It’s easy to be mesmerized by appearances. But when the appearance of things elicits anxiety or fear, we are “cooked geese.” And when talking heads or other experts tell us how dreadful things are and will be, if we listen and buy their message, we are cooked “well done.”

Why are other people’s predictions of doom, the ultimate doom, usually wrong? Why are our negative predictions about events and ourselves wrong most, if not all, of the time? Anxiety and fear are seductive. They affect our ability to think and be calm. That affects our judgment.

However, some people do not accept the negative predictions of others. Even in dire circumstances, they see the possibility of something better for themselves.

 A few years ago, a friend gave us the gift of a certain amount of money to lend to people of our choosing all over the world through the website of an  organization called KIVA. Familiar with micro–lending but not with KIVA,  we sat at our computer and read about dozens and dozens of struggling entrepreneurs, mostly in third–world countries. They needed money for a sewing machine, or to buy seed for crops, or more goats to expand a herd.—we saw endless lists of their plans to improve their own lives and the life of their community. So we got excited and began lending. (The usual amount of a KIVA loan is $25.00.)

 Within the next month, we received word that most of our borrowers had reached full funding and were on their way into business! Months later, we were notified that some money had been repaid from our borrowers to our KIVA account—$1.39 and $3.29—so we added more and loaned again. Our loan recipients have been single mothers, other community members, even a whole family. It is a continuing experience and very rewarding to be assisting people who are not mesmerized by the appearance of poverty. They are inspired to reach for a better life and it is a source of pride and pleasure to be one tiny but very useful part of their journey. We have just received word that money has been repaid to our account again, so it’s time to lend again.

In the epilogue of To Find the Way of Love, Oliver says that the problems ahead of us—population growth, environmental degradation, and globalization’s fallout—are the result of trillions upon trillions of individual decisions. Likewise, the solution to these problems and the creation of an alternative society will also result from trillions upon trillions of individual actions. No hierarchy will provide the answer. When each of us can make decisions and choices—not mesmerized by appearances or hierarchies’ proclaimed wisdom—but out of our best judgment, we will perhaps each light a candle in the darkness of ignorance and arrogance.

Oliver & Barbara

An email came from my publicist. She had arranged for me to be interviewed on an Internet radio show about my book, To Find The Way Of Love. It was a new experience for me. I had spent ten years thinking, researching, and writing. Now, I had a twenty-minute interview to stimulate interest. I found myself thinking of all that had gone into this book. Why the book; its content being the evolution of human relationships and the emergence of hierarchy to the diminishment of relationships; competition overwhelming cooperation…

 Thoughts came about a hierarchy I had been a part of when I was young—the Navy. I was a young fighter pilot in an environment in which we were all separate but connected. Our job was to fly our missions. But first, we trained intensely for two years before we got our wings. In those days, a jet mission was two and one-half hours limited by fuel. Two and a half hours from two years of eating, sleeping, breathing and loving flying.

 I had wanted to be a Navy fighter pilot from the time I was five. I cherish a memory of being five and a half with my father. He was working and had taken me along. We passed an airport with a sign advertising airplane rides. My memory is hazy about the details but what I do remember, vividly, is that my father wanted to take me because he knew how enthralled I was with airplanes and flying. He was like that.

 I’m not sure, sixteen years later as a midshipman, that I would have been able to accurately describe the experience of doing what I loved—the intensity of those two years, the bonds formed by being in the moment, hyper-alert, alone in the sky but together with others.

And now, I had twenty minutes to communicate thoughts, ideas, and responses to questions about what had consumed the most recent ten years of my life. Interviews typically focus on product, not process. What was my book about? Turns out, the Kirkus Indie review had answered this question for me:

 “The problem, according to the author, is that these manmade systems—(hierarchies)—so pervasive in our everyday lives—actually run counter to the intrinsic human need and desire for relationships rooted in freedom and equality. He calls this natural compulsion ‘love.’ Simply put, ‘love works, inequity doesn’t.’”

I reflected on the experience of describing an enveloping event with the brevity that dulls the color, feeling, and meaning of that experience. With flying, everyone can picture a pilot in a plane on a mission in the sky. But try doing that with ten years of your life creating a book?.

Art, music, painting, dance, poetry, and literature create gorgeous snapshots, alive and full of feeling and meaning. But for an experience such as a twenty-minute interview, there are no snapshots to show.

We communicate with all the ways at our disposal. Words are high on the list. But nothing equals having one’s own experience. We hope that this blog and To Find The Way Of Love will enlarge on personal experiences for those who read them.

Oliver & Barbara

In the thesaurus under “competition” it says, “Give a run for one’s money, try or test one another.” Both feel right; both feel like worthy endeavors. The challenge is to be one’s best. Those meanings call up images of the Olympics, any sport where athletes test each other and themselves, and spectators cheer, and even the competitors are well–spoken after the events as they acknowledge the winner who bested them—he/she was skiing very well, skating very well, playing tennis, racing, running, bobsledding… Then those who didn’t win usually speak about how and why they didn’t perform as well as they had hoped, maybe with a few specifics, and they then say, “It’s back to work to improve and grow for the next time.” It’s all about excellence, value, respect for effort and skill. These competitors share a basic respect for hard work, honor, and the pride of always reaching to better them-selves. It can be a thrill to watch our “best” display grace, fortitude, and resolve, even when they are not number one on that day.

In contrast, as the big money enters many competitions, corrupting as it grows, we feel so cheated, disappointed, and jaded. When we discover that some of those we admire are cheating, using steroids and “enhancers,” our disappointment is profound. Our gladiators lose their luster and become people who have lost the purpose of “competition with honor.” Whenever money becomes the only prize, things lose their luster. You may end up with more things, but they shine less brightly.

Happily, there are still many for whom the contest remains about skill, excellence, and mutual respect, and not about chemical advantage. We hold these competitors dear. Their presence in our world adds value to us all.

This is in contrast to the vulgarity that has been on display on Wall Street, the banks, and in much of the corporate world. It appears corporations are now exempted from the responsibility of individuals to live clean and play fair. CEOs and hedge fund managers making grotesque amounts of money while adding no value to the economy, society, and often their own companies.

It’s a crazy mixed-up world when God is replaced by the worship of money. Money–worship contaminates and destroys. It makes the soul shrink and dim the light we all carry within us. It casts a shadow on brotherhood and sisterhood and humanity. Something is dark and troubling in our collective psyche. We need to wake up! We need to ask ourselves how we can add value to our world, and then require it of those we elect to govern and those we do business with. We need to hold our selves and others to a higher standard like the Olympics-to play fair.

It is worth noting that the last explanatory entry in the thesaurus under “compete” is “cutthroat.” That’s a choice, too. Life will always present challenges and problems. How we go about meeting those challenges will determine their outcome and ours.

Oliver & Barbara

We are in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, this holiday season. Here, everything is a celebration and it goes on for days, until the next special occasion. There are parades, fireworks, music everywhere, and smiling, laughing people of multiple generations participating.

In our world today, there is widespread poverty and misery everywhere. Manipulation, cheating, lying, and greed caused this worldwide. There are no mortgages in Mexico so the problems here are not caused by bank scams and Wall Street scams and corporate greed. Here it’s archaic laws among other things. Whatever the reason, poverty is poverty and misery is misery.

Why here in San Miguel, the smiling faces and the celebrations of epic proportions? Partly it’s the resilience of the people and most working class Mexicans we have met over many years are “old souls”.

Celebrations are an affirmation of life and that is very powerful here, as is family solidarity. They spend weekly time together often live together and share what they have.

During World War II, we know that the United States considered celebrations for Americans, in and out of uniform, to be morale boosters and they were given top priority. This has been true since the beginning of civilization; all kinds of celebrations for all kinds of reasons.

So we celebrate being alive, having enough to eat and a place to sleep. We celebrate each other and connection, the Internet, community, family and friends. We celebrate the people who say, “No. We want better, the people who died for civil rights, women’s rights, ending unjust wars and the other hard won rights.

It’s an endless list of causes for which people have sacrificed out of a belief in their rightness, always. May it be so forever, We celebrate the good people everywhere who try and say no to power, when it is abused.

We celebrate Twitter and the people we follow and the ones who follow us and read our blogs, and those we have yet to connect with. We celebrate the life force.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

Oliver & Barbara

I have been asked how I came out of numerous hierarchies (Catholic Church, US Navy and business corporations), having largely escaped their imprint on my journey To Find the Way of Love. It is a one step at a time journey.

When I was in Catholic high school, I found it very difficult to take in the message that the Church was more important than its members, or that anyone could have a deeper connection to their spiritual belief or a higher power than anyone else. It made sense to me that we all come from and return to a higher power.

That felt more like equality and common sense. I was greatly aided by my parents’ support of my spirit and sense of adventure. They were devout Catholics who supported my independence while being true to their beliefs.

When I chose to marry outside the Church my father was so upset, he said he would not be able attend the wedding. When the time came, he was there to participate in the event because he valued our relationship more than Church doctrine.

When I was a senior in High School, we were given an assignment to write an essay on, “What Really Matters”. My answer was, what really matters is what a person believes.”

This was not an acceptable answer. I was told what really matters is what matters to the Church. I could not agree so I was sent up the ladder of authority to the school principal, Fr. Burgoyne. Eventually, the authorities gave up their attempts to persuade me. I was allowed to graduate only because, otherwise, I would have been drafted.

Upon graduation, I spent a year in the Maritime Service and then joined the Navy to become a fighter pilot.

My experience as a Navy fighter pilot was the fulfillment of a boyhood  dream. At age five, Admiral Richard Byrd, the founder of Little America in Antarctica, was my hero. I wanted to be like him and that became a persistent goal. At 19, when I joined the Navy, I attended college for two years, then reported to Pensacola for flight training at age 21.

In Catholic school, the outer world and my inner sense of things did not fit, so I went with what felt right. In the military, it was different. It was not a hierarchical experience because, in fighter squadrons, everyone is equal. Rank is not important. A pilot is a pilot. I flew in the four-plane division of my commanding officer who was a full Commander while I was an Ensign. We were both pilots and the job of a pilot is to fly. Everything else is secondary.

In the world of business, I was fortunate, at age 32, to be the CEO of  the Palo Alto – Stanford Hospital with Bill Hewlett, cofounder of Hewlett-Packard, as my boss. I shared his vision of management as a cooperative endeavor and not a hierarchical structure built on power and status. He exemplified this belief in his life.

I feel I have been most fortunate to have  found rewarding with fulfilling relationships built on mutual respect. In this kind of environment , people want to do their best. That becomes the norm with the awareness that we are all in this together and have a common goal, the reward of a job well done.

Oliver & Barbara

An incident I describe in To Find the Way of Love has remained in my memory for many years because of what I omitted in the telling. As a 23 year-old I had reactions to the interaction between the Captain and the Turk.

I was a 23 year-old hotshot Navy fighter pilot. My squadron was stationed aboard the USS Coral Sea, an aircraft carrier almost 1,000 feet long with a crew of 3,000. There were 5 squadrons with 125 aircraft. We were imposing. The ship was anchored in the harbor of Istanbul, Turkey, in 1951 during the Cold War. One morning, we were taking on provisions in preparation for departure. It was perfect weather. Since we worked seven days a week, all days felt the same and I can’t say on which this occurred but it was midmorning.

As the junior officer of the deck that morning, I was responsible for supervising the enlisted men’s aft gangway. From my post, I could observe the forward gangway, which was reserved for officers and VIPs and was supervised by the Officer of the Deck. I saw a self-propelled scow, about 60 feet long, loaded with fresh produce, approaching the forward gangway. There was a man standing in the bow, guiding the scow’s approach. Using a bullhorn, the Officer of the Deck ordered the man to take the scow to the opposite side of the ship. “No! No! port side” he said.

The scow continued its approach. When the OD repeated his order, the man on the scow said, in perfect English, “I want to speak to your captain.” Again, the OD repeated, “No, no, portside,” to which the man, a Turk, responded, “Are you the captain of that ship?” The officer said, “No.” The Turk said, “Well, I’m the captain of this one and I want to speak to your captain.” After a moment’s silence, the OD called for his captain who appeared. The two captains exchanged greetings, then, the Turk took his scow to the port side of the ship.

My reaction as a young man was admiration and surprise at the Turk’s display of independence and audacity. I had developed respect for the Turks from personal experience on shore. This was, for me, a most unusual event and I had silently cheered the Turkish captain on. That was more than 50 years ago.

Today, I think of the event from a much broader perspective. The Turkish captain’s demand to speak to the Captain of the aircraft carrier was honored and supported by a longstanding naval custom that Captains greet Captains. Could this meeting have happened without that custom in place? It’s doubtful.

Society is shaped and influenced by rules, laws, traditions and customs, some of which can help us to be our better selves but our better, more generous feelings ultimately have to come from within. “Captains greet Captains” was probably influenced by an acknowledgment of the tremendous responsibility all captains had. Similarly, Presidents show respect to other Presidents as they alone know the challenges that go with the job.

To Find The Way Of Love describes how in humanity’s early days, repeated behaviors led to customs. Later in our civilizations developing history, custom began to shape behavior. If you Google the terms “Custom” and “Behavior,” you will get a sense of how they differ from country to country and culture to culture.

So, what are customs? According to Michael V. Kline in the Encyclopedia of Public Health, Customs are derived from social norms, which are those rules or standards that guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behavior of a group…From the moment of birth, the customs into which people are born shape their experiences and behavior. Deeply embedded customs are inherently resistant to change but over time, with appropriate role modeling that reinforces respect for brotherhood and civilized ways of, clan or tribe to include others not “like me.”

That would help to develop new customs and behavior, which emphasize our interrelationship for survival and lead to more participation, equality, freedom and respect between human beings.

Oliver & Barbara

Human beings have a deep need to feel a sense of belonging, which supports their affinity for community.

As described in To Find The Way Of Love, the hunter-gatherer society appears to have been a community that satisfied those basic needs. Because there was no surplus, everyone was constantly joined in the tasks necessary for survival and the common good. Although there was competition among males for sex, based on the necessary virtues of strength and endurance in that primitive context, it appears the basics were shared because the community had to survive. There was a community. People belonged.

With agriculture came surpluses, which changed everything. Social stratification emerged and was rewarded and reinforced. In our more recent history, societies worldwide, have promoted, supported and rewarded whatever behaviors they considered necessary for their success. Some continued to emphasize cooperation e.g. the Israeli kibbutz, and the Mondragon Corporation in Spain. Others embraced competition (a primary tenet of capitalism.) So, community can be profoundly affected by the most powerful underlying value – cooperation or competition.

In today’s U.S., even reality television, primarily centers on competition. Be it for: singing, dancing, cooking, survival strategies, weight-loss and the various court shows with real judges deciding who wins and who loses. Then there are the beauty shows, sports events, and game shows of every kind.

The common thread uniting them all is that there is only one #ONE and the prize goes to #ONE.

Despite judges gratuitously saying, “You are all winners because you made it into the top 10 or 5 or 3, the shower of confetti, the money, the prize, the excitement is all for the #ONE. The WINNER!

It has been reported that more people vote for their favorite contestant on “American Idol” than vote in the Presidential election. It appears that people feel they can affect outcomes in the world of entertainment, but not in the world of money, power and politics.

Another perspective, however, may slowly be emerging on reality TV. There is a show called, “Undercover Boss” in which a CEO goes undercover, often disguised as a blue-collar worker, to learn about his or her company directly from employees. Although, the employees we come in contact with are doubtless pre-selected by the show’s producers, for maximum drama, the outcome feels genuine and humanizing.

We watch with amusement as the boss goes through several trainings and several tasks with more effort than ability and we hear the appraisal of the trainers. The workers who did the training are brought to corporate headquarters on a ruse where they meet their “trainee” now, out of disguise and revealed as the company’s CEO. Everybody wins. The CEO has learned from his experience how the company operates at ground level and about existing problems. The employees have been seen, heard and validated.

Aside from being entertaining, something of value has occurred. There is a sense of community that is then reinforced at a mass meeting with the rest of the company. Here, all is revealed with video clips and the boss talking about his education. There is a general feeling that all will benefit.

We use a reality television show to illustrate a basic human need for belonging and the affinity for community, and how that is dealt with on one show. For that to be supported and encouraged in our larger reality show of life, we need the right ingredients. They include, for leaders and participants; curiosity, respect, openness to new experience, a desire to learn, an acknowledgment of what one knows and what one doesn’t, and an awareness of the basic equality of our common humanity.

Oliver & Barbara

In my book, “To Find the Way of Love” I describe how hierarchies came to be, what sustains and grows them, and how we are often the poorer because of them. They are everywhere and unfortunately, more often than not, they support inequality and control. Exceptions are rare but they do exist and illustrate how much happier, more productive, creative and successful the environment can be: to everyone’s benefit, one path to the way of love.

My admiration for Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard is well known by my friends and former associates.I worked with Hewlett for years when I was interim CEO then CEO at Palo Alto – Stanford Hospital and he was my boss.

Hewlett and Packard began their company in a garage. They had a deep respect and admiration for their team. They expected people to do their best. Early on, they informed their employees they had set a profit target. After that number had been reached, there would be profit-sharing.

Both men became billionaires. I admired their leadership and shared their belief in mutuality and respect in management. I felt I had succeeded when, years later, I resigned to take another position. The management staff gave a party for me and presented a book of over 100 letters from the people I had worked with for years.

I quote from three that typify the rest. Al of them spoke to what matters to me and what I wish could be more the environment within the highly structured entities which are hierarchies. From the Manager of Laundry and Transportation: “For the past few years, I can honestly say my life has been enriched through the opportunity of working with you . . . I feel as I stated, “working with you instead of working for you . . . it has been my pleasure.” From the Manager of Information Services: “Your greatest achievement is our ability to think of you and ourselves so unhierarchically ‘Bare is brotherless back’ and we’ve all felt warmly clothed. From the Bureau of Hospitals Examiner:

One of our first meetings unveiled a mutuality of aims and a philosophy that revealed to me that you were more than a successful executive . . . your concerns were for the best that our individual selves can express and contribute to our culture and nation.” Why can’t we strive to achieve success while expressing our mutual humanity and respect?

Oliver & Barbara

All of our blogs are signed “Oliver & Barbara” as they are collaborations.

Because I believe our relationships define our lives more than our achievements, and because Barbara and I look for opportunities to collaborate, the blogs are a rewarding experience.

During the last ten years, I was independently thinking about, researching and writing what became To Find the Way of Love. When my book was published and the next step was blogging and social networking, it was natural to us to make this a collaborative experience and so it is. We hope you will join us with your comments.

Oliver & Barbara