I think problem solving is highly overrated. And I would like to launch a social issue advertising campaign to help see this dangerous behavior brought under control and drastically reduced before any more precious time is wasted or people are hurt.
Every bureau, agency and organization as well as everyone I know is trying to solve one problem or another. And while everyone seems to think they’re doing good, results are very mixed.
Thinking things through in a rational and organized fashion is just not what it’s cracked up to be. It was very helpful for a while, yes, and still can be put to great effect if used with some discretion. But this knee-jerk reaction to fixing everything that is broken is probably just a nasty habit. Something we picked up after our initial fascination with our rational mind many tens of thousands of years ago. If you look closely, problem solving and finding closure are highly overrated as a way of getting on in the world.
Take Iraq. This disaster was created after 9/11 in an effort to save us from another impeding terrorist disaster. The Iraq problem is unbelievably complex and in reality there is no workable solution. If we stay in Iraq, many will die and a nation and a culture will be destroyed. If we leave Iraq, same thing.
Immigration is like this. There are 12 million people living here who are not official citizens. You can’t throw 12 million people out of the country and you can’t let endless millions remain unaccounted for. But any fix will create boatloads of paperwork, enforcement issues – and new problems.
Climate change, also the same; many experts say it is unlikely that we could ever give up our dependence on oil to such a degree than we could reverse the global climate changes we have set in motion. The kind of methodical changes being discussed, increasing automobile efficiency to gain 10 more mpg over the next 10 years, will never do the trick. This kind of incrementalism is a result of planning, an early precursor to problem solving, which should also be brought under control. Given the levels of complexity and the endless variables, caution, care and planning are not what they are cracked up to be either.
Maybe there is nothing wrong with moving forward on a wing and a prayer.
My mother is in the hospital because of her reaction to drugs the doctors prescribed her to try and keep her out of the hospital. One hundred thousand people are killed in hospitals each year as a result of such caution and care.
In Ayurveda and other forms of natural medicine the key is to do very little, mainly remove the blocks to letting the problem solve itself.
We could learn from that approach. It may be better to sit with our problems and get to know them before we try and knock them off. In getting to know them we can see which way they are leaning and may find that it only requires a “big mind” nudge to change their direction, as opposed to a “small mind” plan of attack.
Many government caring programs are not very effective at solving problems. Even the people who work on them know this. What these programs are good at is addressing our innate need to care deeply about something and our reflexive response to act.
There is nothing passive about doing less; it requires muscles we are not used to flexing. Look at learning to ride a bike. What could be more complex than a five-year-old riding a two-wheeler – the child will never figure it out by understanding the way moment-to-moment balance works – you can only ride a bike by letting go.
Letting go. Now there’s an idea whose time has come. The role of chance and the unexpected is greatly underestimated. The truly great issues do not lend themselves to problem solving. Newton spent much of his life proving the existence of gravity, but he discovered it himself while sitting under a tree watching an apple fall.
Maybe there is nothing wrong with moving forward on a wing and a prayer. Not doing so is exactly how we got into the Iraq mess in the first place. And perhaps why we should just leave as quickly and quietly as possible. It will be worked out, not without death and tragedy, but maybe less than is feared. But it will be done and we will move on. Wondrous surprises may await us getting out, just as they did our going in.
The solution, if I dare to use such a word, for us individuals may be to spend less time solving problems and more time sitting with them. Maybe just sitting down and being quiet is the ultimate engagement. Sit with a neighbor, sit with a child. Sit with a book or your knitting. Engage in something very close to home and do it very well. Get it right. Build a garden. Play a drum. Help people quietly on your own. Let the world go where it may. But know it will be a better place because of who you are – and what you did not do.
Bob Belinoff is a documentary filmmaker and public health consultant.
publichealthzoom.com; bob@digitalworkshop.com
