Moles, Manipulators and Masters - The 3 Ms of a Mean Machine (Final Part)

(June 30th, 2009)

Facts are facts. In the previous two posts, I’ve tried to explain how they get made up and thrown at you.

How information is a powerful tool thought to be used by many, but, in fact, only few use do really it, though using those referred many as a mean to do so.

Sorry to be confusing, but this is a confusing business.

I’ve already revealed my passion for bridge and golf.

Today, I’ll bring in the one I have about sailing. A sport, hobby or whatever you want to call it that makes one nice analogy with this information thing.

For me, jut out of curiosity, I love the solitude it provides and as well as the reminder of how small one really is. But that's beside the point.

Imagine that information is like the water in which a boat floats, and the facts are the waves and the currents, in all their sizes and possible shapes. Let’s start with a motorboat. No mastery of winds involved or required at this stage. Just want to try and move it in the straightest of lines. Quite a simple task in a smooth surface, as the only waves there are the ones that you've just made.

Now, start adding some turbulence. The waves start to throw your boat in each and every other way, and everytime you try to compensate you’re only able to make things worse. And if you don’t have a reference point, you’ll find yourself perfectly lost in no time at all.

Only when you find that the wave that made your boat go port, will be followed by one that makes it go starboard, naturally compensating, will you have then found the way to success. The sea is not to be fought. It’s to be ridden, naturally. If you fight it, you face doom, if you understand it, then it’s the most delicious of play-grounds.

The same happens with information. You have to trust your instincts. And be fearless of mistakes, because you’ll make many. They’ll, in turn, will provide you valuable information on how to ride the information sea.

Never forget that pain is a privilege, not a sentence, of those who try. Those that don’t, live life painlessly, but do not live it at all.

Back to the sea analogy, and bring in the wind. That factor that influences, in such a relevant manner, the size, shape and direction of the waves.

To be able to dominate it, if you have to do one essential thing, which most sailors do instinctively but said, seems complicated to achieve: ignore the waves but never lose sight of them.

Basically, the capability to extract ONLY the relevant information from the waves and not be overwhelmed by them.

Just like in information. An art few know. And less master it. People like DL, or like Clarence Mitchell are simple waves. Their mission is to throw your boat off-course.

They are far from being wind-masters. But both have what the latter prey on: an oversized ego. DL, I believe, is simply a poor megalomaniac soul who was conveniently provided with the adequate information when thought adequate.

He became too big for his own shoes. Making stupid mistakes like the Oprah show, starting to believe that he was much more than he really was. And off he goes to Sri Lanka, Aachen and, if Joana had not stopped him short, would have been to Mars on a Monday and on the Moon the Friday before.

The norm with these small-time manipulators is that that they are manipulated themselves.

But those that manipulate them, rest not easy.

Not you, not anybody else, can dominate the sea. And when the tide changes, it changes. Nothing can be done about it. And all those that are left in the sand, (on purpose or just because) will be picked upon. By seagulls, for example.

Or just stepped on by some disrespectful idiot like myself. They will desperately wait for the next tide, but so many never survive to see it.