It's tough to get a holon...
I am alone in the office. The phone isn't ringing. It is quiet and peaceful. And to get this, I only had to stay until 8pm on a Friday night. One thing I've noticed about the office lately is that all the middle management people are slowly getting weeded out. Basically anybody in the 40-80K salary range. Meanwhile, many low-paid employees are being hired, especially in my area. The word is, top management got sick of always needing to have it explained to them what half of their employees were doing. Of course, no one really understands what I and my co-workers do, but there are enough menial chores (answering phones/filing/customer service calling/mail-outs) being done, and we make such a negligible amount of money compared to what our work grosses, that no one really cares that much. And all at once it hit me, that my office is going the way of all capitalist entities: the middle class is being eradicated, leaving the top level, who drive Jaguars and take their family overseas several times a year, and the lower class, the serfs, who garden and hoe and shovel the proverbial s*** so that the top level people don't have to put down their daiquiris and call up and yell about what isn't going right. Instead, they finish their daiquiris and then call and yell, just to keep us on our toes. We do see them now and again, but are often so entrenched in what we are doing that they pass us by, leaving sometimes the merest ghost of an impression, but nonetheless, it is enough to remind us of the structure, and where we stand within it. It's all very feudal.
On an ironic note, I attended a mandatory 'harassment' meeting the other day. The presentation itself was fine enough, and informative insofar as I've never been a part of a case, and therefore had no idea how the legalities behind it worked. I did, however, get terribly offended at my co-workers during the meeting, and actually had to leave it for about half an hour to clear my head. I don't know if there was rebellion at the mandatory aspect of the meeting, or immaturity in light of the content, or what it was, but I was unimpressed to say the least. Unfortunately, before I left I had gathered enough information to know that there is no legal precedent for a successful harassment case where the perpetrators were simply morons, and so I decided not to document. In fact, I'll be quite glad to forget it.
Which brings me to my final point. Last night I glanced through the first few pages of a book entitled 'A Brief History of Everything' by Ken Wilbur. Amazon only gives you a teaser, but I noticed with this text, they had to throw 20 pages up there, presumably, because even by page 18, any normal person would still be thinking 'what the heck?'. Anyway, I found it interesting that a guy first of all had the sack to title a book that, and secondly, the patience to explain his way through it. Philosophy is weird. For example, if I get a train of thought and want to elaborate on it, I have to chase it around a lot, like a rabbit down a path. The longer I stay on the rabbit's tail, the more I can develop my thoughts about it, but at the same time, it gets more and more taxing. Plus, while I'm chasing, I keep getting distracted by all the things going on in the forest around us. I don't know how many papers I wrote, intending to stick to and shed brilliant light upon the aspects of a particular bunny, where I had weaved on and off the path for so long, that by the time I got to the end of the path, the rabbit was gone, but there was this huge musk ox wearing spandex standing there, and I'm thinking, where did you come from and have you seen the small big-eared fuzzy thing I was writing about 5 pages ago?
Does this make any sense? If not, then you understand my point very well.
Honestly, the only reason I mentioned the book is because I liked the concepts he was beginning to form about being and existence. A cosmology, if you will (although, in his case, a 'Kosmology', because by following the entymology of the term, he realized it was meant to include all spheres of existence--mental, spiritual, physical, emotional, theological--and not just largely the physical, which is what most cosmologies are centered on). Anyway, instead of getting into an elaborate debate of defining the nature of every possible thing that is, he said that every thing has two aspects, or natures: being a 'part' and being a 'whole'. The name that somebody whose name I forget gave to objects occupying this dual nature is 'holon'. Essentially, every thing is both a whole in and of itself, and therefore has preserving its existence as its main function, but is also a part of something else, which gives it a purpose of communion, or coexistence, and the function of preserving the whole of which it is a part.
Short story long, I kind of feel that way, myself. Feel me?
On an ironic note, I attended a mandatory 'harassment' meeting the other day. The presentation itself was fine enough, and informative insofar as I've never been a part of a case, and therefore had no idea how the legalities behind it worked. I did, however, get terribly offended at my co-workers during the meeting, and actually had to leave it for about half an hour to clear my head. I don't know if there was rebellion at the mandatory aspect of the meeting, or immaturity in light of the content, or what it was, but I was unimpressed to say the least. Unfortunately, before I left I had gathered enough information to know that there is no legal precedent for a successful harassment case where the perpetrators were simply morons, and so I decided not to document. In fact, I'll be quite glad to forget it.
Which brings me to my final point. Last night I glanced through the first few pages of a book entitled 'A Brief History of Everything' by Ken Wilbur. Amazon only gives you a teaser, but I noticed with this text, they had to throw 20 pages up there, presumably, because even by page 18, any normal person would still be thinking 'what the heck?'. Anyway, I found it interesting that a guy first of all had the sack to title a book that, and secondly, the patience to explain his way through it. Philosophy is weird. For example, if I get a train of thought and want to elaborate on it, I have to chase it around a lot, like a rabbit down a path. The longer I stay on the rabbit's tail, the more I can develop my thoughts about it, but at the same time, it gets more and more taxing. Plus, while I'm chasing, I keep getting distracted by all the things going on in the forest around us. I don't know how many papers I wrote, intending to stick to and shed brilliant light upon the aspects of a particular bunny, where I had weaved on and off the path for so long, that by the time I got to the end of the path, the rabbit was gone, but there was this huge musk ox wearing spandex standing there, and I'm thinking, where did you come from and have you seen the small big-eared fuzzy thing I was writing about 5 pages ago?
Does this make any sense? If not, then you understand my point very well.
Honestly, the only reason I mentioned the book is because I liked the concepts he was beginning to form about being and existence. A cosmology, if you will (although, in his case, a 'Kosmology', because by following the entymology of the term, he realized it was meant to include all spheres of existence--mental, spiritual, physical, emotional, theological--and not just largely the physical, which is what most cosmologies are centered on). Anyway, instead of getting into an elaborate debate of defining the nature of every possible thing that is, he said that every thing has two aspects, or natures: being a 'part' and being a 'whole'. The name that somebody whose name I forget gave to objects occupying this dual nature is 'holon'. Essentially, every thing is both a whole in and of itself, and therefore has preserving its existence as its main function, but is also a part of something else, which gives it a purpose of communion, or coexistence, and the function of preserving the whole of which it is a part.
Short story long, I kind of feel that way, myself. Feel me?
posted by Master of None at 6:41 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home