Category: Social Media

Murphy’s Law: An Update

They’re Their There are a number of variations of Murphy’s Law but for those of you who have never heard of it, stated quite simply, it says; “In any project, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”  It’s an absolute dictum in any professional world and a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free for people who are constantly screwing up.  Although I, like everyone else on this planet, have run into Murphy’s Law a lot, I’ve always thought that it was incomplete.  Murphy missed something.

Recently, after years of gathering data, over, what is now amounting to, a lifetime of observation I believe, I’ve discovered what Murphy missed.

Murphy’s explanation of the universe is essentially Existential in nature.  He postulates that there exists; a large number of catastrophes, they appear at random, bugger things up entirely and then happily return to the ethereal.  Although on the surface Murphy seems to have covered all bases he has forgotten the basic tenet of our existence – Mother Nature’s relentless pursuit of balance in the cosmos.  Thus, while Murphy is indeed correct: there are an infinite number of catastrophes just waiting to screw us personally and professionally.  He is incorrect when he suggests they act randomly.  They do not.  They are tied to our own actions and the actions of others as Mother Nature seeks to bring balance into a chaotic world.  Let me illustrate.

Unless you live on the bad streets of Orangutan Junction, Borneo you’ve used an ATM machine.  There’s nothing to it.  You stand in line, wait your time, step up with your plastic and get your money.   It’s a relatively simple operation and, in general, it works smoothly.  However, when you add just one variable to the mix all hell breaks loose.  For example, try going to an ATM when you’re late.  Suddenly, the IQ of every person in front of you drops dramatically.  Ordinary people who grew up catching money from a machine look at the thing likes it’s the Command Module on Babylon 5.  They have no clue which buttons to press and stand there scared skinny that the Cash Back option is going to vaporize their pension.  It’s a matter of checks and balances.  You see, Mother Nature knows that you can skate through being “just a bit” late to Uncle Chester’s funeral but you’re going to look like a jackass walking in after the hymn.  Basically, you didn’t take your mother’s brother’s death seriously in the first place, so Mother Nature had to step in and give you a rap on the snout.

This happens everywhere in our world.

The need to pee is directly proportional to the distance to the next toilet – the further the distance the greater the need.  Consuming liquids has nothing to do with it.  I once drove through the Sonora Desert without so much as a lukewarm Pepsi™ to keep me alive and never thought of a bathroom break — until the sign read “Next Services, 186 miles.”  For the next three hours (a little over two, actually) I drove the busiest highway in history searching for a bush that was more than six inches high.  I didn’t find one.

Likewise, the size of the leafy green vegetable that’s stuck to your front teeth is intimately connected to the person you’re talking to at the time.  If, for example, you’re talking to Rajinder (the guy you’ve known since third grade, who once brought you a new bathing suit during an unfortunate incident in Mexico) the size will be small, almost dainty.  He will point it out and you will both go about your business.  However, if you’ve finally gotten up enough courage to flirt with Alastair (the slightly conceited hunk in Marketing) over lunch, that last sprig of spinach will be the size of Jamaica.  It will be laser beam green and flutter when you talk.  You’ll discover it walking back to the office when you see its neon reflection in a store window.  Alastair will eventually end up with Sophie the slut from Accounting and you will die of humiliation.

The truth is there is no such thing as a random act of disaster.  Cheques do not get lost in the mail unless you’ve already spent the money.  The size of the rain storm depends entirely on the cost of your cashmere jacket.  The number of traffic cops; on the fight you’re having with the boyfriend.  In nature every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

When I was a child my mother used to tell us “Always wear clean underwear, you might get into an accident.”  She never explained things any further but it was a rule in our house.  Years passed and mom’s advice faded until one day I thought, to hell with it and pulled on what I had on the floor.  I never made it to work that day.  I was wiped out by a taxi before I got 500 yards.  It turns out clean underwear is actually some sort of talisman against vehicular misadventure.  Who knew?

Experience shows us that Murphy was right; “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”  However, in practical terms, experience also shows us, these disasters only come calling when you’re out of sync with the universe.  You can do the simplest task a million times without a hitch; but bring discord to the cosmos and you might as well paint a target on your back.  Murphy’s Law is just Mother Nature’s way of telling us all to fly right.

Why We Need Cowboys!

This year is the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede.  For those of you who are unaware, the Calgary Stampede is the biggest rodeo in the world.  Take that, Texas!  I grew up with rodeos, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  First of all, they’re fun.  Nobody has a miserable time at a rodeo.  (If you do, it’s your own damn fault.)  And they’re sexy.  Over and above the uber-obvious thousand pounds of Freudian bull riding thrust between your legs, rodeos are spilling over with that tidy, hometown, walking-around libido that most of us prefer anyway.  Look around you!   Everybody’s wearing tight jeans and those loud and proud, bustin’ out all over pearl button shirts.  And I don’t know anybody who doesn’t get a little extra swagger when they put on a cowboy hat.  Most of all, rodeos are an essential part of North American culture.  They feature the fantasy we all want to be: the “aw shucks” self-reliant cowboy who rides his own trail, not beholden to any man.  Without the cowboy, North Americans would just be leftover Europeans who didn’t get it right.

The cowboy, as we know him, is actually the result of a strange historical coincidence.  After the American Civil War, thousands of newly unemployed soldiers migrated to Texas – which, at the time, was big and full of cows.  They were (to misquote Trevanian) ignorant, Victorian, migrant, agricultural workers — hired hands, if you will.  They walked (yes, walked) into two particular species practically indigenous to the state: the longhorn, a muscular bovine with a mean disposition and the vaquero, a Mexican dandy who’d been working on the Spanish rancheros since the days of Coronado.  The immigrant Americans might have showed up west of the Red River with the knees out of their britches, but they weren’t stupid.  They realized that if they could move these longhorns in great numbers to places where city folk could eat them, they were money on the hoof.   They also saw how utilitarian the style of the fanciful vaquero was and adopted it — lock, stock and big Jesus hat.  The cowboy was born, and he immediately rode into our cultural mythology.

So here’s the problem.  In the 21st century, the main domain of the cowboy, the rodeo, is on the skids.  Our increasingly urban world simply doesn’t see calf roping or bulldogging as a sport.  We’ve come to believe that if you’re going to go out there and break your neck like a man, you should at least wear a helmet — not a Stetson.  A million people might go to the Calgary Stampede this year, but most of them aren’t going to be anywhere near the action – they’re there for the Midway and the food.  Plus, we’ve developed a very vocal animal rights lobby, who take the position that jumping on a steer at 20mph and wrestling it to the ground is not very much fun for the steer.  I’m no friend of the animal rights people.  As far as I’m concerned, they’re a bunch of has-been celebrities with time on their hands.  Besides, I’m almost certain that people like Bob Barker (whose only contribution to our society is the phrase, “Come on down!”) thinks animal cruelty happens when the butler forgets to feed Muffy her Kibbles.  However, much as I disapprove of them, they do have a point — that strap across the hindquarters of the bronco isn’t there for decoration.

Of course, the knee-jerk reaction is to ban rodeos, tear down the grandstands (condos, maybe?) enroll the cowboys in community colleges and set all the animals free.  (Our society is big on pie in the sky.)  Unfortunately, that doesn’t take into account the reason we have rodeos in the first place.  We need cowboys.  We need to remember that, once upon a time, North Americans were an independent and resourceful people.  We were willing to stand or fall on our own merit.  We could work together (witness the cattle drive) without ever losing our individuality.  But mostly we need to remember that there was a time (not so very long ago) when we rode for the brand, took pride in what we did and saw projects through — no matter what the circumstances.

There are no shortcuts on an eight-second bronco ride — no excuses, no justifications and no buckles for just showing up.  You stay in the saddle, or the pony plants your jeans in the dirt: it’s that simple.  We need cowboys to remind us that this is the attitude that got us here, and regardless of how complicated our society becomes, it’s still something to strive for.

I hope rodeos survive and evolve the way circuses and carnivals did.  It would be a shame to lose just a large part of our heritage.  More importantly, though, it would be a shame to lose the ideal, the myth, the lore that says, “Saddle up, pardner.  It’s 40 miles to good water, and we’re burning daylight.”
Translation: Quit whining!  There’s work to be done.

Wrestling with the Anti-Christs

I’ve had enough!  The next person who gives me the anti-Christian tirade is going to get an earful – and beyond.  It’s getting so that you can’t go to any social function, no matter how innocuous, without some clown calling down Christianity.  I’m talking about everything from cocktail parties to backyard barbeques.  These anti-Christs are getting worse than the Jehovah Witnesses, for God’s sake!  And they won’t take yes for an answer.  They always have to tell you why Christianity is crap.  I’m not particularly religious; as a child of my generation, I was raised to believe in nothing, and I’ve still got most of that left.  However, the last time I looked, tolerance included all religions, not just the ones that don’t have Jesus in them.

It’s not that I mind people expressing their opinion about religion (or anything else for that matter.)  Knock yourself out!  However, there is a time and a place; not every Christian reference demands a pit bull response.  Sometimes, it’s not appropriate.  Besides, anybody with half a brain already realizes that Western spiritual values are based on mythology — Greek, Norse, Hebrew etc. etc.  They don’t need enlightenment.  Nor are they hearing your pronouncements for the first time.  It’s been open season on Christians since long before John Lennon imagined ten million dollars in record sales.

That’s the real problem.  Despite wholesale claims to the contrary, most anti-religious dissertations are not about religion at all: they’re about Christianity.  People tend to preface their remarks with a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about organized religion, but in the end, it’s only Christians who get a kicking.  I have yet to hear anybody tie into Buddha, for example, or Guru Nanak or the thousand and one African gods.  The very same people who would blow a gasket if you so much as smirk at the pantheon of deities some religions have on offer think nothing of ridiculing Christians — to their face.  To hell with tolerance; that’s just bad manners.

I’m way out of my depth here, but for my money, if we’re going to give spiritual room to any religion, we should give it to them all – including the one our grandparents had.  That’s why we call it Freedom of Religion.  There are people in this world who worship trees (I don’t want to get into it, but if I was going to choose a God, I wouldn’t pick one who’s afraid of termites and tent caterpillars.) and they get way less trouble than your average “I’ll-go-to-church-when-I-get-there” Christian.

There is no particular insight involved in denying Noah’s Ark, the Virgin Birth or Moses parting the Red Sea.  These are allegories which all religions use to try to explain our human self-aware existence.  Nor does it take intellectual prowess to question what cannot be proven; sceptical doesn’t automatically mean smart.   Actually, I find most of the anti-Christs quite ignorant about the Christianity they so fervently decry.  But mostly there is no honour is attacking another person’s beliefs.  If we are comforted by what we know in our heart to be true (whether it be eternal salvation or Mother Nature’s bounty or multiple reincarnations until you get enough points to get into Nirvana) does it really matter if it is true or not?

The burning need to discredit Christianity is simply bigotry and intolerance dressed up as an intellectual exercise — and I can prove it.  You never hear these anti-religious people bad mouthing Muhammad.  Is that because Moslems bite back?