Sunday 27 May 2012

Postcode Lottery

We hear about the postcode lottery all the time. "I can't get the same health care as those people in a different area - it's a postcode lottery." or "My child can't go to a school that's higher in the league tables  - it's a postcode lottery." As if the problem is the fact that their postcode is the wrong one.

The argument is in reality an argument for sameness. Don't have any differences, diversity or experimentation anywhere, because the risk is it might turn out to be too good, and then people in other areas will complain that they are victims of the postcode lottery.

This is a stupid argument and symbolises a lot of what is wrong with our "choice" based public service culture.

The ability to develop different types of services and to experiment locally is vital. Indeed if we eliminate the "postcode lottery" there can be no such thing as localism.

But I'm going to use this postcode lottery argument, for I feel I have a higher calling.

I am a victim of the postcode lottery and it's affecting my life chances and social status.

My postcode is not SW1 1AA!

The woman  who currently lives there has the advantage of this postcode. If I had her postcode - I would be the Queen. But I don't, so I'm not.

It's a postcode lottery!

Benn's last adventure

Mr Benn had been feeling better over the last day and was wondering whether he really needed to be going for a psychaitric assessment, but, in their effort to help, everyone at the GPs surgery was very insistent that he at least tried it.

As Mr Benn approached the door of the assessment centre, a woman came running out and said, " Oh the 2.30 - look, won't be a minute, go in, lie on the couch, will be with you directly." With that she scuttled off down the road.

Mr Benn walked in, got himself comfortable on the couch and waited.

Just then, the shopkeeper appeared.

Mr Benn screamed and passed out, dreaming of travelling down endless hospital corridors, he had a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck. This was another "adventure".

He awoke, relieved to find himself in a hospital waiting area, he stood up and paced around.  He couldn't quitre remember what had happened at the psychaitric assessment centre, or since. He couldn't really remember why he was at the hospital - "tests I suppose" he thought to himself, "having some tests".

A voice came over the intercom  system, "Mr Benn through door 3 please." Mr Benn walked through door 3.

In the room were a number of poeple like himself wearing gowns. He recognised these people. There was Blackbeard the pirate, his old astronaut friend, the King of Arabia and others.

"What are you all doing here?" asked Mr Benn.

"We live here Mr Benn - and now so do you." sang everyone in unison.

The shopkeeper appeared and laughed and laughed until his laughter turned to tears. He pulled off his fez and looked at it. He looked at Mr Benn.

There was a look of sorrow in his eyes,

 "I'm sorry Mr Benn - I'm so sorry."
  

Monday 14 May 2012

Only just managing

It seems to me that it is the acts, decisions, behaviour, and even the sheer existence of managers that cause public services and so many other businesses to be as bad and expensive as they are.
Bit extreme?
I don't think so. I'm not criticising the people themselves. Although I believe that at least a few managers, at least occasionally, realise that what they are actually doing is creating high cost, low quality services. We've seen it in local government, the health service, housing associations, and all manner of other more commercial businesses.
Our modern conception of management is basically the same one devised by Frederick Winslow Taylor over 100 years ago.

That's him.
He devised Scientific Management. He was very important and his ideas, together with those of Henry Ford, led to leaps in the way manufacturing, commercial services and government administration is organised. A very important change in thinking which revolutionised the way organisations work. The basic principles remain the same today embedded in this command and control philosophy. Top down functional hierarchies, controls, such as performance management frameworks with their "baskets " of Performance Indicators and SMART targets, and Golden Threads, cascading objectives, Mission Statements and the ultimate insult to humanity - "corporate behaviours" (where people are sent on courses to teach them how to empathise!) Bloated Human Resources departments, and Organisational Development & Business Improvement Directorates. It all seems so normal, so par for the course, making up the hegemonic values - the tacit assumptions and "common sense" of modern management.

However, a new revolution in management thinking is now needed. Indeed it has begun.
Systems Thinking is not understood by most managers. It will be considered alongside project management approaches like 'Prince 2' and becoming more popular - "Lean" as another tool or set of tools.  But it is not a tool. It is different way - markedly different from the last 100 years of management thinking. You can't apply it using the same tired old assumptions, half baked methodology and flawed psychology. You can't add it  to your toolbox!
'Management' has to unlearn everything it thinks it knows, including most of what is taught on MBAs.

Another day, I'll tell you why.

Channel Shifted

At Waterstones the book shop recently I couldn't find a book I was looking for (It was Jeanette Winterson's autobiography "Why be happy when you could be normal" and it was to be a present) so seeing a computer terminal I looked it up and found it at £8.00 on a list on the web site. At the same time my son found the actual book in the store, but marked at £14.00. I went and enquired with the cheerful scandanavian guy on the till.

"Unfortunately if you buy it from the shop it is £14. £8 is the price if you buy it off the web site." there was a pause as I absorbed the information.

"We can order it for you and you can pick it up from here." He said smiling and before I could speak he said "Yes, I know it's mad."

"Can't I order it? - take this one and you can replace the book with the one ordered off your web site when it comes in?"

"Sorry - I know it seems mad but I can't do that."

What was happening was I was being channel shifted. The consequence was that I did actually shift my purchasing channel. I ordered it from Amazon for £7.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Mirror mirror.....

Our host had been dredging up old jokes all evening. Everyone thought him sooooooo amusing. I didn't get a look in. Surely they couldn't be impressed by this.
He has a quick line every time. But the jokes are old. I thought of them and disregarded them immediately.

An emergency vehicle, probably an ambulance, goes by outside all sirens wailing, and conversation dies down as it passes. I can see he is ready to pounce with another amusing joke about the lack of success the ice cream purveyor would have travelling at high speed. So I quickly jump in. This will slay them! Just as our host begins to utter, "He'll never..", I loudly and speedily (to ensure I get in before he finishes the joke) proclaim, "That Ambulance, even if it were stationary would sell no ice cream because...."[pause] "...it is an ambulance!"

No one knows what I'm talking about.

They are a shit audience.

I focus on my chocolate tort.

Thursday 8 March 2012

The comfort of hopelessness

I went to see Arsenal the other night. They were playing AC Milan in the Champions League. It was the 2nd of a two legged tie and Arsenal had lost the first leg 4-0. I had bought tickets prior to the first game taking place. Had I known we would be going into the game losing 4-0, I may not have bothered - not at these prices! But too late, tickets already bought so went along with my mate, Morty.

There was no tension or stress becasue we knew we were out of the Champions League. It was a hopeless task. We were sure we could not beat AC Milan by the required 5 goals to nil.   
So rather than be stressed, nervous and on edge, and because this was a foregone conclusion, a match we'd already lost, a hopeless situation, we were pretty relaxed. Just hoping for a bit of entertainment.

By half time we were winning 3-0, the atmosphere was so electric it would have powered Bonio's light show.        

But with hope came stressfulness.

When the situation was hopeless the evening had potential to be relaxing and enjoyable, in a resigned kind of way. Now there was hope. Now there were expectations. We now needed to get another goal to go level and force extra time, or two to win the tie.

We didn't. But the 2nd half was much more tense and stressful.

Sometimes there is comfort in hopelessness.

And having hope is just sometimes not worth the stress.
   

Monday 5 March 2012

The secret of the magic portal in the changing room

It was hard being a magic shopkeeper in a fancy dress shop with a magic portal in the changing room.
For a start he didn't like wearing the fez.
The consequences of the choice of head attire, made so many years ago,were with him everyday.
If only he'd bothered to read the contract properly. Maybe if he'd used an agent or solicitor. He had been unaware of the permanence of the clothing choice made on his first day as "The Shopkeeper".
Mr Benn the Shopkeeper Resin Figure

And just appearing and disappearing grew very tiresome. To those watching (i.e. Mr Benn) he just appeared. For the shopkeeper, it was an experience akin to being dropped by a Heron into a pond. And disappearing was like being plucked by a Heron from a pond. Not really very pleasant. Not very pleasant at all.

All the time he had to wear this ridiculous outfit with the fez! The fucking fez!

So why on earth is it surprising that he would want to share his pain? Having to go through this was ok the first few times. But the constant pain of appearing, disappearing and wearing a fez all to serve one man some "adventures" was borne alone. No one to talk to or share in his misery.

No one to share in his misery....until now.

Mr Benn was to sample the horror of an incomprehensible existence. All he had to do is find a way to make Mr Benn question his own ludicrous existence, to become self aware. With self awareness comes misery.

Once the shopkeeper had achieved this, he would at least have someone with whom to share his misery. He would then at least not be alone  - in a fez.

Alone in a fez is the most alone anyone can be.

So his plan was to help Mr Benn to question. Until now Mr Benn had simply accepted the situation:
  • He turned up at the fancy dress shop.
  • The Shopkeeper appeared - as if by magic.
  • He went into the changing room, through a portal into another world and at the end of the day took home a souvenir of his 'adventure'.
He happily did this for years without question. Never once did he turn to the shopkeeper and say,"This is all very odd" or anything that suggested he didn't accept this as all completely normal. This infuriated the fez wearing man.

"Is Benn a simpleton?" he thought to himself. "Has he no critical faculties or curiosity about how this all works?"

The answer had been,"apparently not."

So the task the shopkeeper set himself was to turn this simple, happy man, who breezed through his smartly dressed life without much care, into someone who questioned and pondered the meaning, but also to bring him to the verge of breakdown. The shopkeeper needed Mr Benn to feel the pain. "Then" thought the shopkeeper, "I will no longer be alone."

He would use the portal.

The portal, usually based in the changing room of the fancy dress shop, holds a secret known only to the shopkeeper.
        

Friday 2 March 2012

A New Day for Mr Benn

Mr Benn woke up. But rather than opening the curtains to reveal a beautiful morning in Festive Road, he extracted his head from a swiss cheese plant. He peeled leaf from his cheek. The dried vomit which acted as a  powerful adhesive made a cracking sound, a stinging sensation and left a red mark as it separated unwillingly from his skin.

Mr Benn pulled himself to his feet. It was morning - he'd been unconscious for at least 12 hours.

Today would be better. He'd put the shopkeeper and any thoughts about what is real or not to the back of his mind. Today would be a nice normal day. No dressing up, no adventures, just a straightforward day in Festive Road.

Usually he would peer out of the window and notice the children playing in Festive Road. This was usually where things started to go wrong. Sometimes they played at being spacemen, sometimes cowboys and indians - and this often seemed to inspire his hallucinatory 'episodes'.Yesterday they were all playing Pirates and it led to..... Well he wasn't going to think about that today. It was going to be a nice normal day.

First thing - cup of tea. A nice comforting morning cuppa to get the day off to a good start.

Mr Benn walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. No milk.
It was 9.30 am the milkman would have been.

Mr Benn walked back into the hall way and opened the front door and there were two pints of milk on the doorstep. As he stooped to pick them up he glanced up and noticed children laughing and playfully chasing other children who were dressed in black leather caps with large false moustaches.

"Odd", thought Mr Benn, "What game is this? What are they playing at?" Then after a moment  he thought "At least I can't hallucinate about this - I don't even know what it is."

Mr Benn was about to close the door when he heard a loud "CLANK." The giant key had fallen from the chain around his waist. He stooped to pick it up and noticed that on the wall next to his front door, in spray paint was the following message:

"What?" he exclaimed out loud. The children all at once stopped their game and turned to stare at Mr Benn.
Mr Benn rushed back into the house and slammed the door.

"No, no, no, no......" he screamed. He heard laughter from the children outside. Not the playful innocent laughter he was used to, but a mocking, sneering laughter.

He looked in the mirror. "Who am I? What is..." he began to mutter. Then out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something appear. It was as if by magic. He daren't look - he was sure he caught sight of a Fez but this couldn't be. This was his home not a fancy dress shop. His home was a sanctuary. He closed his eyes and kept them firmly shut.

The shopkeeper, in his fez, carrying 1970's leather costume, wig and false moustache just stood there.

He could wait.......  


Thursday 1 March 2012

Monday 27 February 2012

Mr Benn's Breakdown

Mr Benn walked down Festive Road. A crushing weight on his shoulders. A dark menacing creature hovering above him. He walked past the children playing on bikes and scooters, flying kites at ridiculously low altitudes, skipping and laughing. Jollity all around, whilst the normally happy tune that accompanied him in his head sounded as if it had been reworked in Minor keys with occasional discordant eruptions.

Was any of this real? He struggled to remember where he'd been. He knew where he was going - the sanctuary of his living room. The door shut firmly on Festive Road, curtains drawn. Hell in private is the best he could aspire to at this moment. That's where he was going.

But where had he been? Flashes of images appeared to him, seemingly synchronised with the discordant eruptions in the music in his head. The music - usually jolly and bouncy - was fast becoming a nightmarish cacophony. Images of a hideous old man, strangely attired, offering him a selection of costumes. Yes! He remembered.The Shopkeeper!

The Shopkeeper was behind this.

He got to his door and fumbled for his keys becoming desperate as the keys refused to enter the lock. They seemed to big for the lock. They were to big for the lock! Much too big. These keys were huge keys the size of his hand, on a rusty old chain.

These were the wrong keys.

He found the right keys in the pocket of his now crumpled and vomit sodden trousers and tried them in the door.

These keys fitted.

He opened the door, almost dived into the hallway, slammed the door shut behind him and leant against it breathing heavily.

The cacophony had stopped.

Sweet silence.

Mr Benn looked at the enormous keys attached to a rusty chain around his waist. A feeling of nausea rose within him for the second time this afternoon.

Mr Benn vomited onto the swiss cheese plant .

Holding the giant keys in his sticky puke-coated hands he watched pieces of what he ate drip from the leaves of the plant. It was at this point that he realised that they were keys to the buried treasure chest on Pirate Island.

But that's all he could recall.

These keys, a souvenir of his adventures.

On the floor of his hallway, in grey half light, Mr Benn sobbed into his swiss cheese plant.               

Saturday 25 February 2012

The advantages of being a fussy eater

A single fish (fish 17) gazed up at the canopy of dead fish above and thought,

"I'm glad I don't like algae."

Friday 24 February 2012

Change Ladders

Left my job today and start (hopefully) a new one in a couple of weeks.

I'm going to be earning less - about as much as I was earning 6 or 7 years ago.

But I'm no longer on the ladder.

I never meant to get on it. But at a point about 10 years ago I found myself on it. And realised I'd been on it for a while without realising it. Once you're on it, it's hard to get off, even once you've realised your on it. It seems like the only way to travel.

Along the narrow track of a ladder - failure to go upwards is a lack of ambition and going downwards is failure.

But it's staying on the ladder that represents a lack of ambition.

I've jumped off - and am traversing in any direction - 'up' and 'down' seem much less relevant. They are just two directions among many others. I now travel in, at least, 3D!

I think it's more ambitious. 

Thursday 23 February 2012

Things I don't care about today

I don't care about:
  • Adele not having enough time to do her speech
  • That boxer and that other ex boxer having a fight
  • Footballers not shaking hands with other footballers
  • David Cameron
  • Gay marriages
  • The Sunday Sun
  • London fashion week

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Beyond Pond

SO, I over heard this conversation between two fish the other day........

Fish 1: Hey how's it flowin', Scaley?
Fish 2: Ahh you know.....the usual.  I was just wondering how this all works.
Fish 1: How what all works?
Fish 2:  You know - all this....... Everything.
Fish 1: This all works as it works.
Fish 2: Yeh but do you never wonder what is beyond pond?
Fish1: Beyond Pond?
Fish 2: Beyond Pond!
Fish 1: Nothing is beyond Pond.....Pond is everything. everything is Pond.
Fish 2: Is it?
Fish1: Ahhh I know. You've been talking to weirdy boy
Fish 2: Fin, yes I've been talking to him.
Fish1: Ever since the big beak made him disappear and then appear again at the other end of Pond, he's gone a bit mental
Fish 2: That was a Heron and he was taken outside of Pond to another dimension . He says he sees that there is more than Pond and that Pond is just one of many things in a bigger system and that we're all part of the system and we only see Pond.
Fish 1: So you've been wondering about......[raises eyes up] up there?
Fish2: Well you say "up there" but why is it up? I have no wonderings about what's 'down' do I? Down is just hard muddy, weedy. You can bounce off "down". But up is a mystery.
Fish 1: Listen don't worry about all that crap - that Fin, he's gone soft in the gills - Pond is all. The world is Pond. Disappearing and then reappearing must do something to your head. Ignore him he's a weirdo.
Fish 3: Hi can I join in.
Fish 1: No, Fuck Off!
Fish 3: Oh [Fucks off]
Fish 2: Bit rude... but you have a point he has kind of lost himself. I say something, like 'there's some nice algae over there better eat it quick' and he keeps telling me it's all based on wrong assumptions and........
Fish 1: Where? What Algae? Did you eat it all? Show me the Algae!
Fish 3: Hi can I join in?
Fish 2: You already asked that.
Fish 3: Did I? What was the answer?
Fish 1: No
Fish 2: So yeh Fin is getting like all those arty farty Trouts with their Trout Theatre, Trout Library, Trout Art galleries, Trout Concerts, Trou..
Fish 1: Alright get the picture..Trout civilisation, basically. They do a good rock fest though - Troutstival. Man, last year I was so off my face when...
Fish 2: Oscar Wilde said "The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists."
Fish3: He never said that. Or should I say he did but only through a character in The Picture of Dorian Gray, but he didn't say it as his own op..
Fish 1: Will you FUCK OFF!
Fish 3: Oh [ Fucks Off]
Fish 2: He was saying that poets and artists are more interesting and fun people if they are bad artists and poets because good ones lose all their personality in their work. He says and that inferior poets are fascinating. They live poetry they cannot write whereas good poets write the poetry that they dare not realise.     
Fish 1: Yeh? Anyway....where's that Algae?
Fish 2: Over there - oh no -look. Fin is eating it all!
Fish1 and 2: OY LEAVE THAT ALGAE!
Fish 1: GO AND EAT SOME WRONG ASSUMPTIONS YOU SLIPPERY BASTARD!


Fish.

I just don't get them.

          

Friday 3 February 2012

Coffee making halted by milk clogged nozzle - it must be the Buddha!

I've been worshipping my coffee maker. It's a Dualit Expressiv.

Then it broke. A blockage in the steam stick bit (technical term) caused a pressure build up resulting in a small plastic tube being forcefully evicted from the small metal tube which carried the steam to the steam stick bit.

It went "KAPOOSH!" And then water started pouring out of the bottom of it.

The system broke down - it had a negative feedback loop - and contained no repairing or compensating feedback loops. It's a simple system operated by a much more complex system within an even more complex system. Yes the last two systems mentioned are me and the universe (and all the subsystems in between - if you like).

So the Dualit Expressiv killed itself  to some degree - but only after I had created the conditions for it's suicide. I had failed to maintain it - you're supposed to clean the steam stick thing regularly, and flush the whole system through. I didn't do this due to my own psychological system - itself reliant on biological and chemical systems and of course all the systems that brought me into being and create life on earth, the existence of this solar system in this....blah blah blah. So in a sense I killed it, and in another sense it was a conspiracy of all the interactions and relationships between all the systems in the universe. In that little machine sat the power of the universe.

Of course that steam stick bit was not conscious of the effect of it's clogging up. It does not know it blew up my coffee machine. I can't blame it.

We don't have a blame culture in my kitchen!   

But are we all just unconscious nodes in a network? Humanity generally disagrees. We can't bear to be that! We're special! We are aware of our consciousness and have the ability to self reflect. We even create cyber worlds in which some of these nodes can ramble on about consciousness.

                                             But what are we conscious of?


Being conscious within the system - having consciousness of how things work within it - is not being conscious of the fact that we are actually in a system, that our consciousness may just be a system ,mechanism - to keep the nodes doing what the system needs to do.

What is the purpose of the system?  

The purpose of the system is what it does.

So for example the purpose of the capitalist system is to create massive divisions between people (nodes). Rich and Poor. Luxury and poverty. And  also to use up the planetary system's resources as soon as possible. Capitalists and politicians and normal average nodes all disagree.

Well that is what it does. It is either the purpose or it's not working! One of the two! 

Anyway my system (me) does have trouble interacting with technological systems. I have a trepidation in my transactions with things technological or mechanical. I do not hate the technology. I just haven't got my mental model - part of psychological, neurological system - working as part of the flow-through between me and the machine.

Robert Pirsig in 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'  said that the "flight from and hatred of technology is self defeating. The Buddha, the Godhead resides quite comfortably in the circuits of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha - which is to demean oneself." 

I think the coffee machine which is made to be a Dualit Expressiv - is made to express a dualistic understanding of the world. Just like us.
That is:

I and the World,
                         Spiritual/Physical;
                                                     Human/God
                                                                           Ideal /Material
                                                                                                   Subject/Object etc etc.

It is the way we've seen the world particularly in the West - through Descartes and Newton and others. It structures and fashions our perception. It's part of the perception filter thing I was talking about in my last post.  

Maybe my coffee maker got so freaked out by the sudden realisation of the complexity of everything and the collapse of its world-view as understood through cartesian dualism. And "KAPOOSH!"  - actually it was more "KAPOOSHshshshshshshsh".

It became conscious of itself in relation to it's position in a system much bigger than the coffee maker. It had been a fish in a pond unaware of it's postion in the pond because it's universe was the pond. Suddenly being plucked out of the pond by a Heron and seeing the pond - very briefly, before being swallowed - from the outside, probably unable to make sense of what it sees, rather than thinking, "oh now I get it!", just thought
"Aggghhhhhggaggahhhahgggghhgghhhh!!" 

How my Dualit Expressiv gained this awareness without the aid of a Heron, I don't know.

Maybe it was just clogged with dried up milk!   








   

   

Thursday 2 February 2012

Old cheese and world health - The destructive force of creation and the creative force of destruction

Old cheese and world health - The destructive force of creation and the creative force of destruction 

So the old cheese from the last post had effects. Destructive and creative.

The forces of destruction and those of creation are the Ying and Yang of Taoism, the opposing forces of the dialectic in Marx's Historical Materialism.

It is how systems operate.

Other than the old chestnut of the need for something to be destroyed in order to create space for something else, destruction and creation are part of the fundamental force. Reality isn't about things -it's about the relationship between things.

Things are born, they have growth life, decay life and death. Everything is this!

Things come into being and grow and decay and die. Every movement 'of a finger' (thanks Keith) sparks a set of processes affecting other parts of the system. 

Most creation is without intention. In fact even creation with intention isn't really caused by the intention. The intention itself is caused by something else - or some things else.  

The Universe.
                   The Galaxies.
                                        The Solar Systems.
                                                                      The Planetary system.

                                                                                                           The Ecosystems.

The physical, chemical, biological, sociological, psychological and multitudinous other systems - all caused and causing at the same time.  Causation is complex.

All things come into being (brought into being), and die having touched and affected other things.

And in relationships with other things, setting off processes, sparking formations of systems.

Without the relationships, sustained by the systems, things that come into being would immediately die - at the exact point of birth. So cannot be considered to exist. And so could not have birth or death. And so I cannot speak of it.

Destruction is an essential element in this.

And yet we - I'm thinking less cosmically now - and so when I say "we" I refer to people (humans) rather than everything and every relationship between every thing that we know of or has been conceived (by humans)  - we people, in "today's society", have a bit of a downer on destruction in general. I don't mean a downer on just wars, and acts of violence ( I think it's ok to have a downer on wars and acts of violence - call me old fashioned...) There is a negative connotation to the word. It is seen as a bad thing. Creation is good, destruction is bad.

But every act of creation requires an act of destruction. Writing this is destructive and creative.

Sketching people on trains is an act of wanton destruction.

A blank sheet of paper, pure and perfect, is destroyed by physically scarring it with graphite. The life of the blank sheet is destroyed. It's blank sheetedness, with the cool deliberation of a psychopath, brought an end.

Potential gone.
Potential achieved.

Destroyed by creation. 
                  

Tuesday 31 January 2012

I'm 48 today.
Thought I'd better come back here and write something. It's not much. Just something.

It's been 6 months since I posted anything. And that was 'just something' too.
I like writing stuff, but need to make it habitual. 

What is the point?
Does there have to be a point? 

I think there has to be a purpose. 
I think it is to ask people to see the world through my eyes. 
To communicate something that may, in whatever small way possible, have an effect. 

The hope being that something, however small and nebulous, or wide and vacuous, or tall and ridiculous, mind expansive or a bit funny, or not.....but that something is sticky enough to attach itself to someone elses perception-filter-mechanism-thing. That is a technical term.

Is that what it's about? 

Maybe? Sort of. 

Everything has an effect. By writing something there is an effect. By not writing something there is an effect.  It's all part of a massively complex system that we can't see - but can only glimpse parts of. And even if we saw the entire sum of all parts they do not constitiute the whole.

The whole is more. 

So what's it got to do with the price of cheese?

The cheese I threw away into the bin this morning, because it looked manky, might have made me ill had I eaten it. It may have infected my gut with bacteria which, in interaction with other microbes, could have killed me. 

By throwing it away I may have extended my life. This may or may not have benefits for humanity - I may live to do something great, or good, or do something that consciously or unconsciously leads someone else to do something good.

Or bad.

The cheese I threw may have led to a fox on a rubbish dump gaining the additonal calorific value and nutrition needed to go back into the garden from whence he came. Or lie in the driveway of the house, tripping the man as he hurried to work. Preventing the man from running in front of the Renault Clio that was speeding to get to the hospital before the child in the back lapsed into a final coma. Saving both the tripped man and the young boy from imminent death. And allowing the man to live on and invent the medical cure which saves a million lives in the third world. 

Only for them all to be killed in the volcanic eruption.            

Should I carry on with this blog writing lark?

The consequences could be catastrophic.

Or glorious. 

Or neither.