A dog named Ollie

Ollie didn’t have any of it. Little Ollie paused, had a long sniff at presumably another dog’s pee, meandered coolly around the sidewalk, looked after other dogs passing by and didn’t give a toss about what Ollie’s accompanying lady shouted at him. “Ollie, come here. Ollieee, over here. Ooolliiee, move. Ooooolllliieeee, no, don’t!”

Wandering around North London and amusedly observing Ollie’s antics and his lady’s feckless annoyance, I suddenly thought: Oh, Ollie is the perfect picture for life itself. Replace Ollie as your dog-symbolised life, and you can see yourself in the role of the scolding lady. “Life, come here, do that, no, not that, this one, no, dooonn’t”. Neither life nor Ollie are interested in your yelling. Both are just doing their thing. We are sometimes, often, mostly, not really in control. And that makes life complicated. And that is bewildering. And it is scary.

One could argue that we are the makers of our fate, the knights*dames of our battles, the negotiators of our situation. So many successful brands advertise with that paradigm. “Belong anywhere” as Airbnb promotes. “Think different” as Apple says. “Just do it” as Nike demands.

It sounds so easy and so very delightful when reading through those aspirational prompts. Wonderful! The world is your oyster. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want. You are, and that is what those salutary messages suggest, in control of your situation. At any time. Always.

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Are we really in control though? Aren’t there so many situations where you just try to make things work and they, well, don’t?

Think that workplace argument where you are trying to mend an already difficult relationship with your boss. He is TOTALLY on your side, he hears you, he appreciates you. Having said that, he just won’t be able to accommodate that pay rise you think you are deserving. As unbeknownst to you, he was already on his way out to join another company and you were barking up the wrong tree.

Think that conversation with your partneress. She is TOTALLY understanding where you are coming from. Yet, there is no way to accommodate that feeling of yours that you should do more things together so you won’t feel like a moron always suggesting things to do while the other party rolls their eyes. Oh, okay. It wasn’t their thing. Fine. I’ll do better next time! As unbeknownst to you, she was already on her way out of the relationship as she was in love with Jeremy whom she had met at the urban hiking club she had only recently joined.

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There is uncertainty. Its symptom is often anxious restlessness.

How do we cope?

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Now.

Having said this, I have to be more specific as I feel this question is only relevant for some of us while others -like myself- are different. What can I say? The folks I am relating to will know while I write those sentences.

I am very different. We are very unique. We are belonging to the globe spanning network of WORLD CONTROLLERS. Apart from the weather (there is a task force assigned to it by the way, just so you know), we control every little bit of our lives. If possible, also the lives of others around us. It’s just the best for them.

You are usually not born to be a world controller. You are raised to be one or thrown into circumstances that will facilitate this vocation.

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My life as world controller is busy. Sure, there are some tasks and situations that are highly repetitive. But that is simply productivity! Some of us are born as world controllers, nothing wrong here, but mostly we are selected and raised to do this job. One has to be accountable for the rest of us!

Checking emails for the twenty-second time for spelling mistakes after the last and final check, re-cleaning kitchen surfaces after my flatmate has done that, checking again the apartment door is closed for the tenth time, verifying all clothes are at any time colour coded, rethinking for an hour (no, actually two, to be honest) that conversation with a friend in a pub to make sure I really understood that comment. Thoroughly planning that second date with that hot guy involving minutely scheduled activity plans. Oh, it does not stop!

Don’t be lazy, get up from that bed you just descended into two minutes ago and check the light is out in the kitchen.

Don’t be such a fool not returning from your way to the tube station and check the iron is really switched off.

Don’t let yourself into thinking that this new person in your life really likes you, it is a camouflage to obtain more information about your job and financial situation.

Don’t let yourself down by not cleaning every little bit in your abode to the finest standard, it would be otherwise a sign of dreadful negligence.

It is not about going with the flow but planning things thoroughly. Asking people to do things, anything, exactly how I would do it (it’s just the best way of performing this task). It’s pretty exhausting to think for anybody else. But such is the life of us world controllers.

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Some say this behaviour is just a symptom of anxiety. What a load of nonsense! Some people are just not aware of the immensity of what is asked of us world controllers.

Some say this behaviour is simply born out of fear of losing control, facing the uncontrollable.

Some say we over-compensate for life situations we cannot control.

Ridiculous!

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Everything I do is designed by myself. What comes next? Believing in Randomness? Or Fate? Or Luck? Ha!

All Nonsennse.

: : : :

Don`’t get fooled by this cheesy “when life gives you lemons, make a gin and tonic” verbiage. Ah no, or was it rather “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”?

Anyway, complete BS to state that life is just a convoluted series of uncontrollable happenings, isnt’t it? Ah no, it is “isn’t it”, only one t in isn’t. Yes, that’s right. I mean some of us just feel the burden of being selected as “World Controllers”, don’tt we? Word Controller Mustafa Moon in Huxley’s “Brave New World” knows what I am talking about: Stop the movie, endless loop in your head. But no, continue (the voice says), it’s so comforting. You are so used to it. What else would you do? Assertively doing this and that? Bah, boring, too much effort! The endless thinking loop is familiar and much easier.

I read somewhere (really don’t’ know wherre) that “Performance = Potential minus Self Doubt”. It is a good one, Isn’’t it? My goodness, how much could you achieve without this nagging voice in your head you are not goof enough? No, I mean “good”, of course.

Platitudes! *fake yawn* How silly! No one has a 24-hour coach built in. Except… for an AI one!

Introducing: STANLEY. My cobot Stanley could shine here! (I haven’t published my cobot concept yet, soon to come btw!, but I guess you get the idea of my creative wordplay here: robot, cooperation, co-bot. It is a portmanteau term, blending and combining the meanings of two others. Did you by the way know that “motel” or “brunch” are portmanteaus, too? The word “motel”, I find super interesting, it’s from the 1920s, a blend of motorists and hotel. Or “podcast” is a portmanteau, too. What a great made-up word from combining the words iPod (what was that again? Never mind, still clever) and broadcast. Incredible, isn’t it?

I feel I am in good company with my cobot word creation. Merde!! I just googled it and annoyingly, actually deeply frustrating, learnt that the word “cobot” isn’t new. OHHH *deep sigh* some professors from the US already claimed a patent on this term in 1996. In 1996? Almost 30 years ago?? Oh, for crying out loud, I thought I was on a good path here.)

Anyway, back to my cobot (so cobot isn’t new then, I know, again, mea culpa, but Stanley is quite THE name, isn’t it? You have to give me that one, the combination of cobot and Stanley is quite looking for a match out there, right?) OK, now really back to it: I feel that’s actually a great working field for AI. This is how AI could actually save wo*mankind from themselves and help ease the transition from industrial performance age into leisure driven knowledge-slash-information age. AI being a stand by-always-available-equipped-with-latest-therapy-mentioning-methods-and-never-losing-its-shit-while-providing-therapy-advise coach, calming one’s mind with affirming messages (no friend or relative could ever perform, trust me, you cannot, I have been there, it is utterly exhausting and has a high probability of not ending well and exhausting you in the process. Yeah, you can do that in a drunken night, public coaching, I call it. You can keep it up now and then for friends or acquaintances who just need a nudge to show them their available options. You won’t though be able to do that with a person close to you over years. It’s a bizarre thing of slow self-destruction without you even noticing it. But AI can do it!)

So: AI could be helpful! Finally, I have cracked the code! Found a solution to the AI threat predicament! Yeah!

But, hang on.

That will be years until my cobot Stanley is ready to be deployed 🤔.. Gosh, now I have to research cryogenic sleep facilities 🥶, too, so I can be woken up once Stanley is available to me! I better contact NASA right now to enquire about the super-secret status of their Human Stasis Project so I am clear about that timetable 🚀

Ha, one thing leads to yet another one to worry about!!! Does it ever stop??! I told you: Life is complicated!!!!!!

Oh, I am wondering what little Ollie is doing right now?