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Apr 11

The Logic of Passion

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments tags: Defining Life, New Types of Intelligence, Quotations
I stumbled across a highly recommended website that deals with emotional intelligence, but defines it instead as Emotional Competency. My own experience in working with people and with meditation is that emotions are essential components of our being. Those who advocate sterile logic and academic intelligence fall into the trap of ignoring emotions and thus disabling their understanding of what makes people human. I would say it is like Oscar Wilde’s quote that the cynic knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Replace the term ‘cost’ with ‘measurement’ and we can see why emotions are ignored since they impossible to measure. But because emotions are not measurable we should not ignore them. Doing so is at our own peril. Check it out… www.EmotionalCompetency.com

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Mar 26

Book Review: Nature via Nurture by Matt Ridley

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments tags: Comprehensive Analysis, Defining Life, Foolishness, Human Condition, Human History
Being intrigued by the title, I picked up this book to learn finally once and for all which side was right – Are humans a product of biology of genes or social environment? Spoiler Alert: Its both. As a society we have witnessed a longstanding feud between two camps – one set of people believes that genes and nature determines our destiny while their opponents insist that socialization and nurture is our sole determinant. Like the title suggests and as Ridley states almost immediately, it is both nature and nurture that affects human development. The two sides may have valid contributions to understanding human development, but neither side gets it completely right because of sectarian/institutional thinking. The problem is that we are all victim of a media that thrives on reporting the controversial and extremist positions of the Naturists and Nurturist camps. That debate has been an ivory tower battle that has spilled over into Pop-psychology books that teach parents how to parent, how to find a partner, etc. This book proves the level of inanity that academics can resort to. Ridley demonstrate how neither side got it right and how humans are both genes and social mores wrapped together […]

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Oct 11

What the Disabled Community Teaches Us

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments tags: Extrapolation, Free Enterprise, Human Condition
The movement to integrate peoples with disabilities into mainstream society is rooted in cultural awareness and technological advances that developed after World War II. What I find most fascinating is that the people who are the most physically dependent are actually messengers of a libertarian philosophy that generally runs counter to the values of the larger society. The Independence Living movement believes that everyone is entitled to live as independently as possible regardless of one’s physical capacity, each person should be enabled to exercise maximum control over their lives. It is not independence in a literal sense, but independence in a philosophical sense. The presence of people with disabilities provides a fresh perspective on how we can define what being a person means. People who are completely physically dependent are given control over their own lives to the fullest extent they can have. We have so much more to learn from their example – it can help us to understand life and liberty. The disabled community do not self-identify so strongly with their disability, but with what they are able to do. It is a magical transformation of perspective that all of us stand to benefit from. The hidden challenge […]

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Oct 04

Even the Best Systems Fall Victim to Garbage In Garbage Out

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments tags: Human Condition, Institutional Learning
Working in health care you work in a collection of systems. There is service delivery, information collection and dissemination, legal adherence, and even more. The administrators of the the health care system are always looking for efficiencies and ways to improve it so it can do a better job. While I cannot disagree with the nobleness behind this, they fail to understand the principle of GIGO or Garbage In Garbage Out. GIGO comes from the world of computer programming. There is a recognition in that industry that computers and programs are fundamentally dumb and they will only do what you tell them to do. If the user puts in garbage, then the user will get garbage back. The best programs cannot think for the user, they are simply tools. This has been lost on administrators and bureaucrats in health care (and likely elsewhere). The greatest system designed will not protect against laziness, incompetence, mistakes, and simple bad luck. This coupled with the gross deficiencies inherent in our socialized health care system, it is little wonder how Garbage In becomes Garbage Out magnified. Good system design has an important role to play, but like any instrument or tool, the user is […]

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Aug 25

An Ecology of Taxpayers

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 0 comments tags: Comprehensive Analysis, Human Condition, Political Opinion
In Canada and other western nations, government provides allot of services to its citizens. All of this is funded by taxpayers. The biggest problem is that governments and its agencies spend the taxpayers’ money in ways that ends up creating further obligations on the taxpayer. The Canadian Taxpayers Association tirelessly works to make government more accountable and while they can be too ideological and short sighted in their criticism of all taxes, I do agree with their general view that governments are bigger than they should be. Taxpayers are the source for all government income yet not all taxpayers are created equal and like any ecological system, some species are more critical than others. I see there being four different kinds of taxpayers, each distinguished by their importance to the healthy functioning of the tax and government systems. Essential Taxpayers – Individuals and corporations that work in private industry. In addition to consumption taxes, they also pay high personal income taxes. These guys are the main funders of the tax system and without them no system is sustainable. Productivity Taxpayers – Individuals and corporations that work in the private industry but do not earn much money or profit. Instead their […]

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Aug 23

Equating Fame with Talent is like Telling Time with a Thermostat

by Chris Billows in Spirit Speculations 2 comments tags: Comprehensive Analysis, Foolishness
I was at a concert where I and a friend watched Tinsley Ellis perform. Tinsley is a a great blues musician and while we both agreed that we got our entertainment dollar’s worth with his performance, we disagreed about the quality of the opening act. The band that opened was named Deano and the Funky Bunnies, a local band that made a spirited effort to bring their cover tunes alive. My friend said that he was not surprised that they were confined to obscurity since they were not as talented and famous as Tinsley. I challenged him to define what talent is. Is it the ability to play the same music as well as Tinsley? Is it the ability to write your own music? Is it something else like fame? His ill-defined notion of talent is just a sneaky way of pretending that one particular artist is better than another. If talent means playing a blues song as well as Tinsley, then I am convinced that most reasonably capable musicians would be able to play something just as well as him. It would take time, some more than others to learn the piece, but they would all be be able […]
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