Are we asking the right questions?

Prepare yourself, this is my first attempt to get a little deep and meaningful

Ahem,

One of my favourite early morning activities, whilst lovingly cradling my morning coffee, is to browse the news sites of the world and see what has been happening outside of my supervision in the last 24 hours.

As I surfed the news site www.nzherald.co.nz, in between stories of school girls uncovering the dastardly Ribena scandal and Brangelina's impending nuptials, I noticed a poll question that got me thinking along the lines of this post's topic.

The question itself was directed towards the always thorny immigration debate, but it's very nature made me wonder if we have become a people who, though well practiced at identifying problems, lack the foundation required to diagnose a solution. So what was the question? It read as follows, "Are there enough people in New Zealand?"

Though I could distil the question's intent, my immediate reaction to it was to respond with a question of my own, "Enough people for what?"

Leaving aside the fact that it is often regarded as poor form to answer a question with another question, this is where my train of thought took me.

To respond such as I was motivated to do may seem flippant, but on dwelling on it a little further, I have come to the conclusion that it may be more worthy of contemplation than I first thought. How can one effectively answer a question if it is not entirely clear what question we are being asked in the first place, or what problem we are attempting to solve?

In this specific case, the goal may be purely biological - do we have enough fertile individuals to continue the propagation of the species. A charming and thoroughly romantic thought, I know. Then there is the economic angle - the need to have a growing, dynamic, skilled workforce. Perhaps we could even consider the sociological angle and think of how we are culturally enriched by the contributions of new immigrants.

So to my mind, the question is impossible to answer unless we know where, as a nation, we intend to go.

Once we know that, we find there is still a greater question that needs answering. Why there?

Now having comprehensively kicked over the hornets nest, I will leave the next step to you. What makes any direction, immigratory or otherwise, worthwhile. How do we then know that is the one worth pursuing?

Please understand that my motivation here is because that we truly care about a better future, being able to ask the right questions is a skill we all need in order to get there.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

- A

Why do we do it to ourselves?

Admittedly, this is a very assumptive opening, given that I have yet to identify what 'it' I am refering to, and then of course assuming that our collective experience is one and the same. But nonetheless, I have committed 'it' once again, and now I want to share my experience :)

In this case, for lack of a better term, I am refering to, 'Hey-cool-it's-the-weekend-I-can-catch-up-on-some-sleep-oh-wait-now-it's-monday-and-I-was up-til-2am-every-night' sickness.

As I write this, my eyes have achieved a level of bloodshot horror that is usually reserved for those who have had up close encounters with sharp sticks.

*nb quick confession: I'm writing this from my desk at work this morning & our receptionist just paged across the office intercom for some reason. It's a hard road finding something more annoying than a chirpy receptionist greeting the new day with a series of reminders about morning meetings, especialy in my current condition.

ok, digression over.......

So yeah, up too late etc. I wonder if it's because I feel I am in danger of missing out on something. Perhaps because the week can, for the most part, be lumped into two catergories
a.) Things I don't really like doing but must because of the need to the pay the bills
b.) Things I do really like doing but cannot do exclusively owing to their inability to meet afformentioned financial obligations.

For most people, the week is thusly divided 5 days into catergory a and 2 days in catergory b.

The common ground in both cases appears to be bills, and so a simple solution would appear to be the pusuit of a lifestyle that entails none of them. Howerever the critical flaw here is discovered in the observance of how few homeless people appear decidely thrilled about their lifestyle, financially unfettered though it may be.

From all of this postulating I have therefore come to the following conclusion. People enjoy making bad decisions so they can complain about them later. That is all.

Ahhhh, feels good to get that off my chest, time to re-fill the coffee mug.

Have a splendid day :)

ps. Spell check is not working this morning, and due to my diminished faculties this morning, I thank you for your understanding if you are in fact a cambridge english professor and I have failed to meet your high standards. Ta.

An introduction

Many thanks to Lewis Caroll for supplying the preface that so aptly describes all that is to come in these pages.

It occured to me, as I searched through the recesses of my own mind for a witty and memorable title for this blog, that Mr Caroll understood the principles of blogging long before the facilites to publish such thoughts became available.

Now I conceed at this stage that my site is distinctly underwhelming, and as such, if you have nonetheless decided to spend a moment reading my first post, I am especially grateful.

By way of introduction, I should say up front that what you are currently reading is an exercise in self development. You see, I'm one of those people for whom there have always been others to affirm my ability to articualte a position on the topic du jour. But have i ever done anything about it? NO!!!

Why? Ummm, quite honestly it's because up till recently I didn't much enjoy writing, hah!

So there you are, a few steps closer to being up to speed with my daily experience, and I feel we are now moving towards a deep and meaningful friendship. Whoever you are.

Failing that, you now have something new to read while your office email downloads the day's 47 best deals for anti-impotence medication.

Electronically yours,

Andrew