I spend too much time wondering why humanity, both individually and collectively, endures discomfort and inconvenience, when the things causing those annoyances are resolvable. Each time I encounter one of these situations and I broach the subject of resolution, someone invariably responds with it’s complicated, or it’s not that simple. It seems logical to me that once the complicated status is verbalized then the next step should be a discussion aimed at resolving those perceived complications.
However.
I’ve come to understand that about half the time that the utterance of the word complicated means the conversation is actually over. The problem is apparently not resolvable because it’s not elementary, and so I guess we’re supposed to accept a perpetual problem with a shrug and some version of c’est la vie.
I hate that. It makes me fucking nuts that we’re going to continue to live with some bullshit problem, without even making an attempt to expend some thought and effort to make the problem an accomplishment. I at least do the thought part, and then let the conclusions bother me until I feel motivated enough to expend the effort. It’s a common approach I think. Not necessarily the best, but it seems to work most of the time.
There’s an expediency exclusion to the approach though. Some problems don’t provide contemplation time. Like running from fire to resolve an issue we’re having with burning. Not much thinking involved.
Because it’s not complicated.
I do understand though that some problems are indeed complicated. I further understand that there are two kinds of complications. People problems and non-people problems. Unfortunately most non-people problems still require people for solutions, and that’s where things get tricky. For example let’s say the weather is a problem. Two hundred millimeters of sky liquid falling in one place causing rivers to swell and storm drains to overflow. Eventually the clouds empty themselves, or the weather moves on and half the problem is solved. However, the flooding has created a new set of issues that we need people to manage.
And that’s logistically and personnel complicated. Our solution is to find the correct people to manage the people that manage the excess water. So, for every problem we face, the first step seems to be acquiring the correct people to provide an assessment, and then sort out the required resources to clean up whatever mess we’re dealing with. Finding the right people sounds straight forward, but lets remember that we’re talking about people here. People with opinions and flaws and assorted baggage both from the selectees and the selectors. A great example would be Mr. Trumps assertion that he only hires the best of the best, and then firing them for fuck ups that were entirely predictable.
So, people can help with the problem and they can be the problem, and that’s a primary reason that shit gets complicated.
I think humans are more than a few evolutionary ticks away from a time where we aren’t constantly creating problems based on feelings. So I’m not under any illusion that this particular circumstance is going away anytime soon. We have entire industries and agencies to manage people problems. Lawyers, judges, mediators, and the rest of law enforcement are just varieties of people problem handlers. One way or another dealing with one or more of these agencies is inevitable for everyone, because at some or many points of our lives we’re the problem.
Even if you breeze through life without ever seeing an emergency department or a divorce lawyer, someone still has to dispose of your body when you croak. So your last act on the planet is a problem for someone else. It’s not really that big of a deal though. We have wagons and body bags and all the stuff you’d need because we’ve done this a bunch of times before.
This problem can’t be solved because people keep dying. So we manage the problem, and that means that both thought and effort have been properly directed at this quandary. This process is logical but it only works for dead people. Live persons are another matter altogether. Breathing individuals have problems that need a different set of tools to manage. Fire and floods are absolutely a problem, but you can see what you’re dealing with. Tsunami’s aren’t mad at seaside hotels, and fires aren’t lying to you about what motivates them to incinerate your house.
But people do shit all the time that compels everyone to guess why the hell they’re acting a certain way. The science of sorting out psyche is something of an art as well. There’s so much interpretation that various schools of psychology and philosophy exist, Enough of them for me to conclude that Freud and Skinner were kind of guessing and then calling it a professional opinion. Basically what we do when someone is pulling some shady shit is go through a countdown of the seven deadly sins. Is that person jealous or greedy, pissed off or just a lazy fuck? Then if none of the seven reasons apply we determine if they have past trauma that affects their decision making. Then if the seven sins and PTSD aren’t evident, we’re left to consider if they’re just a psychopath doing psychopath things.
And to make this evaluation even more challenging the person being evaluated is rarely if ever honest about what motivates them. Sometimes the deception is deliberate, and sometimes the person in question has no idea why they behave the way they do.
They’re just going with the flow. Winging it based on their feelings of the moment.
When I was younger I used to find people problems a mixture of entertaining and challenging. Like an exam that I was well prepared to take. But as I’ve gotten older I just find the whole thing tiresome. I suppose that I now have the luxury of being able to walk away from complicated people, whereas in my younger days I didn’t have that option. I needed to participate in a few aspects of society, and wanted to participate in others. Shit like work, sport teams and social events, all of which were chock full of nutbars with complications.
But age and some cash in the bank allows me to be selective, and whether by choice or fortune I’ve maneuvered myself into a place where almost all of the complicated people are in my rearview mirror.
This is I think a good thing. Life itself provides all the complications I need, and so what I’ve ended up with is a circle of people around me that have two desirable traits. They’re complicated in a fashion I can understand and accept, and they willingly assist in the resolution of non-people complications that the world chooses to throw my way.
It’s a pretty good set up now that I think about it.