Rearranging the menu on the Titanic

My workplace is located near what, for lack of a better world, is an Amish mall. It isn’t really-it’s a complex of shops, a couple of which sell Amish goods. (I live near (relatively speaking) Pennsylvania Dutch Some furniture, some cheese, some baked goods-stuff like that. It’s new-it hasn’t been there for more than a year or so-but I haven’t been in it yet. Basically because it’s the sort of place where I think I will easily find things to buy, and it will typically not be stuff that I really need, and these are not the times in which that is wise behavior.

Anyway, as a consequence of this, every once in a while people, sometimes men but usually women and girls, come into my workplace in full Amish dress. People stare at them, obviously, because they look utterly different from everyone else, but it makes me wonder what they must be thinking. What I understand about Amish beliefs you can fit into a thimble and have room for your thumb-but as far as I know, their belief is that technology is sinful. I wonder how they must feel, walking amongst all this technology. Are you quietly confident, knowing your way is better? Envious? Curious? They can’t really be ignorant of it, not entirely-I mean, they see it being used when they come in here. So what are they thinking?

There’s a joke about that. I’ve heard it from a number of comics, but the one that comes to mind is Dave Attell- “The people I’m never afraid to make fun of is the Amish. How will they find out?”

On Adam Curry’s 800th Daily Source Code, a 2 plus hour FUBAR Friday Spectacular, he did another one of those segues only he can pull off-coming out of a segment about the financial crisis, he segues into Aerosmith’s “Eat The Rich”. I love the Internet.

Another great one was ending another financial segment by segueing into Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire”. Not my favorite Billy Joel track, but it’s great to see my man get some love from AC. “Fire” is one of those Billy songs that I here so much-in stores and on the radio-that I am actually a little sick of it. I will bow to no one in my love for Billy-he is the artist I would take to a desert island if I had to listen to only one musician for the rest of my life. But I’m sick of that song.

Unfortunately, Adam ended an otherwise fine “DSC” by going into a long rap about “The Secret”, the book/DVD phenomenon that, I am led to understand, is all about affirmations and positive energy. Don’t get me wrong-I’m all for positive energy. As you may have guessed, I am a fairly cynical, generally negative person. I realize that creates a negative atmosphere, so I try to talk very little and reveal even less, as a general rule. I’ve been around positive people and negative people, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that positive people are easier to be with and attractive positive energy to them.

And let me say that, if you use affirmations or the Secret and it works for you, God bless you. As Jimmy Pardo would put it, I wish you a lot of luck.

But the whole affirmations thing has always made me suspicious. It seems like a sham-an awfully convenient way to blame people for their own misfortune. Now, people are to blame for part of the mess they find themselves in, to be sure. I own my poor decisions-I am living out the consequences of bad moves I made 20 years ago.

But to say to people that you have to picture the good thing you want to happen, or say the affirmation 10 times a day, and just wish it as hard as you can, and “the universe” will make it happen, begs the question-what if you do that, and it doesn’t happen? You didn’t wish hard enough? God doesn’t love you?

A number of smart, successful people-Adam, cartoonist Scott Adams, Oprah-say they have used this at points in the past, and it has worked for them. Good for them. The plural of anecdote is not data.

The universe doesn’t give a crap about you, or about me, or about anything. The universe is just a bundle of physical laws, with no morality to it. I can’t accept a credo that says to the people who drowned in New Orleans, “I guess you weren’t projecting enough positive energy. Sorry.”

My employers, in their infinite wisdom, decided to spend 8 hours on Thursday teaching me things that I already know. Solving problems I don’t have, and failing to solve (or, indeed, even face) problems that I do have. I don’t argue the fact that I can always learn tips and tricks-anything that saves me 10 or 15 seconds, I will happily adopt. But that’s not the problem-at least, not the whole problem. Saving me a few seconds here and there doesn’t allow me to answer a second phone call while I am still dealing with the first one. Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.