Probes

"Mud sometimes gives the illusion of depth."

As the snow slowly melts around my property, I find myself encountering this phenomenon regularly. The murkiness makes it impossible to discern whether the mud is only an inch deep, or whether it is 4 inches deep. Do I wear shoes, or boots? We also see this in less obvious things such as political mud-slinging. Fling enough mud around, and it becomes difficult to tell whether it is deep enough that we should put on our boots, or if it's just a thin layer and shoes would be suitable. Unfortunately, when we encounter mud, we often assume it is deep and rarely make any effort to probe further. This can cloud our ability to make good choices if we make no effort to determine if depth is an illusion or a reality.

"Today the business of business is becoming the constant invention of new business."

Surely, I am not the only one wondering if I can truly get a closer shave with 5 blades instead of 4. Will 6 blades be better than 5? Business today is not only accountable to it's stockholders, creditors, and other stakeholders, but it is also accountable to Wall Street. Heaven forbid a company not meet Wall Street's earnings expectations. Businesses today have to continually reinvent themselves and their products to maintain sales volumes and profitability. We are continually bombarded by "new and improved" products when in reality, they are pretty much the same products we had before. A toothbrush is still a toothbrush no matter the color of the handle or shape of the brush head. The constant invention of new business has conditioned us to believe that "new and improved" will somehow have a positive impact on our individual realities, even if a razor still is, just a razor.