Category: Rant

  • Question – Pompous Pursuits

    doctorofnothing replied to your post: Pompous Pursuits

    what do you do? but yeah… most academic pursuits are vocational training no matter how you label it. after all, that’s the point of existence within the modern framework.

    I’m an IT professional with a really weird job description. Actually, I’m not even in IT any longer, but as fate would have it, I now define policies, strategies and processes to guide the interactions between IT and the Business divisions of the company I work at. I guess, in a nutshell, I create order out of chaos. I implement good governance and common sense where none exists. 🙂

    I agree that most academic pursuits could be viewed as vocational, but I guess this is a good time to bring in that issue of context, right? Problem is, far too many people don’t apply their minds sufficiently when they start out studying, or maybe that’s just the case with people in the industries that I’ve encountered. My generalisations would typically exclude people in the medical, legal and engineering fields since those are very specific streams of study that can be and is applied directly and practically to their chosen career path. But given that I’ve debated circles around people who claimed to hold doctorates in various disciplines, while I myself have barely even finished high school without any tertiary studies, it leaves me somewhat disillusioned to see the glaring gap of common sense in people that spend so many years of their lives acquiring knowledge that they’ll never use. 

  • Pompous Pursuits

    Apparently I use too big words in my business emails at the office. I was ‘reprimanded’ today by a very senior member of the organisation regarding my use of ‘big words’ when questioning or explaining issues in email. This is hilarious in a number of ways, most importantly in that the people that generally accuse me of such nonsense are academically superior with one or more university degrees and other nonsensical acronyms embellishing their CV’s and email signatures in their efforts to be taken seriously by those of us that are intimidated by vacuous theory.

    This further cements my view that academic pursuits, unless vocational by nature, are a waste of a good mind. It pumps largely unusable rubbish into the heads of intelligent beings and turns them into zombies trying to unravel mysteries and conform to expectations established by their own pompous pursuits. Academics rarely make a significant contribution to humanity. Only that 1% that are able to practically apply their knowledge to improve their quality of life and the lives of those around them actually enjoy any return on investment, both monetary and otherwise, from their years of self-inflicted torture.

    It reminds me of individuals that I’ve often interviewed as potential candidates in various roles in IT within my team that proudly proclaim their BSc degrees as having been significant achievements in their lives, only to slip back and cringe in their seats when I ask them how much of what they studied is actually still relevant or can be practically applied to their chosen careers. We need a college or university degree to be developed around common sense. Maybe that way it will finally become as common as it needs to be.

  • Question – Another Reason I Would Unfollow You

    doctorofnothing replied to your post: Another reason I would un-follow you

    I kinda see what you’re saying but like, self-promotion as in having a blog centered around the self? Yeah I’m not big into the huge narcissism either.

    Self-promotion as in posting personal photos with a strong undertone of fishing for compliments. Changing the tone and content of posts to be deliberately topical to garner more attention. Having more reblogs than personal, original content. Being self-indulgent while pretending to be sincerely expressive. That sort of self-promotion. 

    This probably sounds very judgemental, but it’s not intended that way. That kind of behaviour really irks me which is why I avoid such people because I usually can’t restrain myself from exposing their whimsical attitude. It’s just ugh, you know? 🙂

  • Another reason I would un-follow you

    A few of the blogs I follow are starting to tend towards self-promotion recently. If it continues, I’ll probably un-follow them. It’s not personal. I just prefer not to see certain people in such a light. Physical appearances taint our interactions with others in daily life, while on tumblr, I tend to appreciate the sincerity of opinions, albeit annoying ones at times, that are offered without care or concern for how the person would be perceived by others. Once the whole personal promotion thing gets out there, it becomes a blog of facades rather than sincere thoughts or views. That is often easily reflected in the change in tone and quality of the posts and usually ends up appealing to groupies, which I despise. Hence my aversion to such blogs. 

    Just thought I’d share that.

  • Writer’s block sucks. So does the feeling of being philosophically constipated. I’m not even sure what that means, but I have this urge to want to write something meaningful about all the changes in my life recently, how it impacts me, and how it’s turned out relative to what I expected, but nothing. I’m anaemic. I sit here at my keyboard waiting to bleed and nothing trickles out. 

    I’m an impatient man. I’m constantly contemplating the consequences of what we’re contemplating now, and instead of accepting that a long term goal is in fact a long term goal, the moment it takes a shape or form in my head, I feel compelled to realise it now against some ridiculous self-imposed deadline.

    At least I can still ramble nonsensically without much effort, so perhaps not all is lost yet. It still sucks though. 

  • I sit here and witness the endless cycle that has played out so many times before. First the engagement, then the enlightenment, the burst of enthusiasm coupled with commitment to common goals, followed by empowerment, only to be destroyed by shameless politics. This is the cycle that my career has gone through on more occasions than I care to remember.

    And so it is again. Having spent the last year unravelling the chaos in this place, we established much needed controls and protocols to achieve a level of stability and predictability of IT systems never before achieved in this organisation, but as always, the lack of a comprehensive people change management programme threatens to undermine all the work that was done simply because the naysayers and whiners that refuse to break out of their comfort zones will hang on for dear life to every last strand of their political connections to try to undermine the changes that are sweeping through their backyards.

    This is a rant about corporate governance, corporate politics, and spineless incompetence that plagues most organisations these days. In such a climate, it’s never about hard work, nor innovation, creativity or taking one for the team. It’s only ever about towing the line according to the political will and appetite of the ill-informed.

    The kind of stuff that complacency is made of.

  • Idiot Privilege

    In the almost two weeks that I stayed away from Tumblr, the one recurring thought that plagued me was the level of victimisation and victim-consciousness that seems to pervade most contentious debates. The problem with aggressive victims though is that they’re so defensive in their bid to appear in control, that they fail to see how obtuse they often are in being able to grasp another perspective. 

    Apparently, suggesting that the victim-conscious state of mind even exists is a neo-liberalism attempt at some or other bullshit to subjugate a people blah blah blah (or so I’ve been told in very colourful language, I might add). Every single situation I’ve ever encountered in life where a conflict of ideas or principles presented themselves resulted in one party being a victim and the other a master. The only way you can possibly part as equals while holding opposing views is if both parties have the maturity to agree to disagree after presenting rational arguments to substantiate their views.

    Similarly, with emotions, you’re either a victim or a master of your emotions. Victims are prone to tantrums, angry outbursts, mood swings and defeatist behaviour, among many other similarly destructive traits, while those that even attempt to master their state are by nature optimistic, albeit morbidly so at times, and proactive. This is a gross over simplification of this issue, but my point is simple. Every single troll out there is a moron who has a severely dented ego and therefore needs to reaffirm their worth through slamming someone else. It’s only in their assumed ability to abuse someone else that they find any self-worth.

    And so I coined the phrase that titles this post. Idiot privilege. It’s a privilege earned by idiots who believe that inflexibility and indoctrination through fear and reprisal is the only way to win an argument or further a cause based on the regurgitation of quotes and philosophies of scholars and historians and war heroes that probably wouldn’t wish to be in the same room as them because of the stench of their ignorance. Unfortunately it’s this very same type of behaviour that sways the masses, which is why trolls and morons will always have groupies, while those attempting to sincerely unravel the complexity of life and the human psyche will remain flabbergasted at the audacity of those that know not.

  • Frustration is that feeling you get when you see idiots waging arguments about issues that are distorted by their anger and inbred prejudices and sincerely wanting to correct them, but knowing that any attempt at reasonable discourse will fall on selectively deaf ears inviting nothing but venomous drivel in return.