Elegy for Future Gun Victims – We are so sorry.

Posted on | June 6, 2014 | No Comments

Elegy for Future Gun Victims – We are so sorry. We dithered. We allowed thousands of innocent people to be killed because well, we just couldn’t do something about it. We debated. You see, sociopaths and wannabe sociopaths rarely announce themselves. They lie hidden, brooding, and building their shaky confidence to walk into a school or campus and kill unarmed children at play and peaceful adults. We’re sorry. We could have taken guns away from people but only the law-abiding would have cooperated. Those with malevolent plans are quite good at evasion. You see, humans find a way around every obstacle. That’s our strength and the secret of power and success. No, success is not just about money and award-winning science. It is also making sure that a miserable life, lived in fear and isolation can make the front pages and all the social media outlets. Their power over the defenseless makes them gods in their own view. They know they scare us. We did nothing. So some were content to let the gun-crazies and the gun-normals fight it out. We watched their group split as more lives, perhaps yours, were lost. The other side might have theorized that if guns were taken away, normal people would not have a way to defend themselves, and so they too sat warily on their hands. We are so sorry. We don't know who is next. Shawn M. Nichols Vocalise - Rachmaninov and Sylvia McNair

Bam Bam Style Leadership and Management

Posted on | June 6, 2014 | No Comments

Bam Bam Leaders Are you familiar with the old TV cartoon, the Flintstones? If you are, you know that one of the toddlers was Barney’s son, appropriately named Bam Bam. In my work synthesizing human development and organizational goals, I have had an opportunity to view various types of leaders and managers up close. I smile when I encounter this type though I know firsthand the chaos their resistant but aggressive style may be causing in the workplace, in government, and other environments with a well-established top-down hierarchy. In a classic top-down corporate environment, information in the form of orders and directives only flows down the food chain, and information that might improve the overall situation sent from the front-lines or the bottom level, is ignored, denied, or booed. This management type, in a conflict resulting from a challenging source or unwanted information, regresses to toddler-like behaviors. You may already know this person. He or she is sitting stubbornly defensive and barely communicating except in repetitive forceful language (Bam Bam), managing the situation by swinging a battering ram (use your own imagination or experience) to destroy something they either cannot comprehend and/or willfully refuse to negotiate. They might even give you a toothy toddler’s smile to let you know: they're fully in charge. Shawnnichols.com

The World Financial and Social Imbalance One

Posted on | May 10, 2014 | No Comments

The World Financial and Social Imbalance Drawn from Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century, pg. 63. Population in 2012 = 7 billion people. Global output in 2012 = 70 trillion euros. Average per person = 10,100 euros per year. Actual earnings breakdown per continent: 40,700 = US and Canada 27,300 = European Union 31,000 = Germany France, GB, Italy and Spain 30,000 = Japan 15,400 = Eastern Europe 10,400 = Latin and South America (the average) 7,700 = China 5,700 = North Africa 3,200 = India 2,000 = Sub-Saharan Africa

Struggle for Self – Creativity Out of Angst

Posted on | February 25, 2014 | No Comments

Just when you thought you knew someone. Reading the papers at the time of his death and his children's later books about him, I had placed John Cheever in a category: Difficult, closeted, alcoholic artist, troubled by lack of success, and struggling to stay on top when it appeared - a man who wrote beautifully and threw our high school English and Literature Department into a tizzy with Falconer. It was avant garde for a Midwestern high school, heady stuff, and probably would not have been allowed if management was watching more closely. But it was the 70's after all. Blake Bailey's fascinating book, Cheever, A Life is incredibly detailed, but moves so quickly like a lovely meal, it's 600 plus pages have to be read almost at one time... and I dare you to name three works by Cheever. Unless you're the Cheever scholar you don't know how much you don't know - about Cheever's work. What works for me, not the least of which is Bailey's descriptions of the man, his work, and his suffering is, well, the suffering... Cheever came from very troubled parents, lived in the shadow of his older, sexier, and more accomplished brother, and never finished high school. He was relatively short and prone to pretension when troubled. His notes are filled with misspellings and poor grammar, spent most of his life looped on alcohol and later, 70's medication, living a somewhat secret life and still managed to be voted by anyone who counted, one of the ten most influential American writers up until that time. Was he creative because he was troubled, or troubled because he was creative and struggled against the usual tough odds? His decisions about alcohol, matrimonial monogamy, and the model he thought he presented to the world versus the one they knew or suspected are still contemporary subjects. The drive to succeed against all odds, taking down eternally patient and ultimately forgiving family members in the process, destroying and being destroyed by competition and miscommunication, and finding little joy in his dreams fulfilled, he focused solely on what was missing, drinking to numb the loss. Blake Bailey's book should be required reading for psychology students and would-be writers. It's a realistic view of how far down a man goes in his own self esteem while demanding unrealistic attention from the public. Every story has three sides - at minimum. Shawn Nichols, MA, CC shawnnichols.com « go back — keep looking »

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• Dealing with Death’s Vortex
• Assessing Your World View- The Sand Castle
• Enlightenment and Addiction on the Internet: Neural Receptors Ramp Up
• The Perversity of Education
• Saul Bellow’s notion, “Warehouse of Good Intentions”.
• I Walk In Two Worlds But Neither Is Home.
• Talking to yourself? It’s called a soliloquy..
• The Put-Up and Smack-Down in One Sentence. A Power Trip.
• Elegy for Future Gun Victims – We are so sorry.
• Bam Bam Style Leadership and Management

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