Spring Day, Overcast

Brown oak leaves underfoot, last year's sodden

reminders that green will end someday. But
not today

while the creek, silent in summer, chortles
happily to itself, full of spring vigor
far below

the limestone bluff edge where
I stand, chert nodules and fractals
peeking through

springy new undergrowth, broke down
limbs, leaf litter and dark soil.  I came
for morels

too early, too chill yet. A day of sun
may bring them out. Early poke sallet and
mayapple

sprouts fool me, draw me to admire
meek plants: trillium, maidenhair fern,
spring beauty,

johnny jump-up and more whose names
I knew once but have forgotten. Alone
I don't need

names. Names mean nothing without
voices and other ears. I love the silence
I bring here.

Cognitive Dissonance Is Why You Are Better Than Me

It started with Benjamin Franklin. More specifically, the Ben Franklin effect. I stumbled upon an article describing his theory of social interaction. He posited that we don't do favors for people we like, but that we like people we do favors for. The obverse side is that we are not mean to people we dislike, but we dislike people because we are mean to them. After a little more research into this phenomenon, I am not sure I buy in completely, but I do believe that there is certainly something to be said for the idea.

The basic idea is that we alter our perceptions of people based on our interactions with them. If we do something nice for someone, we tend to like them more. This is caused by a resolution of another phenomenon I eventually found called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when we do something that interferes with a principle or belief we hold. If we believe that we are not suckers, and then we do a favor for someone we normally wouldn't, then cognitive dissonance is created. Then the magic happens.

We resolve our cognitive dissonance by altering an idea or perception. We may hold onto our initial belief (I am not a sucker), so something has to give. What gives is our attitude concerning the person for whom we did the favor. We decide that we like the person. That makes us not a sucker. We did a favor for someone we like. And the opposite is true. When we are mean to someone, we don't want to think of ourselves as mean people. So the person or people we are being mean to must have done something to deserve it.

Some people will utilize the Ben Franklin effect for gain. Benjamin Franklin certainly did. This does not have to be a bad thing. However, the dark side of the Ben Franklin effect can cause war atrocities.

But cognitive dissonance affects different people in different ways. Some of the best managers I have seen have had the ability to resolve cognitive dissonance in such a way that they were able to maintain a healthy self-image while making the hard decisions. The decision to fire people, demote people, to ask people to do things they don't want to do.

I once worked at a company with a group of people who were so able to resolve their cognitive dissonance that they could push other people to extremities and still go home and feel good about themselves. While this may have made for a very successful company, it made for a questionable morality in the workplace. I was amazed how well these people could justify their actions. Many of them engaged in adulterous affairs. One individual in upper management was well-known as a philanderer, but he was a regular church-goer. I can only imagine how he justified the conflicting behaviors.

I can only imagine because I can't ever see myself doing it. I was a terrible manager. I agonized over the hard decisions. I was in a constant state of stress. If I could have made better resolutions to my cognitive dissonance, I would have been more successful. I am too full of doubts to ever convincingly and effectively resolve my cognitive dissonances.

Or am I just justifying my failures by resolving my cognitive dissonance in a way that still allows me to feel good about myself?

This Might Be September (I'm 45)

We always compare our lives to things, and things to our lives. Metaphors. Riddles. Remember this one? What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? That's what the Sphinx asked Perseus.

Today, I compare my life to a year. The seasons, the months. Common enough metaphor. But right now I'm actually comparing my life to a year. And that creates a new level of perception.

The year started in early spring. Everyone who has ever given it serious thought knows that the year doesn't really start in January. A year begun in January is artificial, a misconception of measurement of a year imposed by rational thought and an obsessive need to delineate practically. The year doesn't really begin until spring.

That being said:

This isn't April. April is a dim memory of newness and danger, so far back to be barely remembered as only a time of joy and all inherent unpleasantness of newness forgotten.

This is not May. This isn't the first greenery showing signs of growth. This isn't crocuses peeking through the last snow. This isn't the bud of leaves or Robert Frost's gold. May is long past.

This isn't June. Spoon, moon, June. This isn't the season of early love, of sap coursing strongly in the tree, of outrageous growth and new developments. June is a beautiful time, but there is also pain there, then, at that time. The first love, the first heartbreak, containing both the wondrous beauty of a June storm, and also the destructive power.

This is not July, hot and dangerous. When the hot days create a dangerous languor that erupts into foolishness in the nights, careless risks and crazy ideas brought to perilous fruition. The joy of stupidity blossoms darkly in the soft warm July nights.

This is not August. August, the month when the heat has sucked the juices almost dry, when growth has stopped and the first hint comes that any changes coming may not be improvements.

This is probably September. There is a coolness, almost refreshing, and if there is no new growth, then there is a temporary reprieve. The rains come, but they are different rains, not the rains of spring that bring growth, but the rains that soothe, the rains that replenish in different ways, the rains that prepare for a harsher season. This might be September, when the thought of winter becomes reality, when the coolness settles in and brings goosebumps in a not unpleasant way.

There is also the chance, though, that this is October. The imaginary line may have been crossed to the time when the leaves are not yet crisp but no longer green, when they begin to come to earth and there is no turning back, when energies are gathered in different ways, when the green has gone and other means of surviving show themselves as very real in different colors and with a different light.

This is not yet November. November is coming, but is not yet here. November, when the crunch of leaves
underfoot drowns out the silence left behind by a void of something missing, something gone that was intangible but will be sorely missed. The full impact of November hasn't been felt yet, and as with all things not yet experienced, cannot be fully described.

Nor is this December. The time of quiet reflection in front of a warm but too distant fire. This is not the time of the intrinsic calidity known in July and August long gone, replaced by heat from an external source, not quite the same. A heat that doesn't push to action but to inaction and reflection.

This is not January or February, when all is still. This isn't March. March is so far off and so strange that the changes to come can't even be comprehended.

This might be September.