Hello All. Not sure if you've noticed, but I've been on hiatus for a bit. Been dealing with morons of such colossal proportions recently that I can look at things like the events of the weekend and say to myself, "Yeah, that makes sense." It's an interesting (for lack of a better word) feeling to be simultaneously overwhelmed with hope and despair; such is the life of anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur, I suppose. Been in such overdrive mode that I haven't really conceived of the fact that in 5 months I will be a small, helpless person's legal guardian (what people who aren't in denial call a "father"). Have 4 trips to go on in the next two weeks (3 for business and one to watch the eclipse with my dad), which sounds like a lot until you talk to my business partners, who just call that a normal two week span, so no complaints about it from me (except for this thinly veiled one). I'm normally the sort who can see "many sides" to most events. Part of it comes naturally to me, and part of it is cultivated from reading many thousands of pages on history. (For example, I had a Twitter conversation with a conservative today in which I got him to admit that open carry can sometimes appear threatening--a little empathy goes a long way.) However, I find myself now in an adversarial relationship with a group of men who are simply intransigent. Not sure how to deal with that, since it's devoid of logic. They simply don't like me, don't like my boss, and they've taken the position to tell me to go fuck myself, even to their own detriment. Difficult to deal with, because even bad or perverse logic can be decoded and responded to. When the debate is being framed by people who would rather burn down the building than sell it to you, your options become fewer. Thinking of maneuvering to a scorched Earth policy, but there's no uncrossing that bridge.
The secret is to not think of them as "small helpless persons" and yourself as their "legal guardian" but to view them as people in training with you as the trainer. The guy sitting next to you in Driver's Ed has a responsibility to keep you from crashing into stuff; that's pretty much what's up, times a couple decades. The other secret is to understand that humans come out premature because the optimal curve fit between brain size and pelvis size involves booting the baby out of the uterus eight weeks earlier than the primate model would suggest. As such, they don't really become persons in training for a while. The first bit they're fetuses on the half shell. Congrats, good luck, and god speed.