|
Home / Psychology
Unexpected Wisdom: The Drunk on North Avenue
By:Mark Meshulam
I grew up on North Avenue, a 4-lane street cutting East-West across the middle of Chicago. My folks owned a clothing store there and our family lived upstairs. It was 1961 and I was 9 years old.
On each corner was a tavern. Not chic-chic martini bars, not Viagra-triangle cigar bars, but hard-core bastions of liver-pickling alcoholism.
Both bars smelled the same. An unforgettable cloud of cigarette butts and beer ground into vomit-marinated asbestos floor tiles hovered outside the door of each darkened den.
In these bars, working stiffs drank away their families' savings, squatting on backless barstools, hunched over formica bartops with shellacked wooden edges. They came straight from work and stayed until midnight, staggered home to angry wives in cloth dresses, fell into a coma after an exchange of harsh words or hurt silences, then started over again the next day.
Since our store was situated in the middle of the block, we often witnessed an unsteady migration of drunkards as they moved from bar to bar. Some mornings we might find a biohazardous remnant of their journey, which my father would briskly hose off as a very first order of business.
In this unlikely crosscurrent, one day a moment of lucidity and premonition took place. One of the pitiful procession decided to stop and talk to me. He hung on the parking meter and was barely able to avoid falling down.
"Come here boy, I want to tell you something", he said.
I edged closer into unfamiliar territory. Usually we tried to stay away from the drunks and they ignored us in turn. But this guy wanted to talk.
"I don't know everything", he slurred, "I don't. Nobody does. Nobody knows everything and either do I. You don't, I don't, and neither does the President of the United States."
"But I'll tell you something right now," he continued. "I may not know everything, but dammit, I know where to find it if I need it. Thats the key. You gotta know where to find what you need to know. I may not know, but I know how to find out."
Flash forward 43 years, to 2004. I had been in the window and door business for 23 years. I had made a mistake on a building which cost my company thirty thousand dollars. I didn't know that my doors needed a 32" clear opening which was needed to meet handicapped code. I am puzzled. How could I, with all of my experience, have not known this would be required?
Forward 2 more years. I meet an architect who knows the laws pertaining to accessibility very well, probably because she uses a wheelchair herself. I begin to quiz her. I am confused because I don't know which codebook governs, therefore I don't know which rules to follow.
She tells me that my confusion is well-founded and widespread. There are three sets of rules, Federal, State and City, and they say different things. The biggest developers and architects in Chicago are as confused as I am.
Now we come back to the drunk and his point.
I could have done an internet search on the handicapped code and maybe studied the state code at length and felt myself to be informed. But if I didn't know there were two other codes and their interrelationship, I would be, unknowingly, two-thirds in the dark. I needed an informed expert to give me that overall perspective.
I knew that I could troll the internet for an answer, but I could not know how that answer fit the larger picture.
Now that information runs freely, we need a way to place relative values on things which bob up and down in the overflowing info canal. We need meta-information. Information about information. Which information is better than the other? Which supercedes? Which is specific and which is general? Which is more current? Which is obsolete?
The drunk was speaking to you, Google. It's not enough to get 29,662 listings in response to a word search. Does being in the top ten keyword responses equate with being good, well rounded information? Not yet. We are progressing, but we are not there yet.
Some day we too will know where to find what we need to know. Some day we will catch up with the drunk on North Avenue.
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: information management, search engine relevance
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
Mark Meshulam offers keyboard shortcuts, and an email tickler system, at http://www.poingo.com
|
|
| Top Psychology Articles |
|
|
- 2). Authenticity in Action By : Martha Ruske
We are drawn to people who are being authentically themselves, even when we can see their faults. There is something very appealing about someone who is true to who they are, rather than altering their behavior to suit others. What are the characteristics of an authentic person, and what can we do to be more authentically ourselves?
|
- 3). A Brief History of Hypnosis By : Adam Eason
Evidence of hypnotic-like phenomena appears in many ancient cultures. The writer of Genesis seems familiar with the anaesthetic power of hypnosis when he reports that God put Adam "into a deep sleep" to take his rib to form Eve. Other ancient records suggest hypnosis was used by the oracle at Delphi and in rites in ancient Egypt (Hughes and Rothovius, 1996).
|
- 4). Diagnosing Personality Disorders By : Sam Vaknin
Personality traits are enduring, usually rigid patterns of behavior, thinking (cognition), and emoting expressed in a variety of circumstances and situations and throughout one's life (typically from early adolescence onward). Some personality traits are harmful to both oneself and to others. These are the dysfunctional traits. Often they cause discomfort and the person bearing these traits is unhappy and self-critical.
|
- 5). How to Experience a Lucid Dream By : David Slone
Lucid dreaming means dreaming while you know that you are dreaming. The term was coined by Frederik van Eeden who used the word "lucid" in the sense of mental clarity. With practice nearly anyone can experience lucid dreams.
Lucidity is not the same as dream control. It is possible to be lucid and have little control over the dream. However, becoming lucid in a dream is likely to increase your ability to deliberately influence the events within the dream.
|
- 6). Discover the Secrets of Personality Type By : Molly Owens
Have you ever wondered why your spouse, coworkers, or children seem to think so differently from you? You may not understand why they make the decisions they do, or why they place such importance on things that seem inconsequential to you. It is possible to understand the answers to all these questions. The secret lies in the theory of Myers-Briggs personality type.
|
|
|
- 8). Comfort Shoes vs. Stylish Shoes By : David Skul
Shoes are made specially s a protection for our feet. Not only they keep us from sickness, it will also be able to make us look good. The choice of shoes whether on design or quality, depends on the owner.
|
- 9). The Heart of Grief By : Sammy
Hospice patients come to our care after being cut, burned, and poisoned. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment are the normative methods of care for most of the patients who enter a life-threatening disease. Hospital staff members are trained to be aggressive about curative care.
Hospice care is a phase of care whereby aggressive treatment is no longer appropriate.
|
- 10). Personality Testing; Myth and Realities By : Saqib
It is commonly believed myth that personality testing instruments can measure your personality and predict your future behaviors. The pre-employment testing mechanism has been following this creed without any solid evidence. The testing industry claims all out validity. The educational institutions and employer organizations use them for screening purposes.
|
| New Psychology Articles |
|
|
- 2). The Communal Sharing of Enchantment By : Barbara Holstein
Mentoring and learning from each other is much more that taking a course or explicitly giving someone advice or help. Almost every moment of every day when we are with people has the potential for becoming a mentoring or a learning situation.
|
- 3). The World's Greatest Lie... By : Lance Ong
"Everyone believes the world's greatest lie..." says the mysterious old man.
"What is the world's greatest lie?" the little boy asks.
The old man replies, "It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie."
(An excerpt from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
|
- 4). What is Personality? By : Sam Vaknin
In their opus magnum "Personality Disorders in Modern Life", Theodore Millon and Roger Davis define personality as:
"(A) complex pattern of deeply embedded psychological characteristics that are expressed automatically in almost every area of psychological functioning." (p. 2)
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)) IV-TR (2000), published by.
|
- 5). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) - Pros and Cons By : Sam Vaknin
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition, text revision [American Psychiatric Association. DSM-IV-TR, Washington, 2000] - or the DSM-IV-TR for short - describes Axis II personality disorders as "deeply ingrained, maladaptive, lifelong behavior patterns". But the classificatory model the DSM has been using since 1952 is harshly criticized as woefully inadequate by many scholars and practitioners.
|
- 6). The Construct of Normal Personality By : Sam Vaknin
Personality disorders are dysfunctions of our whole identity, tears in the fabric of who we are. They are all-pervasive because our personality is ubiquitous and permeates each and every one of our mental cells. I just published the first article in this topic titled "What is Personality?". Read it to understand the subtle differences between "personality", "character", and "temperament".
|
- 7). Narcissism and Personality Disorders By : Sam Vaknin
Are all personality disorders the outcomes of frustrated narcissism?
During our formative years (6 months to 6 years old), we are all "narcissists". Primary Narcissism is a useful and critically important defense mechanism. As the infant separates from his mother and becomes an individual, it is likely to experience great apprehension, fear, and pain.
|
- 8). Diagnosing Personality Disorders By : Sam Vaknin
Personality traits are enduring, usually rigid patterns of behavior, thinking (cognition), and emoting expressed in a variety of circumstances and situations and throughout one's life (typically from early adolescence onward). Some personality traits are harmful to both oneself and to others. These are the dysfunctional traits. Often they cause discomfort and the person bearing these traits is unhappy and self-critical.
|
- 9). Common Features of Personality Disorders By : Sam Vaknin
Psychology is more an art form than a science. There is no "Theory of Everything" from which one can derive all mental health phenomena and make falsifiable predictions. Still, as far as personality disorders are concerned, it is easy to discern common features. Most personality disorders share a set of symptoms (as reported by the patient) and signs (as observed by the mental health practitioner).
|
- 10). Cluster B Personality Disorders By : Sam Vaknin
The DSM-IV-TR (2000) defines a personality disorder as:
"An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations the individuals culture (and is manifested in two or more of his or her areas of mental life:) cognition, affectivity, interpersonal functioning, or impulse control."
Such a pattern is rigid, long-term (stable), and recurrent.
|
|
|
