I really enjoyed reading a note written by Cecile Andrews in a Seattle paper, posted in EnergyBulletin. She mentions the Coffee Party civility pledge (below) but goes on to talk about living simply, living slow.

Most of you have heard about the new Coffee Party, where people come together for civil conversation. To start with, people take a “civility pledge,” which says, “I pledge to conduct myself in a way that is civil, honest and respectful toward people with whom I disagree. I value people from different cultures, I value people with different ideas and I value and cherish the democratic process.”

Taking such a pledge and coming together to talk is great, but we need more.

The Coffee Party might sound a bit like an SNL segment, but Andrews' point about civility strikes home. Listen to the news any day and you'll hear constant positioning and bickering between members of our elected representatives, whether it be about health care, abortion, off-shore oil, or taxes. It seems that all the spirit is gone, and what is left is the infighting.

It happens at the local level too. I recently took a break from one community organization I have been involved with. It takes time to step back and gain perspective, time we no longer permit in our text messaged, Facebook centric lives. What I have come to realize is that our little team has gotten a bit too corporate, putting message above content, rating production higher than membership. Is this our human nature?

Permit me to hijack my own thread for a minute, but I'll return.

I've been an engineer for most of my lifetime. When I hung out my shingle to consult, I found the government has a little number assigned to each company that tells, in a nutshell, what business it is in. I figured there had to be one for my particular niche, but never found one that fit well. Who cares. But when I filed for workers comp insurance, well, they came up with one I hadn't thought of before:

Office Systematizer

Systematizer, I thought, what a bizarre term. I listen to people. I write software. Sometimes I design hardware. But am I systematizing? Perhaps some bureau deep in Washington came up with a new way of describing everything companies do, and this one was assigned to me. I wasn't impressed.

The real issue is this: Do we want to regiment our lives to fit the classifications created by people who know nothing about us? Truly, we do this every day. Go to the mall, and look at scores of blank-faced teens texting one another on tiny cell phones. Why don't they just talk on the phone, or better yet, meet in person? Why do they accept the social organization created by the cell company? Is it more efficient? I'd love to see that argument.

I do feel we humans love to organize, and love to make any process more efficient. Ask a farmer. When you plant a garden, do you plant in rows? Why?

So in our quest to be most efficient, to increase our rate of return on time or money invested, we've taken human interaction to the next level, and the only more efficient thing to do is to take the human out entirely. Why talk with your friends when you can read everything on Facebook? I am reminded of a work colleague who, many years ago, wanted to write an automatic resume generator. Remember Rule #1 of data processing: GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. It sounds like the mission of mainstream media. Need it be ours too?

Here's where I jump ship. Let's not optimize ourselves away. We know we can build robots that do one or two things better than humans, but need we opt out of life? If corporatized food companies don't want a few acres of fine wheat grown locally, should we not bother to grow it? If we value the diversity of life, we need to really value it, which means rejecting vacuous categorization and committing ourselves to accepting and working with one anothers' unique talents, even if it means being less efficient. As Andrews points out, that means slowing down a little, being civil, taking the time to listen, and accepting the best we humans can offer one another.

I look forward to hearing your feedback, each and every one of you. Thanks for reading.

Chris