After leaving the Army, I became an operator and later, a heavy industrial mechanic.
Then I learned how to weld and worked as a pipe welder/fitter for a few years.
Now I have a job that requires me to spend at least half of my time at a desk.
Yawn.
You learn stuff as a paper pusher though.
Like how to two-hole or three-hole punch a large stack of papers.
You know, you don't have to have all of the papers punched exactly the same to put them in a binder.
All you have to do is get the holes close, so that when you put them all together, you can see some light through the holes. Sometimes, one or two prevent this, so you wiggle the stack until the binder rings can make it through. Maybe you force it a little (that's the soldier/welder/mechanic in me speaking).
Thus is a stack of mostly-aligned punched papers brought into -if you will- "unity".
Being punched with different machines can cause the holes to not be aligned perfectly, but a skilled paper pusher can still get them together into a binder.
Not-quite-perfectly aligned papers, bound together in spite of some of their differences.
95% of the paper is identical between sheets. The only differences lie in the alignment of two or three tiny holes.
Keep this in mind next time someone laments the "division" among a given de facto brotherhood. Keep this in mind the next time someone despairs over a heated discussion, or an out-and-out verbal brawl.
This have I learned as a paper pusher.
Unity. Alignment. Making it work.
Hundreds of different sheets, bound together, in spite of their differences.
Think about it, that's all.
Resist.
Nice analogy.
ReplyDeleteThe problem lies in the paper pusher and the paper. The paper allows itself to shuffled with no regard as to why, the pusher knows well and good as to why and how the paper is to be bound together.
America is a fine example of this as you elude to. The electorate(paper) takes no responsibility in the decisions as to why they make the choices they make, they simply rely on the talking heads to discern the whys and hows needed to make that vote.
The talking heads (pusher) have an agenda, that agenda has little to do with the papers well being it only concerns itself with preservation of itself.
I agree we must look past the petty differences that only serve to embolden the powers that be. However when forging alliances let us be cognizant of the ignorant misled masses looking only for self interest.
Nice piece!
Mozart
Wow! You're good. Remind me of another fella I know was trained by Uncle Sugar during his Asian vacation and afterwards. Scare the bejeebus out of ya with a weapon, but what was terrifying was the razor sharp stuff betwixt his ears!
ReplyDeleteHuzzah
My first post on my blog.
ReplyDeletehttp://the-tao-of-josh.blogspot.com/2010/11/here-goes-nothing.html
Boy was I in for a disipointment.
Now I just use it to vent a little steam.
:-)
What I learned as an aircraft mechanic in the Army National Guard was that a heavy hydraulic punch would make perfectly aligned holes in well over 1/2 inch of paper.
ReplyDeleteRight now, too. Keep your hands clear and wear safety glasses.
AP -
ReplyDeleteEver read anything by Edward de Bono?
If not you might find this of interest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTMnEs8BwnY&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Take Care,
Josh
This makes me think of the situation in my own extended family, around whom and for whom much of my long-term survival planning is calculated. We have opinions across the political spectrum. Ditto work and hobby experience. Ditto life and family experience. Those are three holes that, given a large enough group, could cause a lot of misalignment, bending of paper, and multiple bad paper-cuts, so to speak. But, we have one thing to build on - our family ties - and that is enough. It may not work forever or in every situation, but it is enough to justify the effort.
ReplyDeleteOne of the great things about the Anglophonic experience over the last couple of centuries is that the old tribal loyalties went to the back burner so we (and our cousins) could function and cooperate as Brits, Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, or Canucks across the boundaries of family and ethnicity. We fought and won the Second World War that way. Tribal conflicts never go away completely (e.g., Northern Ireland) because our forebears were all right bastards at one point or another, but we have gotten as far as we have because we had another identity to transcend the tribal. I hope, once the Coming Storm passes, that we can get back to some of that at the level of whatever States and Confederacies still exist - that sense of umbrella identity that will allow us to cooperate across tribes and clans (and even sovereign borders) and rebuild our civilization.
You became an "operator"? You mean you worked at a telephone switchboard? That would explain a few things...
ReplyDelete