Craigs Blog

So little time.

and now, time but nothing to say. I’ve been thinking a lot about things micro and macro lately. What would a healthy society look like? What is a good company? What role does a good person play in this society? The early taoists, the philosophers were often wise men of state who advised in political and military matters and perhaps it is this path I am stumbling into with my monkey mind…

I live in a capitalist society, ultimately a company is deemed good if it performs well on the stock market – which in turn is determined by its share value, dividends and overall profit. So for a company to perform well, for it to be deemed good in our society it must be both popular and function for a profit, which is then returned to the shareholders.

Is this good for society? A good person is therefore someone who contributes to the shareholder value of a company. This could be achieved by cutting 500 jobs to cut costs – meaning 500 fewer people are contributing to the economy, not getting paid and not spending so much… Its good for the company, but for the economy? For society?

What is good for society? Is it what’s good for the individual? Good for most of them?

A friend once asked me, “what will I be remembered for?” An interesting measure of a good person. I like the story of the emperors doctor – a man famous throughout his country, and one day someone asks if he is the best doctor, as he is so famous. He replies that he has two brothers and they are both doctors. He cures people once they are very ill and does this quite effectively. His brother however prevents most of his patients from getting ill and cures most of the rest – he is the better doctor but only known in his principality. His third brother has many patients but none of these get ill. This brother is the best of all, but only known in his town.

Here is a flaw in the “I want to be remembered” approach. Those who are remembered do great things, bring about great change, do something drastic. These are important, but those who do the greatest work, improve the world most, are not seen. Those who ensure things don’t get ill aren’t remembered, only those that clean up after an problem has already grown too great…

What does all this mean to my earlier question? Truth is I don’t know. Where am I going?

Perhaps good can be done to the country, to the company, to ones local community by simply endeavoring to ensure that things go smoothly. This is what Taoism is then. The belief that the future is always moving, but that one can discern change, see what is changing and how – once one understands change, then one can act with it and allow things to progress as they should.

Study how things change – great and small.