I have been home most of January writing and hanging out with my family. As I get ready to go back on the road and start a mega tour, I'm sure my mind will be more attenuated to the work of storytelling and I will have something or other to say.
I have a show for adults today. I often have adults in an audience, but I am not typically a storyteller people hire for straight up grown up shows. It allows me to pull things out of my repertoire that don't get a lot of air time. It is always fun.
Today, I put up a piece on my Facebook page about motivations and choices. I wasn't going to post it here, but it seems like perhaps I should. It is more about philosophy and politics than storytelling, but I think it articulates ideas I have about education, parenting and art pretty well. So, here it is.
have had a theory
rolling around in my head for a while that has finally found its way onto
paper. It is not a new idea, by any
means, but it is a simple one.
In order to figure out why an organization does what it does
you need only ask one question:
What is the best possible world for this organization? Once you understand their best possible
world, examine what they are doing and consider how close they are to achieving
that.
In the best possible world for an insurance company,
everyone would pay really high premiums and the company would never pay a dime
of it out in claims.
In the best possible world for a for profit prison, lots of
people would be locked up all the time, even for crimes that wouldn’t seem to
carry a need for a jail sentence.
In the best possible world for government, every citizen
would be productive, safe, healthy and law abiding. (How to achieve this is the basis for the
turmoil all governments face)
In the best possible world for professional athletes, they
would play in state of the art facilities, make gobs of cash, be showered with
adulation, play until they drop dead and never get hurt.
In the best possible world for artists, they would be
compensated for their art such that they didn’t have to do anything else, they
could set their own schedules, their work would always be universally
acclaimed, and they wouldn’t go through dry spells.
In the best possible world for gun manufacturers, there
would be no rigorously enforced regulations on guns and people could buy as
many as they wanted.
In the best possible world for corporations, workers work
for the absolute smallest amount of money for as many hours as possible without
guarantees of any kind about employment, safety, or sanitary conditions
producing something that the public pays top dollar to have. (I base this theory on third world countries
and America and Europe at the start of the Industrial Revolution)
In the best possible world for workers, they are compensated
enough to live comfortably alone, with a single partner, or to raise families
with healthy food, good living conditions, good schools, a vacation every now
and then, access to good healthcare, the ability to send their kids to college
if they can, and all while living in a safe place.
In the best possible world for teachers, every student comes
to school fed, well rested, cared for, prepared for the day and not only
willing, but eager to learn. Educator’s needs are supported by the
administration: local, state and federal.
(I’ve never met a teacher who requested to have thirty kids in a class)
In the best possible world for the anti choice crowd, all
children are brought into this world because every child is a blessing that is
loved.
In the best possible world for the choice crowd, women only
bring children into the world they plan to care for.
In the best possible world for a child, they are loved,
cared for, kept safe and prepared for the world.
The list, of course, is endless. When you see something that makes you angry,
think for a bit about what is at the heart of the motivation. What is the best possible world in that
group’s opinion? Who is that best
possible world serving? How close are
they to achieving their best possible world?
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