...no problem at all...
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
-Albert Einstein-
I got a problem. Realistically I have nothing but problems. My day is stacked with one activity after the other that is either creating problems for myself and others or solving problems to make room for more problems. And you know what? I have no problem with that.
Problems get a bad rap. We want to solve problems, fix problems, get rid of problems and ensure there are no problems. But what if we are missing an opportunity here? What would a world look like where we didn’t avoid problems, but rather wholeheartedly endorsed or created problems?
The problem with problems could be one of branding. Seeing a problem as a problem is a problem to me. What if instead we call them oppos. So I sliced off my foot this morning while trying to carve a week old sesame bagel with a ginsu blade. That could be a problem. But instead I’m making it an oppo. Now I can get that peg leg I have been ogling on owmymatey.com and yar without irony. Yar. Ow. But also yar.
What does it look like when a problem is not a problem?
For instance, I have a problem. I am hungry. I would like to eat food. But is that a problem, or is that an opportunity? An opportunity for me to find food, and taste things, and to eat too much, and to regret that decision, and to bloat, and to lay on the couch and to moan and to have a nightmare about a samurai sesame bagel that steals my leg and then I wake up kind of hungry again?
The problem with problems is that there might be too many of them. Problems can be so many things. Problems can be big, small, generic, unique, minor, major, yours mine or ours. They can be ambiguous, simple, chaotic, complex, recurring, unavoidable, known, unknown, known known, unknown known, or even unknown unknown like if the only outcome of the AI revolution was an inexplicable relaunch of the McDonald’s Moon Man.
The problems we all have as a society are especially problematic. Poverty, Climate Change, Health Care, Food Shortages, War, Gender Rights, Children Rights, Disability Rights, Fair Living Rights, Reproductive Rights, Left Rights and Right Rights, right?
But let’s say we look at all of our problems as oppos instead.
For example, the world is worth more than $450 trillion dollars. Does poverty even need to be a problem if we have that much wealth in the world? The problem instead might just be an oppo of allocation. According to the world economic summit the richest 1% holds 47% of our total global wealth. Meanwhile half the entire world has a net worth per person of under $10,000. That means 1% of our population holds half of our wealth while half of our population holds only 10% of it.
We can use math to get on toppo this. Let’s say we wanted to just get that bottom 50% of the population to 100% above where they are now economically, so from $10K total wealth to $20K. Let’s also call this class of people the “thirsty, hungry and dying” class because it is catchy. Anyone doubling their current wealth would irrevocably have their life changed financially.
Just thinking of myself. I have $20 dollars in my pocket. Enough for some tacos, a swim at the pool, and a smoothie to ice me home. Make that $20 into $40 dollars and now I can do anything (buy beer) go anywhere (someplace selling beer) and change my life absolutely for the better (drink beer and read Garfield).
Someone in the thirsty, hungry and dying class doubling their economic standing could have their lives change in a far more meaningful way though. They could go from being the thirsty, hungry and dying class to just the hungry and dying class™.
So let’s say that the richest 1% class helped provide for this investment in the thirsty, hungry and dying class. Let’s also call this 1% of the population the “Golden Rotten Extremely Egoistic Dildo” class, because it is catchy. We can also call them G.R.E.E.D. or Golden Dildos for short. If G.R.E.E.D invested this way, doubling total wealth for everyone in the thirsty, hungry & dying class, they would lose only ~⅕ of their total wealth.
That means they possibly miss out on buying this year’s tesla branded asshole implant, or getting surgery to remove the friendster logo tramp stamps they got at the 2003 Tech Crunch. Meanwhile four billion thirsty, hungry & dying human beings would now have double the chance to avoid dying of hunger and thirst. Hell they might even be able to afford buying Garfield volume one back when he was a truly fat cat.
We didn’t quite solve the problem, but by making it an oppo, we envisioned change and we even had fun while doing it. Golden dildos all around!
“Your problems never cease. They just change.”
-Phil Jackson-
Every time I mention this idea of wealth redistribution to my friends, colleagues, oligarchs, and the strangers I am accosting at the Hollywood Denny's (Hi Crusty Phil!) I am met with glorious grinding record scratching feedback. This is a bad idea, they say. It will lead to even worse poverty, they say. It will kill productivity, they say. And certain numbers and research back that up. Heck, even famous fraggle and noted marxist, Karl Marx noted that “redistribution cannot resolve the fundamental issues of capitalism.” When a communist doesn’t support your communist idea you have likely not resolved the issue.
But issues are just problems with tiny dotted eyes. They are tissues without the tea, which is to say they are just oppos. If Marx saw capitalism instead as an oppo, maybe he could have marveled at all the things you can buy when you are a crazy stinking filthy rich Golden Dildo™.
Billionaires can buy $14 million dollar stuffed sharks, private islands, superyachts, and replicas of the titanic. They can buy car elevators, cloned pets, kidnapping insurance, $1K luxury ice and gourmet cat shit coffee. They can afford guinea pig armor, $200 paper clips, diamond toenail clippers and teabags and this incredible $100K hippo couch.
Now I see the world full of oppos, yet there is still no golden dildo for me to sit on. I am still peglegged and stuffed with haunted sesame bagels. Perhaps then my problem is me. I am the problem. And if I am the problem I probably have some capacity for simultaneously understanding this phenomena and myself. Iowa University HR details an 8 step process for problems.
Step 1: Define the Problem
Step 2: Clarify the Problem
Step 3: Define the Goals
Step 4: Identify Root Cause of the Problem
Step 5: Develop Action Plan
Step 6: Execute Action Plan
Step 7: Evaluate the Results
Step 8: Continuously Improve
Following that methodology I performed some self reflection.
Step 1: Define the Problem → …me…
Step 2: Clarify the Problem → …my name is CansaFis Foote…
Step 3: Define the Goals → …give golden dildos to all of mankind…
Step 4: Identify Root Cause of the Problem → …someone decided the world would be a better place if we had, sold, promoted and shared $25K golden dildos…now we all need to have one…
Step 5: Develop Action Plan → …get $5 dildos and spray paint them gold…
Step 6: Execute Action Plan → …i have gold spray paint all over my hands now…
Step 7: Evaluate the Results → …the dildos indeed now looks golden…
Step 8: Continuously Improve → …i will make many more of these and leave them all over the streets of Oakland…
A week later and my creation and distribution of golden dildos has done nothing to solve poverty. So maybe I am not the problem but instead we are the problem? And by that virtue, we can be the oppo?
They say if you want to lose weight walk 10,000 steps a day. And if you want shin splints walk 20,000 steps. But it only takes 8 steps to process a problem. I know now that whether I have a problem, see a problem, or am the problem, this just means a limitless oppo to create and make change. So I stubbed the toe on my only good foot, that is just an oppo to rest a $1K ice cube on myself. So a feral jungle cat is shitting everywhere, that is just an oppo to make $80 cups of coffee.
The next time you take a look at or through the mirror and see nothing but problems, take the moment to reflect on what you might be really looking at. See yourself and this world full of oppos. Then squint and see a world full of hippos. Then imagine someone took one of those hippos and turned them into a $100,000 couch. And then leave me a comment on why that isn’t a problem.
I think the problem is you are highly skilled at a job that may not yet exist. I think you might have to make it up. Like becoming the leader of a secret activist group that uses cutting social commentary to effect widespread cultural change and political reform under the disarming guise of humor . . . hey, wait a sec . . .
First Garfield! Dreaming so big for a fat cat first edition. Thanks for the fun ride through your piece.