisfied, although it took me a long time to figure out why. For one thing, I was trying to carry on a conversation, not an argument. And the reply felt like a lecture. I know the basics of active listening. Most of us do. Repeating statements is fine; it's useful; it helps to confirm accuracy. But that's all it signifies.

That's not what I really want. Mere acknowledgement isn't very satisfying. I'd rather see an indication of understanding. And to me that means demonstrating that we have incorporated new information into our own thinking.

If I hand someone a message written on a puzzle piece, I hope to see that piece added to the puzzle. Could we at least try, before declaring it doesn't fit or simply ignoring it? Saying “thanks for the blue puzzle piece” while stuffing it into one's pocket, never to be considered again, that's not a demonstration of understanding. That's not why I deliver messages like puzzle pieces. Puzzle pieces belong in a puzzle, assembled, not in the linty darkness of a pocket.

Parroting words back and forth is a social ritual. It has value, but it's transient, fleeting. Demonstrating that we really understand the messages we exchange, that we can fit new pieces into our puzzle, that has lasting value. That's how we establish shared meaning. That's how we begin to make progress. That's how we create the world we want.

 

Arithmetic metaphor (number 1)

2 + 2 = 3

And because 2+2=3 blah blah blah...

Are you kidding?! That's stupid! Everybody knows 2+2=5!

Don't you see? This untruth is ever so much better than that untruth.

Ha! So there!

 

Arithmetic metaphor allegory(number 2)

2 + 2 = 4

Duh.

3 + 3 = 6.

Okay, sure.

Also 4 + 4 = 8, and...

Whoa! Eight! No, see, I've got a problem with 8.

A problem with 8?

Yeah, I'm okay with that other stuff, but 8....I just don't think so.

Some truths seem inconvenient, indeed.

Yeah, whatever. Hey, can we argue some more about 2+2=5 or 2+2=3?

 

Arithmetic allegory(number=2+1)

... And therefore we can conclude with certainty that 2+2=5, and...

Um, don't you mean four?   2+2=4?

Yes, yes, of course. Obviously so. Now, as I was saying: Because 2+2=5, it must also be the case that...blah blah blah...

(sigh)

 

Tar Heel Tavern #77: the future is now

As I mentioned earlier, the theme of this 77th week of the Tar Heel Tavern is "the future". I like to have a theme when I host the Tavern here. It helps me to frame the pieces that I receive within the context of my blog. I realized as I looked over this weeks' contributions that the future is really about connections between the past, the present, tomorrow, and generations to come. It seems to me we construct narratives, stories, to make sense of those connections.

Here's my constructed narrative, an attempt to connect eleven views of past, present, and future.

Colonel Corn carries a camera, and he knows something about constructing clever narrative. Cuz that's his career. His day night job involves documenting events in the present to show in the near future of nightly news. Here's his description of a night's work to construct a narrative while events unfolded.

Apparently the news narrative in Greensboro is cooked up in Mel's Kitchen. One of Mel's colleagues at the News & Record attempted to eat his way into a motorcycling future in a contest outside Moe's kitchen. Consult the menu at Mel's Kitchen for narrative and contest results.

Meanwhile Mr. Ogre searched for a view into the future. He was astonished to discover his own past, especially when it turned out to be a past view of his future. Or maybe our popular mechanical future. Or a future past. But it's really none of those things. Confused? Mr. Ogre explains...

Billy, the blogging poet, also has a popular mechanical future in mind. As if blogging, writing poems, and flying the streets of Greensboro isn't enough to keep him busy in the present, he announces a new project.  With reader assistance yet another unforgettable flying object soon will hover in range of photo opportunities.

Regular readers of another of the Tavern's blogging poets know that Erin's blog has been time-traveling into the future.  A post from Sept. 16, 2006 floats at the top of Poetic-Acceptance, waiting for the rest of us to arrive.  On that day Erin's effort to raise money to support the American Heart Association's research into congenital heart defects will culminate with the Charlotte-Metro Heart Walk. She's very excited to announce a sponsor for her walking team. Click, and your future could include a portrait by a professional photographer...

Walk? Coturnix zooms! The Tavern's long-time science blogger continues to post at a frenetic pace. This week it seems he's mostly examined history. Apparently his Blog Around the Clock runs backward sometimes. Fortunately our patented future filter can extract a couple of thematic items anyway. Here's a brief item about possible beneficial changes in the practice of science research, and here's one about disruptive changes due to global warming.

From long timer to short timer: A recent arrival to our blogging future, Mr. R. asks some big questions about raising his future children.

The big question I ponder is, "How do we transform our culture into a sustainable one?" Over at the upper right of this page is a tag line, "sustainability is an attitude". It's about how we think, what we value as individuals, what we value as communities, and what we value as a culture.

At Fixin' Healthcare Marcus considers health as a matter of attitude. It's about "change in behavior" and "change in thinking", he writes.

Laurie, at Slowly She Turned, is also interested in attitude, values, and changes in behavior. Her thoughts on civility reflect my experiences and my concerns. And, uncomfortably, I know I haven't always lived up to my own standard. It seems to me that being mindful of our behavior in the present relies heavily upon our ability to predict the consequences of our behavior in the future. Perhaps we live with one foot in the present and one foot in the future, even if we don't always notice that stance.

Justin's stance on the North Carolina Research Campus is enthusiastic and unequivocal. The View From The Cheap Seats looks upon his vision of the future of Kannapolis.

Further west at the home of Scrutiny Hooligans, Screwy Hoolie looks ahead to November. He listened to an Asheville area Congressional candidate speak about the present and the future. His transcript concludes with this conversation with a wise grandmother:

"When's the best time to plant a tree?"

"Grandma, I have no idea."

She said, "It was thirty years ago....When's the second best time to plant a tree?"

"I don't know, Grandma."

She said, "Today."

I like how Grandma thinks. That's a narrative that links the past and the present to the future.