blogarama.com The Pensieve: The Illusion of Control

Tuesday, August 31

The Illusion of Control

Whenever we watch big organisations or groups work, or we employ their services, they give us a feeling that everything is under control, everyone in the world has a purpose and we are all heading towards it in an orderly and businesslike-fashion. They make us feel everything is ORGANISED and taken care of, by people or machines or computers, that have planned out everything well ahead and looked out for all possible glitches and hiccups.
For example, we go to a hospital and register ourselves and get accounts in their records...We tell them what tests we want done, and they give directions to go up the stairs, take a right, past the cafe blah blah blah.... When you arrive at the next counter, the receptionist already knows your name and is waiting for you. Apparently your name was passed on through the mainframe computer that runs this place. Oooh you're impressed by the organisation inspite of how busy the place looks. Another example is how your VISA or master card is recognized anywhere in the world. In college a common timetable is devised for 100s of students but each batch derive their own schedules from it according to their course.
But does it really exist? Complete, non-compromising control that is.... HELL NO!! And it can be pissing off to watch their attempts to give us this illusion.
Whatever maybe said about the impressive qualities about a mainframe computer that runs the entire hospital, there's no denying that it can and will breakdown sometime, and confuse your name for your mom's or "John Pantstill" instead of "John Painsil". However fast and quiet the new electric bullet train maybe, we know someday its going to break down and maybe strand passengers over a bridge for several hours. And how many times have you seen aircrashes on BBC and CNN?.... You get stopped by the security every-single-effing time you cross the border cause your name sounds similar to some terrorist (true story-saw it in a reader's digest issue).
Then there's the frailty of rules. And the blatant -aw what the hell- the bloody hypocrisy shown by the people who enforce them. They make themselves look so important when announcing the rules, chest out, eyes cold and pretending they can't hear your protests or explanations. And just watch how they skim past the situation when they are caught breaking the rules themselves. A professor might tell you to hand in your homework specifically on monday even though your class is on tuesday. But when monday arrives, he's like 'eh? what homework?' Your boss might tell you to cancel all your plans, no matter how important they are and attend the meeting. Then he says the meeting has been cancelled cause of an 'emergency at home' and tries to act magnanimous by saying '"I've decided to give you a holiday afterall, consider yourselves lucky".
Politicians always give us the promise, the illusion that order is coming, a better world, where everything and everyone will benefit. And that keeps us hoping and expectant, for something that we have never experienced before and so have no real idea whether we are already experiencing it or not.
Control has never existed in the past and it doesn't exist now. In the past it could take a week to tell the entire village that a meeting is going to take place in the barn or whatever, and now its all about red-tapism. What could take a year in a democracy could be done in a month in China....

6 comments:

  1. i love your blog :)
    ♥ nancyy.
    xxxx.
    [ctrl + ♥]

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  2. thanks nancy :) means so much coming from someone ive never met before..

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  3. this is brilliant. and i think you're absolutely correct.

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  4. each post comes with a new surprise...keep it up! i always look forward to your blog...keep posting!
    Absolutely loved what you said about the hospitals...expericed that first-hand!

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