THE RISE OF WHATEVER ISN'T WHAT WE'VE GOT NOW
or How Like Absolute Morons We Blow Things Up Instead Of Fixing Them
“This marriage is over.”
It felt good. Saying those words. Drawing the line.
Pushing the igniter down and blowing up what was left of an unhealthy relationship.
Moments before she had offered to seek marriage counselling.
That would have been futile.
No, thanks.
I was 23.
I was suddenly free and able to build a better healthier life.
Thankfully, I was able to (shoutout to Shannon).
Sometimes fixing something just isn’t worth it.
It is beyond repair.
Maintaining it would only cause more damage.
Patching it would only cause more hurt.
Those types of somethings are good to blow up in the hopes that the dust will settle in a better form.
This is a good human trait.
However, we often also blow up absolutely improvable good things.
Things that, while perhaps not ideal or perfect, are actually pretty good.
Or at least fixable.
We get bored with ‘okay’ and suddenly feel like anything less than ‘amazing’ is an injustice so let’s just blow it all up.
This is a bad human trait.
It is counterproductive.
It is humans at their most petulant.
We’re seeing this with politics currently.
A potential wild swing to the ‘right’ or more libertarian views in the hopes that it will offer more ‘freedom’ which is kept loosely defined as just ‘better than right now’.
The danger being that those who are peddling the dynamite of change are admirably already focused on the individual… themselves.
eg. “Make me your ruler and I promise that with all the power and riches that come with that to me, you will be somehow happier maybe.”
We’re seeing it (in Canada) with healthcare.
Every patient for themselves.
eg. “How much is your health really worth to you? No, seriously. Put a dollar value on it.”
There have been many times I have looked in our garage and thought, “Maybe it’d be easier than cleaning it if I just blew it up.”
Then the mess and clutter would be gone.
But then I realize… so would the garage itself.
A blown up garage does offer more space but offers very few of the physical benefits of a non-blown up garage.
Like a roof, walls and uncharred framing.
Sometimes, there is no way to fix something.
So… blow it up.
Sometimes, what you’ve got needs improving.
So… fix it.
It’s important that we think about these things carefully.
Once we light the fuse, it goes fast and just might be impossible to stop.
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It makes me slightly more than crazy to hear the blow it up solution to our health care and education woes. These two systems functioned quite well in this country until the deliberate undermining took over. Before they started to put business -profit oriented people- in charge of hospitals, the purpose of hospitals was to treat sick people. There were less expensive ways to clean hospitals, provide patient food, provide medical services that made sense in the business world but make no sense in medicine. Meanwhile the hospital, school university administrators were increasingly getting enormous salary boosts. ( look at all the money they are saving) This concentration on economics has undermined the whole purpose of the institutions that supply health care and education. The whole measurement of success using business models makes no sense at all . The solution is not to blow the thing up. The solution is to ditch the business model and start looking at patient and student outcomes. Want a clean hospital? Hire people who are committed to providing healthy outcomes and take some pride and ownership of the position. Read Jane Jacobs
You know.....sometimes the easy fix IS to just blow the whole thing up...... but with the dawn comes the ...” what the hell did I just do?”
I have been finding myself more and more on this situation lately so once again ........thank you for your wisdom and for reminding me yet again why it is that I am pleased to be a paid subscriber to your post