I just finished working on, what may be, one of the most important turning points in my grade twelve year and I got to thinking about how much I'm really putting into this. Maybe a little too much planningjust to end up ruining a friendship, but just how often do we do something like that, maybe about things less or more important? We over-shoot the planning by killing the preparation to death and if things go according to plan (Assuming we're just that lucky) we end up not appreciating it as much because the amount of time we put into it masks the actual reward - in business terms; you don't even reach the break-even point. So why do we do things like this? We prep to make sure that we don't have to get our minds ready for the worse because we've convinced ourselves that goals are achieved through "proper" planning. Proper, in all cases being over preparing, but as our world would have us believe, it is just called proper. And if, by chance our plans fail, what do we say? We say that it failed because "it wasn't meant to be" or we say, oh I love this one "maybe I could have done more." Now here's the kicker you'll love this one; The people who say that say "it wasn't meant to be" are the ones who should be saying "maybe I should have done more" and just refuse to face reality. While the ones who say "I could have done more" are the ones who should be saying "maying it just wasn't meant to be" but again, refuse to face reality. For simplicity's sake, let's call the first group "group A" and the second group "group B." Now, Group A is a very special case. Group B is an easy group to throw together but A requires a little more fore-thought. These are the people who do the pre-planning, which still constitutes as over-planning, but for some reason or another - perhaps in their zealous or perhaps they're just not motivated enough (which would seem to be contradicted by the fact that they overplanned, but welcome to the human species) they folly in the plot. things do not go according to plan and so they play off their screw-up. They either play it off because they refuse to try again, refuse to admit that they forgot something or they just lost all interest; these are the most common reasons my friends. And so they play it off as "it just wasn't meant to be." Now, I can commend the folks who try things multiple times and although they seem to contend for everything things still goes wrong. I can relate to that and so I can respect that and the thinking is justifiable, afterall, the human spirit must break at some point in time. Unfortuanately we're not as indestructable as we first thought. So anyway, back to what I was saying before I was interupted, they say that it wasn't meant to be instead of truly admiting that the problem was human error, the problem was their error. This can be a problem, for it can lead to a progrssive pattern of avoidance, lack of spirit, lack of endurance and a few other non- notable issues. And it's funny becuase even if you tell Group B that the odds were against them from the get go, they don't realize it and start going off into how they could have done a better job. Well, obviously if you could have made the plan fool-proof, you would have because you wanted whatever it is that you were going for so much that you made the decision to over-prepare, again, which is only seen as "proper planning." And by doing this, we're left with the eternal worry that we didn't do enough because the bars have been readjusted to make it so that to "over-plan" by today's standards requires us to plan to the brink of death before we do anything. And that's just impossible. So what have we really done? we've created a thinking system whereby the blame, half of the time we wind up blame ourseleves when we really shouldn't be. And we support it - in fact we support it wholeheatedly because if we don't, we must submit to the fact that we are not in total control. Think about it. Group B really has it in their head that they were always in control, and when things didn;t work out their way their world of invincibility and control and everything else starts to crumble down on them becuuse for once, in their exisitance, they don't - or didn't have the answer/ solution. So they come down on themselves harder than a brick dropped from 24 storeys up. And although they'd like to believe that they've done the right thing and taken responsibility for their actions and their downfalls, they'r really just feeding their own fantasy of independance and control, which can be more dangerous than you can imagine. I wish to remind you that for the purposes of this, I must remind you that I used probably only the most effective examples. Naturally a person can switch back and forth, forth and back between the two. It's not set in stone that if you're a Group B person than you'll be set that way for life. I myself know that I've switched every so often, though truth be known, I mainly stick to oneside. Ultimately how one percieves ones failures comes down to is how he/she or they see themselves/ the situation. A person who is skeptic about a situation but goes through it anyway, they'll use the "wasn't meant to be" way because they know, deep down inside that they didn't put as much into it as they could have. So again, it relates back to the whole pessimism/optimism PoV battle, it's just a matter of when it happens: before, after or during. But I didn't just write all of that to merely dismantle part of our odd psyche - that would have been pointless. The purpose of me pointing all of this out was to ask the obvious question - why do we do it? Why do we intentionally fool ourselves into believing things that, if we simply looked further into, we'd see it was incorrect? I suppose it's human nature to be lazy and to constantly take the easy way out - but why sacrifice what you know to be true and real? Afterall, we all, at some point in our life end up asking ourselves about what is "truth" or "reality," though some would never admit it. We pull a wool over our own eyes for about 97% of the voyage through life just so that 2% of the time we can stop and glace at ourselves. We then proceed to "figure things out" which is just providing more false realities to suppliment our decaying faith in the regular falseness of our own existance. I'm not trying to badger you, so please don't take it personally my friend. All I'm saying is that maybe we ought to try and see things for what they're truly worth because the longer we play into the hands of our own monster, the more we get sucked up into it and thus become a part of it. And once we become a part of the monster (that we so dislike, yet are) we become just as guilty for robbing the "innocent" (are there any of those left?) of their own "pure" realities. Problem is that although everyone's reality differs, it's all just a perception - but we take it and falsify it to suit our own needs and than when it morphs, our perceptions become distorted - fogged and blurry to the point where some of us become intoxicated by our own make-believe world... which is just falseness of a falseness. What is the ultimate truth? Part of it is this - it is that every single man, woman, child has their own sense of truth. And yours, mine and the man living in kookamunga, [yes there is such a place; just ask the Californians (and no, I don't mean the raisins)] all of our realities and truths are just as false as the other guy's. That's how it goes, that's how it is and unforntuately that's probably how it will be for a very long time because there's no way in hell that people'll ever agree on things. So the only thing we can agree on is that everyone else's reality/ view is wrong. Only problem with that is that once you think eveyeone else is wrong...well, technically, in the most strictest of terms you're saying that they're right... but that's another story for another day which involves examples using mathematics. Anyway, these are my half-filled thoughts for the day. Do as you wish with them. And FYI, I may not be around for about two weeks - so don't worry - I wont be dead... much. Wrongfully yours, -Captain B. Incorrect