Becoming The Overman

Robert Gavon is a salesman who worked with my father some twenty-odd years ago at a corportation called Novar that, I can only assume, built commercial technology products for large companies in need of such things. If you ask my father, he'll tell you Bob is the best salesman in the world--next to him. If you ask Bob, you get the same response. Bob's good at what he does and is in charge of a many number of people.

Well, to the point, he traveled from Ohio just yesterday to play golf with my father. I haven't seen him in long enough a time that I don't remember him, so it was like me meeting him for the first time. Obviously a very smart guy who voices his opinion when asked it, no matter how...abrupt it may be. After dinner tonight, he sat down at the table and ate a piece of pie. Everyone esle being in the next room, I decided to have a piece of pie as well and give him some sense of company that I'm sure he didn't need. We got to talking, and he posed some riddles to me...asked me questions to which I should have had certain answers. I learned quite a bit in the following hour, some of which I'd like to share with you, My Humble Reader.

The first question he asked me was this: The owner of the company that you work for comes up to you and asks you a simple question...who is your boss? What do you say?

With this I had a thought process that began with, "I'm my own boss as I am responsible for my own actions." This sounded too egotistical, so I went with, "You are." Of course, the former was the correct answer, because we are our own bosses. We determine what we do and how we act and take responsibility for ourselves. If he wanted to know who I report to, then sure, it's him. But you are always your own boss.

Good. I liked that. But the best part came when he showed me a diagram on a post-it note. He never showed me how it worked in detail, but instead gave me this premise. When a person believes something, he cannot be proven wrong. It's impossible. We automatically attack the person, not the belief, which easily turns into one big insult. However, there is a vehicle one can use to discredit a belief and show its flaws. This is called the Belief Vehicle.

First, you state a belief you have...for instance, "The Iraq War is bad." Then you take it through the Belief Vehicle and ask what are called "If...then..." propositions. By the end of the vehicle, the belief can either be considered credible or not credible. Or in other words, a good belief or a bad one. I'm doing this one of the top of my head, so let's see how it goes...

If the Iraq War is bad, then we should not have invaded.
If we hadn't invaded, then Al-Queda would still be the major political force in the Middle East.
If Al-Queda is still the major political force in the Middle East, then they would still be attacking America.
If they were still attacking America, then hundreds of innocent citizens would be killed.
If hundreds of innocent citizens were being killed, then we would have to protect ourselves.
If we protect ourselves, then we have to stop or supress Al-Queda.
If we stop or supress Al-Queda, the must invade.

Now, this is working from scratch, but we see how it works out, don't we? I'm using this ot my advantage a little, but this is my line of thinking here. People against the war have never shown their side of it, save protests in the name of peace. Of course we want peace, but in some situations...the belief in peace is flawed.