Are You Looking for Me?

I decided to run for Representative, District 21 (Waikiki-Kapahulu), Hawaii State House, and so started a blog at http://repmikehu.blogspot.com/ to focus my thoughts and writing for that purpose. There, I still consider the whole, big picture, but with a specific application in mind, in exploring, discovering and rethinking that process.

As in most other activities of human concern, people don’t usually stop to consider that it could be done any other way than it’s always been done before -- and since the party was desperate for a candidate, they pretty much gave me carte blanche authority to do things my way, which immediately makes anything possible. Then I systematically and methodically make it more probable, and then, inevitable.

Eventually, we share that logical conclusion. It will be enlightening writing about it and sharing with others the entire process of becoming an elected official. And we certainly need it in this country because the media reporting makes it seem so contentious and aggravating that people don’t want to have anything to do with it -- when it should be one of the ultimate participations of every citizen -- no matter what the outcome.

I think in this, it is most valid to say that it doesn’t matter whether one wins or loses as much as it does how one plays the game. If one thinks they can only win by lying, cheating and stealing, that will be their legacy in life. What bureaucrats and technocrats fear most, is the challenge from a consummately creative person -- because they can’t control where that person is coming from, and dictate the rules of engagement.

The downside is that many creative individuals are not well-organized and disciplined, and so can be frustrated and overwhelmed by all the rules, not realizing that they set a lowest limit of expectations -- and not the highest, or only That same confusion pervades many other activities -- and professions especially. That is what standards and standardization hopes to achieve -- a common language for discussion, and not the limits of knowing. Many people thus, confuse what they know, for all that could be known -- and therefore assume, that is perfect understanding -- once they obtain their degree or certification. And so they regard that they now have a license not to ever have to learn anything again -- and possess a right to force everybody else to know what they know, as the only truth.

That has been a major theme of Thinking Hawaii -- on a general level. But I’m not the theoretical and philosophical person many people think I am -- categorically and exclusively. My real talent is manifesting and embodying the intellectual -- often described as integrating mind and body, thought and action. That’s usually been a divide that has reached unhealthy levels of extremism in promoting a specialist’s advantage in life and society.

Fortunately, that trend seems to be reversing -- as many more realize that in today’s life, one can do it all -- or as much as they surely want to, but preferably, one thing at a time.