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Tag Archives: unique

Round peg, square hole

02 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Bob in myCulture, myWhys, Technojungle

≈ Comments Off on Round peg, square hole

Tags

abilities, adaptable, archery, attributes, backward, box, business, chaotic, characteristic, circles, citizen, college, compartmentalized, confine, contention, contribute, corner, creating, criteria, curve, decade, define, degree, department, description, difficult, disorganized, education, efficiency, essence, experience, expression, fit, fluid, force, forcing, function, golf, grad, graduate, group, guarantee, hockey, hole, human, humanness, idea, ignore, imagine, inabilities, interest, job, keywords, leaner, learn, learning, mould, myself, natural, notion, oblong, organize, organizing, oval, peg, people, person, phrase, popular, position, possibilities, posting, problem, profitable, resource, reversed, rigid, round, rounded, roundish, roundness, scan, sense, sharp, situation, society, speak, specific, square, squarer, squarish, squish, stock exchange, straight, talk, think, thinking, tighter, train, training, trim, trimming, uncomfortable, unique, uniqueness, universities, university, unusual, useful, valuable, website, worker, workplace

Have you heard the phrase ‘He’s a square peg in a round hole?’ I don’t like it! To me it doesn’t quite make sense and I think it is time to set the expression straight.

The ‘peg’ phrase is generally used to describe a person who does not fit into a job or position. Hold on, my contentions is that it is backwards. To me, society is made up of all sorts of boxes, not circles. The boxes are getting squarer and tighter and more defined. Look at a list of job postings on one of the many job related websites and you will find most postings are for a sharply defined position. The don’t seem very round.

I propose that the expression be reversed. After all, people seem more rounded to me. Let’s have it make sense. Now, i’ll bet you are thinking that the round peg can actually fit into the square hole. Sure, that could work, however, the corners would be empty and that wouldn’t work. I like to think that the round peg exceeds the size of the hole, so in essence, the round peg has attributes and characteristics that don’t fit the mould.

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In a group of people, if you can talk hockey or golf, you will easily find someone to talk to. If your interests are in something less popular, like archery, your chances are less. You might well have many interests, more than most people and, yet, if you don’t speak the popular ones, you can be left out.

Now, apply the same idea to the workplace and jobs and you will get what I mean. I feel I am a round peg, many possibilities and, well, you get the idea, I’m sure.

How is it that we can’t have a world that is fluid and adaptable, one that can allow the abilities and inabilities to be used to the fullest? Is it just a natural result of humans organizing their society that everything becomes more rigid and compartmentalized? Is it necessary for all aspects of society to be so organized in order to function? How about the stock exchange? I’m not sure what it is like now, but I know at one time, it looked about as disorganized and chaotic as one might imagine. And yet, it functioned.

For a few decades now, the business world has been working toward more efficiency, to be leaner and more profitable. Education has become more about training and preparing workers for specific work and jobs, rather than creating citizens to contribute to society in a variety of settings. In doing so, they seem to carve the curves of their humanness into sharp edges—into a shape that I would call square. Shaping people into a squarish shape means trimming unique aspects of each person, uniquenesses that are valuable and useful. Somehow, they must fit in and the place they must fit is square.

Here is another view of this notion. Perhaps the round peg is a bit soft. In that case forcing the peg into the hard, square hole might cause it to squish, thus becoming uncomfortable. Now that rings true.

I would consider myself a roundish person. Perhaps not a circle, or even an oval, or oblong shape—certainly not square. I feel I have uniqueness that I have never been able to bring to any job I have had. Usually, I have to confine myself to the specific needs of the job.

My experiences in education have shown me that the same thing applies to learning. As I have said, this is what education is about. Trim learners into square pegs that can easily fit into society. Those who are not easily trimmed will have difficulties and even be deemed a problem. Why are graduates of universities going back to colleges? Because a general degree does not guarantee a job in today’s society. To get a job, one must be trained for a specific job. To get a job one must meet all the criteria in the job description and have experience that matches. New grads can have a huge problem here in some situations. These days, human resource departments may scan job applications for specific keywords. How square can this get?

Our society seems to have little use for uniqueness. I’m not talking necessarily about unusual people. I think everybody has roundness and uniqueness that usually gets ignored in order to fit in. Thus, square pegs in square holes. Well, I’m still a round peg trying to fit into a square hole.

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POG in Canada

03 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by Bob in B.O.B.s, myNews

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

apple, bc, beet, christmas, cracked, daughter, experiment, family, grape, guava, hawaiian, ingredients, juice, kauai, kelowna, mixing, natural, orange, passionfruit, pog, purchased, real canadian superstore, report, sugar, superstore, sweetener, sweetness, tropical, unique

An unconfirmed report came from my daughter yesterday that she bought POG at a Real Canadian Supterstore. My daughter is living in Kelowna, BC and accompanied the family for a Christmas in Kauai where we discovered POG. POG is a combination of passionfruit, orange and guava juices, hence the name POG. The juice has become a sort of official drink of Hawaii. I was surprised to discover, after reading Wikipedia, that the commercial version contains a large amount of sugar and is therefore not as healthy as it seems.

Today, I visited the Superstore, a little over a block away from our house in North Vancouver, and indeed found a variety of juices in the refridgerated produce section from a company called Bolthouse. In no time I located a juice that listed passionfruit, orange and guava juices and a description that it was a Hawaiian style juice. When I read the ingredients it listed apple and grape juices before the tropical juices. The last one is beet juice. I guessed that these other juices were for sweetness, to eliminate the need for added sugar, and that was fine with me.

After dinner tonight, we cracked one open for a taste. It did indeed have to tropical taste and seemed very close to the POG juice is had in Kauai. I should note that I did order POG everywhere we went and I presume that not all was of the heavily sweetened commercial origin. As I was cleaning up after dinner, a few minutes later, I noticed that it did make me feel good, just like the POG I had in Kauai.

To me, POG has a unique taste and makes one feel nice. I’m not sure why it makes me feel good, but, it is nice to know that I can buy it here. I still plan to try mixing it myself using separately purchased juices. I suspect that I may have to experiment, particularly with finding something natural to use as a sweetener.

Refs for further reading & exploration:
POG — Wikipedia

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So this is Christmas

25 Saturday Dec 2010

Posted by Bob in myNews, myWhys, myZine

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

abiding, accepted, accuracy, activities, afraid, angel, angels, announcement, anyone, approach, appropriate, aware, babe, bayonet, beatle, behold, believe, bible, blog, born, borrowed, burial, busy, carols, celebrated, centuries, century, changed, charlie brown, cheer, choose, christ, christians, christmas, christmas eve, city, clothes, commercial, comparison, confused, consider, considered, country, criminal, david, day, death, directly, disconcerting, discovered, earth, embracing, enjoyed, entry, eternal, everlasting, exceptions, faith, fantastic, fear, feelings, festival, field, fighting, figure, flock, flow, fulfilled, glory, god, good, goodwill, happy christmas, harvest, heavenly, hibernate, highest, historical, history, holy, holy bible, host, hypocrisy, imagine, important, includes, indulgence, influenced, john lennon, joy, keeping watch, knows, leap, lennon, life, lights, linus, lives, lord, lying, magnificent, malls, manger, marking, meaning, means, men, miss, mix, months, multitude, music, night, notions, observance, obsolete, old testament, origin, owning, panic, park, partying, peace, people, person, pick, playing, point, pondering, poor, praising, prophesies, question, quote, recognized, redundant, relate, replies, respond, response, resumes, return, romans, rowdy, santa, saturn, saturnalia, savior, shake, shepherds, shone, shopping, sign, sing, society, solstice, son, sore, source, sowing, spirit, stands, staring, stopped, stories, story, street, stress, stressful, suddenly, summer, sums, sun, swaddling, taught, teacher, thought, tidings, tomb, tree, troubled, understanding, unique, value, Vietnam, war, warm fuzzy, weeks, will, winter, wisdom, wither, world, world war I, worship, worshipping, wrapped, writing, year, yesterday

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So this is Christmas, the late, ex-Beatle, John Lennon wrote in Happy Christmas (war is over) and it is clear that Lennon was not only troubled about the Vietnam War, but, Christmas as well. He was right. Most people do miss the point of Christmas, choosing to consider it a time of goodwill and joy, peace, and simply some sort of warm fuzzy activities and feelings. This has become known as the spirit of Christmas. Unless you hibernate during the winter, you are well aware of the commercial side of Christmas and the general stress this time of year brings to most people, nevertheless, most do agree that it is a time for exceptions to the flow of life.

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During World War I, the fighting stopped and both sides met for good cheer and stories. The next day, “I enjoyed your story yesterday, now enjoy my bayonet.” Perhaps it happened. Today, we have a day of the warm fuzzies and then it is back to the war in the malls. It is hard to park during the days and even weeks before Christmas, then one day off, and the panic resumes. Even though Christmas shopping seems to begin shortly after summer. Imagine, several months of shopping and a few days, or maybe hours, of goodwill.

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Ever since Santa became obsolete, or should I say redundant, in my life, I have been troubled too. I often find myself sitting up late Christmas Eve staring at the tree and pondering. Or, this Christmas, I am writing this blog entry. Even with a full understanding of what Christmas is about, I can not shake the disconcerting feelings around the way we as a society approach Christmas. Perhaps it is because I do not do much at Christmas anymore. It did seem to make a bit more sense when I was involved in something, like playing music. I just seem to be too busy for Christmas as society does it and find it is simply a bit too stressful.

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Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? This question, asked by Charlie Brown, brings the eternal response from Linus:

Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.
Lights, please.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.


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Linus replies to the question with a quote directly from the Holy Bible. Linus is almost right. Although the observance of, and the name Christmas, has an origin by Christians in the second century. they did appropriate it from the Romans who celebrated a winter harvest festival marking the winter solstice, called Saturnalia. It was a rowdy festival worshipping Saturn, the God of Sowing. The winter solstice recognized the return of the sun. Christians felt it should be a time to worship the Son (of God).

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Over the centuries, Christmas has had it’s ups and downs such as over indulgence and partying. Linus’ quote sums up a magnificent story, a story that people have taken parts of, just as they pick and choose from the Bible. If you ask anyone on the street what Christmas means, they will probably respond with something that includes some form of good tidings, joy, peace on Earth and good will toward men, from the announcement in the Bible.

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Every Christmas, people sing Christmas carols. Most carols relate some form of the Christmas story. They sing about Jesus, Christ, angels and God. I never really thought about it all until I discovered the real meaning of Christmas. Then, what hypocrisy, I thought. How can people sing about Jesus without embracing Him and all that he stands for? Moreover, they mix it with all the other notions of Christmas, including the commercial ones. I was confused.

The Christmas story, in fact the Bible in whole, is so fantastic that it takes a huge leap of faith to believe. Yet, it is so full of wisdom and historical accuracy it is accepted as a great source of value for society. Jesus is considered to have been a great teacher and good person. But wait! Jesus taught that he and God are one. That he is the way to everlasting life. He has become the most important figure in history, changed and influenced millions of lives and yet was poor, never owning anything. From his birth in a manger to his death as a criminal and burial in a borrowed tomb, Jesus stands unique in comparison to any other historical person. The birth of Jesus fulfilled over 150 prophesies from the Old Testament of the Bible.

What most people know about Jesus and the Bible, they have gathered from other people. Few have made their own exploration of what the Bible states. Many have been turned off by experiences in a church or by religious people, or by others who have turned away from the church. But, for most people, they are too interested in self-indulgence and they are afraid to face their sin. The Christmas story is about love and forgiveness.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. – John 3:16 (KJV).

To me, Christmas seems to have a split personality. On one side is the Christian version, the celebration of the birth of the Son of God. However, nobody knows when that really was. Some calculations have placed it sometime around the month of September. Images and beliefs about the Christmas story have become distorted and are now full of inaccuracies. Look around, try the Internet, and you can find a manger image that contains trees with snow. Or, the one above with Santa visiting the baby Jesus. If you had never heard of Christmas and look around to learn what it was about, I think it would be hard to determine the actual meaning of Christmas.

Actually, there is no record in the Bible or in the traditions of the very early church, prior to the second century, of any sort of celebration of the birth of Jesus. Instead, Christians have always looked to and celebrated Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection.

On the other side, is the non-religious, non-Christian approach to a warm fuzzy time of year. Is it time to split Christmas, or is it fine the way it is? I wonder what Jesus would say. During his life on Earth, Jesus owned nothing himself and shared everything he received. In his resurrected life, everything belongs to him, he is the ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords.’ Jesus is coming back for His church.

So, this is Christmas…
Birth of Jesus on Facebook

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Preamble

I have many interesting activities in my life—so many that I have neglected my blogs. Since myBobLog is my original and first blog, it is here that I endeavor to begin my blogging journey once again. I start now with a new theme.

In the hopefully near future, I want to write about a project of growing my hair to donate to cancer patients. I have a fundraising page that I will link to. I also need to write about my return to playing music with my cornet and how had a dream come true by acquiring a particular cornet. I also need to write about the two jazz bands I run. In fact, I have begun websites for them too, so there lies more blogging activities.

My next move will likely be to take a peek at my Technojungle Project. I suppose I have been blaming my blogging neglect on the writing of my upcoming book, however, music has also been a strong draw away. I have even postponed work on my photography.

Don't worry about the details of all these projects and activities. I will make sure the mud settles as soon as I get a better handle on how I want to set up things here on this blog to start with.

It will take some time, so stay tuned and be patient.

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