Feeling the Choices

Local markets should be more responsive to changes in preference, because they are able to respond to tacit knowledge. The stuff we can’t put into words. The stuff we don’t always understand ourselves. Our inconsistency. Our moods. 

Local markets mean relationship building and consequences. Huge markets become more abstract. If you sell someone something that isn’t a good deal for them (because you need/want the money) and it affects them badly, size matters. In a huge market, you disappear in search of the next sucker. In a local market, you still have to engage with the people. 

Local forces commitment, recognising that what we do matters. The boundaries between client, colleague, friends, and family blur. It gets complicated. Dealing with strangers is cleaner. It is transactional. Local and intimate means getting involved in the nitty gritty. Local means we experience the results of each other's decisions. Local means wrestling with issues. 

Standardization can give comfort. Where you do venture away from local to explore, some recognition is useful. When you (think you) recognise something, you don’t have to give it thought. Conscious choice is hard. 

Daniel Kahneman talks of “thinking fast and slow”. You want to embody a lot of decisions and make them fast. Jonathan Haidt talks of our rider (head) and elephant (body/habits). We think the rider is in control, but it is mostly the elephant. 

To embody and relax, we have to trust. It is hard to trust when you haven’t done the necessary wrestling to deep soak shared agreement.

International Standardization

Decision-Makers

Joint decision-making is complicated. We make mistakes when we make our own decisions. They are our mistakes. They reveal information about our habits, values, character, drivers, desires, fears, knowledge, ignorance, and personalities, but they are also wrapped up in noise. 

We are complex and inconsistent. If someone else is going to make decisions for us, the further they are away, the less they will see the consequences and responses to the decisions they make for us. Central Decision-Making scales both impact and mistakes. 

If you look at the typical democratic political process, the issues are incredibly complicated when it gets to elections. How many people read and engage with the manifestos of the politicians, and grapple with what they are promising? How accurately does the manifesto reflect their intentions? Their ability to deliver? 

If you wrote your own manifesto, how closely would that reveal your real behaviours... or would it (more likely) reflect a promotional version of what you (in your head) want? 

Information gets lost as you add distance between decision-makers and consequences. Ideally, in local markets, small decisions can be made that reflect the stuff we can’t even put into words. There is relationship building. There is understanding. There is the ability to adapt. 

As soon as markets scale with central decision-makers, they become abstract. People become categories. Voters become power bases. Actions have consequences. It is important that decision-makers feel those consequences.

What we do, matters

In Power or Empower

If you want a problem to be solved quickly, all the decision makers need to be in one room with no distractions, and intimately involved in doing the work. If you want a problem not to be solved, make those doing the work write memos and get other people around a boardroom to make the decisions based on what is on that paper. There is deep irony in the loss of meaning around the word Capitalism. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is effectively a tearing down of the memo factory. Let decisions be made locally by those who they affect. Not in isolated bubbles with oceans between realities. Virginia Postrel vividly describes Tacit Knowledge (the stuff we know but cannot communicate) in the book which completely changed my mind about the desirability of benevolent dictators and central planning (“The Future and its Enemies”). The world is too complicated, ambiguous, and random to concentrate power. The way you build endurance, resilience, and creativity is by creating more decision makers. That means building buffers and engines of capital for everyone. It means letting other people make different decisions to you.

Stories that Serve

Compound growth is both powerful and dangerous. I am a believer in both localisation and globalisation. In unlearning and learning. In strong foundations and courageous stretching. Conn Iggulden is a powerful storyteller who bases his tales on as much factual evidence as he can. Then fills in the gaps, collapses characters into each other and creates a story. I think that is how our memory and sense making works. His conqueror series focuses on the rise of Genghis Khan. An interesting part of that is how connected Genghis stays with his people. The life of the leader and the life of the people don’t have multiple layers of abstraction. Genghis still lives in a Ger (a portable round tent). Part of our strength lies in the institutions we build. The Nations, Companies, and Groups that we use. But if they become more powerful than us, we need to reconnect them to the base. Stories shouldn’t be more powerful than the people they serve.

Ger

Tiny Bubbles

I went to school in the same neighbourhood for 15 years. 3 years pre-school and 12 years “big school”. We didn’t all like each other. There was no escape hatch. Being “like” each other (and most of my schooling was during Apartheid) doesn’t mean you are like each other. At times we were buddies. At times we were cruel. The guys I was with the whole way saw me wet my pants as a 9-year-old. They saw my rabbit teeth. My four eyes. My tin grin. They saw me cry. They saw me try too hard. They saw me not try hard enough. When I was 16, I joined the Durban Youth Council with kids from various parts. Westville is a tiny slice of Durban. I started fresh. A new context. I could be seen. I was still at school in Westville, but I got new confidence. Sometimes, realising your bubble is just a tiny part of the world lets you release the rubbish. Realising the people you are most like are probably the people you clash with the most. “Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own.” (Bruce Lee).

Tiny Bubbles

Think Smaller

Diversification is a recognition that there is both a good chance you are wrong about any decision, and a good chance that there is so much noise that whether or not you were right will never truly be known. There are Economies of Scale and Diseconomies of Scale. There are costs and benefits of Globalisation, and of Localisation. Advantages to detachment and broad framing, and details that are missed without focus and true commitment. No decision comes without unintended consequences. Micro-ambition is the idea of having small, achievable goals, that add up. Wu-Wei is the idea of action through inaction. That the true starting point is acceptance, and understanding, of how things are rather than how we want them to be. Nudging from there. Rather than arguing with people about finding one solution, in a theoretical imagined world, maybe we should start by finding the 5% of what they care about that we can support. Finding 5% of a potential solution ourselves, while allowing for a 95% chance that other people’s reality is not the same as ours. Creativity within substantial buffers, and with a foundation in the way the world is now.

Reverse Hut Tax

Hut Taxes were used by the British Colonies to force people out of subsistence lifestyles after the Anglo-Somebody wars. In South Africa, this led to the Bambatha Rebellion in 1906, which galvanised the post-war identity of the Zulu people. If you need to pay taxes, you need money to pay it. This means problem solving needs to have a number put on it. One way to think of a Universal Basic Income is as a “Reverse Hut Tax”. It allows people to reinvest in the basics. To have sufficient money to have parcels of time where they don’t have to think about money. To rebuild a base, that allows them to survive periods when a hand-to-mouth, pass-the-parcel, economy is not functional. To build basic competencies (that get outsourced when you are just one link in a fragile value creation chain). We can be seduced by specialisation. Just doing the one thing we are good at. That is fine, until it isn’t. Winters aren’t a surprise. Creative Destruction requires periods of unlearning and rebuilding. Without endurance and resilience, creativity can have no roots to draw sustenance from.

Bambatha

Starting a Fire

Money makes money. Only because, usually, you need resources to solve problems. The point where the money is made is in the problem solving. A clearly defined offer to solve a problem, recognised by a group of people (with money) who have trust (that the offerer intends to solve the problem) and confidence (that the offerer can solve the problem). Services aren’t Capital intensive. They don’t require money to solve problems. Not having Capital is the barrier to entry for Capital intensive business. The barrier for services is skills, knowledge, and recognition. We live in an age where it is easier than ever to develop skills and knowledge. Services remain the main “starting from scratch” point in building wealth. The challenge is (1) it is easier for everyone, and (2) it is much noisier with far more people fighting for attention and recognition. I think the answer may lie in localism. 1-1 services and small groups aren’t scalable. That means they aren’t great (big) business ideas. But they are great fire starters. With so much noise, there aren’t many people who listen. There aren’t many people who see small problems when we are distracted by the big. Start small.

Conscious Connection

A big part of the “who are we?” struggle going on is a battle between Globalisation and Localisation. We live in a connected world. No man is an island. There is also no such thing as “The People”. You can’t draw borders around a group and define them with a stereotype by handing them a flag, teaching them a song, and losing your pooled tax money on a dysfunctional airline. We have communities we value. Places of worship, sports teams, social networks, languages, where we work, and interest groups. They overlap. The challenge is how to build together. Cracking on as individuals weakens the glue. Forcing glue on people creates partisan fist fights. I think we can do better. Dunbar’s number is the idea that there is a limit to how many interpersonal relationships we can have before we need to rely on prejudices and abstraction. About 150. I think we can add back names and faces if we consciously build communities of people in who we are willing to invest. If we balance the local and global forces with real people who we can see.  

Private Battles

"Everyone else is fighting a private battle you know nothing about. Be kind." Life doesn't revolve around any of us, except for us. So when we are at our low, others are celebrating. When we are ecstatically happy, someone else may be receiving awful news. In a global world that is connected, we can't get the signals necessary to know if someone has capacity. You can dump your emotional baggage on someone, and two blue ticks later it is in their heart and mind. Whether they are in a space to deal with it or not. At times it can feel too much to bear. Admitting that feels like weakness, because it is. If no one is the rock... where do we turn, but inwards? I don't know the answer. A wise lady once told me just to come back to kindness and respect. Build that first... the rest will follow. 

Stretched Soutie

As a Soutie, I can't move home. Home isn't a place. It feels more like a state of mind. Of heart. One of my feet sits on a muddy island that was once a magical and scary place beyond the Empire. Then briefly the head of an Empire. The other sits in a country on the southern tip of a vast continent that is waiting to roar. Both are having raw identity crises. I don't want to be defined by a place. Anger rises at the thought of being defined by borders and separateness. Born in Apartheid, the boiling point of my blood is division, suppression, and disempowerment. I will never be defined by a team. For me, home isn't the edges. It is the engine. Home doesn't contain me. Home releases me. I can't move home. Home can only move me. Home doesn't contain us. It empowers us.

Moving Home

Finding Roots in a Global World

I have been writing my blog almost daily for about 4.5 years now. A form of stream of consciousness, where I think aloud and then my ideas get fired in the public kiln till the bubbles crack the badly formed ones. 

One tool that I find useful is consistency. How can you believe A, and B, if B is not A. You have to choose. The problem is consistency has its limits. Our beliefs and preferences tend to be narrow, and dependant. I used to think you couldn't be racist and intelligent. Then I learned about Wouter Basson ("Dr. Death"). There are plenty of examples of people who are persecuted and persecutors. There are examples of people who are one person at work, another at home, and another at play. Whose beliefs depend on the group they are in, and who like multiple groups.

We layer meaning on top of facts. We think in categories and stories. This means we can be reading two books as we look at the same situation. Our response depends.

A theme of my writing has been the homelessness of my circle of friends and family, in a world that is battling with Globalisation and Localisation. Home has had to become a collection of my favourite competing stories. To maintain my mental health, I have to switch between worlds. To learn to let go of things that really matter to me... temporarily.

I am a Soutie. I have one foot in the UK and one foot in South Africa. I have good friends in the US, China, Brazil, and New Zealand. My family is all over. Even when people are in the same place physically, they are often not available. Everyone is so busy, it becomes near impossible to arrange events when groups get bigger than two or three. It isn't that they don't care. They are just reading something else. So there isn't actually an option of "moving home". My home is always moving.

As someone who loves seeking out patterns and layering meaning, I have had to develop a lighter touch. A half-hearted detachment. Not everything means something. Not everything is consistent.

I would love to figure out how you can build community in this brave new world. How do you develop roots that are oceans apart? Letting go is required just as much as digging in.

Be the Tree-v

Tianjin

When Britain made South Africa a country by force, each of the preceding countries bar Natal (which got cash) was given a Capital. SA has three Capitals... Pretoria is where the Executive sits, Bloemfontein where the Judiciary sits, and Parliament is in Cape Town. Pretoria and Johannesburg are not the same city... but you wouldn't know it on the 60km drive. In China, Beijing is the Capital but just 130km away is Tianjin - also one of the biggest cities in the world with over 15 million people. In 1856, officials suspected a ship was engaged in piracy and dealing opium. They boarded and arrested 12 men. In response the British and French sent gunboats. The resulting "Opium Wars" allowed Britain to continue trading, but according to their rules rather than those of local authorities. Along with opening up to trade, the city also has numerous European style buildings in the concession areas. Architectural reminders of their rule in the form of Churches and Villas.

Church of Our Lady's Victory - 1869

Personal Schism

Trev:

I grew up in a religious, mostly protestant, mostly white, liberalish community in Apartheid South Africa. One of my watershed moments was being forced to choose between two of the local churches. The one I had grown up in, and the one I was enjoying attending because of my circle of friends. To become a member of the Baptist Church, I had to be baptised. To become a member of the Methodist Church, I had to confirm my baptism. I had been dunked as a baby, which was not recognised by the Baptist church. Being 'baptised again' would mean that my first Baptism was rejected in some way which would upset some people who were important to me. I didn't really know why it was important, but in the end went back to the Church I grew up in for Confirmation classes. The long history of the Abrahamic Religions is a series of these kinds of 'there is only one path' splits. This was my personal Schism.

'The Angel hinders the offering of Isaac'

Rembrandt

Mike:
The Protestant Church grew out of the idea that you should be able to look inside. Rather than a delivered truth, people should be able to look inside. They should be able to be their own ministers and priests. They should be able to read "The Word" in their own tongue and interpret it according to their own contexts. The movement was as much a political statement as a convenient shift in religious beliefs. The Christianisation of the Barbarian Tribes was also an attempt to control them. Vladamir The Great dated all the Abrahamic Religions before choosing Christianity because he liked wine. Charlemagne and Louis The Great were also one country, one religion, kind of guys. It was Louis who kicked the Protestants that headed to South Africa out.

Paul:
You should take another look at the Church Trev. It is not the same place as when you grew up. Also, don't you remember all the good bits? Church provides a centre for the Community. A shared belief that brings people together once a week to think about something bigger than themselves. It is a place to look after each others mental health, and to think about those less fortunate than ourselves. Surely that is a good thing? The Churches in Westville have done a lot of work over the last 20 years. There are more women involved in leadership roles, the demographics of the services are more mixed, they are wrestling with their homophobia monkeys and the various churches are starting to put aside their different interpretations and work together. Even the Catholic Churches are very much part of the mix. And the Mosques and Temples. The door is always open to you. 

Trev:
It does play on my mind that leaving the Church leaves these spaces only open to particular parts of the Community. I now live in the UK, where most villages have beautiful little churches. Churches that are struggling to get people to come. I can't teach Yoga at my local Church because it is viewed as "Hindu". I could, but I would have to strip out the Oms and Chants and bits that freak people out. That is kind of like saying, you can make the Braveheart movie, but I don't want there to be any Kilts. I feel like we get excluded from a lot of the beauty of seeing different perspectives because we are forced to choose which one is "right".

Jessica:
You need a shared story for the place to be Holy. It can't be a free for all. It isn't about being right, it is about keeping stories clean. A genuinely open Community Hall might be great because it is all-inclusive, but it will be excluded from the magic of keeping things pure. Imagine a Buddhist Silent Retreat that now had to accommodate your Oms and Jaya Ganeshas... even though they share a common underlying philosophy, they would probably also tell you to pipe down.  There is nothing wrong with that. Just because Coke, Orange Juice, Milk, and Vodka are nice drinks doesn't mean you can throw all of them into a bucket with an extra thin mint and think your stomach will accept it willingly. Tolerance doesn't mean you can't protect spaces for a coherent story. Even if you admit that it is just a story.

Trev:
Sure, but then how do you create a shared narrative? The rulers of the past just issued "the truth" and then used their monopoly on power to brainwash everyone into that. The new Churches are just political parties. Protestants and Catholics may have made peace, but now we have Partisan Political Parties. In the UK, US, and South Africa where I know most about the politics relative to other countries... the majority of voters are hugely tribal. They interpret "facts" based on the opposite of whatever the other team thinks. Too many people believe anyone who disagrees with them is stupid, evil, or has some other Bad Faith incentive to obstruct and destroy. 

Rory:
It's just noise. People do actually get along pretty well. Particularly if there is money to be made. We huff and puff a lot on Social Media but as soon as you put people into a room together off camera, then people tend to learn social skills that make things work quickly. It genuinely isn't as bad as all the Drama Queens out there are making it out to be. If anything, it is just distracting us from continuing the progress. Yes, Church buildings are emptier... but there are far more cross-community communities springing up. The world has never been more tolerant, less xenophobic, less homophobic, less sexist etc. than now. We just focus on the bad stuff. It makes for a better moan. And we have always loved a good moan.

Trev:
There are more cross-community communities, but they weaken local communities. If we all live in digital land, we have less motivation to make friends with our neighbours. If the shows we watch become global, there is an increasing sameness to our storytelling. There is a larger "structural" risk, because we aren't trying different things. There are no fire breaks for if we try something that seems to work, and it goes horribly wrong.  There is also a local disconnect. In the past, leaders in communities used to live very similar lives to the people they led. Increasingly the CEOs, MPs, Professors, Priests and other leaders live in unrecognisable bubbles. Physical lives separate from mental lives. That means we become these mindless bodies and bodyless minds living different lives.

Alex:
You can't go backward. The communities of old weren't these glorious little neighbourhoods we like to picture. Think about how difficult it is to live in a closed community where everyone knows everything. Where your mistakes follow you like they are burnt into your forehead. There are positives to a separation of physical space from the mental. We all get a little more peace. We also aren't as subject to the geographical lotteries that force us to interact with the people where we were born, and believe what they believe. It is also much easier to physically get off your ass and go visit the people you meet online than ever before. In my experience, people make more of an effort to see you when you don't live where they do. The visit triggers a "must make a plan" attitude, rather than a "but I don't feel like it now" vibe.

Trev:
I get it. But I, like a lot of Global Citizens, probably feel like Theresa May nailed it when she said Global Citizens are "Citizens of Nowhere". It sometimes feels like that. Rootless. I know there is no way to solve this. We are Scatterlings of Africa. Everybody. Everywhere. People have always migrated, and the stories we have used to describe ourselves have always changed. I think that is beautiful, and it allows us to evolve and work through our problems. But it also leaves me feeling rootless a lot of the time. Like my foundations are creaking. Like I have forgotten something somewhere. A sense of unease. Maybe that's just life.

[Mike, Paul, Jessica, Rory, and Alex are fictional]

More Than a Whisper

Trev:

I got my British Passport a year before the Brexit Referendum. As someone who believes the C20th introduction of passport control was simply the physical role out of Global Apartheid, getting another passport has its ironies. Rather than burning Dompas like Madiba, I was collecting another one of the things I don't believe in. I came on a Migrants Program that gave me the opportunity because of my education, salary, language, age and work experiences. Kind of like a lottery for those who have previously won the lottery. Still, I was proud. Like a recovering Alcoholic, the description of Britain at my Citizenship Ceremony reminded me of the scene of Marcus Aurelius in the Gladiator. "There was a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile." There were people from all over the world becoming citizens of a country that seemed to stand for so many things I believed in. Then 2016 happened and whispers became shouts.

More Than a Whisper

Alex:
The way you pitch it is as if the primary reason behind Brexit was closing the borders. You and I have very similar beliefs. We both want this "Rome" with an open society that is inclusive. We both believe in Freedom of Trade, Movement, Services, and People. I didn't see the Referendum as anything other than a vote of no confidence in the INSTITUTION of the EU. Not Europe. Britain can't physically leave Europe. It is a part of it. All the crying and gnashing of teeth makes out as if all Brexiteers are racists and xenophobes. What about the European border in Ceuta? You can't paint the EU as this Liberal Democracy. I was voting against a Brussels run by technocrats.

Paul: 
I didn't actually think the vote would go through. I have just been a Eurosceptic for years. I was undecided when I stepped into the voting booth, but I didn't feel it would be right to moan about the EU and then vote for them. I have business in Europe, but the European regulations make my life an absolute nightmare. I prefer hiring Brits. I really didn't think Brexit would actually happen, and even when it did, I didn't think there wouldn't be some sort of deal that allowed life to carry on pretty much as normal. It doesn't make sense for anybody for us to not be able to keep on doing what we do. Anyway, if things don't work out, I am okay. I'll just close up shop and go traveling.

Stewart:
I don't really follow all this nonsense. I have my own stuff to worry about. There is no point in worrying anyway. The people in London will do what they do and life will go on. It is not going to affect me. I voted for Brexit because the NHS is creaking at the seams with all the immigrants in the waiting rooms, and the jobs going to people who aren't even from here. Look after your own first I say. Don't have guests until you can afford to keep your house in order. You have to choose. If you want to have a Welfare State that looks after people, it is simple maths that you can't afford to look after everybody else too. Get rid of that stuff, and then sure... people who can afford to look after themselves are welcome to come.

Angela:
The reality is we are a small island. Environmentally, we can't afford to have more people here. 60 million plus is probably too many already. There aren't enough houses, which is why housing is unaffordable for the people who were born here. I am all for being accommodating to others, but there is the question of sustainability. The roads are clogged. The trains are clogged. The Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are being filled with new housing that doesn't have the necessary schools and facilities. We may be a rich country in theory, but there are lots of problems we need to sort out. Leaving the EU is the only way we can do that.

Michelle:
There are fundamental political differences between the UK and the EU. You either believe in central decision-making technocrats, or you believe in devolved responsibility. In the UK, you hire and fire your political representatives directly. I can meet with my Member of Parliament, and it doesn't matter how much of a big wig they are, they have to serve their constituency. Nigel Farage certainly doesn't represent my views, and I resent being associated with him because I am against the EU. There is some irony that he has never ever won a seat in the UK, and his voice has been handed to him by Europe. Nigel is not the voice of Leave.

Trev:
The problem I have with these views is that they are mostly ideological. Much like my "I don't believe in Passports". The problem is Passports are a real thing. It doesn't matter if I believe in them or not. At the end of the day, I have to use them to move around. I am a deep pragmatist. What we do matters. Results matter. Yes, beliefs matter, but in the real world, we have to work with other people. The EU may have chosen Proportional Representation over "First Past The Post" seats. That has advantages and disadvantages. South Africa made the same choice. The inability of minority parties to get a voice in the UK is one of the disadvantages. Sustainability, Resource Allocation, and Regulatory Simplicity are all important... but we can't just vote for everyone to agree with us. The EU is much more likely to reform from within. It is better with the UK in it.

Andrew:
I have severe Brexit Fatigue. There are more important issues that which club different Rich countries belong or don't belong to. "Meanwhile in China" the world is carrying on while the Government of the UK grinds to a halt in this big talk shop. Whatever happens, won't change that much anyway. Like the Y2K "Crisis", the Global Financial "Crisis", the news always needs some Armageddon event to keep it entertained. Proper Crises like the World Wars, the resulting global flu pandemics, and the starvations in China and (now) Venezuela are proper things worth worrying about. Not how long it takes to fill in some bloody forms so you can sell your stuff or have to put another sticker on it. Britain "exiting" Europe is like a divorce where the spouses stay living in the same house. It's ridiculous, and we talk about it too much.

Alex:
I would probably change my vote now. I still believe I voted in good conscience the specific question that was asked. I wanted to leave the EU. I didn't want to end Freedom of Movement or any of the other nastinesses that get attributed to me because I think the EU is a bullying Leviathon. I think we have handled the negotiations terribly. Other politicians could have done a better job at negotiating with the EU instead of pandering to them. All the political parties are pretty weak at the moment, at a time when we needed strong leadership.

Trev:
I worry that the price of Brexit is simply a dismantling of the United Kingdom. The real world price of Britain leaving the EU, in my view, is that the UK will be dismantled. Ireland will reunify (I can't see any other solution to the "Backstop" issue) and stay in the EU. Scotland will then be left with a choice between the UK and the EU, and politically I think Scotland is more aligned with the EU. Andrew is probably right that "all will be fine". Relatively speaking, I do think there are bigger issues to worry about. It just makes me sad. I certainly feel that the first few sparks of seeing Britain as an "X years sober" alcoholic are at real risk of quite a few years of falling off the wagon. I am positive. I do think we can sober up again. It just didn't need to be this hard. 

[Alex, Paul, Angela, Stewart, Michelle and Andrew are fictional]

Chengdu

Two thousand years of Imperial Rule ended in China in 1912. A lightly held Republic was established, but that descended into Civil War as "The People" had different views of how to govern. A common foreign enemy in the form of Japan brought temporary alignment before the Civil War resumed after the second World War. Part of the Cold War, in 1949, the Government of the Republic was forced to Taiwan and the Communist Party established the People's Republic. Chengdu is unique as a major settlement that mostly maintained its name through these periods. It means "becoming a Capital". I like that. Cities are the closest thing physical places have to people with limited lives. They may still be there, but like growing children, you have to love them while letting go of each moment as they fundamentally become something else. King Tai said a settlement needed "one year to become a town, two to become a city, and three to become a metropolis". Today Chengdu is home to 14-18 million people depending on your definition of its borders. It is still becoming.

1949 Troops entering Chengdu

ending the Chinese Civil War

Success

As the world becomes connected, our stories become more detached from our daily realities. When you in a small pond, pretty average people get to lap up the glory of being the biggest fish. Then that protection falls away. As Global and Local mix, the benchmark for being the "news maker" gets higher. The "good life" pushes to the edges. Unless we let go of comparison. If we celebrate good enough. If we celebrate mediocrity. If we celebrate the things that are on the menu. There is nothing wrong with being gloriously average. Spectacularly unspectacular. Unless the stories we consume make us think our lives aren't good enough. We can raise the profile of simple. Of affordable. Of plentiful. Of thinking inside the box. Rare and unique raise the price of things... not the value. Price is just a clearing mechanism. A measure of how much there is of something. That is a very bad measure of value. Success needn't be about setting yourself apart.

Big Fish

Across the Pond

I first dipped my toe into life as a Soutie when I was 18. I was waiting for my brothers to finish University before my turn came, and checking out the world seemed like a good plan. I had never left South Africa. I saved up for the plane ticket, and headed across the salty pond.

It was my first taste of really being stretched away from home. I got my first email account (teebee@postmaster.co.uk). I had heard of this thing from our Maths teacher 4 years earlier. She told us you could send letters electronically to America. Somewhere in a memory box at my Mother's place, I still have letters my eldest brother had sent me when he ventured off to University. That was just to Johannesburg, but at that time crossing the Vaal river was like crossing a border. Even if that border was just an accent, and a different dress sense. It was now my turn to send letters, but I could do them electronically. When my turn in the Computer Room came. I printed the letters out as they came. 

I was able to phone home, but it cost around 50p a minute, which meant a two-minute call cost as much as a movie back home on half-price Tuesdays. "International Calls" can break the bank. No cell phones, I was working at a school and would go into the Headmaster's office to call home now and then. Still a man-boy, despite looking after the boarding kids, being in that office was dangerous as I knew where the stash of Tuck chocolates was. 

I had the company of the staff and kids, but there was one 9 week stretch where I decided to "Super Save". It was school holidays, but I stuck around and got a job at a local hotel as a waiter and a night porter. That was the time I felt farthest from home. No Facebook, or WhatsApp, or budget for regular phone calls.  I am more fond of a cuddle than your average bear, and I don't think I touched another human being even to shake their hand for more than two months.

I loved my year and a half as a Gap Student (Schools in the UK often take on teaching assistants who are in between school and university.) I finished it off with a whirlwind Camping tour around Europe. It was intents. I was very ready to come home at the end though. When I did, going to Cape Town for university didn't feel quite as far from Durban (1600km). I had saved up enough while in the UK to buy an electronic keyboard, and my first trip to University was on a train so I could carry the thing. From my time on Mud Island, I was used to trains.

When I eventually came back to the UK to try out working in a Global City (this time in 2008), the experience had changed. Social Media, cell phones, and a bigger South African community meant the world felt dramatically smaller. I still feel stretched from home, but it feels more like the difference between Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town from growing up than the actual kilometers.

"Home" is also more difficult to define. A great childhood friend of mine who lived quite close by recently moved to Texas. My family and friends live all over the place. I no longer have the ability to pick a place, and go there without feeling stretched. Instead, I have to juggle Local and Global. As Taiye Selasi says, 'Don't ask me where I am from, ask where I am a local". I am local to Jozi, Durbs, Slaapstad, London and the Shire.

"One more step," said Sam, "and that's the farthest 

I've ever been from the green meadows of my home"

We live locally. We get our cuddles locally. In a Global World. We can live multi-locally. It requires the time and effort to build up different understandings. Learn different rules. Make local friends. Get better at adjusting, accommodating, managing expectations, reducing judgments, and opening eyes and ears.

Community Building across locations provides challenges. We have new tools to make it easier, but the idea of home is evolving. It stretches us, but we can't let it tear us. As Frodo said,'Oh Sam! I know... but we must continue now".

Poker Money

I have never been in a proper physical fight. Some facing up, and posturing, but never in a full flung war. So I am not sure how I would respond. The closest I have come to battle is Rugby. 

As a 12-year-old tiny pipsqueak, I was fairly fearless and would take on the famously big Mario from Northwood. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. As a 13-year-old, I had moved from the scrum to the wing (sans speed) and was fairly easy to scare. The "13-year-old" eight-foot-guy from Glenwood with his kids cheering from his car, was welcome to run through me. My confidence returned a bit when my growth spurt kicked in, and I moved back to the side of the scrum. I was happy to get involved again.

Battles normally involved "looking someone in the eye" and a hard tackle, unless it was in a pile-up. Once, my team won a penalty because someone bit my nipple (through my jersey!) in front of the ref. Another time, this time at University, my nose was broken with a punch from the Police (not the cleanest Rugby players).

There is nothing abstract about facing up to someone you know can hurt you. For all the bravado, most Gents learn a fair amount about de-escalation because they know how much it hurts the next day.

Actual war, which I have been very lucky to avoid, used to be a similar face-to-face affair. Gradually, as it becomes a tech battle... guns replaced swords, bombs replace bullets, and people end up getting in their car and driving home for dinner after dropping a drone. Abstract.

This is a problem with the world of money as things get bigger. There is a disconnect between reality and financial decision making. We don't see things getting made. We don't see big parts of the world we are connected to.

"Poker Money" is an idea related to the famous song The Gambler - you never count your money, when you're sitting at the table. When playing Poker, you can't think of the chips as real money. It affects your decision. The best players in the world can be beaten by really rich (semi-competent) people who can raise the stakes to a point where the great player cares too much about an individual hand or game.

Even real money becomes Poker Money is a connected world. "The Law of One Price" is that the same thing should cost the same everywhere. This is a "Law" only in principle because it is not true in reality. Transaction costs and barriers mean we have to pay very much dependent on where we are.

This means that the price of a cup of coffee a day in the UK (say £2.50 for 30 days) would currently translate into about R1,300/month in South Africa. The Upper Bound Poverty Line (UBPL) in South Africa was moved from R992 a month (2015) to R1,138 (in 2017). In 2015, it was estimated 55% of South Africans lived below the UBPL. 

As a Soutie, that is crazy to wrap my head around. I am "sitting at the Poker Table", so I can't think of the Pounds I spend in Rands. The Afrikaans saying for doing that would involve "'n klein bietjie kots in my mond".

The challenge is getting the right balance between living life locally, and being in a global world. We are interdependent, but there are many obstacles, costs, barriers and local challenges that mean we aren't looking each other in the eyes. Our realities are detached from each other.

Poker Money is real money. Drones are real fights. The Global World is a Local World.

Just One Fifty

We have limited capacity. Limited time. Limited attention. Limited energy. The power of this is that we will make different mistakes. Mistakes are the foundation of resilience in an unpredictable world. With perfect knowledge of the future, doing what works again is sensible. With a complex, ambiguous, and uncertain world... small, regular, reversible mistakes are strength. 

Financial Empowerment (Ending Poverty) and Mental Health (Relationship Building) are my areas of focus. In 'Factfulness', Hans Rosling identifies five key threats we are wrestling with. Global Pandemic (the rampant spread of a disease in a connected world), World War (with weapons that could wipe us all out), Financial Meltdown (with the systems that keep us cooperating breaking down), Climate Change (where the resources and environment that sustain us breaks down), and Absolute Poverty (where Billions are excluded from the opportunities our ancestors built). These huge challenges facing 7.5 Billion people seem way to big to wrap our heads and hearts around.

It also means there are 7.5 Billion other heads and hearts facing the same challenges. The resilience, endurance, and creativity can come from everywhere. How do we narrow down and choose our own particular area of focus?

I am attempting to do that by joining others to build a Community of 150 People. 'Dunbar's Number' gives a (relatively arbitrary) number to the limit of our ability to develop stable social relationships. A group of people where you can know everyone, and know how everyone knows everyone. Where you can develop an understanding of the group's values, skills, and knowledge. An understanding of the group's story.

This should allow the ability to put names, faces, and stories to massive problems. Instead of 'X million people' don't have access to electricity, clean water, safety etc., it becomes a person. Mike doesn't have a bank account. Kerishnie doesn't know how to put a C.V. together. Thandiwe is old, and lonely. It also allows relationship building with people to be done in a sensitive, peer-to-peer, way.

We have a horrible history of 'Civilising Missions'. Where people with Saviour Complexes have attempted to spread their truth roughshod over established beliefs and strengths. Helping sensitively is hard. It is a minefield. Not to treating people as problems or projects. Regularly reflecting on the real intentions behind our actions. Unwinding our unknown prejudices.

I believe a group of 150 is sufficiently small for us to stretch ourselves. The 'Six Degrees of Separation' theory, is that all 7.5 Billion of us are connected by just 6 relationships. One knows Two, who knows Three, who knows Four, who knows Five, who knows Six, who knows Seven. That viral spread of knowledge lets what we learn benefit everybody. In a group of 150, we can try get the balance right between Local and Global. Stretching ourselves enough that we don't snap the 'Peer-to-Peer' connection. Enough common ground to see each other, enough different perspective to create a discomfort from which we can learn.

Those big risks we face are daunting. We need to break them down into bites. We need to look after ourselves, and each other. I believe that starts with Community Building. 7.5 Billion people is a lot of people to care for. How would the problem change if you focus on just One Fifty? How would you build that One Fifty?

Six Relationships