Homo Rationalis?

(sighs)

Principles, loyalties, looking out for oneself, looking out for one's loved ones---where do all these lie?

Are we living in a world where even the alleged rationality of a transactional relationship gets usurped by the ritualistic chanting and chest-thumping of the loudest person in the room?

Why do people make decisions that, with just a little bit of thought, will end up with them being in a worse position than before?

And no, I am not referring to the US. There are many out there who have bled enough words to criticise, and to complain, and to call for action. I am just thinking out loud about the situation throughout the world, of which the US is just one of the more recent examples.

In many ways, the idea of homo rationalis ought to be considered dead by now. No one, not even me, can truly make decisions that are rational (defensible, logical, consistent). I would go as far as to misquote The Matrix and claim that we've already made our damn decisions---the difficulty then is to understand why we made them.

I have no answers. I never do---not smart enough, and not wise enough to provide answers, and perhaps not even to myself.

One point of solace is that this too, shall pass. For this world is not my world---I'm just passing through before I hopefully end up in God's Kingdom. But instead of the easy inaction that some might advocate, I try my best to steward what has been given to me by God to steward, be it talent, resources, or even relationships with other people.

It is not fatalism; I like to think of it as a type of realism, one that has outcomes consistently grounded in reality, with the actual aims/goals going much further beyond reality.

I suppose this is what philosophers like to call ``hope''.

If we place our hope in the material world, the fact the material world is one that everyone can access means that the same hope that we place can also be touched, and perhaps destroyed, with or without malice.

If we place our hope beyond the material world, then it is less clear who can touch it. The believers of course believe that they can reach that world beyond this one, while the non-believers are a little more heterogenous in thought, with some of the more vociferous ones declaring that since such a world is ``beyond'' the material world, it must therefore not exist, and is a complete delusion that people use to escape the current one where they are losers.

Which in some ways is both funny and sad. Funny in that these folks are themselves deluded enough into discarding a concept that isn't provable within the generally accepted framework of empiricism built around falsification, with the use of the scientific method. Sad because they cannot accept that they may be wrong, for if they were, they would look much dumber than the losers that they decried.

I don't condemn them; I just pray that they find their own peace. I cannot hope to help anyone beyond myself, and even then, I can barely help myself in this messed up world.

All I can do, is to do my best given my locus of control, and let God handle the rest. What I do in this material world, both God and society can see; what I intend in this material world, only God knows, and He will judge me the way He will.

But back to the point (was there a point in the first place?).

I have trust issues. Not sure if I have talked about it before, but I will talk about it now. I have trust issues. If I choose to trust someone, I trust wholeheartedly, considering them as part of the axiomatic inner circle within the context of the trust, where there is little to no boundaries of what we can/cannot say. If I choose to not trust someone, they will know nothing more than what I am required to state by statute.

At work, I trust my folks to do what they are supposed to do. I trust my bosses to make the best damn decisions they can with the information that we provide, and I trust my subordinates to deliver what they say they will. I trust my clients in terms of what they want, but not in the way that they want it. I trust my organisation to follow the law and deal with us fairly, and I trust my infrastructure partners to be the same.

So far, that has gone great.

Away from work, I feel less inclined to trust people as much nowadays.

Primarily because at a personal level, agenda are less structured (as compared to the professional setting), time horizons are less constrained, and few are ready to think/act like the adults they are.

That last point is what is most depressing. For some damn reason, people seem to develop this... immaturity when it comes to things unrelated to the professional setting. It is as though they put their best foot forward ``for the Company!'' but are shoddy when it comes to ``themselves''. The hard-driving business person who makes millions for a company is the same one who is stuck in a divorce proceeding; the caring nurse at the hospital is the same one who shows neglect for their own child at home.

``MT, that's vague af.''

Okay. Here's something similar in concept: personal projects are often managed much more shittily compared to stuff for work, even though there is no functional difference between the two. A project is a project, and formal project management is a solid framework for ensuring timely delivery of a project with good stewardship of resources. Yet the same people whose day job is a project manager, are failing to handle their own projects at home.

Similarly, a line manager is more willing to fire subordinates that are under-performing despite counselling, yet the same line manager somehow refuses to acknowledge that their parents are providing a toxic environment at home.

In that sense, I have trust issues. How can I bring myself to trust someone at a personal level, if statistically, most people are just plain bad at honouring that trust at a personal level?

``MT, statistics is a population thing; you're not a population but an individual.''

Fair statement, but without any evidence/measurement, the a priori assumption of using what the descriptive statistics are saying is as good as any (hello Bayesian inference!). Naturally, once enough evidence/measurement (in the form of interacting with said someone(s)) happens, the a posteriori distribution must change, and that is when the true inference of whether to trust someone or not ought to be made.

But that takes time and/or greater cadence (i.e. intensity) of interactions. I'm middle-aged now, and am not getting any younger. Sometimes, it just feels like too much effort for too little pay-off.

And now that I have bitched about what I think/believe the situation is out there, and how bad it is, I am going to make sure that I live up to my own expectations, and apply the kind of thinking that I think is so sorely missing out there.

``Cool MT... so what's the point of this blog entry again?''

Since when did my nearly sixteen-hundred blog entries had any point other than me dumping my armchair observations/thoughts?