Personal Blogs

This post is an example of freewheeling thoughts with the intention of savagely editing it, in order for the salient points to be left as a condensed and coherent series of premises and ideas that, with significant meddling, might actually have a conclusion.

I have recently discovered from reading the comments in the Welcome Forum for ‘A111 Discovering the arts and humanities’, that there are many different ways that people approach events in their lives. More accurately, I suppose; many different ways that people prioritise and focus on important events in their lives.

Most of us would not consider placing ourselves in an environment in which our failure would result in our demise; we look both ways when we cross the road, don’t we? DON’T WE? Not all of us do; it seems to me that many, many people forget where they are, what they know, and even who they are. I come across many people who I can easily describe as wobbling.

My approach to studying seems wild when compared to other students preferred actions. I recognise that I am able to take information and methods from one discipline and by using it as a template, apply it to another discipline to be able to better understand the world around me.

Here is an example:

In Marketing, potential buyers of a product might use a Conjunctive Method of Brand Evaluation – they will need satisfaction from every product characteristic or the product will not be bought. Or, they might use a Disjunctive Model of Brand Evaluation – only one or two aspects of a product need to be satisfactory. By understanding this, we can use this as a template to understand how we interact in the world. If we substitute the word ‘Brand’ with ‘Job’, we can recognise how job interviews resemble sales pitches to potential buyers (job applicants).

In 1993, Ernst Fehr, Georg Kirschsteiger, and Arno Riedl postulated in the ‘Quarterly Journal of Economics’, that workers reciprocate the ‘gift’ of a higher than required wage with a ‘gift’ of higher effort. They called this ‘Gift Exchange’. A high wage may be the only aspect of a job that an applicant is seeking. By offering a higher than required wage, or a wage that is higher than would normally be expected, the job applicant is encouraged to ignore the messier aspects of the job position – long hours; highly repetitive actions; inclement weather; and so on. Anyone who pounces on the high wage as being so important that all problematic aspects of the job are dismissed as being irrelevant or of such significance that they are imagined to be readily overcome, is using the ‘Disjunctive Model of (job) Evaluation’. Some of us might think, ‘Oh yes, really high wage. What’s the catch?’ However, there are circumstances that compel some people to endure considerable hardship for high remunerative gain; not least is peer pressure. In my part of the world, nearly everyone feels that they have a ‘right’ to optional, discretionary goods. I used to think possessing luxuries was to make oneself comfortable. I had no idea that luxuries tell the world about ourselves. Let’s face it, why do we own cars that can break the highest speed limits in our countries many times over? Well, I am certain that this is because we subconsciously recognise that we are all in some kind of hierarchy of achievement – driving a fast, or luxury car, somehow means that we have achieved something; high wages. My friends have high wages, so I should have as well. Really?

In case you are wondering, (you weren’t) from my first words to the end of the paragraph above is 548 words and I have not even shaped my idea, let alone begun to offer a conclusion.

Many people, when applying for a job, might find that the interviewer offers a wide range of benefits that are attached to the job position. Here, the interviewer is ‘selling’ the role with the expectation that the interviewee cares about; there being a package of features that must meet a list of requirements. It might be that there should be a ‘Cycle to Work’ scheme (the employer contributes a substantial financial amount towards a new bicycle for the employee to cycle to work). The employee may consider buying an expensive bicycle is important to meet any requirements to fit neatly into an imagined hierarchy, both locally and globally (use a luxury to save the world – in fact using a rusty bicycle cuts down on waste as well). Let’s not go there!

A job interviewer may reel off many favourable aspects to the interviewee, health insurance; free dentristry; short hours, flexi-time; even a day off on your birthday. The interviewee may use the ‘Conjunctive Method of (job) Evaluation’ to decide whether the job is desirable and should be sought. All the interviewee’s requirements must be fulfilled when this method is used.

So, I can extrapolate a method from Marketing and use it to understand how job interviews are conducted, and I can extrapolate something from economics to understand how we make decisions, how much effort we put into something, and the compromises we are willing to endure to achieve a goal. Many of us have heard the expression, ‘The writing is on the wall’; it is, literally, on my wall. A3 size paper is stuck to my walls with extracts from courses I have studied, written on them.

A very short list of headings and definitions: (Beware: academic writing frowns on bullet points and lists)

Null hypothesis

Scrambled Assortment (marketing)

Say’s Law (marketing)

Gall’s Law (logistics)

Accrual Accounting

CARES (telephone customer service procedure)

Gift Exchange

Hegemony (definition)

Low and High Uncertainty Avoidance

Disintermediation

Minimax

and more.

I have lists of words and their definitions on A3 paper ‘stuck’ to my walls as well. When writing, we do not want to repeat the same word. Simply, ‘I walked to the shop, and then I walked home through the woods.’ No, ‘I walked to the the shop and then meandered / crept / sprinted / skipped home through the woods’.

In economics, (this is not on my wall and so I have to, every time I want to use this point, revise from a book on economics) there is something called the ‘Diminishing Margin of Utility’ or ‘Margin of Diminishing Utility’. This is, that once a need is satisfied there is a continuous decline of effectiveness for each extra unit of effort expended to satisfy that need. This can be understood like this: If your car has an empty fuel tank and you need ten litres of fuel to get to work; every moment of time spent putting more fuel in is an opportunity cost. Essentially, you are wasting time – you could be doing something else more productive. Ah, you need ten litres of fuel to come back again, you think. Except, that you might, by arriving at work earlier than normal, avail yourself of some quieter time at work to go over the presentation you will be giving. Most of us though, have more practical activities at work. You might want to have an unfettered choice of equipment that you want to use that day. The point here, moves into how much something is measured against something else as to the use we can get out of these somethings. Or more accurately for my point, what we desire and even when we desire it. Simply, if you feel hungry, will you eat the bland sandwich in the vending machine in the canteen now, or will you wait and buy a sandwich from a high-end food outlet in an hour’s time with a greater level of satisfaction? How much discomfort (hunger) will you endure?

We will look at ‘Procrastination’ as delaying an activity because doing something now appears to the individual to be discomforting; and weave indecision in as being a principle factor for failing to complete a task satisfactorily. These are somewhat suppressed premises though.

This, in case you are wondering, (you weren’t) is 1247 words without my comments on word counts, and I STILL haven’t shaped my conclusion.

To many of us, studying a subject can be labourious, boring, and time-consuming. However, this isn’t always why we avoid picking up a book on the subject or actually just start learning. If we cannot see the ‘shape’ of the subject; if we cannot understand its breadth and height; if we cannot fathom its depth, or its relevance, we may just stand looking at it. Let us imagine it as a physical form for a moment. Some of us might touch it. Every now and then, while we are looking, there is a person who approaches the ‘subject’ and looks for a ‘back door’. We don’t know they are looking for a ‘back door’ because we think that there is a special person with a key on a string around their neck that unlocks the formal ‘front door’ (the official way in), and that is the only way in. If you want the guided tour, be a tourist, and wait by the front door. This person will inevitably receive a formatted education that is easily compartmentalised and controlled in their heads, by their heads. It will have a scaffold; a framework; a form; it has a beginning and an end. This way of learning, in many cases, is linear. In short, it is has its own dimensions.

In Tony Buzan’s book ‘Use Your Head’, 1982, Tony talks about keywords and ‘hooks’. He suggests that taking a linear approach to reading a book, or learning, may not be the best way to learn or retain information. He states that we may benefit from reading passages that interest us in a book before we start at page one, to formally learn. He believes that, by being engaged in the parts that we understand and were interested in, we form hooks on which information can be connected to other pieces of information. I prefer to see them as islands of information in a network of semi-coagulated understanding that, most crucially for me, MUST be malleable; they must be accessible and not limited to a single shape, so that they can be moulded and married to a new idea, concept or discipline. In this way, these valuable globules, or lumps, of precious knowledge can then be used as a segue, a constituent part, or a template, as part of, or to allow, the perception of other exciting worlds outside, and alongside, of our own individual worlds and the knowledge we have therein.

So, from marketing, what do we need to be satisfied? From logistics, how do we go about getting it? From economics, how much time should be expended on achieving our goal before the opportunity cost becomes too great? and can we defer our desire for a better ‘imagined’ outcome later?

This last question on deferring our desire: if we have considered the previous questions, it is a sensible question. However, if there has been no consideration of the previous questions, this question denotes procrastination, brought about by confusion, lack of self-belief, or a fear of becoming hopelessly lost in a swamp of knowledge. However, many of us are confident that if we become lost in a swamp of knowledge we would consider it to be an adventure holiday. Certainly, I have learnt to figuratively ‘swim’ in a ‘jungle’ of sensations and perceptions. However, when in a figurative jungle, knowing which tree to climb to see the best route forward, is the important thing. Just remember, no-one dies if they fall into a sea of knowledge. Just, don’t try to swim against the tide; swim to shore; build a boat; and go and explore.

600 more words equals 1847 words. This is an example of unedited work that is really only for fun and not in any way sufficiently focused enough for academic submission.