When love becomes a crutch...

What do we really mean when we say "I love you"?

It occurred to me tonight that the almighty three-word-phrase, when said and meant, should really be a statement of two related parts:

1. I love me through you - that is, being with you makes me feel very good, because of certain things about you (things you do, things you say, how you look, etc);

2. I will do my best to help you love you through me - you also deserve to feel good by being with me, so I will do my best to make that happen by saying things you like to hear, doing things you like, looking good, etc.

When one looks at things this way, it seems business like, transactional, and very unromantic (full disclosure: I have never being accused of being the romantic type). But bear with me as I develop this train of thought.

I was recently thinking about a very young friend that I care a great deal about. As I thought about him, a smile came to my face. Then the logical side of me asked - "What causes this? Why do I always seem to experience these emotions when I think about this friend?" So I began pondering.

I'll spare you the details and go right to the conclusions I came to: I feel this way about this friend because being with him makes me feel good. Not exactly rocket science, but let me explain. The nature of our relationship is such that when we spend time together, we both end up feeling good about ourselves. We like how we feel, so we seek to repeat the experience. As we do this we build bonds and develop a shared history, which makes it easier to feel good when we spend time together. This goes on and on, until it doesn't (life happens, distances lead to communication gaps, etc).

Sounds obvious, doesn't it? What is less obvious is why so many of us (myself included) seem to believe we need intermediaries through which to love ourselves. Why do we find it so hard to love ourselves directly? Why do we set up the game so we need others to trigger the biochemical processes in us that make us feel that sense of being loved? After all, it is not like my young friend sticks his hand in my brain and triggers whatever mechanism gives me the "love feeling." All the work happens inside of me, but he acts as the trigger. Why can't I reduce my dependence on him (and others) and learn to generate this feeling by myself?

The way we've presently set this game up, love becomes a crutch for many of us. Is it really love if we are too scared to bear the thought of losing those we say we love? If we get jealous and possessive, if we stifle their freedom out of fear of getting hurt? What if what will make the friend or lover feel good, will make us feel bad? What do we do then?

So to avoid love becoming a crutch, I propose adding a caveat to the two elements we started with, and it goes thus:

The name of the game is self-love, independence, and inter-dependence. If each of us loves himself/herself directly, then what others bring to relationships are extras that we can enjoy, for as long as those relationships last. There's no need to grasp and fear loss. We grieve if/when relationships end, but we do not mourn because we have lost love, but only because we have lost a lens through which to experience it.

That is the ideal state, and many of us will never reach it. But in striving to develop self-love, we may at least manage to live with fewer self-imposed restrictions.

Love yourself, and share that love with others.

How to make "work" work.

I want to make good use of social media and blogging going forward, so my plan is to share ideas from interesting books I read via different channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, my blog, emails, etc), and get thoughts/feedback from others.

Here's the first one: I just read something very interesting in Ricardo Semler's "The Seven-Day Weekend". He argues that companies need to let employees follow their interests and meet their needs, within the framework of the traditional work arrangement. His view is that people want to work, and will do so if treated like adults (i.e. given responsibility for goals and means) and allowed to work in a way that does not make them give up interests and needs that matter to them.

I resisted the idea at first - I have had way too many colleagues that have shirked responsibility, and that didn't want to work, but wanted to earn salaries. But as I thought about it, it occurred to me that perhaps these colleagues behaved the way they did because their jobs did not align with their interests. I typically don't know most of my colleagues outside of work, but by chance I found out last week that a colleague has an e-library of hundreds of crime fiction books. You don't keep that many books if you don't like the genre. No one forced him to build up the library; he just followed his interest. Now this colleague is very industrious and works hard, but I wonder how much harder he would work if he was in the crime fiction publishing industry. Interests matter. Round one to Ricardo.

How about needs? Isn't work all about sacrificing our needs, to meet the needs of our employers or customers? At least this is what I'd always believed, until Ricardo forced me to challenge this view as well. I thought back to when I worked for a bank. The rule was that we all had to be at work by 8am. For most of us, early morning traffic meant we had to leave our homes before 6am, to be sure of getting to work by 8am. So some would leave their homes at 5:30am, get to work by 6am, and sleep in their cars till just before 8am (or go to the gym). What made matters worse was that to avoid traffic in the evening rush hour, most of us would stay in the office till 8pm. Our needs to spend time with loved ones and to recuperate sufficiently were definitely not being met.

But what if the bank had come up with work shifts, whereby it paid two people to do one job, and one came in early and left mid-day, and the other came in mid-day and left late? In one stroke I estimate employment would go up between 50% and 80% in the banking sector (not all jobs can be accommodated under this arrangement), employees would have more time for life, they would spend less time in traffic, and they would get more hours of sleep. Of course they would also earn less, but I know several people who would gladly earn less if they can get time to enjoy what they earn. It's now 2 to Ricardo, 0 to Mayowa.

So it seems Ricardo is right - work does not have to mean employees giving up interests and needs. But it requires effort from both sides: workers need to follow career paths aligned with their interests; and employers need to structure work so employees can meet their needs.

One caveat, though. There is an inherent assumption in Ricardo's thought process. He assumes that people have the skills and knowledge required for the jobs they are asked to do. He takes that as a given, and focuses on making it easier for people to apply their skills and knowledge (via aligning interests, and structuring work arrangements so people can meet their needs). Unfortunately, this is not always the case; I have met too many people who do not have basic skills like critical thinking, time management, business writing, etc, talk less of technical skills required for their roles. That's where the government should come in, by providing the right kind of education at primary and secondary school levels. And that's where universities and employers also come in, by helping graduates develop theoretical and practical expertise; it really does take a village to raise a (good) child.

That caveat aside, Ricardo's book has challenged my thinking about what to expect from work, and the kind of work environment that I can possibly provide as an employer of labour. Challenge accepted!

Poster for June 6 Port-talk

White and black apples in a cart

I was watching the news with two white friends last Friday, when a story came on about a woman who had been blinded by her boyfriend. The man and woman, both white, had been involved in fights before, but this time he "went too far," according to the woman. It was a really sad story. There was a particular moment that was really heart wrenching - when asked how she felt about what happened, the woman responded that she felt like a ghost, as she is totally blind and can't see anything (not her two children, and not even her hands). Tears began to flow from both eyes, and she said sorry to the interviewer as she dabbed them with a handkerchief. 

This is the kind of story that makes me want to do something (write an article, contribute to a cause, be on the lookout for signs of domestic violence, etc). I don't know how my friends felt, but I was sad and angry at the same time - sad for the woman, and very angry with the man. Nobody has the right to hurt, talk less of blind, another human being! I was so angry that if I had come across the man later that evening - which was very unlikely given that he had been arrested - I would have likely approached him and given him a piece of my mind. 

But as I reflected on my conflicting emotions, something occurred to me. My white friends spoke more about the sadness of the woman's condition, than the injustice of what her boyfriend did. It was almost as if they had accepted (rightly, I guess) that there are sick white people in the world, and that these things happen. I found myself wondering what their reactions might have been had the man been black. Would they have reacted the same way by focusing more on the victim than the assailant? I do not know. But I do know what I saw and heard during the London riots last year - white friends of mine mentioned to me that black kids often end up as gangsters that cause trouble, and that the police should come down hard on the rioters to deter other would be gangsters.

And that's when it occurred to me that when a white person commits a crime, most whites tend to see that person as the bad apple in the cart. The system deals with him or her, and the rest of the apple cart remains safe (at least till the next bad apple turns up). However when a black person (or a group of black persons) commits a crime, conservative whites tend to see that as justification of their suspicion that all the apples in the black cart are bad. And their response is almost always to ask that society deal with the individual apple(s), as well as all apples in the cart (the former through the formal justice system, and the latter through informal, institutionalised racist practices). 

My friends that I watched the news story with are not conservatives, but sitting and watching the story with them, I could not help but wonder how our discussion could have gone had the perpetrator been black. Because he was white, we spoke about the individuals involved. But I suspect had he been black we would have spoken about the races or "communities" involved, and I might have had to once again explain to white friends that black people are not all the same (like I found myself doing several times during the London riots). My white friends also know that white people are all different; it's obvious from years of interacting with other whites at home, school, work and play. They also know this from history and the media. Yet even some of my educated white friends are totally ignorant about the differences between black people. And the same problem applies in larger discussions in the media - note for example the common references to Africa, even when speaking about issues that are specific to certain countries (see an earlier post about this here). 

I believe this ignorance leads to the lumping of black people together when issues are being discussed, which in turn makes it easier for conservative white Brits and their minions (Nirpal Dhaliwal, for example) to do something as daft as trying to criminalise all black people in England for the actions of Mark Duggan and the 1,000 people (representing less than 0.07% of the black population in England) who showed up at his funeral (see Dhaliwal's article here, and see my response here). 

This kind of negative rhetoric does not help matters. For better or worse, blacks and other minorities are now part of multicultural England. And blacks (including African Americans, black Canadians, black people from the Caribbean, and black people from 55 African countries) have so much to contribute to The Big Society (with different types of music, cuisine, art, dance, literature, etc). But it is hard to make these contributions if the larger society keeps putting all black people into one cart, and labelling that cart as being likely full of bad apples. We are all in the same cart, and there are bad white apples, as well as black, amongst us all.

My response to a reductionist article in the Evening Standard about the "black community" in England

Referring to Nirpal Dhaliwal's article in the Evening Standard of March 29, 2012, titled "Where is the black outrage over Thusha's shooting?" (which you can fine here), his argument seems to be as follows: (1) young black men should not dress or act in ways that make them look suspicious; (2) the "black community" should accept and welcome stop-and-search for its own good, as it reduces the level of black-on-black crime; (3) the "black community" should also accept the fact that there will be occasional casualties like Mr. Duggan, as the Met strives to save black communities from themselves.

I have four major issues with this line of argument. They are as follows:

1. Who determines what is deemed suspicious? Is a white boy with "a hoodie, gold teeth and jeans slung low" suspicious? Depends on where you are! Are Sheiks in turbans suspicious? If Mr. Dhaliwal got his mind out of his obviously Eurocentric worldview he would know that the larger society (western in this case) decides what is suspicious (ask Muslims about their experiences after 9/11, or ask Jews what they have experienced through the ages). So should all Muslims cut their beards to appease whites? Should all Jews change their names to avoid anti-Semitic behaviour?

2. What is this "black community" that he refers to so often? Are all its members of the same educational background and income level? Do they share the same political leanings? Do they all speak patois? There are over 1 million black people in England. Surely Mr. Dhaliwal cannot be suggesting they are all part of this black community. Is Jermaine Defoe a member of this community? Is Tidjane Thiam a member? I do not understand why people like Mr. Dhaliwal refuse to accept the diversity and multiplicity amongst black people. Not all of us like reggae music or rap. Not all of us vote Labour. Some of us have different sexual preferences. There is no black community, but there are communities made up of predominantly black people. Not the same thing.

3. I can't argue with the fact that carrying out stop-and-search on suspects may deter crime. I recall seeing a woman called over by the police at Euston station because the police dog caught a sniff of something in her bag and followed her. I didn't go on an outrage, and was glad the police was keeping an eye out on potentially troublesome people. And it's fair game if the police do this in areas that have a record of high crime, regardless of the skin colour of the people in the area. So yes, searches may reduce the prevalence of crime in all high crime areas, and not just those with lots of black people. But here comes the rub - how do the police determine who is a suspect when there is little to work with besides what they see (going back to point 1)?

Which brings us to (4) - black people of all persuasions and stripes rally around issues like that of Mr. Duggan because deep down we know it could have happened to any of us, no matter how posh we are, or what we do for a living. All we have to do is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That is not to suggest Mr. Duggan was an angel, but the way he was killed raises a lot of questions. Would it have happened that way if he was exactly the same, but white? I don't know.

However I do know of young black children who have been blamed by teachers in schools for fights they didn't start. I have seen white teachers come down harder on black children for infractions white students get away with. So black people rallying together to address the institutional racism that they experience at school, work, and even play should not be misconstrued as advocating for Mr. Duggan's lifestyle. And neither should the lack of such rallying for Thusha be construed as indicative of black people not wishing her well, or not willing to support the fund raising drive (how I wish we could get a breakdown of donations by ethnicity from HSBC!).

To recap, there is no central planning agency that decides how black people should respond to issues like that of Mr. Duggan's killing. Just like everybody else, we all have different views on things. As such, there is no black community that even we can point to as representative of all of us - we come from different countries, backgrounds, and have different aspirations. It may surprise Mr. Dhaliwal to hear that just like Indians and Pakistanis, we don't all get along. Searches to deter crime in high-crime areas are perfectly fine, as long as they are applied across the area's populace equally, and suspects to stop and search are picked on a mix of relevant criteria, and not just colour. Lastly, young white males dress just as "gangster" as young black males, but anecdotal evidence suggests they are often viewed as oddities, and not as suspicious characters. Why? Because the colour of the skin seems to say more about what is deemed suspicious than the clothes. Case in point, using one of Mr. Dhaliwal's examples - a black man in a doctor's white coat and stethoscope meeting a patient for the first time may be incorrectly perceived as being less competent than an accompanying white doctor simply because of his ethnicity, even if the former is the latter's superior.

Race matters, Sir, let's not pretend it doesn't. What we need to do is to see the complexities involved so we can deal with them, and reductionist articles like yours will not help matters.

When do-gooders do bad (1)

"Africa's worst drought in 60 years," screams the banner. ActionAid is seeking donations - as low as £2 a month - to "help a child like Sadia now." We have no clue what country Sadia is from, but there is no doubt as to her continent of origin - Africa. I have a problem with ads like this. A major problem.

For a while I couldn't put my finger on what my problem with these types of ad was. I just knew there was something not quite right about the "cases for support" made by the likes of UNICEF and ActionAid on behalf of "Africa." Donors love that name (Africa), and fall over themselves to use it every chance they get; every self-respecting donor agency has a presence in Africa. But what is Africa?

Some basics. Firstly, Africa's a continent, not a country. That sounds like stating the obvious, which makes me wonder about ActionAid's claim that they are raising money for "Africa's worst drought in 60 years." Is the drought affecting the entire continent? We are not told.

Secondly, Africa is a pretty big continent. To get an idea of how big it is, you could easily fit the US, Spain, France, UK, Germany, Italy, Eastern Europe, Japan, India AND China into its land mass (see here). Once again, is this drought affecting the entire land mass? We'll have to ask ActionAid to clarify.

Thirdly, Africa is pretty diverse, with over 1 billion people in 61 territories, who have different cultures, speak a multitude of languages (Nigeria alone has over 200), run different socio-political systems, and have different climates. Once again, is this drought affecting all these people? ActionAid does not specify, at least not in the ad.

I did some further digging, and "Africa's worst drought in 60 years" is actually in certain parts of four East African countries, and has affected 13 million people of the entire population of about 130 million in the affected countries. It is clearly an unfortunate state of affairs, one that has likely been exacerbated by failings of the respective governments to adequately prepare (especially when such droughts have happened before). It is heart-warming and encouraging to see people from all over the world chipping in, and I applaud the work being done by agencies like ActionAid to mobilise donations. But I have major issues when donors use sensational banners like those of "Sadia" (who likely comes from an East African country).

I am of the opinion that such ads do more harm than good. I'll explain. If you are reading this, you are likely in the West. So imagine you are on Amazon looking for a christmas gift for a friend, parent or lover. Then you see Sadia's ad. The ad has been designed to grab your attention and tug at your heart - "Africa's in pain, help out with only two quid a month." It works. You do the calculations in your head - that's less than you spend on one drink on Friday evenings, so having one less drink on Friday will make a difference in "Africa." You whip out your card and sign up. You have done your bit for "Africa".

To be continued...

Iron Bat

When I was younger I wanted to be Iron Man. No, don't laugh. I really did want to have megawatts of energy come out a cavity in my chest. Hmmm, that doesn't sound quite right the way I just said it. Anyhow, moving on...

Actually, now that I think about it, I wanted to be Tony Stark being Iron Man; I wanted to be the human in the suit, not the suit itself, you see. Okay, so what I said earlier makes sense now - the megawatts of energy would come out of a cavity in the breast plate of the suit. I hope I'm not losing you as I have a word with myself. Lol.

Back to Iron Man...After changing allegiance from Marvel Comics to DC (don't send hate mail, Marvel fans), I dumped Iron Man and wanted to be Batman (or Bruce Wayne being Batman). Tony had money, but Bruce was in a totally different league in other ways: he had way cooler gadgets, and he had that whole mystery thing going for him. The only minus was the exterior underwear. But hey, nothing in life's perfect.

Looking back now, I realise I limited myself to the characters and stories created by others. Why couldn't I be Bruce Stark, and fly around in an iron suit in the day, AND roam the streets of Gotham at night? Or better yet, be Tony Wayne, and have the suit AND the cape and cool gadgets (sans the external underwear and the silly side-kick)? I let others determine the fantasies that played in my head, and never questioned them because "that was just how it was."

I wonder if I'm doing the same today. Am I, are we, silently going along with scripts others have written for us? Are we thinking outside the boxes society "suggests" we play in? Would we know what to do with ourselves for a decade, if we had all the time in the world, and didn't have to work for money, and could do anything we wanted? Are we truly living, or are we just getting by? Are we being Bruces, or Alfreds?

PS. In support of Occupy Wall Street. A luta continua.