28 Nov 2001 
 
So I've not been around this month -- I mean, I have, on livejournal, and I was 
=supposedly= writing a novel for the National Novel Writing Month (but a 
little dose of reality intruded on my mind there.  It's not that I can't 
spew 50 kilowords-worth of nonsense in 30 days, it's that I can't do that, 
knit and crochet a few christmas gifts, grade math papers, and do my 
research in 30 days.  Actually, if someone got me a little dictation 
machine, I =could= do some of these things.  I could theoretically watch 
Samurai Jack, crochet, and dictate a silly novel about squirrels fighting 
for control of Central Park. 
 
I will eventually put the novel up on marypat.org, and off of livejournal 
(you can find the abortive novel at lj username meepnovel), but I'll wait 
until I actually finish the novel.  Even though I won't finish it in the 
time period, I will not be ashamed to put up crap.  The main thing is to 
get to 50K words (and I always remember that the main thing is to keep the 
main thing the main thing.) 
 
So I have gathered you here today to discuss one of the lamest books (and 
metaphors) I have lately read: =Who Moved My Cheese?=  Let's just forget 
the simple-minded approach, and even the thing I'm supposed to believe -- 
that a flat story about two mice and two littlepeople in a maze looking 
for Cheese has convinced people to let go of their resistence to 
change.  I beg pardon? 
 
I mean, if you're scared of getting a new job, and it takes a story about 
people losing their Cheese and bitching about it to give you the courage 
to face the new challenge ahead, I am seriously wondering about your 
self-sufficiency and general maturity.  Now I agree with Stuart that this 
story would probably be good to tell to children, though I'm not sure how 
you'd keep their attention while you told the story.  It goes on for much 
longer than it has to, and has not much of an interesting narrative.   
Still, I can believe that fables help kids learn to deal with change in a 
useful way.   
 
If I ever work for an organization that tries to impose this Cheese 
metaphor on me as a way to make me accept some change, I will spit.   
Sure, people are resistent to change, but the way to convince them to 
accept a change isn't to say "You have to follow the Cheese", you have to 
convince them that the change will have a positive effect and that a 
change -needs- to be made.  So many corporate "changes" are just 
window-dressing, whether reorganizations or snazzy new names for their 
operations; many times the change needs to be made at the upper management 
levels, and as they're the ones =responsible= for imposing change on the 
rest of the organization, they never see that it's themselves who have to 
leave. 
 
In any case, I think the whole Cheese and maze metaphor stinks.  First of 
all, people don't simply live for one kind of material happiness -- people 
whose lives are simply food, TV, and job are not the type of people I want 
to know.  These people can follow the Cheese as much as they like.  Some 
people may say "Sure, but we live in several mazes, each with their 
different Cheeses" which makes life seem a dreary proposition, and is a 
life of separate compartments, where things never intermix.  As much as 
people like to say they live compartmentally (for example, Clinton liked 
to say he worked this way -- thus, his obviously shitty judgement when it 
came to sex was supposed to not reflect on his judgement in the political 
arena), any honest evaluation will show that this is not true.  The truth 
of the matter is that if I have a colicky baby that is making me sleep 
fitfully every night, the stress from that will have an effect on my work 
-- and, there can even be positive effects if I see my outside work as a 
respite from taking care of such a cantankerous creature. 
 
Secondly, the Cheese metaphor is a very corporate way of thinking about 
stuff: the Cheese is provided externally, and you have to find it.  There 
doesn't seem to be much thought that one can make one's own Cheese.   
There doesn't seem to be much thought that one can decide not to live in 
the maze. 
 
A metaphor I used once for fulfillment and opportunities, also 
food-related, comes to mind.  This situation was this: a friend of mine in 
high school was interested in a guy and had been chasing him for a couple 
months.  This guy had made his lack of interest evident and more to the 
point, everyone around could see this guy would not likely change his mind 
any time in the forseeable future.  I was trying to tell her that there 
were plenty of other guys out there who she would like, and she should 
stop chasing after someone who was not going to be interested. 
 
Now, the usual metaphors people have used in the situations are plenty of 
other fish in the ocean or the "men are like buses -- if you miss one, 
sooner or later another one will come by".  The thing is, if you use the 
old metaphors, people stop listening to you.  So I came up with the 
following: 
 
"You're standing at a buffet, and you want mashed potatoes.  But the 
mashed potatoes are all out.  So you stand at the buffet, waiting for the 
mashed potatoes, while everyone else knows there's going to be no mashed 
potatoes for the rest of the day.  The people say to each other, 'Why 
doesn't she get something else -- there's so much good food to choose 
from!  Why is she waiting for mashed potatoes that won't come?'" 
 
 
Of course, this little story did absolutely nothing to change her mind, 
but she did find some green beans to her liking within a couple more 
months, and I got to enjoy my mashed potatoes in peace. 
 
Still, the life-as-a-buffet view is not adequate, for it still subscribes 
to the idea of opportunities as an external thing, where one waits to see 
what's out there as opposed to making one's own opportunities. 
 
So here's my new metaphor: life is like a universal potluck.  You've got 
plenty of stuff to pick from, if enough people bring stuff to the 
table.  There are plenty of freeloaders who brought nothing to the dinner, 
and the people who did bring something tend to resent them.  There's 
always particular people who keep making the same dish, and once that dish 
is no longer popular they bitch about that.  There are some who bitch when 
others stop bringing their favorite dish.  There are some who only eat one 
thing (like Cheese), there are those who only come back when they've 
cleaned their plate, and there are those always hoving over the sideboard, 
ready to snatch at the newest dish put out there.  Some of the dishes are 
inconvenient to get to, some are hard to recognize, some are dishes that 
take some effort to get used to (mmm lutefisk), some dishes that are so 
elaborate it takes lots of people to make the dish... 
 
Anyway, I think life-as-smorgasbord represents my worldview more fully, 
even if it doesn't seem as digested-for-the-masses as Spencer Johnson's 
creations (=One Minute Father=?!  The Hell?!)  I should write a response 
to =Who Moved My Cheese?= called =Where's the Mashed Potatoes?=